Mediality in the Middle Ages: Abundance and Lack 9781641890762

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MEDIALITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

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MEDIEVAL MEDIA CULTURES Medieval Media Cultures offers analyses of how individuals interacted with written, visual, dramatic, and material media in medieval and early modern cultures, as well as how modern scholars interact with the remnants of medieval and early modern cultures via written, material, and now digital and electronic media.

This new series in media literacy welcomes proposals for monographs and essay collections in the fields of digital humanities, mapping, digital text analysis, games and gaming studies, literacy studies, and text production and interaction. We are especially interested in projects that demonstrate how digital methods and tools for research, preservation, and presentation influence the ways in which we interact with and understand these texts and media.

Series Editors

Toby Burrows, University of Oxford Dorothy Kim, Brandeis University Richard Utz, Georgia Institute of Technology

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MEDIALITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES ABUNDANCE AND LACK CHRISTIAN KIENING

Translated from the German by Nicola Barfoot

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

© 2019, Arc Humanities Press, Leeds

The author asserts their moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Permission to use brief excerpts from this work in scholarly and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is an exception or limitation covered by Article 5 of the European Union’s Copyright Directive (2001/​29/​EC) or would be determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act September 2010 Page 2 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §108, as revised by P.L. 94–​553) does not require the Publisher’s permission.

ISBN (print): 9781641890755 eISBN (PDF): 9781641890762

www.arc-​humanities.org Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Chapter 1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2. Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Chapter 3. Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Chapter 4. Word. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Chapter 5. Writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Chapter 6. Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Chapter 7. Materiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Chapter 8. Spacetime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Chapter 9. Metonymy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Chapter 10. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 Index (authors and anonymous works, without biblical books). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1. Prophet dictates the prophecies inspired by Christ the Word. . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Figure 2. Loop diagram: Henry Suso, Exemplar (ca. 1490). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Figure 3. Israhel van Meckenem, Mass of Saint Gregory (ca. 1490/​1500). . . . . . . . . . 83 Figure 4. Gebetbuch von Muri (prayer book of Muri, ca. 1200). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Figure 5. Gebetbuch von Muri (prayer book of Muri, ca. 1200). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Figure 6. Initial H from French Bible (ca. 1175–1195). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Figure 7. Hrabanus Maurus, De laudibus s. crucis, Fulda (ca. 826). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Figure 8. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae (ca. 1160–1165). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Figure 9. Eike von Repgow, Sachsenspiegel (third quarter of fourteenth century). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Figure 10. Letter A: Johann Theodor de Bry, Nova alphati effictio (Frankfurt/​M. 1595) (1528–​1598). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Figure 11. “Guide for Constructing the Letters f and g.” Georg Bocskay and Joris Hoefnagel, Mira calligraphiae monumenta (Vienna 1561/​1562, 1591–​1596).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Figure 12. Jesus Attracting the Faithful to Heart (Ulm, ca. 1490). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Figure 13. Christ as seraph: Henry Suso, Exemplar (ca. 1490). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Figure 14. Bernward of Hildesheim, door of Hildesheim Cathedral (ca. 1015). . . . . 191 Figure 15. Die maynung | diß büchleins | Die geystlich straß bin ich genant (1521). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Figure 16. Master of Saint Veronica (ca. 1420 or after 1425). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Figure 17. Woodcut by Hans Burgkmair for Emperor Maximilian, Weisskunig (ca. 1515). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Figure 18. Title page of the verse edition of Der graue Rock (1512). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 Figure 19. Title page of the prose edition of Der graue Rock (1512) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THIS BOOK, WHOSE German version appeared in 2016, tries to develop fresh pers­ pectives on how principal forms of mediality and materiality, transmission and transference were performed and negotiated throughout the Middle Ages. It grew out of the National Competence Centre in Research’s “Mediality: Historical Perspectives” (University of Zurich, Switzerland), which I directed from 2005 to 2017. I am immensely grateful for the wealth of inspirations the Centre provided and for numerous possibilities to discuss my ideas with colleagues and students from various fields of the humanities. Special thanks go to Ulrich Johannes Beil, Maximilian Benz, Cornelia Herberichs, Susanne Köbele, Aleksandra Prica, Susanne Reichlin, Mireille Schnyder, Martina Stercken, and Margrit Tröhler. For the opportunity to present parts of this book in lectures I would like to thank Brigitte Bedos-​Rezak (New York), Carla Dauven-​van Knippenberg (Amsterdam), Andrea von Hülsen-​ Esch (Düsseldorf), Ingrid Kasten (Berlin), Elke Koch (Berlin), Klaus Krüger (Berlin), Ludger Lieb (Heidelberg), Ursula Peters (Köln), Ulrich Pfisterer (Munich), Gerhard Regn (Munich), Werner Röcke (Berlin), Christoph Schanze (Giessen), Marie-​Anne Vannier (Metz), Peter Strohschneider (Munich), David E.  Wellbery and Christopher Wild (both Chicago). A first English version of chapter 8, translated by Jake Fraser, appeared in Temporality and Mediality in Late Medieval and Early Modern Culture, edited by Christian Kiening and Martina Stercken, 115–146, Turnhout: Brepols, 2018. What has made this English translation possible is the encouragement and support of Patrick Geary (Princeton), the wonderful cooperation of my translator Nicola Barfoot, and financial support from the Centre and the University of Zurich. Christian Kiening Zurich, summer 2019

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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Alterity Mediality in the Middle Ages—​for some this title may evoke communication with spirits, while others will be reminded of a popular internet clip, usually entitled “Medieval Helpdesk,” in which a monk who is learning to use a new medium is assisted by an expert. The monk complains about problems handling it, difficulties opening it, the fear that the text, once he has finally found it, might disappear again. The expert explains the logic of the medium to him: “Well you see, there are hundreds of pages of text saved in this thing. So to proceed you just grab one sheet of paper and turn it over like this.” The monk answers: “When you’re used to paper rolls, it takes some time to convert to turning the pages of a—​beek [!]‌.”1 The book in the form of the well-​known codex is defamiliarized. It appears as an exotic, awkward object, which humankind has yet to learn to use, a tool which the user needs help with, a medium whose benefit has yet to manifest itself. This device—​presenting one of the oldest media as if it were new—​ironizes contemporary digital media culture—​which, for its part, embraces this treatment. The scene, first acted on stage, then broadcast on television, had its greatest impact on the internet, where the book in fact looks like an archaic relict, something to marvel at from the point of view of media postmodernity. The sketch does actually evoke a key event in media history, the transition from scroll to codex. It does not situate it in late antiquity, however, but in an undefined present, which presupposes precisely those developments whose putative beginnings feature here. The fundamental advantage of the codex, allowing rapid movement in the text and discontinuous reading,2 is demonstrated with a situation in which the consequences of the new technology have apparently not yet been understood; a situation, however, which is regarded from a specific point of view: the assumed end of the Gutenberg era. This perspective provides our own age of rapid media changes with a neat genealogy. This little sketch shows a fundamental tendency of media forms: the tendency to assimilate or to reference other media forms. Thus the material medium of transmission (codex) contains, on a particular writing material (parchment, paper), arrangements of signs (writing), which can be produced with different techniques (handwriting, printing), and have their origins in a communication system (language). This constellation can in turn be reflected on by means of verbal or visual processes of mediation. And as in this example, it can use additional framing devices (stage, internet) to relate the 1  Extract from the show Øystein og jeg, Norwegian Television (NRK), 2001; author: Knut Nærum. 2  Cf. Stallybrass, “Books and Scrolls.”

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CHAPTER 1

media phenomena in ways that resemble not the logically structured layers of a Russian doll, but the paradoxical, discontinuous timeframes of a computer game. Here the clip also shows a basic tendency in reflexive approaches to media: in each case, the new media are viewed in the context of the familiar. The present defines itself in relation to what has preceded it, and what is expected to follow. As the production of manuscripts increased in the High Middle Ages, novels and stories depicted scenarios of oral communication. Printing in the late fifteenth century was practically and theoretically related to the culture of the manuscript. Seventeenth-​century newspaper theory defined the new medium in terms of older oral and written forms of communication, in particular other products of the printing press. In the pioneering phase of the modern media age, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, attempts were made to apprehend the new technologies with reference to older models: to explain film, for example, with reference to medieval panel painting or early modern theatre. In each case, the focus was on the potential benefits of new media forms. Often this could best be demonstrated by relating them not to the most recent forms, but to older, established forms. This resulted in discontinuous genealogies, which nonetheless tended to have a teleological slant. Since the work of Marshall McLuhan (1964) it has been customary to understand media as “extensions of man,” extensions of the senses and the memory. From here it is an obvious step to classify these extensions as an evolutionary history: firstly the individual human, whose body serves as the primary medium in direct communication with other humans, then writing and printing media, which extend the body in various stages, and finally electronic and digital media, which can pick up or sublate the other media forms in hybrid fashion. From this perspective, it is mainly innovations and revolutions that are of interest: the transition from oral to written culture, from the manuscript to printing, from communication close to the body to communication far from the body, from simple forms to complex and hybrid ones. In view of the accelerated rate of innovation in the current media, and their ever-​diminishing half-​life, the timescale relevant for the present media age is shrinking visibly. Many media histories with a global perspective do not begin until the early modern period.3 Others do discuss the period before printing, but depict the Middle Ages as an earlier history that is either empty or has been superseded, replaced by the technological developments of the modern period.4 On the other hand, the hybrid nature of today’s media can lead to a return of things that have supposedly been discarded. When belief in the linearity of history weakens, its prior history appears in a different light. In the new digitally produced images, for example, traditional forms of image and principles of writing seem to be experiencing a resurgence. The media philosopher Vilém Flusser sees the (post)modern communication revolution, with its new orality and visuality, as a “return to the Middle Ages”: the “return to an original situation which was disrupted and interrupted by printing and 3  For example Vom Holzschnitt zum Internet; Stöber, Mediengeschichte.

4  de Kerckhove, Schriftgeburten; Peters, Speaking into the Air; Hörisch, Der Sinn und die Sinne; Handbuch der Mediengeschichte; Zielinski, Archäologie der Medien; Medien vor den Medien.

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Introduction

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universal literacy.”5 The key words “return” and “interrupt” already show that there are quite heterogeneous models of historical progression involved here. Ultimately what matters is not so much this progression as the power of ahistorical analogies.6 Medieval audiovisuality has been linked with modern multimediality, the hand of God with the data glove, manuscript pages with user interfaces.7 This defamiliarizes our perspective on the present media age—​as seen in the “Medieval Helpdesk.” But it also sacrifices the unwieldy strangeness of the past in favour of superficial references to the present or nostalgic retrospectives. And yet the past has more to offer than a reservoir from which interpretations of the present can help themselves as they please. Studying the past can broaden the context in which the present observes itself. And it can offer a corrective to the self-​perception of this present, its belief that it has authority over the past and at the same time sublates it in a uniform realm of perception. To counteract this belief, it is necessary to engage with the historical facts, facts that are no longer necessarily familiar, but have not yet become completely unfamiliar, facts that have not simply maintained their influence, but have not yet fully disappeared either. The written and pictorial practices of the Western Middle Ages, for example, should not be viewed as utterly mysterious from the point of view of modernity, despite all declarations that the age of the book or the age of the image is over. They should in any case not seem as mysterious as those prehistoric arrangements of stones, of which we still do not know whether they served religious, astronomical, or aesthetic purposes, or the interweaving of writing and ornament in Islamic architecture, which leaves the European observer uncertain where—​or indeed whether—​to look for meaning. In contrast, the Western Middle Ages is still part—​albeit a peripheral part—​of our cultural knowledge. This is what makes it particularly suitable as an object of observation—​not least the observation of media conditions before the development of media discourses. Such a discourse becomes tangible in the seventeenth century, for example, when theoretical, systematic, and encyclopedic works attempted to comprehend and classify the new medium of the newspaper. Their assessment of the benefits it provides is as follows: it conveys information, knowledge, and education, gives visibility, establishes a public sphere, facilitates communication, and helps with the exercise of power. It is a pragmatic medium, which at the same time transports a wide variety of sensations:  “Da reise ich in Gedanken durch die weite Welt /​ ich schiffe über Meer /​ bin bey den See-​und Landschlachten gegenwärtig /​schaue zu /​wie man die Flügel schwinget /​auf einander feuer giebet /​Gefangene hinweg führet /​Stücke vernagelt /​ Minen sprenget und Beute machet /​und dieses alles ohne einzige Gefahr /​Mühe und Kosten” (I travel in thoughts through the wide world /​I sail across the sea /​am present at battles on land and sea /​watch /​armies beat their wings /​open fire on one another /​ 5  Flusser, Kommunikologie, 53; see also Flusser, “Die Wiederkunft des Mittelalters.” 6  For a critical view of such analogies see Spiegel, “Getting Medieval.” 7  Cf. Wenzel, Mediengeschichte.

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lead prisoners away /​spike cannons /​blow up mines and seize booty /​and all this without any danger /​trouble and expense).8 Media discourses take on a distinct form in the course of the nineteenth century. News technology accelerates. New technologies are developed for writing and printing, recording and reproduction. It becomes more natural to assume a “reality of second-​ order observation.”9 Just as the “medium” is now regarded as a neutral interface, a role that can be played by different entities, so, conversely, can different media forms be classed as belonging to the same category. It is in this sense that Friedrich Nietzsche, in his text Ueber Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne (1873), demonstrates the illusory nature of the idea that language or other forms of communication can reproduce reality or truth. Ludwig Wittgenstein, in his Tractatus (1921), observes: “Die Grammophonplatte, der musikalische Gedanke, die Notenschrift, die Schallwellen, stehen alle in jener abbildenden internen Beziehung zu einander, die zwischen Sprache und Welt besteht. Ihnen allen ist der logische Bau gemeinsam” (“The gramophone record, the musical thought, the score, the waves of sound, all stand to one another in that pictorial internal relation, which holds between language and world. To all of them the logical structure is common”).10 The statement reflects the proliferation of new technical media since the late nineteenth century. It is made in a context in which news and information technologies will soon be experimenting with the use of the plural “media.”11 This is not simply referring to old phenomena with new terms. Instead it expresses a changed social situation. Modernity has acquired a new degree of awareness of its own conditions of communication. It sees media reflexivity as part of its own self-​understanding. This is the basis for that practical and theoretical development that is implied in the concept of the media society: the development toward such a dominance and diversification of the medial that—​depending on the theoretical model used—​it is not just the traditional media of communication, storage, and transfer that can be regarded as media, but all sorts of other forms: “a chair, a wheel, a mirror (McLuhan), a school class, a football, a waiting room (Flusser), the election system, the general strike, the street (Baudrillard), a horse, a dromedary, an elephant (Virilio), gramophone, film, typewriter (Kittler), money, power and influence (Parsons), art, faith and love (Luhmann).”12 More recent additions are the frog (Rieger), or the four elements (Peters). From this diversified situation, in which there is nothing that cannot become a medium, it is easy to project back into the past. Medieval forms of documentation such 8  Stieler, Zeitungs Lust und Nutz, 22 (1, 3).

9  Luhmann, Reality of the Mass Media, 85. For the development of “modern” relations of observation in the nineteenth century see Crary, Techniques of the Observer. 10  Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-​philosophicus, 65 (4.014).

11  For the dynamics of development before and after 1900, see Andriopoulos and Dotzler, 1929. Schnittpunkte der Medialität; Medientheorie 1888–​1933.

12  Roesler, “Medienphilosophie und Zeichentheorie,” 34. In terms of the classification of scientific fields, Posner, “Zur Systematik,” 293–​98, distinguishes a biological, a physical, a technical, a sociological, a culture-​related and a code-​related concept of the media. For a comprehensive overview see Medienwissenschaft.

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Introduction

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as the sermon or the broadsheet then become early “mass media,” printing becomes an information system, and a communication cycle in which “coding” and “programming” is undertaken.13 This is, in itself, not especially productive. Nor is the opposite attitude: ignoring the fact that there were conventionalized media forms long before the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and long before “media” became an established expression. The problem has been well known since the beginnings of media theory: how can we use categories with a specifically modern frame of reference to describe phenomena to which these categories are foreign? The only solution, probably, is to turn the potential anachronism into a productive heuristic instrument, to avoid “colonizing” the past with intrusive terminology. To do justice to the idiosyncrasy of earlier realities and their relationship to later history, taking a microhistorical approach to the inner logic of specific media forms, and not just a macrosociological approach to the “historical types of society” preceding the actual “media society” that has developed as a result of industrialization.14 In this sense, the Middle Ages offer an opportunity to observe media phenomena that lasted a certain time and had some influence, but began as insecure and experimental in nature. We encounter processes of emergence, expansion, and development, where there are no clear distinctions between one phase and the next, and we find a mingling of practice and reflection that has not yet been discursively consolidated.15 For example, pragmatic written culture is on the increase from the twelfth century onwards. Yet oral culture does not decline because of this, nor is the aura of writing diminished. No rivalry arises between the “arts” of the word and the image, nor is the body eliminated from communication.16 Instead, this enables people to deal with media forms in more efficient and complex ways. Writing allows discipline, standardization, and consolidation. But it also opens up new dimensions for the depiction of orality, or for the interlinking of the auratic, the pragmatic, and the reflexive. Moreover, it is related to visual forms in various ways. Even in the early modern period, the presence of bodies and communication among people present in the same place continue to be of central importance.17 So what about the often-​evoked media transformation? Can it actually be described as a transformation of media, or more as a transformation from unfixed media forms to clearly defined media? In 1993, in a pioneering work of media history on a theologian of the High Middle Ages, Hugh of St. Victor, Ivan Illich put forward a new perspective—​focusing less on radical technological changes in the media (the introduction of the alphabet, the codex, 13  Giesecke, Der Buchdruck in der frühen Neuzeit; for a critical view see Jan-​ Dirk Müller, “Überlegungen zu Michael Giesecke: Der Buchdruck in der frühen Neuzeit,” Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur 18 (1993):  168–​78; Schanze, “Der Buchdruck eine Medienrevolution?” For references to printing in media theory see Grampp, Ins Universum technischer Reproduzierbarkeit; for an overview of the early modern development of media see Würgler, Medien in der frühen Neuzeit. 14  Saxer, Mediengesellschaft, 48.

15  For a summary see Kiening, “Medialität in mediävistischer Perspektive.” 16  Cf. Kiening, Zwischen Körper und Schrift. 17  Schlögl, Anwesende und Abwesende.

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printing) than on a phase of restructuring, in which many intellectual, social, and technical elements coincide. What he observes, concentrating on the appearance of written texts and approaches to the book, is the emergence of a new concept of text: no longer bound to the materiality of what is written, but to a certain unity of thought, an intentional concept, independent of the form that is actually present in each case—​in Niklas Luhmann’s terms: a medium. If we understand medium in this sense, we have to look to the diverse network of factors and parameters that play a part in mediation. What we traditionally refer to as media do not exist by nature. They arise from a practice in which things can be used, and phenomena perceived, either in one way or another. I can use a piece of fired clay as a thing, but I can also turn it into a medium, by putting signs on it or making it transport information, energies, or emotions in some other way. Certain modes of use of this kind have been conventionalized and standardized in culturally specific ways in the course of historical processes—​to such an extent that it is almost possible to forget all the different things that can be done with an object we regard as a medium, or all the different ways a phenomenon we regard as medial can be considered. A book, for example, does not have to be used as a carrier of information, in which we turn the pages and read. It can also serve as an auratic object, in which the divine is supposedly present, or as a remedy, used for healing purposes, or as a means of protection, held over the head. It is important, then, to develop a broader awareness of the different ways things have historically been used and reflected on.

Inner Logic

Scholars in the Middle Ages had only a partial knowledge of the extant classical texts about material forms of transmission. Plato’s reflections on the status of writing (Phaedrus) or of signs in general (Cratylus) were not known in the Middle Ages, and the profound reflection on direct and indirect perception in the allegory of the cave (The Republic) was only available in Cicero’s simplified version. The idea tested in the Timaeus of a third realm, between the realm of ideas and that of things, constituting a space of becoming, recording, or mediation (chóra), initially had next to no effect—​unlike the related idea of the demiurge. What was influential was Aristotle’s treatise on the soul (De anima), translated into Latin. Among other things, this text proposes a theory of perception and knowledge in which mediations play an important part. In contrast, Lucretius’s subtle phenomenology of the transmission of sounds or images, undertaken in the framework of his atomistic natural philosophy (De natura rerum), was not rediscovered until the Renaissance. Pliny’s Historia naturalis, or texts based on it in the medieval encyclopedias, were a source of all kinds of information, for example about materials, techniques, crafts, and arts. The main authority, however, when it came to the senses, perception, and the handing down of tradition was the biblical texts. In the Old Testament, communication with God takes place through listening and speaking. While seeing is problematized, writing and the written word play a somewhat marginal role; they feature most prominently in relation to the law given to the Israelites by God (Exodus, Deuteronomy) or in the context of the prophetic mission (Ezekiel). In the New

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Introduction

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Testament, media forms such as sermons, letters, and epistles play a part—​these then crystallize into an audio-​vision of the unheard-​of and the unspeakable in the final text, the book of Revelation. Works such as these were able to inspire medieval scholars to think about the ideas, forms, and conventions of mediation and transfer. Theological texts deal with the Trinity, Christology or Mariology, liturgy, the sacraments, or figural typology. They revolve around the modalities of divine and human communication, and the relationship between archetypes and copies. Philosophical texts discuss the processes of mediation which take place during the act of seeing, and reflect on the specific nature and limitations of language and signs. Narrative texts, pictorial works, or maps stage moments of communication, transmission, and recording. Although their theoretical potential is in some cases implicit rather than explicit, all these forms operate with models of mediation processes, or structural patterns. These, however, do not necessarily concern communication in the sense familiar to us.18 This is more about questions of identity, representation, and exchange. How can communication within the Trinity, and the mediation between God, the world, and the human soul be conceived? How does the seen object relate to that which appears to the eye? Does the articulated word coincide with the significatio? Can signs be trusted? Can pictures be narrated? Who is able to act as a proxy for someone else, to represent him? Can a mappa mundi combine knowledge about salvation history, history, and geography in such a way that a completely meaningful world opens up when the map is read and viewed? Modern reflection on the media is based on the idea that there are epistemological interfaces that can be occupied in different ways. Medieval thinkers, on the other hand, experimented with the diverse nuances of the imagery of transfer, without systematically relating these to one another. Messengers could take the form of angels, illustrating the relationship between transcendence and immanence, but they could also serve as personifications of the human senses, demonstrating the workings of perception.19 The model of the messenger could also, however, be contrasted with the figure of the heir, who stands for both a transmission in space and a transfer in time.20 There was therefore no need for a standardized inventory of types of recording or communication based on shared formal features. The classifications that were developed from the twelfth century onwards for all existing and imaginable things were arranged according to models of similarity, conceived in ontological or genealogical, linguistic or rhetorical terms. What we refer to as media, on the other hand, would most likely have been seen by medieval intellectuals, following Augustine, as signs. In Book 2 of his work De doctrina Christiana (397/​426), which was widely used as a handbook, Augustine had 18  Cf. Modelle des Medialen.

19  Cf. Gespräche—​Boten—​Briefe; Merceron, Le message et sa fiction; Engel und Boten; Chabr, Botenkommunikation. 20  Cf. Nicolaus de Cusa, De pace fidei, chap. 11, no. 33: “In haerede regni est proprie verbum regis vivum et liberum et illimitatum, in missivis nequaquam. […] in verbo haeredis complicantur omnia verba nuntiorum et missivarum.”

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distinguished between natural and conventional signs. In the latter category he included those signs that serve the mutual mediation (communicatio) of human perceptions (sensus). These signs relate to both the sense of sight (gestures, facial expressions, and visual forms) and the sense of hearing (articulatory forms). The focus, however, is not so much on the relationship between the forms as on their connection to reality and truth. When pictures and statues are mentioned in the same breath as fables, clothing, and coins, this has to do with the following question: to what extent do these human institutions, inescapably linked with appearance and artifice (instituta adumbrata), still bear some resemblance to natural institutions, or in other words, do they still have a model in nature?21 In similar fashion, Hugh of St. Victor—​a theologian influenced by Augustinian and Neoplatonic ideas, who produced another theory of knowledge of considerable importance for the Middle Ages, the Didascalicon (ca. 1128)—​distinguishes between three different creative works: that of God, that of nature, and that of man, imitating nature.22 The last category includes the “countless types of painting, weaving, sculpting and casting” (1:9). Later, however, in the context of the artes mechanicae, these appear under the heading “weapon-​making arts” (armatura), before merchant shipping, agriculture, hunting, medicine, and theatrical art. Here a connection could be made back to the mimetic arts. But theatre is of interest only with regard to the question of why, given the early Christian condemnation of heathen plays, theatre is considered one of the permitted human activities (2:20–​27). This shows how much a classification according to prescribed patterns dominates: the division of arts and sciences, the structure of university study, the anthropological origins of different activities. On the one hand, it is seen as typical of poets and philosophers that they throw very different “things into one” (compilantes) and “thus in a sense [make] a single picture out of a multitude of colours and shapes” (3:4; “quasi de multis coloribus et formis, unam picturam facere”). Yet on the other hand, the metaphorical bridge between writing and image leaves unspoken what point in the media system connects them. Various forms can be linked together by way of their function: they play a similar role in the relationship between the earthly and the celestial. They are aids (instrumenta) or tools (arma), which can compensate for human perceptual deficits and expand the senses. In the thirteenth century, Bonaventure mentions models (exemplaria), reproductions (exemplata), shadows (umbrae), echoes (resonantiae), paintings (picturae), traces (vestigia), appearances (simulacra), and spectacles (spectacula). Their common feature is that they all have to do with sensory phenomena, but at the same time pay attention to the extrasensory dimension. They not only present references, but serve to mediate something that is inherently difficult to mediate: the logic of the divine creation. They are signs that lead to a signified (per signa ad signata)—​which is recognizable and at the same time removed.23 In other words, this is about material concretizations that can be 21  Meier-​Oeser, Spur des Zeichens, 20–​30. 22  Hugo von St. Viktor, Didascalicon. 23  Bonaventura, Itinerarium, 2:11.

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perceived, but must be transcended. They are medial in character, but not in the sense that they mediate between two quantities. Rather, they represent complex figurations, linking “horizontal” and “vertical” forms of communication in the tension between once, now and then, here and there, available and unavailable. As far as terminology is concerned, a medieval author would have been unlikely to use the expression mediatio, which belonged more to music theory or law, or the expression medietas, which referred to general forms of middle or mid-​point. Nor would he have used the expression medium. For him this would have been more likely to refer to the middle element in logic or other middle elements: man as a medium between utibilia and fruibilia, the auctoritates as a medium between Old and New Testament, natura as a medium between essentia and persona distincta, intellectus as a medium between natura and voluntas, or potentia generandi as a medium between absolutum and relatum.24 To characterize the specific mediation between times and spaces, other terms were available. For example, figura: the ambiguous designation for a device that can make truth (veritas) appear to the senses, without being more than a shadow (umbra) of this truth.25 Thomas Aquinas gives succinct expression to this idea with his observation that where truth prevails, that is, with Christ, the figure must retreat (“Veniente enim veritate, debet cessare figura”; Summa theologiae 3ª, q. 61, a. 4, arg. 1). This does not invalidate the God-​ given existence of sacramental signs, but it does change their character: they no longer refer to what is still to come, but to what has already happened. The same applies to church officia. In his Rationale (before 1286), in which he systematically discusses Christian ritual and the realm of the church, the French theologian Guilhelmus Durandus speaks of the officia, the res ac ornamenta. He understands them as exemplaria, in other words as forms that present an image and are at the same time part of the archetype. They mean something (significare) and represent something (figurare); at the same time they themselves are salvific and filled with heavenly sweetness.26 They are signa and mysteria, whereby even the salvific objects are dependent on the texts and images that accompany, legitimate, and authenticate them. Even though they partake of the divine, all material forms are also deficient, in that they are marked by the difference which separates the earthly from the celestial.27

Abundance and Lack

This pair of opposites has been known since antiquity. According to Hippolytus of Rome, Heraclitus regarded the created world as its own designer and creator, and as the union of opposites: “God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and 24  Examples from Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on the Sentences: Scriptum super libros Sententiarum; cf. entries on medium in Index thomisticus: www.corpusthomisticum.org/​it/​index.age. 25  Cf. Figura.

26  Faupel-​Drevs, Vom rechten Gebrauch der Bilder, 373–​80 (translation of the prologue). 27  Cf. for example Schwarz, Visuelle Medien, 25–​64.

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famine” (Fragment 67).28 Plato has Socrates discuss the myth of the parents of Eros, Poros (resourcefulness) and Penia (poverty), whose qualities are united in the child, who is destined to be a mediator (Symposium 201d–​4c). Cicero and other Stoicists assume an opposition between a modest and fulfilled life, and a worthless one (frugalitas/​nequitia). It was the reshaping of these ideas by Augustine, Proclus, and Pseudo-​Dionysius the Areopagite that became critical for the Middle Ages. They connect the creative logic of the cosmos with the history of human salvation (and human disaster). In his early dialogue De beata vita, Augustine contrasts plenitudo with egestas, and relates this to the ontological opposition between being and not-​being.29 The Neoplatonic tradition defines this opposition as a fundamental one between the one and the many, the creator and the creature, the eternal and the temporal—​whereby the principle of abundance or plenty (abundantia, plenitudo) is now no longer ascribed to the many, but, on the contrary, to the one—​which, if it is to be a principle, must also contain within itself everything that emanates from it.30 This then leads to the need for levels of mediation and forms of participation which weaken the radical opposition between the one and the many. This coincides with central developments in Christian thinking. The reassessment of values in twelfth-​century theology has particularly far-​reaching consequences in this respect. As the human and above all suffering Christ takes centre stage, humans, in their physical-​spiritual unity, are presented with a new opportunity to participate in the divine. Lack can now, on a higher level, be recoded into a form of abundance—​or at least into its precondition. An ascetic life, a bare décor, a simple style, the return to basic archetypes: in all the medieval reform movements and efforts, these can be regarded as the prerequisite for revealing future plenitude in the here and now. In the context of the mendicant movement, poverty (paupertas) is not the expression of a structural deficit (privatio), but of a conscious decision to follow a spiritual orientation.31 This orientation does not fundamentally eliminate the opposition between abundance and lack. But by cross-​blending past, present, and future moments in time, it tests the possibilities of such an elimination. A relatively late but apposite synthesis, in the Compendium of Nicholas of Cusa (1463/​1464), presents the underlying logical pattern of the Christian-​Neoplatonic dialectic of abundance and lack as follows. The one, because of its over-​abundance, cannot remain by itself. It must bring forth the many out of itself. In this many, however, it cannot be in the same way it is in itself. It must translate itself into communicable forms, into things that are easily understood, and these must then be duplicated into signs, so that they can be perceived by the sensory capacity of humans (and animals). These signs may vary in character, and may be perceived by different senses. But they are always only 28  Heraclitus, Fragments, 45.

29  Cf. Beierwaltes, Regio beatitudinis.

30  Cf. Halfwassen, Der Aufstieg zum Einen, 118–​30; for the fontalis plenitudo (Hugh of St. Victor, Bonaventure) see Kvamme, The fontalis plenitudo. 31  For paupertas see David Flood, “Armut. VI. Mittelalter,” Theologische Realenzyklopädie 4 (1979): 88–​98; In propositio paupertatis.

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likenesses, incomplete by nature, so that the human arts (writing, for example) must assist them, and human reason must connect the isolated elements into a greater whole, thus proving itself to be the mirror of divine reason; a chain of mediation processes, then, all marked by difference, but able to form a bridge between divine powers of creation and human powers of cognition. Medieval thinkers understand the highest religious entities—​God, being, the one, the true, the good, salvation—​as being spatially and temporarily out of reach, as entities that “transcend” the Aristotelian categories for the classification of the things that exist. But this does not mean that these transcendentia, as they have been called since the thirteenth century, are altogether inaccessible.32 It is only for modernity that the transcendence of God becomes something that is, per se, unreachable from the immanent, for example from the world: it constitutes something else, an outside, that can only be observed in such a way as to “recreate” it on the inside.33 In the Middle Ages, in contrast, the transcendentia extend into the realm of immanence. The theologians assume that God himself will ensure that his creation, the world, and especially humankind, will not fall into decline. This is why, they assume, he uses textual revelations, apparitions perceptible to the senses, and historical events to reveal to humanity, or more precisely, to humans who transcend their own deficiency, the possibility of understanding some part of the divine plan. These revelations, apparitions, and events are forms of divine self-​communication toward humanity, and aspects of a work of salvation that presents itself as a paradoxical communication process: based on mediation, it both displays and sublates it. Mediation proves to be as necessary as it is provisional—​necessary with regard to the conditions of worldly immanence, provisional with regard to the sublation of these conditions at the end of times. One can understand this as a possible way to both retain and transcend the categorical difference between the finite and the infinite, creation and creator. “There is no proportion between finite and infinite” (“finiti ad infinitum nulla est proportio”)—​this sentence, which goes back to Aristotle, has been quoted again and again since the era of Scholasticism. But it is not only aimed at humans, who understand the divine as beyond comparison. It is also used to refer to God, of whom it is assumed that he relates to the creation as to an entity that emanates from him but is infinitely different to him. It is in this sense that Thomas Aquinas, in the quaestiones De veritate, discusses whether God is able to recognize something outside himself. The initial hypothesis is that this is not possible: “The medium through which a thing is known ought to be proportionate to that which is known through it. But the divine essence is not proportionate to a creature, since it infinitely surpasses it, and there is no proportion between the infinite and the finite. Therefore, by knowing His own essence, God cannot know a creature” (q. 2, a. 3, arg. 4).34 32  For the broad medieval debates see Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals; Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy as Transcendental Thought. 33  Luhmann, A Systems Theory of Religion. 34  Thomas Aquinas, Truth, 66–​67.

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Figure 1. Prophet dictates the prophecies inspired by Christ the Word; Frowin-​Bibel, third quarter of twelfth century; Engelberg, Stiftsbibl., Cod. 3, fol. 189v. Used with permission.

The synthesis, however, leads beyond this proposition. Thomas now makes a distinction in the modus of proportionality, suggesting that things can be proportionate in two ways—​either between themselves or through a shared reference to something else. The first option, proportio in the proper sense, cannot apply to the finite and the infinite, as these belong to different classes. The second, on the other hand, proportionalitas, is quite admissible, argues Thomas: just as infinite is generally related to infinite, so it can also be related to the medium through which it is recognized; in this sense, “there is nothing to prevent the divine essence (essentia) from being the medium (medium) by which a creature is known.”35 35  Thomas Aquinas, Truth, 73.

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One can regard this as clever reasoning or pedantry. In either case, the question about the relationship between categorially unlike things, posed here in relation to God, highlights the problem that also arises for the relationship between the human and the divine: it is necessary to imagine a form of mediation which neither fundamentally negates the difference nor sublates it in a logically problematic mixture. The model of participation serves as a solution. Even in antiquity no one could imagine that transmission took place in an empty space, as a purely passive process: in the Timaeus, Plato experimented with the chóra as a simultaneously passive and active means of mediation. Aristotle, in his treatise On the Soul (418b/​419a), which was also widely read in the Middle Ages, explained why it was not possible to see something if “the in-​between” (to metaxy) was empty, and why it was not enough to assume a passive, transferring substance (light, ether). He argued that active entities were necessary: movement of the form on the one hand, memory, imagination and fantasy on the other, and these in turn had to interact.36 In medieval theories of vision, the eye or the ray of vision then appears as a medium, which transports substances and creates contacts:  “When the interior ray emerges from the eye, it mingles with the external light and extends to the opaque object. By its natural mobility, it is diffused over the surface of the object and assumes the object’s shape (figura) and color; thus informed and colored, the ray returns to the soul through the same apertures, carrying the shape and color of the object to the soul.”37 This participative model of mediation is encountered in its most radical form in the context of Christology: Christ, it is argued, can be called a mediator, because a middle element has to have something of that which it mediates between.38 The corresponding communicatio, according to this argument, was not a simple exchange, but a permeation: the two natures were united in the person of Christ, unmixed and undivided—​in such a way that the one always had a share in the attributes of the other, in the sense of a communicatio idiomatum.39 This perfect “communication,” however, is denied to man. He represents both the pinnacle and the weak point of creation. His physical and spiritual unity reflect the universality of creation, and the mediatory office of the redeemer—​but only as potential. Removed from the divine, man can perceive the perfect only as an ideal. Although he himself is God’s image, his quality as an image is marked by difference. Partaking of the divine through the Word incarnate, he must first regain access to this—​for example through the inner word (verbum cordis), in which communication and reception of the divine pervade each other. Thus man operates in a realm of mediations, which both reveal and dissimulate the immediate aspect of the divine. Conversely, the difference between abundance and lack can be used to form a model of the divine communication 36  Cf. Alloa, Das durchscheinende Bild, chap. 2.

37  Lindberg, Theories of Vision, 91, with reference to William of Conches (twelfth century).

38  Thomas Aquinas, “Super I Epistolam B. Pauli ad Timotheum lectura,” cap. 2, lect. 1: “medium debet habere aliquid de utroque extremorum.” 39  Cf. Strzelczyk, Communicatio idiomatum; for the expression communicatio see Röckelein, Kommunikation, and Röckelein, Reliquientranslationen, 39f.; Lutz, Schreiben, Bildung und Gespräch.

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process, in which mediation and immediacy are not differentiated. Here the sociological notion of the resonance model is helpful: a model that uses another sphere to assess what is relevant for its own sphere. Based on this model, the mediation between the divine and the human can in turn be conceived as a double movement: an emergence and return, in which the mediating entity is not a neutral third element, but is implied in the things between which it mediates; an ascent and descent, in which man has to transcend the mediations. This then also affects the media with which man interacts. In the first instance the Holy Scripture, which is understood in the Middle Ages as, in a sense, the medium certissimum of knowledge of God—​for the human mind, which regards it as inspired.40 Secondly, the instruments of grace or salvation which have their roots in the New Testament (proclamation of the word, baptism, communion). Lastly, all the other forms derived from these. These allow the objective process of salvation, founded on the Father’s plan, the work of Christ, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, to be made accessible to the individual and the community: in historical events, religious institutions, symbolic acts, and material phenomena. The latter include rituals and gestures, written texts, pictorial works and objects, or—​in terms of the church as a physical space—​stained glass windows, capitals, altars, baptismal fonts, communion vessels, crosses, candlesticks, books, robes, cloths etc. Alongside the knowledge and information they convey, all these things, with their various levels of redemptive power, can serve to mediate what is immediate, and to give visual form to the divine. All, however, are confronted with the tension that fundamentally characterizes not only the world and human existence, but also media forms: abundance and lack. If media are conceived of as “extensions of man,” then their role is, in the first instance, to compensate for the deficits that are given to man by nature: he cannot fly, travel in time, or be in different places at the same time. Even on land, he moves rather slowly compared to other animals, and he is dependent on material and technical aids that supplement, extend, and expand the abilities of the human body. “Necessity is the mother of invention” (mater artium necessitas) has been a well-​known saying since antiquity. These “inventions” were divided into different phases: in the first phase, the immediate necessities of life are procured (food, clothing, shelter etc.), the second sees the emergence of technologies and arts, in which man himself becomes a creative being—​paupertas omnium artium repertrix.41 Later authors such as Petrarch deduce from this that man has a specific ability to develop—​and that he becomes the ruler of nature precisely by adapting the specific features nature has granted to each species.42

40  Köpf, Anfänge, 236, with reference to Ulrich of Strasbourg, who speaks of the science that covers everything, “quae intellectus secundum statum viae capere potest, et hoc per medium certissimum. Hoc autem est sacra scriptura sola, inquantum est divinitus inspirata”; Ulrich von Straßburg, De summo bono 1, tr. 2, c. 1 ; 29, lines 54–​56. 41  For late antique ideas of cultural history see Moraux, Aristotelismus, 92ff.

42  Petrarca, Heilmittel, 196; for the further use of the motif see Kraye, “Moral Philosophy,” 308.

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Introduction

Figure 2. Loop diagram: Henry Suso, Exemplar (ca. 1490); Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibl., Cod. 710, fol. 106r. Used with permission.

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Indeed, technologies and arts—​including techniques of storage and transfer—​not only remedy man’s lack of basic survival skills but also relieve strain on the body, and give the mind space to develop. Once found, they open up new possibilities, new paths, new approaches, in short a potentially greater wealth of meaning. Hence the idea, still popular in contemporary sociology, that scarcity gave humans, as deficient beings, the impetus to develop and improve technologies and institutions, but also to create forms of privacy and inwardness. Human action, according to Arnold Gehlen, has been able to “gain independence from the original purpose, [in such a way] that the pressure of needs or the primary interest retreats into the background. The now disburdened behaviour allows space for an abundance of additional motives.”43 New choices mean that the deficit gives way to a surplus; a surplus, however, which can be conceived—​even without the evolutionary separation of motive and purpose—​as a fundamental feature of communication. Communication, after all, includes not only planned, intended, and controlled transmissions, but also unplanned, spontaneous, emergent elements—​though this can once again reveal the deficits of human processes of meaning creation. In relation to media, this means that their history is—​ beyond the purely technological—​a history of changing perspectives, of positive and negative, optimistic and pessimistic assessments. The celebration of media possibilities is accompanied by laments about their limitations and shortcomings. Plato denounces the tendency of writing to make communication stiff and lifeless (see ­chapter  4). Lucretius, Cicero, and Seneca discuss the Latin language, which they see as poor in comparison to the rich philosophical terminology of Greek (egestas sermonis or verborum).44 Carolingian theologians characterize pictures as material-​ephemeral objects which are imperfect, because they are created by human hand, and which try to represent something that cannot be perceived by the physical eye.45 Late medieval monks such as the humanist-​ leaning Johannes Trithemius fear that printing will lead to a decline in writing culture. At the same time they dream of secret techniques which would allow people to communicate with one another in the shortest possible time, “without words, without books, and without a messenger” (sine verbis, sine libris, et sine nuncio).46 In modernity, the development of new forms of recording and transfer is still accompanied by the knowledge that even these will not cancel out the systemic limitations of communication. Heinrich von Kleist, in a letter to his sister Ulrike on February 5, 1801, regrets that it is not possible for him to really describe his innermost feelings to her; he lacks “a means of communication”; even language is not suitable for this as it cannot “paint the soul.”47 In 1860, Friedrich Nietzsche wishes for a machine that could “impress 43  Gehlen, Urmensch und Spätkultur, 33.

44  Cf. Fögen, “Patrii sermonis egestas”; for the survival of this idea in the Middle Ages see Hille-​ Coates, “Bibelsprachen—​Heilige Sprachen.” 45  Cf. most recently Mitalaité, Philosophie et théologie; Noble, Images, 158–​243.

46  For the first aspect see Herweg, “Wider die schwarze Kunst?”; for the secret techniques see Klein, Am Anfang war das Wort, 194 (quote from the Steganographia of 1500, printed Frankfurt 1606, 3:160). 47  Kleist, Sämtliche Werke und Briefe 2, no. 35.

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our thoughts on some material, unspoken, unwritten”; for a short time he believed he had found this machine in the typewriter.48 Because they have a mediating character, media forms cannot be perfect. They show that which is intended to be seen as real. At the same time, however, they order the real, categorize it, draft it—​and maintain a complicated relationship with it: depending on the perspective, on the being or the mediation, the referent or the referee, the signified or the signifier, they seem earlier or later, subordinate or predominant. At the same time, they are not simply added to the thing they refer to; they are at least partly identical with it. But only partly, which also means that they double the thing they refer to, and obscure it, by acting and functioning in its place. By simultaneously representing something and being something, media forms are both less and more than the thing they refer to. Because this is a characteristic of every communication, they bring forth the unforeseeable and the emergent. They are also, however, redundant, because they are differentiated from the thing that they make available. This can in turn raise doubts about whether that which mediates something actually corresponds to what it mediates. This is particularly important for the communication of transcendence, which is based on the paradox that certain matters or phenomena are regarded as inaccessible, and yet there is constant communication about them. Or more concisely, that they evade all categories and yet function even in the most material of phenomena—​at least in the context of medieval ideas of mediality. In them, materiality and immateriality form both an opposition and a connection: the most concrete materiality on the one hand, the most abstract immateriality on the other. The distance separating them, because Christian theology conceives transcendence as the negation of all categories, is matched by the closeness of their connection, because transcendence can only be made comprehensible through attributions. Thus even in places where pure materiality seems to pertain (in the materia prima), a potentiality is imagined, and even where pure spirit seems to prevail (in spiritual beings), the combination of potentiality and actuality results in hints of a materia spiritualis. The two poles are paradigmatically forced together in the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, who is both all Logos and all body. The materiality of communication, which modernity, in the context of its own acceleration, has discovered as a not inherently meaningful condition of meaning construction processes,49 seems to find its paradigm not so much in modernity as in the Middle Ages. Here people were only too aware that transmission and transfer are only made possible by the light that illuminates a stained glass window, or by the animal-​skin parchment on which the text is written. At the same time, the primary materials—​because they were part of the cosmos created by God—​were seen as bearing meaning, were viewed as things (res), which, according to Augustine, constitute the first type of sign, the natural signs. A possible exception was the materia prima: here one could debate whether it should be thought of as completely formless, timeless, and insubstantial, or as the 48  Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Aufzeichnungen, 447 (1862:  Euphorion, chap.  1); cf. Eberwein, Nietzsches Schreibkugel; “Schreibkugel.”

49  Cf. Materialität der Kommunikation; for the more recent studies on materiality see Materiality; Bennett, Vibrant Matter.

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substance and bearer of a formative principle. Even here, however, there does not seem to be any such thing as pure materiality, a condition of possibility of being and meaning which is free from space and time. All materiality seems to be, from the start, deeply embedded in meaningful contexts of action—​an idea that returns in modernity: philosophical pragmatism and the phenomenological philosophy of life both call into question the opposition of matter and spirit, each in a different way. For example with the argument that wherever the materiality of matter becomes the object of attention, the material element has already been modified, influenced by a mode of perception that shapes matter with a view to possible human actions. In concrete terms, this can be imagined as follows: signs are placed on a page of parchment, and this placement does not occur independent of the nature of the material. The quill writes differently on the flesh side than on the hair side, and the number of available sheets and the length of the lines can also affect the extent to which abbreviations are used. Yet the placement of the signs is not completely determined by materiality. It adapts to it, but also subjects it to its own purposes. Being guided by the material and making use of it go hand in hand. The medium obeys the material in which and with which it operates. But it also experiments with it. It semanticizes and semioticizes, auratizes and processualizes it. It subjects it to its own possibilities for ostentation and reflection, and negotiates it in the framework of discourses focusing on issues of materiality. Fundamental distinctions can be made between matter and materiality, primary fact and overarching idea. Historically, however, they have repeatedly been linked in different ways. One can, on an experimental basis, take a phenomenological rather than hermeneutic approach to the primary effect qualities of a material-​medial structure. Any more in-​depth analysis, however, will have to include the level of meaning systems. The materiality of a medium is therefore always twofold: one part based on presence, the other on significance. Or to put it differently: on the one hand we have the current materiality of a given material form, on the other hand we have the potential or virtual materiality that accompanies this form, or is discussed or shown in it. The two dimensions cannot simply be merged or aligned: if processes of book production are mentioned in a text, or if a picture displays scenes where things are done with pictures, this does not mean that a medium is showing itself or its own materiality, as if in a mirror. Instead this has to do with a more fundamental reflexivity, which only ever reveals aspects, more or less distorted, of what the given media form “is.”50 Even the difference between a medium and a thing is, in this sense, a matter of perspective rather than ontology. In a pioneering study from the beginnings of modern media analysis, the psychologist Fritz Heider (1926) demonstrated this using the example of light and air. Heider’s argument is as follows: while a thing is an object of cognition, which possesses individuality, internal processes, and a natural resonance, the medium is a non-​autonomous quantity, which has only external processes and a resonance that is imposed upon it. On the other hand, however, the medium is also what 50  For metaization see Metaisierung; for media reflexivity see Möller, Mediale Reflexivität.

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makes the thing perceptible in the first place. Thus one and the same thing, for example a glass, can be both a thing and a medium, or more precisely, can be regarded as both these things. Thing and medium thus remain interconnected: since the perception of a thing is only possible through the medium, there can be no thing outside of a medium. Conversely, there can be no medium without a thing, since it is only the combination of the two that reveals the difference between that which has an internal cause, and that which has an external cause. This applies not only to physical processes and material substrates, but to everything that can become an object of cognition. In this context, the medium is not a separate entity, standing alongside other groups of things that are. But nor does it constitute a pure function, which any thing could perform at will. It can be thought of as a category between substance and function, a category whose relationship to the thing can sometimes appear as a marked difference, but sometimes as identity—​a difference when it comes to specific media functions such as storage or dissemination, functions which many things cannot perform; identity when the focus is on general mediating functions which do not require any specific form.

Media Perspectives

If we pursue this idea further, it seems to make little sense to base assumptions on the understanding of mediality that prevails in modern media studies, journalism studies, or communication studies. According to one of the definitions often quoted in these disciplines, media are “complex, institutionalized systems around organized communication channels with specific capabilities.”51 True, older types of material forms of mediation (book, image), anthropomorphic figures of transmission (human, messenger, angel, spirit), or symbolic formations (salvation, love, money) can be subsumed under this. What is meant, though, is primarily that type of media that has evolved in modernity: the press, radio, film, television, digital media, social media etc. They are the primary object of a media studies which, operating empirically and quantitatively, assumes that society is mediatized to the core. Historical cultural studies, on the other hand, is not simply interested in what is given, and in the operationalization of orders of description. It sees itself as a place of reflection about the conditions in which epistemic fields are constituted, and it regards the wide-​ranging expansion of the concept of media not as a reason to impose restrictions, but as a starting point for reflection—​about the historical and cultural conditions that bring forth “media” and structure the way we talk about them, and about the fundamental questions: what a medium is, what sort of metaphysical dimensions it has, how it influences human thinking and action, what transformations it has undergone in the course of history. If we wanted to highlight just one of the transformations which are not on the level of technical developments, we might consider the relationship between the medium and the mediatized. There was much skepticism in the Middle Ages about the categorial difference between earthly means and the divine, which is immediate or non-​mediable, 51  For example Saxer, Mediengesellschaft, 52.

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and about the danger of lifeless letters or deceptive images. Yet overall, media forms were sustained by epistemological optimism: it was believed that they could express or transmit essential things. They could reveal something of what transcends our temporal and spatial opportunities for experience. It was thought that they were figurae in the sense described above:  full of promise and yet insufficient, simultaneously transparent and opaque. This simultaneity seems to have become questionable in the modern period. Here, on the one hand, skepticism prevails: language blocks our access to true being, pictures deceive our senses, even our perception of material objects is limited by our cognitive apparatus. On the other hand, more and more is being promised, particularly in connection with new media technologies: can the photograph or phonograph not make the dead so present—​with their image or their voice—​that they seem to be alive? Can the film not affect our consciousness with a directness that no older medium possessed? Here the figurae seem to have become reversible images in the true sense of the term: inextricably linked, but mutually exclusive possibilities, as devised by gestalt psychology—​duck or hare, young girl or old woman, faces or goblet, open book or folded card. In each view, the knowledge of the other possibility is present in the background. In the foreground, however, the dichotomous alternative dominates. In terms of media, then, there is either opacity or transparency. Either the media broaden our senses, by allowing us to participate in more and more phenomena which are, as such, removed from our physical here and now, or they inevitably block our access to the world and to reality:  we see everything only through their filter, fractured, distorted, obscured. True, actual practice is more complex. We know that it does not detract from the eventful nature of a live performance if we are aware of its media-​facilitated or media-​ supported nature.52 Nonetheless, dichotomous ideas are omnipresent, for example with regard to the role of the mass media or the digital media. On the level of judgment, for one thing: some see them as a realm of new possibilities, others as a loss of humanity; some see energy and promise, others fear impoverishment and atrophy. But also on the level of observation: according to a popular theorem, it is impossible to observe media as such. The argument is that they render themselves invisible during use, in order to provide efficient transfer and to create (an impression of) immediacy. According to this theorem then, they either work so well that they disappear, or malfunction and therefore become obtrusive.53 Even everyday communication shows that this is not necessarily so. The transmission of content and attention to the manner of the transmission do not have to be mutually exclusive. Indeed, this is a constitutive feature of aesthetically charged communication: in oscillating between acts that create presence and those that encourage reflection, it paradoxically produces effects of immediacy by displaying mediality.54 This applies to communication passed down through history in a different 52  Auslander, Liveness.

53  Cf. for example Groys, Unter Verdacht; Jäger, “Störung und Transparenz”; Mersch, Medientheorien: Zur Einführung; Krämer, Medium, Bote, Übertragung; Paradoxalität des Medialen. 54  Cf. Andree, Archäologie der Medienwirkung.

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way again: as argued above, it is given to us in material structures which possess their own presence and dynamics. Yet these structures no longer bear anything but the traces of the actions in which they were embedded, which can now only be discovered by means of context. We encounter them as forms of communication which aimed to have an impact not only on their present, but also on the future. Various layers of time, imagined both from the point of view of the past and from that of the present, overlap here. At the same time, with regard to past media structures, two modalities of observation coincide here: the self-​observation of a historical society and the observation of that society by modern scholars. This means that the idea of the reversible figure for media processes requires further nuances. It would be tempting to describe the medieval relationship between materiality and transcendence as an oscillation, a “seeing of aspects” as conceived by Wittgenstein relating partly to the content (seeing of) and partly to the medium itself (seeing-​as).55 But this model, based on theories of perception or knowledge, would need to be developed further in regard of material structures and their complex temporalities. Then the traditionally two-​dimensional reversible figure, a mere representation of three-​dimensionality, would become a figure that actually incorporates the third and fourth dimensions: something like a palimpsest or a rhizome, consisting of several more or less transparent layers, so that structures and details, but also current, past, and future conditions might be perceived—​some of them at a glance, others with a change in focus.56 This could correspond to the specific status of historical mediality, which is, at least in the Middle Ages, rooted in the given material forms, whose materiality is simultaneously displayed and transcended. Thus mediality can be considered to be historically linked with a seeing of aspects, which is highlighted by the specific focus of the study. If one assumes that media forms are not simply distinct entities, but flexible configurations which could always be merely material (submedial) things as well as abstract (supramedial) entities, then it is an obvious step—​especially from a historical perspective—​to make another assumption: that analyzing media forms and phenomena presumes a certain attitude, an interest in the way mediation and transfer occur, the nuances and facets of this process. An aspect-​oriented perspective of this kind is especially relevant for times and societies which have no explicit concept of media, but know a multitude of media forms and reflect on issues of mediality. In view of these forms and reflections, it does not seem reasonable to assume either that media are given or that they only exist due to attributions. Instead, it might prove more fruitful to look at what functions in specific situations and under specific circumstances as a media form—​a form permitting the transmission of information or the transfer of knowledge, and implying simultaneously material and immaterial, concrete and abstract, spatial and temporal dimensions: once, now, and then; here and there. An approach like this will certainly not be unaffected by those modern conditions which define what is to be understood by “media.” It will, 55  Cf. Lauer, “Anamorphotische Aspekte.”

56  Cf. Koschorke, Wahrheit und Erfindung, 368–​83 for double conditioning.

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however, be able to rid itself at least partly of the ideological burden related to these conditions—​by following not a naïve hermeneutic but an archaeologically grounded cultural semiotics.

Historical Mediology

It should have become clear by now that the present book does not follow macrohistorical assumptions about the evolution of humans and their media. It does not attempt to apply categories from media studies to older texts or pictures. Indeed, it does not primarily focus on media as they have been categorized by modern media and communication studies. There will be repeated mention, in the following chapters, of aspects of writing and phenomena of written culture. Yet writing is not understood here as a categorically fixed medium of storage, which—​for example in terms of material, layout, or text structure—​goes through processes of standardization and optimization, and eventually becomes more and more widely disseminated. Instead what is of interest here is the relationship between the inner and outer dimensions of writing, between writing as a principle and writing as an outward appearance, between what pieces of writing say, what they show, and what they are, and ultimately also the relationship between the other media forms that writing may reflect, and the media form constituted by writing itself. The aim is to consider the whole spectrum between material, performative, reflexive, and imaginative dimensions, and to use the examination of an apparently familiar medium to uncover a complex array of media facets, which is in turn relevant for the general understanding of mediality—​in line with McLuhan’s view that “any study of one medium helps us to understand all others.”57 In keeping with this, several shifts in perspective are proposed in this book. Firstly, from media to mediality: attention should not be focused on labelling a particular form as a medium, but on what constitutes the mediatory character of a form, what happens with it, what potential lies in it, what energies it releases. Secondly, from an ontological to a methodological understanding of mediality: mediation is not understood as something for which a particular class of object has a special kind of responsibility, but as a combination of material and form, whose media dynamic cannot be discerned unless we consider it from a particular viewpoint. This viewpoint does not claim to make other perspectives obsolete, but to make their conditions more clearly visible. Thirdly, a shift from historical change to the relationship between mediality and historicity: focusing both on the proper-​time strata of individual media forms, and on their sequence, which becomes history, the analysis can give up the fixation with technological determinants; it can also acquire a greater depth of focus, and can consider other kinds of processes in the history of mediality (such as those associated with the history of ideas). Fourthly and finally, a shift in the understanding of the era from prior history to paradigm: a non-​ technological approach to mediality in the Middle Ages can uncover a wide range of manifestations and historical references. Such an approach does not simply encounter a 57  McLuhan, Understanding Media, 139.

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culture steeped in transcendence, awaiting the demystifications of the modern era; a culture whose phenomena were either overtaken by later history, or experienced a subsequent revival. Instead it encounters a field which, while its (retrospectively constructed) definition as an epoch is questionable, contains diverse and complex structures (which have by no means been swept away by modernity), and which is therefore an ideal site for a fundamental examination of the historicity of the medial. After all, it is this same historicity that is itself undergoing massive change in our medially altered present: it is not that historical awareness is disappearing completely, but that the simultaneities of the non-​simultaneous are unmistakably growing, thanks to media synchronization of things that are temporally and spatially disparate. For such shifts in perspective, standard media studies tools relating to the established media and a modern model of communication are only of limited use as an aid to orientation. More helpful are approaches that attempt to grasp the principles underlying phenomena and processes of mediation without presupposing dual structures (consciousness/​world, subject/​object), between which the medium constitutes a third element.58 This idea will always find itself faced with the logical difficulty of explaining how mediation is possible if it is not somehow contained in that which is to be mediated: of what nature can the in-​between be, that it creates a connection between two entities that do not allow any direct connection? How can it be something other than either a mere mixture, which does not eliminate the problem of non-​compatibility, or a superstructure which eliminates the need for mediation itself? Medieval Scholasticism was already discussing this problem with regard to the relationship between body and soul: Philip the Chancellor argued in the early thirteenth century that if one imagined this relationship as being realized through an external medium, the problem arose that the medium would correspond to either the matter or the form or to a composite—​yet each of these options was impossible. The solution is then to assume diverse forms, first, last, and middle forms, some of which are directly connected to the matter, some not at all, and some through a medium.59 Philosophical pragmatism (John Dewey) also starts at this point but takes a different tack, arguing that stimulus and reaction, matter and consciousness, body and mind, or thinking and action should be thought of not as opposites, but as functionally connected, as in the model of an electric circuit. The means of cognition are then neither simply given nor brought forth by the mind. They are selected experimentally and constituted in a process in which perception affects the perceived and the perceived affects perception.60 This idea is modified and applied to media theory in the work of McLuhan. While he assumes that technological changes have an impact on all areas of human existence and the basic structures of society, this does not imply a deterministic view. Media do not simply determine being or consciousness. They are flexible infrastructural forms, instruments and actants, cores and shells, systems and environments, materialities and 58  Cf. also Borsò, “Materialität, Medialität und Immanenz.” 59  Wicki, Philosophie Philipps des Kanzlers, 128–​30.

60  For a summary see Suhr, John Dewey zur Einführung.

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immaterialities, mediating between figure and background, in other words, between that which attracts attention and that which escapes attention.61 Niklas Luhmann gives this idea more precise form in system theory: just as there can be no third element between the system and its environment, so also the medium cannot be considered as a third element or as an in-​between.62 It is conceived as a loose coupling of elements that connect into strict couplings in concrete forms (for example, letters into words, characters into a text). It could be said that the medium is concretized in a form without being fully absorbed into it. Form, on the other hand, is not simply the particular as opposed to the universal, the real as opposed to the possible, the transient as opposed to the permanent. On the contrary, medium and form should be thought of as both connected in certain aspects and separate. On the one hand, there is a constant process in which what is loosely coupled becomes tightly coupled, and vice versa; on the other hand, the one is “contained” in the other (the distinction between medium and form as a form itself). Here mediality does not simply mean the principle of mediation and transfer. It represents an operative dimension in an observer-​dependent process in which different entities are related to one another.63 Bruno Latour’s actor-​network theory also does not focus on media as mediators between senders and receivers. It concentrates on the chains, networks, and circuits that exist between human and non-​human, material, person, and institutional entities. The assumption is that there is a constant process of mediation taking place between these entities, but one which can hardly be understood as mediation in the traditional sense.64 This coincides with Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism. She calls into question the extent to which a relationship of mediation prevails between materiality and semantics, and proposes instead that phenomena should be understood as ontologically inseparable and interconnected agencies. “Apparatuses” are then not simply instruments of observation, but arrangements which simultaneously produce phenomena and are part of them. More than mere mediating bodies or technical structures, they are mobile, interactive, material-​discursive practices, which bring forth differences. They dynamically configure the world. They devise models for realizing and testing relations. This is the same thing that, in other theoretical constellations, is ascribed to media forms. Except that as a rule—​as suggested above—​it is assumed that such media forms do not simply function, they act subliminally; they retain, for all their visibility, an invisibility, which is a constitutive element of their power to influence. In this sense, Marshall McLuhan (1964) links the “narcotic” effects of media with their “invisibility,” and establishes media history as a critique of media: while, according to McLuhan, it is one of the idiosyncrasies of media environments that they only reveal themselves once they 61  For “figure”/“ground” see Gordon, McLuhan, 128–​34. 62  Luhmann, Social Systems, chap. 2.

63  For the dimensions of Luhmann’s distinction see Form und Medium; cf. also Khurana, “Niklas Luhmann.” 64  Cf. Bruno Latours Kollektive.

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have ceased to be topical, it is one of the tasks of “media studies” to make the invisible visible. This idea reappears in Dieter Mersch’s negative media theory, in a philosophy of language and signs: he argues that the mediality of a medium genuinely eludes observation; it is the blind spot that cannot actually be stated because its modality is that of self-​ revelation. This results in a special attentiveness to traces, cracks, and fissures in and on media phenomena, to possible manifestations of this self-​revelation. The paradoxes of modern and contemporary visual art offer a rich field for such observations.65 What the concepts of mediation touched on here have in common is that they do not counterpose the world and its representation, the real and its construction, or nature and culture; nor do they regard media simply as given, conventionalized channels of communication. Their interest is in the processes in which concrete and abstract entities or a diverse range of “things” join together in new ways, even though they are considered to be incompatible in certain respects. Here the historical orientation point is usually the modern era, or the present day: the focus is on segments of society, characterized by functional differentiation, scientific foundations, or technological maximization. Even the proposal to conceive the modernity of the modern age as the—​never altogether successful—​attempt to establish an absolute historical break (Latour) refers only to modern “scientific revolutions.” Thus the theories do not lack models of complex temporalities. In Luhmann’s work, for example, we find the idea that the media process is attached to memory in a specific way: the form, he argues, actualizes certain moments and ignores others, the medium postpones the actualization of other forms and preserves “the horizons of past and future.”66 Yet there is a failure to relate the temporal structures to historical dynamics. Dewey directs the gaze from the recognition of what is past to action in the horizon of the future; perception, for him, has less to do with the identification of the familiar than with selection, anticipation, and prognosis. Luhmann does not deal with the question of what role conventions play in the alternation between medium and form; Latour does not discuss how the ongoing mediation processes are influenced by those that have already taken place; Barad does not mention the time index that accompanies the arrangement of an apparatus. Mersch uses historical examples primarily to show the paradox of the elusive emergence of mediality. What remains important, however, is that media forms are defined by both temporal structures and historical dimensions, and it is not simply the case that one of these is their interior, and the other their exterior. Each form both contains something from the past and projects something that is to come, and thus their temporal structures are also historical ones. Shaped by what went before it, and focused on that which is to follow, every mediatory action is both structurally and logically diverse, and historically and semantically ambiguous. The Middle Ages, with their sense of the paradoxical structure of time and history, offer countless examples of this. Texts on salvation history, for example, fundamentally operate between different temporal stages and historical 65  Cf. Mersch, “Medialität und Undarstellbarkeit”; Mersch, Medientheorien: Zur Einführung.

66  Khurana, “Niklas Luhmann,” 107. For temporality and mediality from a sociological perspective see Beck, Medien.

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phases with regard to events and their representation.67 On the level of events, there are several pasts, which are themselves focused on the future, some of which has already arrived and some of which is still to come (Old Testament prophecies, New Testament fulfilment). They are described in relation to a present in which, anachronistically and syncretistically, other moments in time can be included, and to a future which also shows temporal stratifications (omens, end times, Judgment Day). These events become accessible in forms that reconfigure temporally disparate texts from the tradition (Bible, church fathers, original texts) in such a way that the present text can retain its validity even in future communication situations. These are complex interpenetrations of the stages of time, then—​temporal, supra-​temporal, and pan-​temporal, historical and ahistorical moments. Thanks to these, the relationship between mediality and history cannot be reduced to a sequence of techniques, forms, or communicative practices. Instead we have to ask, in a general way, how something like history, understood as formed, meaning-​filled time, can crystallize from the diversity of the temporal. A traditional media history focuses primarily on those points where media undergo decisive technical or formal changes. Such a history is more interested in the macro than the micro dimension, more in a longitudinal than a cross-​sectional approach, and more in the consequence of the forms than in their internal dynamics. Since technological processes are geared toward development, this kind of approach can rapidly acquire teleological tendencies. A possible alternative to this is media archaeology, which, though also focused on technology, does not examine historical change and longer-​term processes, but historical constellations: epistemological discussions, high-​profile practices, scientific developments. These constellations allow us to situate what was thought to have been a single medium within a network of historical circumstances, to reconstruct its conditions of possibility, its experiments with coding, storage, and transfer. This, in turn, can also cast light on the current media situation—​either because certain forms of media were partially imagined and only later transformed into reality (imaginary media), or because they were tried out but were not destined to have a future (dead media).68 The diversity and contingency of the historical seem to come into their own again here, while questionable macrohistorical mega-​theories become expendable. But just as these theories sometimes continue to operate in the background, other problems also remain present: concentration on technical media detracts from a more precise understanding of the mediality of the different phenomena. The isolated observation of a particular constellation from the point of view of media postmodernism reduces history to individual connections between present and past. Given that the Middle Ages was a time of few outstanding technical developments, a whole millennium risks falling through the cracks. If one wishes to take into account both the temporal and historical dimension of media forms and phenomena, it makes sense to combine the appeal of dense constellations 67  Cf. also Agamben, Il tempo che resta.

68  Cf. Zielinski, Archäologie der Medien; Huhtamo and Parikka, Media Archaeology; Parikka, What is Media Archaelogy?; for a critical view see Mißfelder, “Endlich Klartext.”

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with the reconstruction of historical processes. Such an approach can be defined, provisionally, as historical mediology—​the term is linked with the médiologie which French sociologists and communicologists in the tradition of Régis Debray embarked on at the end of the 1970s.69 Their interest, shaped by a critical attitude toward the epoch and society, lay in the question of how the efficacy of transmitted signs is determined by social, institutional, technical, and material factors. The main object of the analysis was meant to be the complex, not so much communicative but translative relationship between the different factors: a transfer in both spatial and temporal respects. This was then expected to lead to a new perspective on the way cultural phenomena emerge, change, and are transmitted, a perspective which was intended to counteract the obliviousness of classical media studies to time and history, and to make media visible as the historical conditions of possibility for meaning production. And yet the historical depth of focus remained limited. As in the case of media archaeology, the usual starting point for mediological analyses was and still is the situation of the present, not primarily that of the mass media technologies, but that of an era shaped by electronic and digital media.70 Historical mediology, in contrast, would have to combine methodological reflection on the principles of the medial with the specific tools used to describe historical materialities and past systems of meaning. It would have to consider both the historicity of the medial and the mediality of the historical,71 and the interconnections between the two, which differ depending on whether we look at synchronic constellations, diachronic processes, or the relationship between past and present. Bearing this in mind, the objective of historical mediology can be defined as follows: (1) to analyze the concrete media forms in their temporally layered compositions and circumstances, their contexts and discourses, (2)  to go beyond the realm of technologies and functions and include the realm of the imaginative, (3)  to operate on both a cross-​sectional and longitudinal level, both “above” and “below” the supposedly epoch-​defining media changes, and (4) to reflect on the conditions in which media constellations are observed. This can be done by considering situations where, for the first time, “a metamorphosis of things, symbolisms or technologies into media can be observed.”72 Or constellations in which existing tools are picked up and viewed in a new light, varied and transformed, institutionalized and conventionalized. Or singular configurations which have had significant effects over a long period of time, and indeed have developed into models in the course of their reception.73 69  Cf. Debray, Introduction à la médiologie; Mediologie als Methode.

70  Cf. Handbuch der Mediologie, and the program for “Orbis Mediologicus: The Project for Mediology at Pratt Institute” (New York City): https://​orbismediologicus.wordpress.com. An exception for the eighteenth century is Koschorke, Körperströme und Schriftverkehr. 71  Cf. Medien der Geschichte.

72  Vogl, “Medien-​Werden,” 122.

73  Cf. Kiening and Beil, Urszenen des Medialen.

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In each case, what is of interest here is processes. The concept of process presupposes a difference between various moments in time, which are not linked by causal determination. At the same time it implies rejection of the idea that objects can be considered in isolation from the time and place in which they are encountered. Processes have to do with the fact that “concrete selective events build upon one another temporally, connect with one another,”74 without the sequence being either strictly necessary or entirely coincidental. What is affected is directionality, which does not have to be the same in macro-​and microhistorical terms. How the role of the body in communication changes, how habits of reading or approaches to the transcendent change, this can be connected to macrohistorical sequences of events in the course of the expansion of writing or the introduction of printing. On close inspection, however, this connection dissolves into a plethora of possible connections. What emerges is not so much clear changes in structure, as complexity and confusion:  the relationship between media forms becomes increasingly diverse, different forms assume different functions, their validity and their claims to validity become pluralized, etc. Retracing all this would fill many volumes.75 Even a history of individual media such as writing would only be possible from certain perspectives, for example the expansion of written culture, the changes undergone by forms of writing, the development of reflection on writing and imaginative treatments of writing. Each perspective would require a different set of tools. In view of this, the present attempt takes another route. The aim is to identify key variations of medieval mediality, related not primarily to social spaces or media types but to abstract key features, a specific pair of categories.76 Abundance and lack—​this certainly will not be able to cover all media phenomena encountered over a period of nearly a thousand years. Yet it is plain that, as long as Christian models of the interweaving of transcendence and immanence predominate, there will always be tension between a wealth of virtual possibilities surpassing anything that can be imagined and the always insufficient nature of the given. In this sense, abundance and lack, as medium-​range categories, seem suitable for interlinking the discursive-​thematic with the aesthetic-​imaginative dimension. At the same time they make it possible to connect phenomena from different areas, phenomena that are of fundamental importance for the analysis of mediality. The objects selected here are taken mainly from the reservoir of texts that have been handed down in written, and often literary, form. Such a restriction has the disadvantage that it does not really display the whole spectrum in which questions of mediation and transfer were dealt with. But it also has advantages. Literature has always been a place where “media-​transgressive elements [are] used and reflected on,” and “a nuanced terminology and discussion of fundamental aesthetic-​poetological questions” 74  Luhmann, Social Systems, 44.

75  Cf. the series issued by the Zurich NCCR: Medienwandel—​Medienwechsel—​Medienwissen: Historische Perspektiven (just under forty volumes as of 2018). 76  For media spaces and types see for example Faulstich’s book of 1996, Medien und Öffentlichkeiten im Mittelalter (inadequate in many respects), or the edited volume Medien der Kommunikation im Mittelalter, or Kellermann, “Medialität im Mittelalter,” with their heterogeneous subject matter.

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is established, which “also [had an impact on] other areas and arts in the course of the modern period.”77 The medieval texts are also accompanied by specific accentuations and reflections. Furthermore, the vernacular texts in particular move between the discourses with considerable freedom. Situated in the borderland between clerical reflection and lay imagination, they neither allow the learned debate to dominate nor give free rein to literary fantasy. Instead they are simultaneously aimed at further-​reaching effect and reflexive foundation. This makes it possible to pick out interfaces where the philosophical or theological discussion of aspects of mediation meets performative-​medial practice. These points of intersection are analyzed in the light of specific aspects—​in the order of the chapters: model, presence, word, writing, body, materiality, time-​space, metonymy. This order is, like the structure of the individual chapters, aspect-​oriented. It does not imply any strict logical categorization, but instead serves to illuminate the material in different respects. In the book as a whole, the individual perspectives converge in different ways: when a particular piece of writing is under discussion, questions of exemplariness, temporality, symbolism and corporeality are also evoked. This may serve to underline the close connection between the selected phenomena. In the different chapters, the focus is often on individual, specifically condensed works, or particularly telling constellations. Yet the book as a whole, and the historical sequences (some longer, some shorter than others), lead beyond the singular. However central the position of microhistory is, and however seriously the available material tradition is taken, this is not intended to dominate the whole presentation. At all times, the focus is on the (possible) connection between what is apparent from individual structures of meaning and what lends itself to the formation of historical sequences. Given that this is a work of synthesis, it is often necessary to make use of existing research, including my own; this is mentioned rather than discussed at length. A balance is also necessary between detailed interpretation and the succinct presentation of significant examples. This will have been achieved if readers feel that the approach tested here could also be fruitfully adapted for other phenomena and areas.

77  Robert, Einführung in die Intermedialität, 28.

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Chapter 2

MODEL

A Paradoxical Map Considered from the extremes, the structural deficiency of media forms can be compensated for in two ways: if mediation becomes superfluous due to a direct presence of the immediate, or if there is no apparent difference between the mediating element and the mediated. In the Middle Ages, as we have seen, both these possibilities feature. In certain circumstances the divine is thought of as being immediately present. At the same time, mediations are so heavily invested with immediacy that the mediated and the immediate seem (momentarily) to become indistinguishable. If our impression is correct, the paradox inherent in such practices was initially thematized more as a rhetorical or theological paradox than as a medial one. In medieval faculties of arts, paradoxical sentences were used for training in dialectics. The Scholastics developed a real ars disserendi. Mysticism, following in the wake of negative theology, revolved around the possibility of saying the unsayable.1 It was not until the (early) modern period, when scholars studied paradoxes in order to clarify their own systems of knowledge, that they began to focus on the impossible possibility of representing the world. The following brief text refers to this: In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.2

This short text first appeared in 1946 in the Anales de Buenos Aires (no.  3:53), in a section entitled “Museo,” purportedly the work of a certain B. Lynch Davis. Here the text itself is attributed to a Suárez Miranda: “Viajes de varones prudentes, libro Cuarto, cap. XLV, Lérida, 1658.” The actual author is Jorge Luis Borges, who was at the time working with Adolfo Bioy Casares under a range of pseudonyms. In the same year, however, he included the text in the second edition of his Historia universal de la infamia (variously 1  Schilder, Zur Begriffsgeschichte des “Paradoxon,” Luhmann and Fuchs, Reden und Schweigen, 72–​100; Das Paradox (in the same volume see also Alois M. Haas on the mystical paradox); cf. also Martina Neumeyer, “Paradoxe, das,” Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik 6 (2003): cols. 516–​24. 2  Borges, Collected Fictions, 325

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translated as Universal History of Infamy or Universal History of Iniquity). The source was not a Baroque travelogue, but modern works of philosophy and literature. In The World and the Individual (vol. 1, 1899), Josiah Royce, a proponent of absolute idealism, had visualized what it would mean for the idea of infinity if one imagined a map drawn on the very territory it depicted (504ff.).3 Lewis Carroll, in Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (2 vols., 1889/​1893), had portrayed a first-​person narrator moving back and forth between Victorian England and a dreamworld inhabited by elves. In the second volume, a character from another world appears. He is called “Mein Herr,” and reports all manner of peculiar things: a purse that has only one surface, a method of storing time, trains that are propelled purely by gravity, humans who are lighter than water, and walking sticks that walk on their own. Mein Herr also states that his countrymen have made an intensive study of map making. They experimented with bigger and bigger maps until they eventually had the idea of a map on the scale of a mile to the mile, in other words, the idea of a medium that would not be reduced at all in relation to the thing it reproduced. The map proved impractical, however, he says, and so they have now taken to using “the country itself, as its own map”—​“and I assure you it does nearly as well” (chap. 11, p.  169). The extraterrestrial exposes the idea of the most accurate map possible as a phantasm: the best possible representation would be an identical reproduction. But it would then duplicate the object represented, and raise the question of why one should not use the object as a representation of itself. And yet the idea of the most accurate map is not rejected on this account. Instead a new perspective is added: the ironic hint that even equating country and map does not resolve the problem of representation—​and with it the question of mediality. While Royce is concerned with imagining the absolute and the infinite in mathematical categories, as an “internally Self-​Representative System” (1899, p. 509), Carroll is experimenting with the grey area between mathematical exactitude and the odd, paradoxical, and absurd sides of real life. The infinite map obeys a fundamental paradox, which Umberto Eco explores with a mixture of playfulness and perspicacity: it cannot show that the area it represents is covered by a map, unless it depicts a second map—​there would always be “a final map […] that represents all the maps between itself and the territory, but does not represent itself.” This final map, the “normal map,” “is subject to a quasi-​Russell-​Frege paradox: every territory, plus a map representing it, can be seen as a normal set (the map does not belong to the set of objects that constitute the territory). But we cannot conceive sets of normal sets, in which the final map is part of the territory it represents.”4 Borges, however, is not interested solely in the paradox as such. He hints at its connection to the history of civilization. The trend toward ever more precise measurement and documentation appears as an episode in the history of a society that sometimes strikes us as familiar and sometimes as foreign: the expression of an era of which only fragments remain; a remnant of achievements from the age of the cartographers; 3  Cf. Peters, “Resemblance Made Absolutely Exact.” 4  Eco, “On the Impossibility,” 105.

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testimony to a semi-​religious attempt to record the world as accurately as possible. Now all that can be discerned of this attempt is its traces—​those marginal traces in the “Deserts of the West,” where that which previously offered a medial representation of the world has now become part of it, “inhabited by animals and beggars” (“En los Desiertos del Oeste perduran despedazadas Ruinas del Mapa, habitadas por Animales y por Mendigos; en todo el País no hay otra reliquia de las Disciplinas Geográficas”). In the book edition, Borges places his extract from the travelogue of the “Wise Men” under the heading “On Exactitude in Science” (sometimes also translated as “On Rigor in Science”).5 This exactitude (in Spanish rigor) appears as the sign of a temporally undetermined epoch, characterized by experimental spirit and cartographical vigour, not (yet) dedicated to the prime objective of utility. The fascination with this epoch is ascribed by the editor to the early modern period, in which he situates the work of the admirable/​wonderful Suárez. And indeed, this period did devote much energy both to the centralized accumulation of data and to cartographic representation.6 In La science de la géographie (1652), Jean François presents the idea of a “greater and more similar” cartographic representation of France, and dreams of a globe which would be “parfaitement semblable au naturel en substance et en qualité aussi bien qu’en quantité”; walking through it would be more valuable than actually travelling.7 François and other contemporaries were eager to imagine the power of representation. Yet this was not yet a form of representation that replaced the real. Instead their hope was to come closer to the principles of the real by refining representation. Efforts were made to develop an ideal language, a perfect system of signs, capable of reflecting the world in its entirety. In 1658, in the alleged year of publication of the Viajes, the twelve-​ year-​old Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, deliberating on questions of logic, and developing the mathesis universalis first envisaged by Descartes, conceived the beginnings of a mathematical sign language. This promised, not least, to lead to the divine code in which the world is encoded. One of Leibniz’s role models, the widely known Jesuit theologian Francisco Suárez (!), had attempted to construct a spatial relationship between God and the world, to understand the immeasurability of God as an expansion in an infinite space.8 Thus many kinds of historical and theoretical facets come together in Borges’s work, bound up in the idea of the absolute in the moment, or of the absolute medium. In the case of a medium of this kind, the boundary between what it represents or mediates, and what it is itself, is eliminated. It seems to coincide with the “thing,” and at the same time to stand out as the medium. The counterpart to the map covering the whole empire is, in Borges’s work, the tiny Aleph, measuring hardly more than an inch in diameter.9 Both a letter and a number sign, it is part of the world and simultaneously contains or represents it: a cipher that constitutes the basis for all writing and all legibility, a point in 5  Borges, El hacedor, 103; Borges, Obras completas, 847; English: Borges, Collected Fictions, 325. 6  Cf. Siegert, Passage des Digitalen, 65–​91; Text—​Bild—​Karte.

7  François, La science de la géographie, 349f., 356; cf. Palsky, “Borges, Carrol et la carte au 1/​1.” 8  Cf. Goudriaan, Philosophische Gotteserkenntnis, 93–​98; Selzer, “The Uninterrupted Ocean.” 9  Borges, “El Aleph,” 1949 in Obras completas, 617–​28; cf. also Boulter, “Partial Glimpses.”

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space where all points meet, a place where all things converge and all other places and moments in the universe become visible at once. The narrator “saw the Aleph from all points. I saw the earth in the Aleph and the Aleph once more in the earth and the earth in the Aleph.”10 He illustrates his perception with a philosophical sentence much quoted in the Middle Ages, about the circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. And he thinks, with the Kabbalah, of “the pure and unlimited godhead,” but also of the figure of a man “pointing to the sky and the earth to indicate that the lower world is the map and mirror of the higher.”11 In the same breath, however, mystical experience comes close to the mundane: an unhappy love story, an unbearable fellow poet, scientifically founded doubts as to whether the Aleph seen by the narrator was genuine. If the Aleph embodies the old dream of finding the big picture, the all-​encompassing whole, in something tiny, then the map embodies the equally old, complementary dream of recording all that can be perceived with the greatest possible accuracy. In both cases, the dreams are recognizable as such. Their validity is bracketed off. They appear as phantasmatic reversible images, which can be regarded now as one thing, now as the other: as compressed versions of key philosophical concepts, or as abstruse, eccentric intellectual games. Hovering between abstract idea and narrated story, they give concrete form to the theoretical. At the same time they demonstrate the close connection between personal and material mediating figures. This is found again with even greater clarity in Borges’s sonnet about the Spanish philosopher Spinoza (who, incidentally, began to write ca. 1658). Here the two dreams come together—​that of the medium that contains everything in condensed form, and that of the medium that depicts everything in its entirety: “Free of metaphor and myth, he creates a hard crystal: the endless map of all that is under the stars.”12 Ideas such as that of the largest possible map feed the cultural imaginary, or at least that of the West. Texts and images test the conditions of the world and of man’s being-​ in-​the-​world. They circle around the fundamentally paradoxical status of all mediality by showing it as simultaneously given and nullified. This leads to an interplay between identity and difference: one imagines that the map and the territory are identical, but also that one can simultaneously be in the map and look at it. For Carroll, Borges, and Eco, considering this from a modern perspective, it is a phantasm, eyed with criticism, ascribed to the past and linked with foreign cultures. It reflects that mythical logic of identity described by Ernst Cassirer: “The ‘image’ does not represent the ‘thing’; it is the thing; it does not merely stand for the object, but has the same actuality, so that it replaces the thing’s immediate presence. […] [W]‌here we see mere sign and similarity, magical consciousness and perception see the object itself. […] Word and name do not designate and signify, they are and act.”13 10  Borges, Collected Fictions, 284. 11  Borges, Collected Fictions, 285.

12  Borges, “El otro, el mismo,” 1964 in Obras completas, 930: “Libre de la metáfora y del mito | labra un arduo cristal: el infinito | mapa de Aquel que es todas Sus estrellas.”

13  Cassirer, Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, 38, 40; cf. also Cassirer, Symbol, Technik, Sprache, 39–​91.

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The idea of the largest possible map is not a prelogical one, however. It is complex, subtle and highly developed. True, the reference to its decay lends the project an archaic, mythical aspect; it appears as the product of an ancient past, which occupied itself with questions that have become irrelevant from a later viewpoint. But this is precisely what makes the map the object of an archaeology of modern thought. It takes us to a time when phantasms were not mere phantasms, and intense struggles took place over the question of how mediating and mediated, signifying and signified, representation and represented relate to each other—​if they are understood neither as categorically separate nor as simply identical. The early modern period was not the first era of this kind; all these ideas were already present in the Middle Ages. This period saw the development of complex models of representation, which by no means obeyed a simple logic of identity. Maps, for example. Maps that were not only mighty in size, but had aspirations to represent the world: the Ebstorf world map (from ca. 1300), of which only copies exist today, was made up of thirty pages of parchment, took up an area of over ten square metres, and contained more than 2,300 text and image items. It connected space and time: the division of the world between the centre (Jerusalem) and the periphery (marvellous peoples), and the development of world history from the Garden of Eden onwards. The globe was framed by parts of Christ’s body (head, hands, and feet), representing the idea of a world-​encompassing expansion of the Christian faith—​the verso of the Psalter world map offered a similar model a few years earlier.14 In a sense it can be said that the absolute mediality that is transferred to material representations in the early modern period is, in the Middle Ages, manifested most clearly in the figure of Christ. He constitutes the paradigm of all paradoxes: “he suffered and did not suffer, he died and did not die, he was buried and not buried, he rose and did not rise,” writes Saint Ambrose in the fourth century.15 Christ is wholly God and wholly human. He is regarded as the embodiment of the world. He comprises all times and all spaces in himself. He is, according to the account of a twelfth-​century pilgrimage by the monk Theodoric, present with his body and its parts in Palestine.16 Paradoxically, according to Nicholas of Cusa, he is the absolute and contracted maximum (maximum absolutum et contractum).17 This can in turn be extended to the institutions inaugurated by Christ: the Church constitutes an all-​embracing corpus mysticum, and the Mass offers a paradigm for representing the universal whole in figuratively layered parts. This is most succinctly exemplified by the Eucharist, which—​according to the high medieval Scholastic doctrine of concomitance—​is thought to allow the complete presence of 14  Ebstorfer Weltkarte; for more on the Psalter world map and its context see Reudenbach, “Die Londoner Psalterkarte.” 15  Ambrosius, De Incarnationis Dominicae Sacramento, 1, chap. 5; edition based on the St. Gall manuscript 98 (ninth century) at: http://​monumenta.ch (section 36). 16  Lehmann-​Brauns, Jerusalem sehen, 74.

17  Nikolaus von Kues, De docta ignorantia: Die belehrte Unwissenheit, bk. 2; English: Nicholas of Cusa, Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises.

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Christ to be experienced in even the smallest part. In general, the Christological debates can be seen as contexts of thought that are very much concerned with the idea of absolute mediation.

Christological–​Mediological Models and Metaphors

The Old Testament does contain mediating figures such as priests and prophets, first and foremost Moses. At Mount Sinai, he ensures that God’s law is transmitted to the people. He appears as the first priest of his God, as a prophetic intercessor, receiver, transmitter, and transcriber of the divine legal will.18 This is, however, not yet linked with a firm and coherent concept of mediator. Such a concept manifests itself only from that moment when the young Christian movement starts to become systematized. The New Testament writings, especially Paul’s letters to the Romans, the Galatians, and the Hebrews, are imbued with the idea of Christ’s role as mediator. This idea becomes explicit in the First Epistle to Timothy: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time” (1 Tim. 2:5–​6).19 “Unus mediator, eis kai mesites”—​this is a phrase that aims to “exclude all other conceivable figures as still-​current mediators between God and mankind,” and, paradoxically, to profile Jesus as the mediator who “has permanently taken away the salvific significance of other mediators.”20 This is, however, a tendency with considerable disruptive potential, which necessitates a precise definition of Christ’s role as mediator. The Christological debates of the third and fourth centuries explore the different possibilities, raising various paradoxes in the processes. One of the strategies used to explain these paradoxes is comparisons with medial phenomena.21 Origen assumes that the divine nature of the Father can only be communicated by way of the Son; he also assumes a continuity in their substance and nature. The mediating entity is the soul, which is seen as a medium between God and the flesh. The basis for this is thought to be a relationship between archetype and image—​in the sense that the shape of a large statue can be revealed by a small one. And at the same time, a relationship of transfer is posited—​in the sense of the rays of light which communicate the light that cannot be perceived as such, serving as a medium or mediator (mesites) between humans and the light.22 Some of these ideas are developed in the discussion about the radical difference between God and the world, as proposed by Arius and others. Eusebius of Caesarea, a supporter of Arius, makes use of the same set of metaphors, comparing the manner in which the divine Logos permeates the world to the light of the sun. He, however, uses this metaphor to try to comprehend the principle of the divine, which may 18  Cf. Scharbert, Heilsmittler.

19  English translations of Bible passages are taken from the New International Version.

20  O. Becker, “μεσιτης, Bürge, Mittler,” in Theologisches Begriffslexikon zum Neuen Testament, ed. Lothar Coenen and Klaus Haacker (Wuppertal: Neukirchener, 2000), 224–​28, this quote 227. 21  Cf. Grillmeier and Hainthaler, Jesus der Christus; Robertson, Christ as Mediator. 22  Robertson, Christ as Mediator, 27–​29.

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bring forth the many but nonetheless remains the one: just as sunlight penetrates even through dirt without losing its brightness, he argues, so does the divine Logos penetrate the impure world without becoming impure itself. This is intended as a Christological view on the mediation of the divine, which nonetheless retains the ontological separation between the divine and the earthly.23 Marcellus of Ancyra also assumes that the mediation of knowledge about God and salvation occurs by means of an imago, which is not to be identified with God himself. On the one hand, however, he completely transposes the Logos into the Godhead itself, which is not conceived of as plural, while on the other hand he places this Godhead in a separate category from the bodily Jesus.24 In contrast, Athanasius of Alexandria—​who would become, after the Council of Nicaea, a rigorous defender of the Council’s doctrine of “unity with the Father”—​defends the divinity of Christ against the Arian teachings, seeking to combine Christology and soteriology. A mediation of the divine cannot happen, he argues, unless the mediating element has a share in the divine itself; but this is precisely what allows it to lead mankind to divinization. Similar notions can be found in the work of Augustine. At various points he cites Paul’s description of Christ as the one true mediator, and explores it in greater detail. Toward the end of the tenth book of the Confessiones, for example, even before embarking on an in-​depth study of the question of temporality, he talks of the mediations that can lead man to God, and reconcile him with God. He distinguishes between a false and a true mediator. The false mediator, fallax mediator, is one that humans summon up themselves, a deceptive apparition whose connection to the things he mediates between is dubious. The element connecting this Luciferian figure with mankind is a negative one: sin. The only thing connecting him to God is his own aspiration to immortality. In contrast, the true mediator, verax mediator, is one sent by God himself, an exemplar of humilitas as embodied in Christ. The homo Christus Iesus mediates between God and humans by creating a chiastic link between opposites: between mortality/​immortality on the one hand, and sinfulness/​righteousness on the other. Through his mortality, Christ is connected to humans. Through his sinlessness, however, he eliminates death—​which, in the Pauline interpretation of Genesis, is the product of sin. This process takes place both in time and above time, and thus, as Augustine concludes, links the past with the present: “He was pointed out to holy people under the old dispensation that they might be saved through faith in his future passion, as we are through faith in that passion now accomplished. Only in virtue of his humanity is he the Mediator; in his nature as the Word he does not stand between us and God, for he is God’s equal, God with God, and one God with him.”25 23  Robertson, Christ as Mediator, 67f.

24  Robertson, Christ as Mediator, 135.

25  Augustinus, Bekenntnisse, 10.43.68: “Hic demonstratus est antiquis sanctis, ut ita ipsi per fidem futurae passionis eius, sicut nos per fidem praeteritae, salvi fierent. In quantum enim homo, in tantum mediator, in quantum autem verbum, non medius, quia aequalis deo et deus apud deum et simul unus deus.” English: Augustine, The Confessions, 241.

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True mediation, as Augustine defines it, is paradoxical: the mediating element is not a middle term. It is not an Other in relation to what it mediates to mankind. From an onto-​ theological viewpoint, it is one with the One. A mediality, then, in which the medium is simultaneously posited and nullified. This medium, through which God communicates, is Christ. In him, however, messenger and message coincide—​insofar as he is both emissary and revelation. In his Prior Analytics, Aristotle had used the phrase “middle term” (Latin terminus medius) to refer to the term which “is itself in another and in which there is another—​the one that also has the middle position.”26 In contrast to this, Augustine does not stress the middle position, or the fact that one term is contained in the other. He emphasizes aequalitas, which introduces a tautological element into the syllogistic structure. This element simultaneously possesses a temporal dimension, in which the medial paradox is duplicated. Just as the medium is to be conceived of both as mediating and as partaking in what is mediatized, it should also be conceived of as something that is both in time and above time. The typological figure of prophecy and fulfilment serves as a paradigm: the Christological event, prophesied in the Old Testament, is fulfilled in the New. But just as the question in media terms is by what medium a contemporary subject can find a way to God, the question in temporal terms is how one’s own present can be situated in salvation history. In the above quote from Augustine, this is pinpointed by the analogy between the situation before and after the Christological event, before and after the Passion: “He was pointed out to holy people under the old dispensation that they might be saved through faith in his future passion, as we are through faith in that passion now accomplished.” On the one hand we have the ancient “holy people,” the wise men of the Old Testament, who lived before the coming of Christ. On the other hand, the present-​day Christians, for whom his coming has once again become a distant, historical moment. Both are historically and temporally separated from the Christological event. At the same time, both are to be understood in suprahistorical and supratemporal terms as intended recipients of the divine mediality, seen as both a demonstration (demonstratus) and an opportunity to participate. Participation is implied by the parallel constructed between the earlier faith in the future Passion, and the current faith in the past Passion. The resulting analogy presents itself as an analogia entis: as a connection through shared reference to a salvation history that already exists in its entirety in divine eternity. So here the facticity of the Passion not only embodies the moment in which the paradoxical mediality of the one who is both Son of God and Son of Man is at its most extreme, but it also serves as a link between past and present, as the middle link in the chain of redemption, making visible what was prophesied in the past and is still in effect in the present. It becomes apparent that mediality and temporality are separate, but paradoxically interwoven. The conception of the medial needs the temporal component in order to effectuate the mediation between God and man as a history of salvation, but at the same time it must keep this free of the contingency of the historical. The conception of time needs the medial component in order to bridge the ontological difference and to allow 26  Aristotle, Prior Analytics, 4.

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man access to the time of salvation, but it must simultaneously insist on the unavailability of salvation. This leads to a superimposition of different time dimensions: a teleological time (in the sense of the relationship between promise and fulfilment), a historical time (in the sense of the chronology of Christ’s life), a messianic time (in the sense of the time that remains until time itself is eliminated), and a narrative time (in the sense of those biblical narratives which, in turn, assimilate the different time dimensions to their own logics).27 The last of these simultaneously raises the question of how human speech can approach the divine paradoxes of mediation and temporality, how it can amalgamate with them and at the same time assert its own authority. The Augustinian answer to this has three components. He addresses his speech to God himself, as praise. He constantly oscillates between his own words and those of others (especially Paul’s epistles). And he develops his concept of Christ as the one true mediator in dialogue with other concepts of mediation, Neoplatonic and Manichean as well as Jewish. In this respect Augustine is following movements toward differentiation which already had their roots in the writings of the New Testament. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul presents his Christological, pneumatic, emphatic concept of scripture—​which eliminates both the separation of message and recipient, and the difference between divine and human author—​against the background of the writing of Mosaic Law, which he depicts as static. The Acts of the Apostles show how the spread of Christianity, accompanied by signs and wonders, triumphs in the face of resistance (particularly from the Jews): the Sanhedrin must acknowledge, in view of the healing of a lame man, that “they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it” (Acts 4:16); Simon Magus, astonished by the “great signs and miracles” (Acts 8:13), must learn that the ability to transfer the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands cannot be bought for money. The Gospel according to John presents, in the form of a member of the Sanhedrin called Nicodemus, a Jewish figure who is unusual in embracing the extraordinary nature of the events taking place: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:2). The Acts of Pilate and the Gospel of Nicodemus begin by vividly demonstrating the Jews’ refusal to believe in divine signs. When Jesus appears before Pilate, the images (of the emperor) on the flags bow down before the Son of God. The Jews then turn on the flagbearers with fierce protests, but they, as Greeks, deny any interest in paying homage to Jesus. Pilate orders a repetition of the entry, making the Jews themselves hold the flags this time. Again, the images bow down.28 This small scene uses the difference between signs deployed by humans and signs that appear at God’s instigation to illustrate the difference between those who refuse to acknowledge Jesus’s status as Messiah and those who accept it. At the same time, the act of repetition serves to show that even divine signs have a reliability that can legitimize human authorizations. 27  Cf. Agamben, Il tempo che resta.

28  As recounted in Recension A: Evangelia apocrypha, 221; for the difference between the versions see Ehlen, Leitbilder, 228.

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Augustine expands on this. In De doctrina Christiana, in the context of the development of a Christian hermeneutic, he says that the “miserable kind of spiritual slavery to interpret signs as things” has been ended with Christ. Not for the Jews, however: according to Augustine, despite the foundation for deliverance provided by their monotheistic faith, they remain—​for the time being—​fixated on the signs and not on the things they signify: “That is why the people who resolutely held fast to these signs were unable, when the time had come for them to be explained, to tolerate the Lord who disregarded them; and that is why their leaders engineered false accusations against him because he healed on the sabbath, and why the people, devoted to signs as if they were things, did not believe that he was God or that he had come from God, since he refused to follow these practices in the way that they were observed by the Jews.”29 The suggestion, then, is that the dawn of a new age of salvation, marked by Christ, makes semiotic difference obsolete, offers direct access to the things themselves, and gives the signs an ontic quality.

High Medieval Systematizations

The Augustinian notion of Christ being a mediator because of his humanity eventually became prevalent in the West, while in the Eastern tradition the emphasis was more on the divine Logos. One of the classic formulations was handed down by Isidore of Seville. In his Sententiae (prior to 615), he describes the man Jesus Christ as a “mediator Dei et hominum,” who, in an echo of the well-​known dogmatic formula of the Symbolum Athanasium, is by no means “alter in humanitate, alter in deitate […], sed in utraque natura idem unus.” A difference in persons is thought to correspond to a non-​difference in substances: although Jesus Christ is different from both the divine father and the virginal mother, he is not something completely different, argues Isidore, but a paradoxical simultaneity—​eternal from the father, and temporal from the mother.30 This can only be visualized by means of comparisons; a comparison with electrum, for example. Sedulius Scotus, in his remarks on Jerome’s prefaces to the Gospels, suggests that Christ, the mediator Dei et hominum, is like this metal—​electrum being composed of both gold and silver, just as Christ is composed of both the divine and the human.31 Or a stained glass window: its components—​glass, image, light and colour—​are described as a unity that contains diversity, thus illustrating the Trinity. “Just as one cannot comprehend the image in the glass without the glass, so you can never comprehend the Son without the Father, and the Father without the Son, and the Holy Spirit without both of them; and 29  Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, 142 (3rd book, 6.10.23): “Et ideo qui talibus signis pertinaciter inhaeserunt, contemnentem ista dominum, cum iam tempus reuelationis eorum uenisset, ferre non potuerunt atque inde calumnias, quod sabbato curaret, moliti sunt principes eorum populusque signis illis tamquam rebus adstrictus non credebat deum esse uel a deo uenisse, qui ea, sicut a Iudaeis obseruabantur, nollet attendere.” English: same edition, 143. 30  Isidorus Hispalensis, Sententiae, 47.14.4.

31  Sedulius Scotus, “Explanationes,” column 350A:  “Sic noster redemptor verus Deus et verus homo ex divinitate et humanitate constat.”

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yet the Father is the Father, the Son is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit, just as the glass is glass, the image is an image, the colour is colour, and yet the three are but one.”32 From the time of Anselm of Canterbury, and especially from the twelfth century onwards, the idea of Christ’s role as mediator was developed further. The questions asked were: According to what nature (secundum quam naturam) is Christ a mediator? What exactly is mediated? How is the mediation to be conceived?33 The answers were based on the previously formulated assumption that the middle element had a part in the extremes between which it stands: “medium debet habere aliquid de utroque extremorum.”34 Yet in relation to Christ, the assessments vacillated: was it his human or his theanthropic nature that was crucial for his role as mediator? The solution was to differentiate between a form of mediation secundum autoritatem and one that was secundum ministerium, and between a meditatio accidentalis and a meditatio substantialis.35 An influential voice was that of Alexander of Hales in his Summa theologica, where he speaks of a communication between the properties of human and divine nature, and of Christ’s partaking in both properties. The distinction between a constitutional, ontological mediating role (medium) and a functional, communicative one (mediator) then becomes critical.36 It is precisely this functional mediation that then allows humans to turn toward the mediator to God, and therefore toward God himself. It forms the basis for a process of mediation and exchange that goes in both directions. In similar vein, in De consideratione (1148), Bernard of Clairvaux describes the divine Trinity in parallel to the trinity of word, soul, and body in Christ: on the one hand, three persons that make up one essence; on the other hand, three essences that make up one person. This also touches on the relationship between creator and created. The text stresses how appropriate it is that “that mystery brought about for man should fit his constitution so closely and in a way so like it”—​and should thus open up the pathway to the divine for mankind. Christ is therefore not only the mediator between the redeemer and the redeemed; he is also the goal, the path, and the model for the movement of mediation toward the redeemer, “keeping for us, in death as in life, the one perfect Mediator of God and men with his divinity, the man Christ Jesus.”37 One of the most detailed analyses of the mediation founded in Christ is located in the final work of Bonaventure, which is preserved only as a transcript:  Collationes in 32  Vita of Adelheit von Freiburg (fourteenth century); Schneider-​Lastin, “Von der Begine zur Chorschwester,” 552. 33  Cf. Landgraf, Dogmengeschichte der Frühscholastik, 288–​328; Knuth, Zur Auslegungsgeschichte von Psalm 6, 142–​53. 34  Thomas Aquinas, “Super I Epistolam B. Pauli ad Timotheum lectura,” cap. 2, lect. 1. 35  For a summary see Landgraf, Dogmengeschichte der Frühscholastik, 326f. 36  Knuth, Zur Auslegungsgeschichte von Psalm 6, 145f.

37  Bernhard von Clairvaux, Sämtliche Werke, 1.485.11–​13 (5, 22):  “servans nobis tam in morte quam in vita, pariter unum atque integrum mediatorem Dei et hominum cum sua deitate, hominem Christum Iesum” (emphasis added by author); English:  Bernard of Clairvaux, Selected Works, 163, 165.

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Hexaëmeron.38 Bonaventure, later to become the Franciscan Minister General, had already observed in his Commentary on the Sentences (1250–​1253) that Christ could be considered as medius in accordance with both his natures, but could only be regarded as a mediator in accordance with his human nature. In both cases, he argued, this was a mediality based not purely on participation in the extremes, but also on conformity in essence (convenientia in proprietate).39 In the Collationes (1273) he revisits the distinction between medium and mediator, and demonstrates that Christ as Logos not only contains all wisdom and scholarship in himself, but is also the middle and centre of all branches of scholarship. And indeed, this applies sevenfold, according to the perspective of the given “discipline”: the middle of being (essentia)—​from the perspective of metaphysics; the middle of nature (natura)—​from the perspective of physics; the middle of distance (distantia)—​mathematics; the middle of modestia—​logic; the middle of justice (iustitia)—​statecraft, jurisprudence; the middle of harmony (concordia)—​theology. Tracing biblical passages in which the term medium occurs, Bonaventure develops two interwoven lines: on the one hand the all-​encompassing mediality of Christ, on the other hand the branches of human scholarship which are based on this, extending from metaphysics to theology. This draws attention to the intersection between the onto-​theological process of salvation history manifested in Christ, and the epistemological/​perceptual process in which man combines knowledge of the world and scientia Christi. Language serves as an example of the contact between the two: Bonaventure understands the articulated word as the expression of a mental concept which always remains present in the mind (mens), even when it materializes and is perceived—​just as the Word created by God the Father, exteriorized as man and flesh, always simultaneously remains in the “bosom” of the Father.40 The above-​mentioned point of intersection between onto-​theology and epistemology is not simply a formal “in-​between.” It represents a participatory middle, where the extremes meet. This middle is simultaneously mediated and mediating—​in the sense of the persona of Christ, which both “gives and receives” (“media quae dat et accipit”) or both “brings forth and is brought forth” (“producit et producitur”).41 What he receives as the trinitarian Logos, as the Word, Christ passes on, in the form of his function in salvation 38  Bonaventura, Sechstagewerk, Coll. 1.

39  Bonaventura, Opera omnia, 3:410a (lib. 3, dist. 19, art. 2, conclusion); cf. Dettloff, “ ‘Christus tenens medium omnibus,’ ” 128f.

40  Bonaventura, De reductione artium ad theologiam, 378f., no. 16: “Si sermonem consideremus in respectu ad loquentem, sic videmus, quod omnis sermo significat mentis conceptum, et ille conceptus interior est verbum mentis et eius proles, quae nota est etiam ipsi concipienti. Sed ad hoc, quod fiat nota audienti, induit formam vocis, et verbum intelligibile mediante illo indumento fit sensibile et auditur exterius et suscipitur in aure cordis audientis, et tamen non recedit a mente proferentis.—​Iuxta hunc modum videmus in Verbo aeterno, quod Pater aeternaliter ipsum concepit generando, secundum illud Proverbiorum 8: Nondum erant abyssi, et ego iam concepta eram. Sed ad hoc, quod homini sensuali fieret cognoscibile, induit formam carnis, et Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis, et tamen remansit in sinu Patris”; cf. Cousins, “Language as Metaphysics,” 946–​51.

41  Bonaventura, Opera Omnia 3: Commentaria, lib. I, qu. 4, dist. 2; Bonaventura, Breviloquium, 133 (pars 4, cap. 3,6).

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history, to mankind—​who in turn refers back to the origin by way of this middle. In similar vein, in the Collationes, Bonaventure quotes Dionysius the Areopagite: “lex Divinitatis est infima per media ad suprema reducere” (The law of the divine is to lead back the lowest through the middle to the highest).42 The participation implied here has several dimensions, in line with the various possible relationships that exist between the created and the creator. In his Quaestiones disputatae de scientia Christi, Bonaventure distinguishes between three modalities: trace (vestigium), image (imago), and likeness (similitudo). “As a trace, the creature finds itself in a relationship to God as to a principle; if it is an image, the relationship is like that to an object; if it is a likeness, lastly, the relationship is like that to a gift from God. Hence every creature is a trace, because it is from God, an image, if it recognizes God, and a likeness, if God resides in it.”43 Thus the three modalities, taken together, define the status of the created, which (1) springs from an absolute origin, (2) carries this origin as a “picture” within itself, and (3) is able to recognize its own “pictorial nature.” This potential for recognition is bound to the specific structure of the soul: “For truth in an external sign is the sign of the truth that is in the soul, because ‘the sounds are signs of those passions that are in the soul’.”44 Thus the soul is not simply a receptive entity. It experiences passiones, but also brings forth voces, which in turn find expression in notae. Referring back to the Aristotelian concept of signs, Bonaventure creates a chiasmus between the veritas in signo and the signum veritas. Both are connected through the fact that signifier and signified can merge into each other—​at and in the relay point constituted by the soul. In it, truth is recognized, and from it, truth is articulated in signs. It is a point of intersection between inside and outside, a medium between the higher and the lower world. The text continues: “The soul, however, in accordance with its highest power, turns toward the things above, as it refers to the things below, in accordance with its lower power, since it constitutes, as it were, a middle element (medium) between the created things and God. Hence truth in the soul is focused on that twofold truth, like the middle (medium) to its two extremes, so that it receives conditional certainty from the lower region, but utter certainty from the upper region.”45 42  Bonaventura, Sechstagewerk, Coll. 3, 32 (174f.).

43  Bonaventura, Quaestiones disputatae de scientia Christi, Qu. 4, 118f.: “Creatura enim comparatur ad Deum in ratione vestigii, imaginis et similitudinis. In quantum vestigium, comparatur ad Deum ut ad principium; in quantum imago, comparatur ad Deum ut ad obiectum; sed in quantum similitudo, comparatur ad Deum ut ad donum infusum. Et ideo omnis creatura est vestigium, quae est a Deo; omnis est imago, quae cognoscit Deum; omnis et sola est similitudo, in qua habitat Deus.” 44  Bonaventura, Quaestiones disputatae de scientia Christi, Qu. 4, 134f.:  “Veritas enim in signo exteriori signum est veritatis, quae est apud animam, quia »voces sunt notae earum passionum, quae sunt in anima.” 45  Bonaventura, Quaestiones disputatae de scientia Christi, Qu. 4, 134f.: “anima autem secundum supremum habet respectum ad superiora, sicut secundum inferius ad haec inferiora, cum sit medium inter res creatas et Deum; et ideo veritas in anima habet respectum ad illam duplicem veritatem, sicut medium ad deo extrema, ita quod ab inferiori recipit certitudinem secundum quid, a superiori vero recipit certitudinem simpliciter.”

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In this way, the model of Christological mediality, unique in its simultaneous embodiment of ontological identity and a difference in persons, becomes transferable to other mediatores: priests or prophets, angels, the Holy Spirit—​traditionally regarded as the medium that brings about the unity of divine and human nature.46 But the model can also be transferred to signs that refer to Christological mediality. Of course they can never capture or express this in its entirety. But they can, to a certain extent, embody the redemptive power that emanates from Christ. And they can allow those observing, reading, and meditating to partake of it.47

Signs

The ultimate model of this is the cross.48 The idea that the material piece of wood used for Christ’s execution simultaneously embodies a universal principle has its origins in the writings of the New Testament. Here the cross is seen as the heart of the Passion narrative, and thus the Christian religion. It is thought to reveal the task facing the individual believer following in the footsteps of Christ. In the Middle Ages, both the material and the symbolic dimension were the object of rich elaboration and multiple associations. As the legend of the discovery of the true cross by the Empress Helena gained currency, links were constructed between the historical cross and the Old Testament. The place where Christ was crucified on Golgotha was now regarded as the place where Adam lay buried; the wood of the cross was believed to be from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. In this way, the cross becomes a temporal and symbolic figura. In temporal terms, it interweaves the Old Testament foundation or prophecy, the New Testament redemption or fulfilment, its later revelation or confirmation in church history, and its termination at the end of time. And in symbolic terms, the cross is both a signum and a res: it designates facts and is at the same time a fact itself; metaphorical and metonymic dimensions are implicated in it in equal measure. It is an overdetermined symbol: over the centuries it comes to be present—​as splinters of wood—​in more and more places, embroidered by more and more meanings, serving as a cipher for complex processes of symbolization in religious practice. But it is also a specific symbol of identification for the individual, who places himself under the sign of the cross, appropriating and internalizing it. For this individual, the cross encountered in a text or image becomes a switching point between the material and the immaterial, the historical and the suprahistorical, the general and the individual. 46  Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, lib. 3, d. 2, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 2; for the Holy Spirit as medium uniens viros iustos see Bonaventura, Opera Omnia 3: Commentaria, lib. 1, p. 2, a. 2, q. 1, a. 2; for the other figures see Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiea, 3ª q. 26, a. 1. In the Quaestio de mediatore the work of Christ is presented as the archetype of the opus mediatoris and of the officium sacerdotis, the priestly office, in which on the one hand the divine goods are distributed, and on the other hand the people’s petitions are transmitted to God. 47  Cf. Hamm, “Der Weg zum Himmel.”

48  Cf. Köpf, “Kreuz. IV. Mittelalter”; Baert, A Heritage of Holy Wood.

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In the early Middle Ages, when cross worship was still in its infancy, this was expressed in unsurpassable form by the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood, preserved in the Vercelli Book (tenth century). In a vision, a wonderful tree appears to the narrator, surrounded by light, a radiant bright trunk, a sign (beacen), covered in gold and decorated with five precious stones. But gradually, traces of blood appear beneath the splendour. The sign becomes ambivalent, uncertain (a fuse beacen)—​until it begins to speak itself, and tell its story. Beginning as a tree at the edge of the forest, it is cut down, made into a cross, and carried up a hill, where it shares deeply in Christ’s Passion, and indeed almost becomes one with him. It wants to rebel against the enemies, but then keeps still after all. It trembles with the Redeemer and is pierced with black nails; blood is shed upon it. At the same time, it bears witness to the compassio of the disciples, and becomes the triumphant sign (beacne) of Christ’s resurrection. The speaker, from whose perspective the final part is narrated, is doubly affected by this salvific process: the cross calls on him to make his vision known, and he himself hopes for the time when the cross, perceived in the here and now, will lead him out of this here and now. Thus the cross is illuminated in exemplary fashion, in both its historical and its transhistorical power. At the same time, the interplay between the different first-​person perspectives interweaves aspects relating to the past, the present, and the future. This takes place in a text that presents itself as a densely woven media fabric, mixing hymnic/​liturgical and heroic/​ feudal-​ ethical connotations. Constructed in three parts, with many corresponding or interconnecting elements, composed in a language which is both vivid and rich in meaning, it mediates between materiality and spirituality, tangibility and intangibility, promise and fulfilment.49 The powerful sign of the cross was able to be developed in a wide variety of ways: cosmological, theological, or anthropological. It could be deployed both for political purposes and for matters of religious reform. And it could be integrated into larger symbolic contexts, for example, that of the so-​called arma Christi.50 From the late thirteenth century onwards, representations of the instruments of Christ’s Passion (the cross, the crown of thorns, the whip, the lance, the nails etc.) can be found on all kinds of supports and in a wide range of formats, combined with other symbols from the Passion narrative (the reed sceptre, the purple robe, the seamless robe, the dice, ladders, pincers, vessels of myrrh, the shroud, the veil of Veronica, the chalice, the thirty pieces of silver, the sword of Peter etc.). Originally they were thought to represent the “weapons” with which Christ triumphed over death, and thus his role as ruler and redeemer. As Passion piety developed in the late Middle Ages, they then became embodiments of various moments in the Passion, and “instruments” enabling the faithful to follow the path of compassio or discipleship, and to resist all challenges and temptations. Arma therefore means various things in this context: not just actual weapons, tools and heraldic arms, but also cognitive and mental aids for remembering or reconstructing 49  Dream of the Rood; for the context see Ó’Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood; Place of the Cross.

50  Berliner, “Arma Christi”; Suckale, “Arma Christi”; Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 184–​230; Rimmele, “Geordnete Unordnung”; The Arma Christi.

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the events of the Passion. What links the individual signs—​whether they refer to specific objects or to events or facts from the Passion context—​is their indexical and metonymic character. The implication is that they are not simply meant to signify things, on the basis of a similarity. Ideally at least, they are meant to lead to a direct contact with the original phenomenon. And they are meant to allow viewers to experience the whole complex of the Passion on the basis of one small part of it—​always offering new routes of access. The individual elements of the ensemble are not designed to merge together into a narrative. On the contrary, as singular components, demonstratively separated from the context of action, each of them makes it possible to evoke and complete this narrative from a different point. Thus the arma can be regarded, both terminologically and phenomenologically, as characteristic of what distinguishes media forms in the Middle Ages: they are representations of material, but not solely material phenomena, signs that are meant to be more than mere references, ostentatious displays, which seek to reveal a greater whole by highlighting individual elements. These forms are complex mediations in space and time, and are not limited to what they show. Their purpose is to allow their viewers to participate in salvific experiential processes. But the observation made above about the Christian understanding of signs and mediations also applies here:  such phenomena are defined by means of contrastive references. The figures of spitting Jews may appear among the arma Christi. Scorning the Messiah, they display (from the Christian viewpoint) a blindness toward his role as mediator, which threatens to impede the salvation process, while at the same time—​from a higher vantage point—​making it possible. A similar opposition is also constructed elsewhere: by showing the failure of those who should have the religious background and the hermeneutic capacity to understand a new symbolic dimension, texts and images can offer a clearer outline of the Christian/​New Testament idea of guilt and redemption, and of the mediality associated with it. In sacred plays such as the Donaueschinger Passionsspiel (late fifteenth century) this becomes a real discourse of signs.51 The Jews, just like the devil, refer to the great signs that Jesus has done, and repeatedly confront him with the expectation that he will perform signs that are able to convince them. Yet the miracles performed by the Saviour are no more able to fulfil the expectations than the words of the prophets to which he refers. In the Gospel according to John, which the play mainly follows, the people are impressed by Jesus and skeptically ask whether the Messiah, when he comes, will “perform more signs than this man” (John 7:31). In the play, the Jews’ confidence in the future is unbroken. In the words of Leviathan: “mir zwifflet nit zů dirre frist, | das der, so der gewar Messias ist, me zeichen tüg, dan disser kan” (lines 876–​79; “I do not doubt at this time /​that the one who is truly Messiah will do more signs than this man can”). For the Jews, the wortzeichen they appreciate is the “fool’s costume” which the Saviour is made to wear (lines 2772f.). The sign of the cross made by Jesus, on the other hand, makes them uneasy (lines 467ff.). Jesus himself, in turn, makes repeated reference to the signs, and cites examples of prophets who were not valued in their own 51  Donaueschinger Passionsspiel; cf. Kiening, “Christologische Medialität.”

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time. In this way, the understanding of the Christian signs by the Jews is postponed to the future. At the same time, the validity of the signs and the incredible nature of the event is expected to be proven in the present. Hence the play demonstrates how individual figures accept Jesus as Messiah by relying on the signs. Another thing it seeks to show is that Jesus himself proves that his signs are not his own work. The Son of God is intended to appear as a medium of the Father, his miraculous works as those of the highest authority. He says that anyone who considers this with the right attitude will notice “durch disse wort vnd bot, | ob das sye hie von gott, | oder ob allein durch mich” (lines 825–​27; “through this word and messenger /​ whether this here is from God /​ or only through me”). If someone aims at honour and glory, he will talk a great deal about himself, “wa aber einer ret durch rat | des, so in gesendet hat, | der selbs wirt an der warheit funden” (lines 831–​33; “but when someone speaks through the counsel /​of Him who has sent him, /​he himself speaks out of the truth”; John 7:18). The basic figure is a tautological one: those who can know that the Messiah is a medium of God will, if they are willing to believe, be able to acknowledge as Saviour the one who claims to be the Saviour. And yet the tautological element is meant to be understood as paradoxical. This makes it possible to produce mediatory intensity against the backdrop of its negation. Or to allow elements of transcendence to appear within immanence, and at the same time, to link them with conditions for understanding them. Those who demand signs, without being able to understand the ones already given, will serve to prove the abundance of those very signs, which do not simply refer to something that is absent, but constitute real and paradoxical metonymies—​such as the vera icon that Veronica presents as a zeichen, in which Christ’s face adheres to the cloth itself (lines 3195–​97).52 The cloth as a medial form, which reveals its meaning and meaningfulness in ostentation and presentation, can be seen as a distillation of what the play is demonstrating. It invokes Christian signs, and simultaneously unmasks Jewish expectations of signs. It transports a certainty that arises from the medial oscillation of the signs—​oscillation between signs that are merely asserted or accepted, and those that fulfil or complete themselves. Modern media theory observes that signs, as traces, always transport a (non-​intended) surplus of meaning, which needs the medium for its embodiment.53 For the Middle Ages, the relationship must be defined differently: the surplus of meaning of the signs arises as a result of the original medium to which they refer, but can only take effect if there is a certain intentionality. In this sense the play does not stop at contrasting a right and wrong understanding of signs on the level of characters’ speeches. It creates its own demonstrations of proof, in which key elements of the Passion narrative appear and are fulfilled, imaginative catalysts in which the staged events lead to visual motifs: the death of Judas, the whipping post, Ecce homo, the road to Calvary, Mary’s lamentation, the placing of the inscription etc. In these visual motifs, events occur that are already fixed and known in advance. At the end of the argument between Christiana and Iudaea, the personification of the Christian church 52  Cf. Barton, “Vera icon und Schau-​Spiel.” 53  Krämer, “Medium als Spur,” 79.

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can state: “Your words are empty! As a sign that you are all blind and have a false faith, I will blindfold you and break your banner!”—​the following stage direction actually notes that this action should be carried out.54 Thus the play does not restrict itself to the visual symbolism that is familiar from countless representations. It marks the act of transmission as such, and at the same time uses it to distance the worthless Jewish words, which are mere words, from the meaning-​filled Christian ones, which converge with an action. On the one hand this underlines the validity of what is presented in the play; on the other hand it allows the mediality of the staged representation to be transcended. If the stage directions repeatedly point to the as-​if nature of the actions, then this is an invitation to perceive the represented reality not as it appears on the surface, but in its meaning for salvation history—​in a devout “contemplation” of figures who, as the prologue states, are meant to go beyond the mere mediation of the narrative and allow participation in this narrative through the medium of the Holy Spirit.55

Medium Absolutum

Texts such as the one just presented show that, in the late Middle Ages, the Christological paradigm of the mediation of salvation is not simply extended to all possible mediatizations of “grace close-​at-​hand” (nahe Gnade).56 This is also about the conditions of understanding and mediation, and about the logical and epistemological problems that arise here. Nicholas of Cusa, for example, notes in De docta ignorantia (1440) that Christ’s theanthropism seems like a medium between absolute and restricted being. He thus expresses the insufficiency of all human ideas of divine mediation.57 This is revisited in De visione Dei (1453), where, starting from the image type of an all-​seeing being, popular in the painting of the time, the paradoxical idea of an absolute mediality is developed.58 The experience of the painting is intended to lead to an experience of God, in which the relative form of human vision is transcended by the absolute vision of God. This absolute vision is defined in terms of a double negation: it lacks the deficiencies of human vision. It does not have a restricted angle of view, is not bound to space and time, and is not dependent on age, gender etc., or on the nature of the given organ of sight. It is seeing without seeing, and is therefore simultaneously regarded as being, creating, and loving, as providence, grace, and eternal life, as tasting, seeking, pitying, and acting. It is situated above the terms and concepts, above the multiplicities and differences, above the opposites, even above the coincidence of opposites, or in metaphorical terms: beyond 54  Donaueschinger Passionsspiel, lines 3802–​6: “ ‘dine wort sind luft vnd wind! | züm zeichen, das ir all sind blind | vnd das ir hand ein valschen glouben, | so tün ich dir verbinden din ougen | vnd brich dir din baner enzwey!’ ” 55  Cf. also Töpfer, “Implizite Performativität.”

56  See Hamm, “Die ‘nahe Gnade,’ ”; Hamm, “Der Weg zum Himmel.”

57  Nikolaus von Kues, De docta ignorantia: Die belehrte Unwissenheit, 52f. (3, 8, no. 225): “humanitas Iesu est ut medium inter pure absolutum et pure contractum.” 58  Nicolaus de Cusa, De visione Dei. For a more detailed analysis of the following see Kiening and Beil, Urszenen des Medialen, chap. 9.

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the wall of paradise. This murus paradisi embodies the limit of the comprehensible, and is thus the archetype of a mediation that simultaneously divides and connects (11.46; “disiunctio pariter et coniunctio”). It offers a paradigmatic expression of the obstacles that confront a way of thinking founded on comparisons and differences, in accordance with the phrase “finiti ad infinitum nulla est proportio” (23.101). But how are mediations conceivable if there is no proportion? In the form of the coincidentia oppositorum, the coincidence of opposites: unity and multiplicity, creating and being created, knowing and not knowing, seeing and being seen, past and future. The prototype of the paradoxical unity of the diverse is Christ. As the mediator absolutus, he is everything that is and can be (19.83; “omne id quod est et esse potest”). In him, there is no separation between the divine and the human, but only union and connection:  an image “between which and its exemplar a more perfect image cannot mediate” (20.88; “inter quam et exemplar non potest mediare perfectior imago”);59 a perfect copy, in which the truth of the original is not reproduced, but is present. Christ is simultaneously viewed in theological terms as the person (mediator) through whom divinity and humanity are connected, and in ontological terms as the principle (medium) which makes the connection. In him, the incommensurable is united, and not simply in such a way that two states are joined together, or that a terminus medius is created between the termini extremi. Instead the unifying element should be imagined as something in which the One both remains alone and is joined with its Other—​and offers the Other the opportunity to approach the One. This is a process: on the one hand, Christ is the necessary means of union (medium unionis), able to bring about the greatest possible union of human and divine nature. On the other hand, human nature is still confronted with an irreducible difference—​however much it may rise up toward divine nature, by way of absolute mediation, it is still unable to become one with the medium absolutum. It does not become the medium itself, but joins so closely with it “that nothing can mediate between the human nature and Your Son, who is the Absolute Medium” (19.85; “quod inter ipsam et filium tuum, qui est medium absolutum, nihil mediare potest”).60 Thus a mediation is presented that does not constitute a mere “middle,” but a mediating movement, giving humans an ontological share in the basis of all mediality, but without eliminating the difference between the divine and the human. Following the Neoplatonic tradition, Cusanus envisages the movement of mediation as a double one: on the level of salvation history and eternity, God communicates with humans, whose task is then to transcend their thought, perception, and communication with a view to reaching that absolute self-​communication. The aim is to prove the uniqueness of human participation in Christological mediality—​while avoiding the divinization of man. He remains tied to earthly things, in which he is able to recognize analogies that illuminate the divine: the image or the gaze, for example. The absolute mediator in his specific existence is illuminated in such a way that the singularity of human perceptual and semiotic relationships also becomes apparent (chap. 22). According to Cusanus, 59  English: Nicholas of Cusa, Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises, 722.

60  English: Nicholas of Cusa, Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises, 720.

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Jesus did not, with his physical eyes, see differently to other people in the world that is visible to the senses—​and yet he did see differently: more completely, more quickly, more acutely. This vision, says Cusanus, encompasses everything in the moment: through signs, it touches the inner depths of the soul, from the slightest hints it recognizes man’s overall design, in each figure it perceives the whole, with the human eye it records the accidentals, with the divine eye the essence. The perfect organ of sight and the organless perfection of absolute sight are united in Jesus. Much of what Cusanus says about the role of Christ as mediator and medium is traditional, and can in part be traced back to patristics. What seems radical, however, is the manner in which the context initially evoked is transformed and transcended. The image type of the all-​seeing being seems, at first, to refer to the practice of piety at the time. Yet it quickly becomes apparent that it is not so much about this, and still less about the predominant types within Passion piety, but about the fundamental conditions of possibility for a knowledge of God. The model proposed here is a Christology without the Fall of Man, without sacrifice and suffering. It does not anticipate the Reformation’s emphasis on Christ as the original medium, and its dismissal of the other supporting media.61 Instead the focus is on the conceivability of the paradox, and the conditions of perception and observation. At the end of De visione Dei, when the death of Christ is evoked, a visual illustration is again brought into play (23.105): the image of a candle that lights up a room, and then draws its rays back into the flame, but without leaving the room itself. This suggests that death is a suspension of the outer visibility of mediation, which nonetheless continues to exist. Cusanus’s Jesus is an abstract figure, central for theology and anthropology, but more as a systemic position than as a historical figure, and more as a mediator in a logical sense than in a theological or pragmatic sense. He allows observations about how the absolute can be mediated with the restricted, and how the relationship between infinite and finite can be conceived, in a wide variety of images or forms (figurae) in which the similarity between the many and the one is manifested in different ways. All these images and forms can occupy the systemic position of a medium that does not stand between the extremes, but represents their relationship of mutual implication. In this way the earthly realm is full of strategies for achieving greater proximity to the celestial realm. Cusanus constructs a parallel between God the Father, who works all things by the medium of reason and wisdom—​which the spirit or motion then puts into effect—​and the situation of the artisan (artifex), who takes something that exists in the mind (the model of a chest), and executes it through the mediation of moving force (chap. 19). Discussing the problem that the truth brought forth by God for his own sake can only be recognized in intellectual nature, Cusanus explains this with the example of the painter. In order to have his own image, he must paint a self-​portrait (sui ipsius imago): “Although the Divine Painter is one and is not multipliable, He can nevertheless be multiplied in the way in which this is possible: viz., in a very close likeness. However, 61  For the various possibilities and positions, see Medialität, Unmittelbarkeit, Präsenz.

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He makes many figures, because the likeness of His infinite power can be unfolded in the most perfect way only in many figures.”62 In one of his last texts, the Compendium (1463/​1464), Cusanus revisits this idea and transfers it to the face: this, he argues, appears in different ways in different polished mirrors, but in none of them does it appear in such a way that it becomes one with the mirror, that it is “enmirrored” (inspeculatur), “incorporated” (incorporatur), or “immateriated” (immateriatur). In the world of things, the difference between archetype and image is irreducible. In the realm of the spirit, however, this difference can be bridged. Another model for this is the idea (also found in earlier works) of man as a geographer. The geographer lives in a town through whose five gates (that is, the different senses) he obtains all the available information about the world, which he records on a map. But he does not stop at collecting the information. He searches his soul, turns his gaze toward the originator of all his knowledge, and realizes that he himself has the same relationship to his map as the creator does to the world. The meaning he is able to express and recognize in the symbols corresponds to that which the creator created in things. This analogy is one that man makes, and yet in it he grasps something of the essence of creation. Related to the map-​producing geographer: with his own mind he perceives the truth in the image, and the signified in the sign. At the same time, he recognizes in this mind “the first and nearest sign of the Creator. In this sign the Creative Power shines forth more than in any other known animal.”63 Cusanus was interested in cartography, and would even be named some decades after his death as the author of a map of Europe. But his interest, insofar as it can be deduced from the Compendium, was not in the exact recording of information per se. It was in the world-​encompassing, creative principle of cartographic activity, which can be understood as analogous to divine activity. The idea of a map that is as large and as accurate as possible, an idea Borges ascribes to the early modern period, is unlikely to have occurred to Cusanus. And yet it would not have been altogether distant from his thinking. If we understand the idea of the map as a response to the question of how the abundance of the world can be represented without restriction, loss, or lack, then this is an idea that also occupied Cusanus—​though under slightly different premises. He believed that the world, as the expression of the divine, possessed a transcendent dimension, which must be inherently impossible to reproduce in material form. Where this impossibility is called into question, epistemological aspects gain importance. The early modern period not only refined cartographic and other modes of representation until, according to Borges’s version, it stretched its own fantasy of exactitude to breaking point, but it also discussed the relationship between different forms of 62  Nicolaus de Cusa, De visione Dei, 25.117: “Et cum ipse unus sit immultiplicabilis, saltem modo quo fieri potest in propinquissima similitudine multiplicetur. Multas autem figuras facit, quia virtutis suae infinitae similitudo non potest nisi in multis perfectiori modo explicari.” English: Nicholas of Cusa, Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises, 735.

63  Nicolaus von Kues, Kompendium, no. 23, lines 14–​16 (chap. 8, 32f.): “Et hinc in se reperit primum et propinquius signum conditoris, in quo vis creativa plus quam in aliquo alio noto animali relucet.” English: Nicholas of Cusa, Complete Philosophical and Theological Treatises, 1399.

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perception. In his second Meditation (1641), Descartes notes that perception (perceptio) does not actually occur as seeing, touching, or imagining, but solely as a mental insight (mentis inspectio). Vermeer, in his painting of the geographer (1668/​1669), portrays a scholar in his room, lost in contemplation, not looking outside but gazing at an indeterminate point in the distance. Both examples are connected to the idea that the true image of the world is produced in the human mind, in the camera obscura of the intellect.64 This idea turns the mind, independent of the actual creation of an infinite map, into the embodiment of a paradoxical, simultaneously absolute and relative mediality. The mind appears as a medium that is able to examine forms of signification and relationship in those very places where there is actually no mediality, because there is no proportion and no continuity between the relative and the absolute. In this medium there is no merging of the mediating and the mediated (as for example in the case of a magical picture), and it becomes possible to observe the conditions of the incommensurable and the origins of difference. It is not completely absurd to relate this to Christology, as attested by Hegel, who takes the “general medium” to mean both the perceiving consciousness and Christ.65

64  Cf. Crary, Techniques of the Observer, chap. 2. 65  Cf. Rosenkranz, Kritische Erläuterung, 198.

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Manifestations The absolute mediality discussed in the previous chapter goes hand in hand with the notion of an absolute temporal and spatial abundance. In the first instance this concerns something that has been known since antiquity as a distinguishing feature of all media forms: the fact that they make what is spatially distant or temporally not present accessible in the here and now. But there is more to it than this. What is fascinating is the idea that all times and spaces could be present in a single moment, a single point. This idea calls into question our understanding of time as an irreversible succession, and of space as a distinct dimension. It focuses on the limit of what can be humanly experienced: if Christ is to be thought of as a being who participated in the Creation (which took place before all time), who also came into the world in a historical situation, and who will return at the end of this world (and will thus do away with time altogether), then this requires that the categories of experience be transcended, at least momentarily and in certain points. This results in the specificity of those media forms that attempt to make the transcendent, absolute or immediate present. Measured against the presence of what they are referring to, they are always subordinate, secondary, reduced; they are, literally, representations, that is, presences that are preceded, temporally or logically, by other, more original presences. On the other hand, these forms themselves “create a particular presence, and perform a particular presence.”1 Not only do other things appear in them, but they themselves also appear. Not only does the absent become present in them, but they themselves are present. This self-​presence can be intensified by the fact that the Other—​that is, everything that the media forms refer to—​cannot be manifested in any other way than in and through them. This manifestation is limited, but at the same time promising, because it points to something beyond itself. It characterizes media forms, which both present and transcend themselves, exhibit and efface themselves.2 Medial presence therefore has a dual nature. It is caught in the tension between absence on the one hand, and representation on the other. Its fragility arises in relation to both what cannot become present and what can only become present in secondary form. But this is also the source of its strength: situated on the blurred borderline between the original and the subsequent, it implies the possibility of a presence that is not simply produced or asserted by media, but which actually eventuates.3 A presence that eventuates under certain conditions, and requires some form of resonance: soul or mind, memory, 1  Seel, Ästhetik des Erscheinens, 159.

2  Cf. Andree, Archäologie der Medienwirkung. 3  Cf. Mersch, Was sich zeigt.

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imaginative power or attentiveness are some of the historical conceptions of such a resonance, conceptions which allow medial presence, and in which this presence simultaneously becomes reflexive. Even for antiquity, it can be said that while theatre is a form of presentification, the effects of presence it produces are those of a fully developed written culture.4 Cult images are not simply archaic forms in which the divine is present, they are also built on ascriptions and acts of symbolization.5 Roman memorial culture has not only a mimetic mode of creating presence, based on the representational power of artistic forms, but also a figurative mode, based on the generation of imaginative images from indices.6 In the Middle Ages, religious symbols aim to allow the unavailable to be or become present, but in such a way that they “simultaneously demonstrate the distance, the incommensurability between the sacred power and everything that—​of necessity inadequately—​makes it visible in the eyes of humans.”7 Presence is therefore always confronted with both practices and imaginings, with facts and with promises, with self-​evidence and with efforts to produce evidentness.8 This can already be discerned in one of the most famous archetypal scenes in Western media history: the allegory of the cave at the beginning of the seventh book of Plato’s Republic (ca. 370 BCE).9 This profound reflection on medial and non-​medial visibility is not solely concerned—​ like other passages in Plato’s dialogues—​ with criticizing imitation, which is removed from the true and the real, or with lamenting the solidification of living speech. This is about the frame of reference of perception in general. What the people in the cave are able to see is their own shadows, appearing in front of them on a wall, and the shadows of artificial objects, “statues of men and other animals wrought from stone, wood, and every kind of material,”10 which are being carried past in the background in front of a fire and over a low wall (514c/​515a)—​an artificial situation, as shown by the remark that the wall is like the partition which puppet-​ handlers have, over which they show their puppets (514b). The people are imagined as being imprisoned in the cave. Chained up in such a position that they can only look at the wall opposite them, they are not actors, but observers, interpreters, and predictors. They see colourless, two-​dimensional apparitions, occasionally accompanied by words. They are unable to distinguish between the shadows of people and those of artificial copies. They are also unable to identify the words as coming from the background; they ascribe them the status of primary reality, as they ascribe this to everything they encounter. And yet the prisoners do not perceive their situation as 4  Cf. Beil, “Bedecken, Beflecken, Beschwören.” 5  Cf. Stähli, “Mediale Präsenz des Bildes.” 6  Koortbojian, “Mimesis or Phantasia?” 7  Ginzburg, “Repräsentation,” 105.

8  This is explored in Mediale Gegenwärtigkeit.

9  Platons Höhlengleichnis. For a more precise treatment with literature references, see Kiening and Beil, Urszenen des Medialen, chap. 2. 10  English: Plato, The Republic, 193.

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a delusion. Knowing nothing of the other world which is behind them and outside the cave, they also give no sign that they “would become iconoclasts, if they were only to learn that they are being made to satisfy themselves with copies of what is called the real. There is no endogenous dissatisfaction with the shadows, tied to the initial situation; they can only be devalued if they can already be recognized for what they are simply from contemplation of the ideas.”11 This contemplation, however, and therefore the marking of the cave world as a merely “medial” one, is involved from the start. Socrates devises the artificial myth as an example. He uses it to illustrate the difference between two states of human education, a fully educated and an inadequately educated state. By developing the story in conversation with Glaucon, he allows its interpretive framework to emerge with it. The narrative thus falls under the dictates of the analogy between the phenomenal and the real world: reduced sensory perception equates to topological distance from insight into founding origins and higher principles. And yet the narrative is not subsumed into the demonstration. By presenting a reversible figure (where what is unproblematic in one world becomes a problem in the other), it simultaneously creates the model of a movement of ascent and a process of cognition. The potentially schematic nature of this process is countered by a double dynamization: intradiegetically through the dual crossing of the border between the two worlds by a cave dweller, extradiegetically through the way the allegory is framed. The intradiegetic is presented in the subjunctive mode: imagine, says Socrates, that a “prisoner” is set free, forcibly set free, and dragged up to the surface. Looking painfully and reluctantly first at the real objects, then at the light of the fire, which projects them onto the wall, and finally at the light of the sun, he would gradually learn that his previous existence had been a shadow existence. Just as gradually, in the upper world he would turn toward the perception of reality: first shadows and reflections on water, then objects, then nocturnal celestial phenomena, and lastly bright sunlight. It is the crossing of the border that makes the two worlds into worlds in the first place. Separating one cave dweller from the rest, and raising him to the status of mediator makes visible the condition of possibility for the emergence of difference. At the same time it can show the mediated aspect of perception in the cave—​and the precarity of the mediation of mediatedness. The former cave dweller is no longer able to appreciate the competitive institutions of hermeneutics and prognostics that have developed in the cave: honours, praise, and prizes go to whoever perceives the objects most clearly, best remembers their chronological sequence, and can most confidently predict the future from them (516c). He returns altruistically to the cave, to teach his former companions about the other world he has experienced and to persuade them to leave theirs. Yet, having previously been forced to leave the cave himself, and now blinder inside the cave than those accustomed to the lack of light, he meets with no understanding, let alone enthusiasm for his undertaking. Instead, from the point of view of the others, he embodies a challenge to the attitude that has become established in the 11  Blumenberg, Höhlenausgänge, 117.

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world, a dangerous disturbance of the status quo, which must be removed. “And if they were somehow able to get their hands on and kill the man who attempts to release and lead up, wouldn’t they kill him?” (517a).12 With this rhetorical question, the dialogic figure of Socrates offers a paradoxical glimpse of the fate of the extradiegetic figure of Socrates. At the same time, the complexity of the extradiegetic framings of the fabricated myth becomes visible: the same thing that leads, in the story, to the problematization of a transfer of knowledge leads, in the dialogue, to skepticism regarding the external relations of the polis, which is defined by multiple exclusions: “The premises lie with that which also makes possible the world of ideas as a sphere of world constants. The imminent end of the Socrates type and the real end of the real Socrates are based on the fact that the polis has no curiosity. It is theoretically self-​sufficient, just as its gods are physically self-​sufficient. It requires no seekers after the true reality, no functionaries of paideia.”13 Plato’s allegory therefore has a cultural history subtext. Existence in the cave denotes a level of consciousness that closes itself off from the realities of the world, not shaping them but at most interpreting them. Nor does it privilege direct experience: “Narrative, ritual and images perhaps represent the outside world in a largely magical manner, and yet make it possible to treat this world as if it were present.”14 On the other hand, this subtext does not serve to formulate a lesson in cultural history. Instead the medial presence that Plato demonstrates acquires an enigmatic, disquieting character, because it looks as though it is only possible to judge the unreal according to what is already recognized as real. One may, like Socrates, draw the conclusion that there are two disorders of the vision that are formally similar but dissimilar in their consequences, one relating to the transition from light into darkness, the other to the transition from darkness to light. Yet this conclusion only displaces the problem. Human eyes are capable of contemplating that which truly is; the question is what conditions are necessary in order for this to take place. Turning one’s attention from medial to ontological presence is formulated as a goal, but not really as a program. Insight comes less from inner impulses than from outer stimuli. The figure of the man returning to the cave evokes the paradox of an epistemology of reality. It is therefore no coincidence that it has been sacrificed in subsequent versions of the story. Aristotle, who uses the allegory of the cave, rewrites it—​or at least he does so in the version of the lost original that Cicero passes down in De natura deorum. Here the story is not about the incommensurability of two worlds. From the start, the aspect of the “thought experiment” (Blumenberg) is dominant. The chained cave inhabitants have been replaced by people who live in “decent and well-​lit accommodation” below the earth, “embellished with statues and pictures, and endowed with all the possessions which those reputed to be wealthy have in abundance.” They have not yet been to the surface, but “through rumour and hearsay they had heard of the existence of some divine 12  English: Plato, The Republic, 196.

13  Blumenberg, Höhlenausgänge, 149f. 14  Blumenberg, Höhlenausgänge, 148.

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power wielded by gods.”15 Now it is posited that a natural event gives these people the opportunity to leave the subterranean realm, and to see the earth, the seas and sky, clouds and wind, day and night, the waxing and waning of the moon, and the courses of the stars, prescribed through all eternity—​“When they observed all this, they would certainly believe that gods existed, and that these great manifestations were the works of gods.”16 True, there is a difference between the artful images that adorn the subterranean dwellings, and the celestial symbols by which the divina sollertia is manifested.17 But the problem is not to reconcile the two things; the problem is to retain sight of the extraordinary nature of the heavenly splendour even as it becomes familiar. No unreal presentness has to be sacrificed, instead hearsay must be converted into visual certainty. No collective has to be convinced of the existence of a better life by an individual, instead this world must be comprehended, in its overwhelming phenomenality, as incontrovertibly divine. No (forcible) border crossings have to be undertaken, instead that which is (self-​)evident must be acknowledged. The aim of the thought experiment is to prove, in an original situation, that that which is most familiar is the most tremendous thing there is—​the point at which the difference between the medium and the mediatized becomes obsolete.

Christian Reconfigurations

Cicero’s de-​paradoxified version of the allegory of the cave aims to draw attention to the higher and the greater, the spectacle of nature, which can become the sign of the divine for mankind. Similarly, a little later, the unknown author of the text On the Sublime observes, “And this is why nature prompts us to admire, not the […] little stream, but the Nile, the Danube, the Rhine, and far beyond all the Ocean; not to turn our wandering eyes from the heavenly fires, though often darkened, to the little flame kindled by human hands.”18 As in Cicero’s text, the contemplation of nature, and fascination with its grandeur and power, is Stoic in character.19 In several respects it coincides with Christianity, whose arrival was imminent. On the one hand, the creation can now become the all-​ embracing medium of divine self-​communication. On the other hand, the transition from a secondary, narrowly medial small world to a primary, supra-​medial big world appears as a cosmological event, which is no longer subject to human control—​the Christian 15  Cicero, Vom Wesen der Götter, 2.95.252–​55:  “ ‘Si essent,’ inquit, ‘qui sub terra semper habitavissent bonis et inlustribus domiciliis, quae essent ornata signis atque picturis instructaque rebus his omnibus, quibus abundant i, qui beati putantur, nec tamen exissent umquam supra terram, accepissent autem fama et auditione esse quoddam numen et vim deorum.’ English: Cicero, Nature of the Gods, 81. 16  Cicero, Vom Wesen der Götter, 2.95.254f.: “quae cum viderent, profecto et esse deos et haec tanta opera deorum esse arbitrarentur.” For the history of the reception, see Blum, Höhlengleichnisse. 17  Cicero, Vom Wesen der Götter, 2.110.268f.; cf. Blumenberg, Höhlenausgänge, 200.

18  Pseudo-​Longinus, Vom Erhabenen, 99 (35.4) (Greek edition with German translation). English: Longinus, On the Sublime, 68. 19  For the context, see Pfeiffer, Contemplatio Caeli.

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model of the Descensus Christi ad inferos connects to this. This model, however, simultaneously brings a shift. Now the whole world is—​depending on one’s perspective—​both the cave and the cosmos, both the place in which an original brightness is darkened and the surface of an entirely sensible order. Seen from one side, the part of this order that becomes present is still deficient—​it is only in the future that its fullness will appear. Seen from the other side, however, it does have a certain fullness, compared to what is possible in the here and now. Augustine, in his famous reflection on the nature of time, evokes the tension between abundance and lack with specific reference to recognition of what is present. He observes that the temporality of the present cannot be contained in categories of measurable duration: “If we can conceive of a moment in time which cannot be further divided into even the tiniest of minute particles, that alone can be rightly termed the present; yet even this flies by from the future into the past with such haste that it seems to last no time at all. Even if it has some duration, that too is divisible into past and future; hence the present is reduced to vanishing-​point.”20 Augustine also observes, however, that the traditional separation into three time dimensions—​past, present, and future—​is not, strictly speaking, tenable. Both that which has already happened, the past, and that which has not yet happened, the future, are only accessible in the mode of that which is now happening, or being thought of or imagined, that is, the present. The three time dimensions would then be “three tenses of times: the present of past things, the present of present things, the present of future things. These are three realities in the mind, but nowhere else as far as I can see, for the present of past things is memory, the present of present things is attention, and the present of future things is expectation.”21 This makes it possible to devise a model of the human soul as a mirror of its divine origins. Though it is separated from the divine “at-​oneness” of temporality and eternity, it is nonetheless able to “grasp” the distentio (extent) of time by means of the attentio (attention) living in the present. The simultaneities thus addressed must in turn be mediated in texts and other cultural artifacts that make it possible to establish tradition. They are thus—​insofar as they confine themselves to language—​bound to a temporal succession, though they can transcend this in their own way. In visual forms, the specific presentness lies “in the artistic appearance of the works.” In textual forms, in contrast, a specific corporeality, materiality, and “spatiality” can be devised, but what emerges is “not the now and here of a body-​centred space,” but that of “a historical time” which continues to resonate in 20  Augustinus, Was ist Zeit?, 28 (11.20):  “si quid intellegitur temporis, quod in nullas iam uel minutissimas momentorum partes diuidi possit, id solum est, quod praesens dicatur; quod tamen ita raptim a futuro in praeteritum transuolat, ut nulla morula extendatur. nam si extenditur, diuiditur in praeteritum et futurum: praesens autem nullum habet spatium.” English: Augustine, Confessions, 297.

21  Augustinus, Was ist Zeit?, 34 (11.26): “tempora sunt tria, praesens de praeteritis, praesens de praesentibus, praesens de futuris. Sunt enim haec in anima tria quaedam et alibi ea nun uideo, praesens de praeteritis memoria, praesens de praesentibus contuitus, praesens de futuris expectatio.” English: Augustine, Confessions, 300.

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later texts.22 This probably also explains their fascination: lacking the potential to make bodies, sounds, or spaces appear directly, texts are able to evoke these imaginatively, constitute them performatively, and penetrate them reflexively, in such a way that multilayered forms of presence can arise, transcending that which is directly perceptible to the senses. The word Cicero does not use when quoting the allegory of the cave, to mark the counterpart of that which is only known from fama and auditio, would be enargeia or evidentia—​the word that, in Latin, fits the phenomenal complex of (media) presentness better than praesentia. Quintilian accords it a central position in his rhetoric: on the one hand as a term for the “the eyewitness’s experience of simultaneity,” which the speaker gives his audience, on the other hand for the linguistic means he uses to draw his audience into being eyewitnesses: detailed descriptions, stimuli to the imagination, use of the present tense, deixis, apostrophe, direct speech etc.23 Evidentia, according to Quintilian, is all those things that can be brought into view, for the senses or the imagination, by linguistic means, everything that produces phantasiai or visiones, giving the impression that one is present at the events oneself.24 Evidentia, however, is also the thing that can overwhelm recipients in a sudden “blinding flash of inspiration.” This is the view of the author of On the Sublime, who, unlike Plato, does not classify poetry as secondary and imitative, but as a different but also “original” nature. It is able to “almost compel […] readers to see” what the poet’s imaginative power has created (15.3). And it is able to captivate listeners, to carry them away, through “rhetorical presentification” (rhetorikè phantasía) “toward that which affects [their nature] most powerfully: hence an image lures us away from an argument: judgment is paralysed, matters of fact disappear from view, eclipsed by the superior blaze” (15.11).25 This hints at something that also plays a not unimportant role in Christian narratives of presence and absence: the effect of being overpowered by an equally wondrous apparition and disappearance. The Gospels revolve around an absence which is as precarious as it is full of future significance, and which seems to be interwoven with forms of presence. These are no less enigmatic, oscillating as they do between gaze, word, touch, and communal experience. Each in a different way, the texts turn the absence of the body in the grave—​unlikely, according to the facts of the situation—​into the central event of the resurrection of the dead, which is impossible according to the laws of physics. At the same time they follow up the negative report of the mediating angel (“non est hic”; Matt. 28:5) with the positive report of various appearances of the risen Christ, which in turn 22  Seel, Ästhetik des Erscheinens, 209, 212.

23  Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik, 399–​407, §810–​19, this passage 400 (§810) and 402 (§812).

24  Quintilianus, Ausbildung des Redners, 6.2.29: “quas φαντασίας Graeci vocant (nos sane visiones appellemus), per quas imagines rerum absentium ita repraesentantur animo, ut eas cernere oculis ac praesentes habere videamur”; cf. also 10.7.15; 12.10.3; for the relationship between literary and rhetorical presence/​absence see Hardie, Ovid’s Poetics of Illusion. 25  Cf. Watson, Phantasia in Classical Thought; Beil, “Rhetorische Phantasia”; O’Gorman, “Aristotle’s Phantasia.”

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fluctuate, in the different texts, between physical tangibility (“palpate et videte”; Luke 24:39) and intangibility (“noli me tangere”; John 20:17). Absence becomes the proof of presence, which in the same breath transforms from aisthetic to metaphysical presence, but must therefore give way to a new and now definitive absence: the Ascension.26 The dynamic between the temporary disappearance of the body, and the permanent withdrawal of the resurrected and ascended Christ makes it possible, working around elements of a variable presentness, on the one hand to produce evidentness, and on the other hand to subordinate these to the conditions of the earthly, and that also means the conditions of the speakable and showable. In this sense, the Gospels do not simply devise scenarios of presence and absence. They also create models of how such scenarios can appear as immediate in the order of language and text. The fourth Gospel goes furthest here. It alternates between seeing, saying, not touching, showing in the midst of the disciples (“ostendit eis manus”; John 20:20), and again, seeing. Moreover, the figure of the apostle Thomas promises the possibility of physical certainty (“infer digitum tuum huc”; John 20:27), though the realization of this is immediately obscured: we only hear of Thomas’s overwhelmed speech (“Dominus meus et Deus meus”; John 20:28), but do not hear whether he has acted or not. Christ, for his part, speaks of seeing, and not of touching (“quia vidisti me credidisti”; John 20:29), while the narrator refers to other miracles that are not written down in this book. In this way, the interpenetration of presence and absence becomes a phenomenon of the texture.27 The nature of the presentation and of its self-​transcendence characterizes a mode which later writers of authentic stories of salvation will keep coming back to: transgressions of the written word and paradoxifications of speech are incorporated into a multi-​tiered medial representation in such a way that there are hints of an apparently non-​medial presence. The other side of the self-​auratization of texts, however, is their transparency. What is therefore needed is an extra-​textual self-​evidence which can at least be referred to. What is in the present thus plays out in the tension between what a media form can represent, and what it can reveal or transfer. Its mediality in turn has a performative character, in that it claims to simultaneously bring forth what it refers to. The history of the Christian religion, and of other religions, is marked by the constitutive role played by the invisible, which lends dynamism to the multiple attempts to make it visible.28 In this context sociologists talk of “occasional presences” of sacred, religious reality “in the near world (Nahwelt), within sight and hearing,” which are necessary to provide “contact zones or instances of contact,” even “where transcendence and immanence are more sharply separated.”29 Niklas Luhmann sees “a need for interventions either by objects or actions,” as a “semantic and institutional reaction to the distinction between a this-​ worldly and an other-​worldly world.” In the case of “high” religions, he argues, this need 26  Cf. de Certeau, La fable mystique. 27  Cf. also Most, Doubting Thomas.

28  Barasch, Gottesbild; Schmitt, Le corps des images. 29  Tyrell, “Religiöse Kommunikation,” 54.

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has its roots in the fact that the basic distinction between immanence and transcendence is both exaggerated and concealed: “People can then say plausibly that God is at the same time close and faraway, present everywhere. In so doing, they can count on the important, easily accessible semantic form of ‘existing-​in-​something’: God is not a definite appearance but he exists in one.”30 In terms of system theory, it may seem as though mediations (rendered as “interventions” in the above quotation) were being introduced in order to cope with a given dichotomy. Historically, however, it is more likely that the setting and concealing of differences go hand in hand. Similarly, with regard to immanence and transcendence, it is not so much this relationship in itself that deserves to be called a paradox as the fact that the poles are strictly separated here, but at the same time the separation is constantly undermined. This paradoxical communication “claims its own kind of authenticity (indeed rationality) by destroying communications that can be continued by saying a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ to what is communicated. In this form, it documents something ‘beyond yes and no’.”31 This is therefore about a form of communication that absorbs its own boundary into itself, and, due to its paradoxical structure, has the effect of forming groups or institutions in a specific way: it allows varying inclusions and exclusions, and diverse medial imaginings.

Salvific Presence

Two aspects are critical for the communication mentioned above: on the one hand a concept of signs, in which the difference between signifier and signified can change abruptly into an ontological relationship of identity or participation;32 on the other hand the idea of a fundamental interpenetration of transcendence and immanence, a fundamental omnipresence of salvation, which is, however, in concrete terms, dependent on an abundance of social, political, theological, and generally institutional factors. For a demystified world like the modern world, salvation and sacredness are regarded as the result of ascriptions to objects and persons, places and times. For the medieval world, in which the extrasensory played a central role, they were seen as a phenomenon of appearance, epiphany, manifestation. In this manifestation, something that is otherwise unavailable becomes present, the abundance of meaning reveals itself. This very self-​ revelation means, however, that sacredness is constituted in spaces of perception and communication. It needs spectators, or at least the possibility of an audience—​as partners or opponents, space for development, or a contrasting backdrop. It needs media that transfer it, and yet have a precarious status. Bodies and objects can make salvation immediately present, but words and images that represent sacredness can only correspond to its appearance if they themselves become auratic material proofs of the 30  Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 56.

31  Luhmann, Systems Theory of Religion, 122.

32  Cf. Assmann, Im Dickicht der Zeichen; for medieval concepts of signs in the religious context see Suntrup, “Zeichenkonzeptionen.”

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extrasensory. As suggested above, then, they are caught in the tension between the present that they perform with their respective means, and the present that they are, as concrete structures. And similarly, the sacredness that appears in them can be seen as merely represented or as fully present. In the Christian tradition this tension became a formative factor. From early Christianity onwards, approaches to the transmission of tradition were marked by an ambivalent attitude toward the status of texture and the principles of rhetoric. On the one hand, there was a fundamental skepticism toward the human word: in comparison to the divine word of creation, the human word can never have anything more than secondary character. On the other hand, there was a specific skepticism toward linguistic elaborateness: a humble style (sermo humilis) emphasizing the content more than the form seems appropriate to the debasement of the Son of God in the Incarnation and Passion. The first of these reservations could be countered by the idea of the holy text and of revelation in scripture: if one understood the Bible as a testimony (albeit a veiled one) to the divine word, then referring to it in imitatio, commentary, and concretization offered an opportunity to participate in the salvific events, and to elevate the (divinely inspired) author to the rank of seer. The second reservation could be countered with the idea that the rhetorical or synesthetic elaboration of a text could help to mediate the salvific events in the here and now. In this way, a nuanced interplay between rhetoricization and de-​rhetoricization developed from late antiquity onward—​nuanced not least because explicit poetological statements and actual rhetorical practice did not always coincide. The need to rewrite a legend in simpler language could be justified with the assertion that this would make its original and true content more clearly visible. Conversely, refinement of the form could serve to boost the efficacy of the religious content. In the case of the legend, the mediation of salvation occurs in a dual form. The saint is a figure for the mediation between the divine and the human. In him or her, the cosmic opposition between good and evil is repeated, and the Christological event is renewed. The texts that narrate the lives and deaths of the saints are, in turn, forms of mediation between the time-​honoured canonical records of salvation and the historically changing needs of social structures. Mimetic chains emerge, which mediatize the original events by introducing internal links. At the same time, however, they ensure that in each case the final link has a full, in fact double presentness: that of an appearance of sacredness in the framework of contemporary history. This allows the narration of the same old stories to appear as something that is always new, able to develop a new impact for the author, scribe, and audience.33 This impact is based on the production of presence. Here, however, this is not a metonymic presence, as in the case of relics and holy places, in which a past event becomes present in remains or traces. It arises from the (re)construction of a chain of events, which reveals itself as the sanctification of a saint. By taking part in worship, this also takes part in the salvific event, but it is reliant on the authority of tradition. Thus the 33  Cf. for example Elliott, Roads to Paradise; Boureau, L’événement sans fin; Köbele, “Die Illusion der ‘einfachen Form’ ”; Hammer, Erzählen vom Heiligen.

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media forms have the potential to transfer the power of the saint to themselves, and to gain prominence as particularly valuable bearers and sources of meaning: as texts that are themselves sacred. At the same time, they are limited in this potential by the pragmatic historical conditions that link the forms of “sanctification of texts” to the premises of religious efficacy, and of mimetic embodiment of the divine. When it comes to the relics, both praesentia and virtus are ascribed to them, thus interlinking the possibilities of appearance and transfer.34 Their effect, however, is tied to an elaborate complex of factors and criteria, which make it possible to control the production of presence. This is equally true (if not more so) of the legends. They need the relics in order to be believed. At the same time they point to something beyond these, by opening up larger temporal and spatial contexts.

Real Presence

The connection between creating presence and reflecting on the conditions of mediation becomes especially prominent in the complex of the Mass and Eucharist. The writings of the first and second eucharistic controversies already span a hugely diverse complex of phenomena, which expands the question of whether Christ’s body and blood really are contained in the Host to include numerous other questions. How is the transformation to be conceived? How can different things be present simultaneously? What about the bread and wine? What kind of symbols are these? What role is played by memory, or by faith?35 As early as the ninth century, Paschasius Radpertus, the first prominent advocate of what is known as sacramental realism, justified his statement that the sacrament constituted the true body and blood of Christ with subtle semiotic reflections. On the one hand these do not deny the sacrament’s nature as an image; on the other hand they suggest that the image is close to a copy or imprint. The relationship between image and truth proves, in the case of Christ, to be marked by both difference and identity. Paschasius explains this with the example of the written word:  just as children, when learning to read, move from the material letters to the intellectual meaning of the writing, the person seeking God moves from the image or copy of the Father in the Son to the Father himself, recognizing at the same time that truth is already present in the image or copy. With regard to the letters: even if the meaning is only revealed when one goes beyond the materiality, meaning is not outside materiality, but within it—​just as the divine “shows himself in visible form while we receive what is in it.”36 Paschasius

34  For more on the concept of praesentia in the context of early Christian hagiography, see Brown, Cult of the Saints, chap. 5.

35  Cf. Stock, Implications of Literacy, 252–​315; Macy, Theologies of the Eucharist; Rubin, Corpus Christi; Snoek, Medieval Piety; Macy, Treasures from the Storeroom; Winter, Eucharistische Gegenwart; Schlie, Bilder des Corpus Christi; Wipfler, ‘Corpus Christi’; Willing, Literatur und Ordensreform; an overview can be found in Companion to the Eucharist. 36  Pascasius Radbertus, De corpore et sanguine domini, 4.71f. (p. 30): “sensibus nostris, ut ea quae in illo sunt capiamus, uisibilem se ostendit”; English: Paschasius Radbertus, “The Lord’s Body and Blood,” 103.

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insists that “[a]‌s it is the true flesh of Christ which was crucified and buried, truly is it the sacrament of his flesh, which is divinely consecrated through the Holy Spirit on the altar by the agency of the priest in Christ’s word.”37 Yet the abundance of entities involved indicates that this is not about naïve substantive identities. Mental penetration and understanding are required as a necessary complement to ontic identity, in order to “realize” this identity as such. Controversial, but nonetheless preserved in over 120 manuscripts to this day, the tract De corpore et sanguine domini gives an insight into how people tried to imagine a presence which is mediatized in different ways, but is, due to the ontological nature of the medium, not categorically separated from an absolute presence. The options for imagining this in concrete terms were no less numerous for the sacrament of the Eucharist than for the question of mental representations: some saw the representing mind as taking on the form of the represented object, and saw both as connected by an essential similarity. Others assumed concepts that were not similar to the thing in question, but which, though functioning as signs, were generated by the objects.38 In the case of the sacrament of the Eucharist, there was a broad spectrum of positions between a purely material/​realistic understanding and a purely spiritual/​symbolist one. At its heart is the distinction between sign and sacrament, which, according to Hugh of St. Victor and others, lies in the fact that the one merely designates a thing, while the other causes it or brings it forth.39 But how exactly was this causing or bringing forth to be imagined? In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries efforts were made to find a technical language capable of describing, among other things, the peculiar character of the eucharistic processes of transformation. Here the commemorative character of the Eucharist is understood, for example, as an interweaving of “recollection and re-​enactment.”40 The visible and the invisible, the sensory and the extrasensory, the concrete and the metaphorical may be categorically different, but in the mystery they merge. Regardless of whether one assumes a relationship of transfer or of contact, a presence cannot be imagined despite its mediating character, but in this character. Thus the production of presence in the sacrament is by no means without semantic dimensions. On the contrary, in a certain sense this is a presence that is only made possible by a discourse. In this discourse, presence can become so abstract that the opposite impulse arises, to make the phenomenon manifest once again. Eucharistic miracles or visions of the Host show how the body of the Son of God, which underlies the symbolization, assumes material form and fills the memoria of the archetype with its energy.41 37  Pascasius Radbertus, De corpore et sanguine domini, 4.81–​84 (p. 30): “Vera utique caro Christi quae crucifixa est et sepulta, uere illius carnis sacramentum quod per sacerdotum super altare in uerbo Christi per Spiritum Sanctum diuinitus consecratur.” English: Paschasius Radbertus, “The Lord’s Body and Blood,” 103. 38  Representation and Objects of Thought. 39  Cf. Agamben, Signatura rerum.

40  Stock, Implications of Literacy, 315. 41  Browe, Eucharistie im Mittelalter.

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Thus the Cistercian prior Caesarius of Heisterbach, in his Dialogus miraculorum (ca. 1220), not only evokes the function of the eucharistic sacrament as the substitution of an absence, institutionalized for memorial purposes,42 but he also fills a whole book with miracles which, revolving around the Eucharist and the Host, make the real-​symbolic events tangible in material-​visual apparitions: a priest who drops a wafer at Communion must see with dismay that a circle and letters appear on a brick that it has touched, “as would happen if it impressed upon the softest of wax” (9.14).43 Another priest who doubts the reality of the body contained in the sacrament is made to see it as a piece of raw flesh. Besides this, the Host repeatedly becomes a surface for apparitions: of blood, light, and sweetness, of the Christ child in the cradle, of the Redeemer on the cross, or of his heart as the embodiment of love and suffering. Just as the Eucharist as a whole is, in equal measure, a symbolic and a substance-​ontological event, the Host is, in equal measure, an opaque object in which the salvific process is concentrated in divine presentness, and a diaphanous surface from which this process can be released into the medial presence of central elements of its history.44 With this, Caesarius marks an important point in the general development of the practice of piety. The eucharistic process is organized pragmatically in Mass and worship, for example in the form of the elevation of the Host, but is also made into an object of ecstasy in mysticism and spirituality. New effects and phantasms of presence are constantly emerging, but also complex reflections, revolving around the dialectic of embodiment and internalization. There is a direct exchange between forms of meditation serving to lead to a vivid experience of the extrasensory and forms of vision which make this present in imaginative proximity. Interpretations construe the complex process of the Mass in its various dimensions, making use of allegorical methods or of references to the stations in the life of Jesus; at the same time they make the events come alive for their readers.45 Sacred plays place moments of testimony (which imply indirectness) side by side with moments of manifestation (which lend presence to the absent): here the shroud revealed in the empty grave, there the Redeemer appearing before Mary Magdalene and the disciples.46 However much the second element creates the physical certainty that the first is lacking, it nonetheless remains precarious. It links the certainty to historical witnesses, with whom the certainty itself also becomes historical, and, in later times, requires additional modes of validation. These modes include the re-​staging of the original situation in a play. This re-​staging reproduces the evidence, but is itself in danger of being seen as manufacturing evidence. Thus the appearance of the risen 42  Caesarius von Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, 9.1, ed. Nösges and Schneider, 1744, lines 25–​29 (ed. Strange, 2:166): “Quia Dominus […] corpus assumptum ablaturus erat ab oculis nostris, et illaturus sideribus, necesse erat ut in die Coenae sacramentum veri corporis et consanguinis consecraret, ut coleretur iugiter per mysterium, quod semel offerebatur in pretium.” 43  English: Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogue on Miracles, 2.120. 44  Cf. Aris, “Quid sumit mus?”

45  Cf. Falk, Die deutschen Meß-​Auslegungen.

46  For staged absence see Dieterich, “Das Konstanzer Heilige Grab”; Dümpelmann, “Non est hie, surrexit”; for the shift from actual to staged presence see Petersen, Ritual und Theater; for the ambivalence of the absent-​present body see Warning, “Auf der Suche.”

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Christ, represented by a figure, only loses its “as if” character where it is transcended, for example in the form of liturgical participation. The other side of the longing for presence is therefore the necessity of absence, which creates the basis on which belief is possible.

Presence Performative

The Feast of Corpus Christi offers a focal point for such tensions. It lends the interpenetration of the present and the discursive a self-​reflexive place in the church’s calendar of festivals, a place where not only the commemoratio of the original communion can be celebrated, but also its institutio through church liturgy.47 The feast’s moment of origin is already linked to a paradox:  the one who is celebrated is thought to have initiated the feast himself. The Vita of Juliana of Liège, a nun entirely dedicated to Passion piety, states that in ca. 1208/​1209 (shortly before the Fourth Council of the Lateran first used the term transubstantiatio for the idea of a change in substance during the Eucharist) she had visions in which the introduction of a feast to celebrate the sacrament of the altar was authorized by Christ himself, who interpreted a spot on the radiant moon as symbolizing the lack of a church festival.48 The vision inspired the testimony that subsequently served as a basis for the performative development—​for example in processions and sacred plays—​of the meanings and implications of what happens in the Mass. Such plays add a further dimension to the already diverse connections between the real body and its representations:  performative-​textual “presentification.” The earliest German-​language example is the Innsbruck Corpus Christi play, which probably has its origins in the early fourteenth century.49 Like the events of the Mass and the festival, the play offers a concentrated version of salvation history, leading to the dogma of transubstantiation via the key stages of the Fall of Man, the birth of Christ, and the Passion. In the foreground is the mediation of exemplary aspects of salvation history by prophets and apostles. Their speeches gain a specific dynamism from the tension between different elements of time and salvation history. Three types of temporality are interwoven: that of history, salvation history, and liturgy. On the one hand, the events associated with Christ are fixed in a chronology ab initio mundi. On the other hand, there are repeated glimpses of salvation history as a whole: the Fall of Man, the Crucifixion, the end times. In each case a connection is made to the current situation, in “we” statements or speeches addressed to the audience; Philip’s description of the Last Judgment closes by urging listeners to pray to Christ, “der da kegenwertig ist” (lines 398–​402; who is present among us right over there). Other superimpositions between past and present also occur: Johannes Baptista looks back on the baptism of Christ as a past event, and at the same time refers to the Lamb of God as existing in the present. The prophets speak in the past, but alternate with the apostles, who are connected to the presence of Christ. In the creed, which 47  Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, 1:161; Browe, Eucharistie im Mittelalter, 459–​536. 48  Rubin, Corpus Christi, 170.

49  Altteütsche Schauspiele; for a more precise account of the following see Kiening, “Präsenz—​ Memoria—​Performativität”; English: “Innsbruck Corpus Christi Play,” Medieval German Drama.

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switches between present and past tense, this presence makes the historical events present: present for the community in the ritual commemoration. The presence of the creed at the beginning of the play evokes an element of Christian worship that is situated between the service of the word and the eucharistic liturgy, and itself already embodies that concentrated universality of salvation history which is central to the play. Just as its unity generates a supra-​individual and supra-​historical community of faith through the distribution of its clauses among the apostles, so conversely does the multiplicity of the songs of the prophets generate a supra-​individual and supra-​temporal liturgical mood. The songs precede, in each case, the speeches of the prophets. They mediate between the facticity of the creed and the prophetic nature of the visio, between the status of eyewitness and seer, between Christologically defined institution and typologically founded providence. This underscores the solemnity of the prophetic knowledge and simultaneously converts it into liturgical practice. The songs are mainly based on those Old Testament passages that are traditionally read as pointers to Christ. Within the framework of the play, however, they appear as re-​contextualized “quotations,” evoking central liturgical moments of the church’s cycle of festivals. Thus they do not correspond to the specific liturgy of the Feast of Corpus Christi, but instead make this festival the focal point of the church year, and of the movement of salvation that plays out between Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. In this way, Christian worship is presented in intensified form against the dispositif of the Eucharist. It concentrates the essence of the connection between sacrificium and eucharistia, divinity and humanity, losing and gaining salvation. In the same way, the play unites things that otherwise seem dissimilar: the annunciation, birth, Passion, resurrection, and ascension of the Redeemer. Even the individual songs and the underlying Bible passages shift between different time phases. The reference to a virginal birth in Isaiah is an Old Testament prophecy that is taken up in the New Testament (Luke 1:31), in such a way that the one present-​tense ecce finds its echo in the other, and this echo is regarded as implied in the final word: “ecce, a word in the present tense (‘behold’) is here conjugated with a future tense, concipies (‘you will conceive’). It is a future, however, that has been uttered and written in the remote past, in the form of a prophecy. But that is not all: the future tense is here spoken as a quasi-​performative: it is spoken in order to produce an effect in the present. For an almost immediate echo—​the Virgin’s ecce—​is all that is required for Christ’s body to be conceived in Mary’s womb.”50 In the play, the interlinking of the time phases helps to enact a presence that is based not on mimetic, but on symbolic embodiment, and nonetheless operates with the mimetic as a possibility, in order to lend evidentness to the symbolic.51 This is shown by the presentness of the Son of God. The mediator Christ does not appear, and yet his is a significant presence. He is absent as a speaking and acting figure, but present as the reason and aim for the performance. At the beginning, Adam sees him in that undefined place which can be associated with the gates of hell. Various prophets and apostles also 50  Didi-​Huberman, Fra Angelico, 115.

51  For the relationship between real presence and presence produced in the play, see J.-​D. Müller, “Realpräsenz und Repräsentation.”

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see him. John the Baptist points him out as the Lamb of God (“Ecce agnus dei”). Caspar expresses his gratitude that his wish to see the kindelin has now been fulfilled. Christ is therefore present in the significant images of his existence: as a king ruling the world, as a victor overcoming death, as the Lamb of God taking away guilt, as the child incarnate. The achronological sequence of the images indicates that the presence is not that of an empirical now. Being there as an imago simultaneously means being there and not being there as a corpus: in the sense of a reality which is supposed to be manifested in the Host. Yet the Host is not simply brought into play as an abstract form of real presence, but is—​through the manifestations of the absent/​present Christ—​imbued with his history and presentness. Hence there are various references to the sacrament, but the actual contours of the Host remain uncertain—​right into the final speech. In it, the pope interprets the typological relationship between Old Testament manna and the New Testament Host as a sublation of the provisional into the permanent, of foreshadowing into fulfilment. At the same time he carries out a performative condensation of the Eucharist present in language. By celebrating the word, and implying, in accentuated repetitions (“daz ist … daz ist … daz ist”; lines 79, 85, 87), an analogy with the eucharistic formula Hoc est corpus meum, he evokes characteristics of the Host that cannot be seen: that it is “sweet,” “noble,” and “heavenly.” This emphasis on language arises from the interweaving of metaphor and metonymy. The bread, the Lamb, and the body of Christ are the expression of a process of transubstantiation, which not only means the possible repetition of a historical miracle, but its actual repetition in the liturgy—​though this always includes the constant recollection of its origin as confirmation: “vil lyben lute gedencket dar an” (line 695; “dearly beloved, both women and men, /​remember this”).52 The crucial point of this recollection consists in simultaneously relating it to the institution itself, which is therefore, as a historical institution, linked to its origin less by analogy than by contiguity. On the one hand, the opening words “hoc est corpus meum,” spoken during the Mass, repeat the momentum from which they come. On the other hand, through the additional phrase “hoc facite in meam commemorationem” (Luke 22:20), they show that the repetition is inscribed into the momentum itself. The repetition is therefore always both a transfer and a revision or renewal. When the pope’s speech cites the substitution of body and blood in the Last Supper, it is not only the theanthropic origin itself that is being expressed. The heart—​the thing that enables the believer to comprehend the transubstantiation—​also comes into play (lines 728–​35). The pope therefore does not simply embody the origin of that institution that allows a new dimension of eucharistic piety. He also marks the transition from the inner and outer seeing of the prophets and witnesses who have appeared earlier in the play into that tasting and consuming which can be intensely experienced thanks to the institution of Corpus Christi. This tasting and consuming is not intended to appear as something that is merely physical. Instead the idea is that the sensory will be freed from its mere materiality, while the extrasensory will be made accessible in material categories. Boundaries between indexical and symbolic signs, and between event and institution, 52  “Innsbruck Corpus Christi Play,” 119.

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are eliminated. What is implied is the possibility of a real-​symbolic use of signs, which does constantly use ascriptions of meaning, but at the same time ontologizes the act of ascription: the offerings presented to the kindelin by the Magi are uffbare zeichen (line 598; “an unmistakable sign”)53—​signs of evidence and revelation, in which the signified itself is thought to be present. The play transcends itself as a play. In the attempt to make space for the powerful real symbolism of the sacrament, it replaces mimetic presence with an implied omnipresence of salvation and of the Redeemer in the signs, names, and words. These are not simply given as static; they take place as an inner performativity, in which past, present, and future, presentation, evocation, and signification come together to form an eternal moment.54 The idea is that the empty space which the text revolves around will prove to be a place of abundance, and the abundance will in turn manifest itself as a word: a word in which testimony is given and the incarnation of the Messiah is expressed. The process is characteristic of what happens in many similar texts from the same period. While eucharistic prayers and meditational texts create an imaginative presence, without reflexive elements having to break through this,55 sermons and interpretations of the Mass experience a greater tension between presentation and interpretation, between facilitating participation and explaining complex matters. The Engelberg sermons, for example, written around the same time as the Innsbruck Corpus Christi play, aim at a presence that is more than just external and imaginative; following Meister Eckhart, this appears as a path that leaves all media and mediation behind it.56 The allegorical interpretation of the Mass from Wienhausen (Wienhäuser Messallegorese), from the period ca. 1300, is at pains to capture the liturgical events in a text that is meant to be both a guideline for understanding these events and a set of instructions for reconstructing them in the present.57

Hypermediality and Antimediality

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, then, there are numerous attempts to exhibit and explore mediatory dimensions of salvation history, but also to transcend and overturn them—​in a presence that displays features of the immediate. There can hardly be a better example than a combination of text and images, probably created just before 1324 in northern Italy, which presents salvation history as a multilayered complex of references: the Speculum humane salvationis.58 Centring on Christ and Mary, it depicts 53  “Innsbruck Corpus Christi Play,” 115.

54  For inner performance, see also Dauven-​van Knippenberg, “Ein Schauspiel”; Hascher-​Burger, Gesungene Innigkeit; for forms of immersion see Barton, Schwellengänge. 55  Thali, “Strategien der Heilsvermittlung.”

56  Wetzel, “Mystischer Weg”; cf. also Wetzel and Flückiger, “Bild, Bildlichkeit und Ein-​Bildung.” 57  Mattern, “Liturgie im Text.”

58  Speculum humanæ salvationis; for the text and its early transmission see Palmer, “ ‘Turning Many to Righteousness.’ ”

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the salvific events of the New Testament—​in keeping with the typological thinking that was already richly developed in the thirteenth century—​as the fulfilment of Old Testament prefigurations and analogies, in a form that aims to mediate elementary theological knowledge with clear visual cues. The anonymous author sees himself as a relay point between tradition and its transmission (accipere et dare), and seeks to offer insights into the work of creation and the condicio humana, insights that can also be shared with the uneducated, as the prologue states, thanks to the work’s pictorial form. And indeed, many possible modes of perception open up in the interplay between text and image. The text is divided into three main parts: a short introduction discusses the biblical history of salvation chronologically, from the Creation to the Flood; the main section, which is typological, juxtaposes scenes from the life of Christ or Mary with, in each case, three corresponding scenes from the Old Testament; a non-​typological conclusion explores the story of Christ and Mary three more times, now related to the seven hours of prayer, the seven pains, and the seven joys of Mary. This three-​part construction is encompassed by a unified overarching structure: in the first two parts, forty-​two chapters in total (or thirty-​four in the short version), the Latin text contains one hundred lines per chapter, arranged in four groups of twenty-​five lines, each group referring to one image. That is, there are eight images (and a total of two hundred lines) in the opening section, forty images (and a total of four thousand lines) in the main section. The three chapters of the final section each contain 208 lines and eight related images, that is, a total of twenty-​four images and 624 lines. This precise attention to tectonics is accompanied by a similar attention to the layout: a typical version such as the early manuscript from Kremsmünster (ca. 1330) shows four images spread across two pages, accompanied by inscriptions. Below them are the twenty-​five lines of the Latin text, above them a German version taking up ten to twelve lines. A carefully thought-​out structure, then:  on the one hand, the texts can be read in the vertical columns, and on the other hand, the images can be followed horizontally. In the margin of the text the key word figura can point to the images, and conversely the inscriptions accompanying the images can give preliminary hints of their themes. The reading meditatio or meditating lectio acquires additional complexity from the various possible modes of contemplation: with the shift from the narrative sequence of the opening section to the typological order of the main section, the viewer can either continue to follow the sequence presented on the double page, or, looking at the left-​ hand picture in each case and turning the pages, follow the salvation history of the New Testament through to his own present. The use of the same image type or of the same colour also creates paradigmatic connections: here the annunciation of Mary’s birth to Anne, there the annunciation of the Incarnation to Mary; here Christ showing his wounds to the Father, there Mary showing her breasts to the Son, both for purposes of intercession. Not only does Christian salvation history become present in this way in the Speculum. Its medial representation also acquires a specific self-​evidence. The relationship between foreshadowing and fulfilment appears in a vortex of signs that mirror each other. And it appears in an accumulation of mediating figures: from the prophets of the Old Testament, then Christ as mediator and Mary as Mediatrix, through to current

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spiritual authorities:  a monk, a nun, in whose visions the salvific events of the New Testament become present. The interplay between glimpses back into the past and forward into the future gives rise to a complex temporality: Christ reports in the past on his own decision about redemption, which is shown against the background of another past, that of the Old Testament. This in turn points to the future: according to the text, the role of Mary had already been prefigured by a dream of the Persian king Astyages about his own daughter. The supplementing of the basic chronological-​typological structure with the final sequences, in which the events of the Passion are replayed, leads to temporal loops. The insertion of synchronic images of the salvific events (such as arma Christi) has the same effect. The basic pattern of figural typology is thus concretized in various ways in the referential structure of the signs, and in the temporal structure of past, present, and future.59 The signs that God revealed to his people appear as provisional, pointing to the future, though what they lack can only be discerned from the position of those able to believe that the signs are fulfilled by Christ. This position makes it possible to both constitute and transcend a (limited) abundance of meaning that is given in the present, with regard to its veiled proclamation in the past and its complete fulfilment in the future. For the present began with the appearance of Christ, and is still ongoing. It is permeated by the divine presence, which is all-​embracing in salvation history (for example in the form of the above-​mentioned hours of prayer, from vespers to none, which are regarded as a reconstruction of Good Friday and therefore of the stations of the Passion).60 The present, however, is also further and further removed from its origin, so it requires constant reminding of this origin. A key role here is played by media forms, which reveal the absolute abundance of being, meaning, or time in this world. They reveal no more than fragments of this, but with such intensity that readers can only begin to suspect the nature of the promised whole that is yet to come. Just a few years older than the Speculum, which was created in Dominican circles, are the works of a Dominican theologian, which oppose an external understanding of the sacraments and epistemological categories of mediation. In the Erfurt talks and in other sermons, Meister Eckhart propagates an inwardness of the presence of the divine, which is eventually taken to its extreme:  even mental representations, ultimately all mediatizations of the divine, are to be abandoned in favour of experience that can no longer be grasped in categories.61 In his commentary on sapientia, he writes that for the union of the soul with God, all media must be silent (“omne medium sileat”).62 The German sermon Quasi vas auri explicitly discusses what could (but should not) be considered as a mediating element, a mittel, between the origin and its image: “But the will is not a mediator [mittel] between image and nature; indeed, neither understanding nor knowledge nor wisdom can be a mediator here, for the divine image breaks forth 59  For the structure of typology see Suntrup, “Typologische Heilsgeschichts-​Konzepte.” 60  Kemper, Die Kreuzigung Christi, 72–​76. 61  Cf. Hasebrink, “Diesseits?”

62  Cf. Grotz, Negationen des Absoluten, 42–​45.

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from the fecundity of nature without mediation [âne mittel]. But if there is any mediator of wisdom, that is the image itself. […] God is here in the image without means [âne mittel], and the image is without means in God.”63 Eckhart insists that that which is an image of the archetype is not simply mediated by the archetype. Instead it is, in its being, completely dependent on the archetype, takes its being from it, indeed comes from it. The sense of sight serves as an example. It is not imagined—​as in contemporary theories of optics—​as a medial transfer through rays of sight; the eye does not bring forth the image. Instead it is a receptacle, a vessel, in spiritual terms: “Whatever is received in that is in the vessel and the vessel in it, and it is the vessel itself.”64 This does not mean that these things are identical, but that they are ontologically related. According to Neoplatonic thought, that which comes from something more original should not be considered in terms of the categorical difference from this thing, but in terms of its necessary connection to it: the image has its being from the archetype, just as the archetype contains all possible images in itself. What takes place between them is not mediation via a third element, but a relationship of reciprocal implication and explication: B, which is essentially implicated in A as its source, simultaneously explicates, in its actual form, what it potentially is in A. At first glance it seems that the contrast could hardly be greater. On the one hand we have a theologically grounded presentation of salvation history, which spreads out the whole arsenal of Christian mediating figures: personal, figural, and material. On the other hand we have a philosophically dense meditation on the fundamental features of the Christian understanding of being and the self, which draws attention to a paradoxical absence of mediation. And yet the two approaches prove to be connected. Both take their orientation from the sermon, as the key contemporary form in which salvation history was mediated effectively to a wide audience. And in the balance between theological-​ philosophical abstraction and strong verbal-​visual impact, both seek to make the relationship between the divine and the human comprehensible as a participatory one. The author of the Speculum displays the complex logic of salvation history in an abundance of elements of meaning, while Eckhart uses exemplary statements and metaphors to develop fundamental ontological and theological questions. Each envisages a paradoxical structure of mediation: the Speculum displays a medial surplus, turning Christ’s life story into a quasi-​liturgical event that is present at all times and is inwardly re-​enacted, an event that is ultimately meant to separate from the mediate and reach an immediate state. Eckhart, on the other hand, while rejecting all tangible forms of mediation, retains the connection to the medial (image, word, spirit), but in such a way that mediacy and 63  Predigt 16B; Meister Eckhart, Werke I, 186–​97, this quote p. 188, lines 24–​29, 190, line 2f.: “Und doch enist der wille niht ein mittel zwischen dem bilde und der natûre; jâ, noch bekennen noch wizzen noch wîsheit enmac niht ein mittel gesîn, wan daz götlîche bilde brichet ûz der vruhtbærkeit der natûre âne mittel. Ist aber hier ein mittel der wîsheit, daz ist daz bilde selber. […] Hie ist got âne mittel in dem bilde, und daz bilde ist âne mittel in gote”; for more on the text see Köbele, “Meister Eckhart, Predigt Q 16b.” English: Meister Eckhart, Complete Mystical Works, 115. 64  Meister Eckhart, Werke I, 186, lines 22–​24. English: Meister Eckhart, Complete Mystical Works, 114.

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immediacy prove to be inseparable for the relationship between the divine and the human. These are two sides of the same coin: while Eckhart interlinks the difference between divine and human with a figure of immanence (awareness of self, Innesein, and reflexive awareness, Innewerden), to make it possible to imagine a kind of negative mediality, the author of the Speculum sublates the many mediator figures into the dynamism of processes of designation, reference, and fulfilment, in such a way that a kind of hypermediality arises. Overabundance and absence thus show themselves to be related to the same basic figure: the paradoxical interpenetration of mediation and immediacy (or immediability).

Presence of the Passion

In the late Middle Ages, as will have become abundantly clear by now, the Passion of Christ is at the heart of mediation between the divine and the human.65 In salvation history, it represents the complex that most strikingly reveals the interpenetration of the spheres. And it is therefore also the ideal object for media forms that are situated on the boundary between transcendence and immanence, that is, which thematize the seemingly incomprehensible in its greatest comprehensibility, and at the same time insist that this comprehensibility cannot be attained without transcendence. The basic pattern for making the salvific events present in the space of memoria or the imagination, the soul or the mind, or for projecting oneself into them, is found in the hugely influential Meditaciones Vitae Christi by John of Caulibus: “Heed this and remind yourself […] to be as present in all things that are spoken or that happen. […] Pay attention to everything, as if you were there. […] Be present mentally with the greatest of attentiveness. […] See yourself as being present at the events, just as if they had happened in your presence.”66 It is in this spirit that countless texts, visual works, and objects—​in churches and monasteries, and then also increasingly in semi-​ religious and non-​ religious settings—​portray the story of the Passion as a whole or evoke individual elements of it. In the Speculum, for example, we encounter the crucifixion of Christ four times in total:  first in the framework of the life of Christ, then within a sequence dividing the Passion among the seven hours of prayer, again within the seven pains of Mary, and lastly in the centre of a full-​page final image of the Tree of Jesse. According to the systematics of the liturgist Durandus in his Rationale divinorum officiorum, depictions such as these are the third form of the salvific remembering of the Passion, alongside Holy Communion

65  Cf. Ruh, Bonaventura deutsch; Baier, Untersuchungen; Marrow, Passion Iconography; Belting, Das Bild und sein Publikum; Die Passion Christi; Köpf, “Passionsfrömmigkeit”; Seegets, Passionstheologie und Passionsfrömmigkeit; Kemper, Die Kreuzigung Christi; Dittmeyer, Gewalt und Heil.

66  Iohannis de Caulibus, Meditaciones vite Christi, 256 (75f.):  “Attende igitur ad singula ac si presens esses”; 270 (78, 4–​6):  “toto mentis intuitu te presentem exhibeas et intuere diligenter cuncta que fiunt contra Dominum tuum”; 350 (108, 9–​11): “te ibidem presente exhibendo, ac si in tua presentia fierent prout simpliciter anime cogitanti occurrit”; cf. Andree, Archäologie der Medienwirkung, 90f.

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and the sermon,67 a powerful and yet limited form: the manuscript image of the crucified Christ before the text of the Canon is thought to stimulate the memoria of the Passion, but unlike the Sacrament of the Altar, it only makes Christ present in an “as if” mode (quasi presentem).68 In this way the media forms aim both at compassio and meditatio. They oscillate between affective and reflective dimensions, and appeal to both the outer and the inner senses—​for example with new small objects (pilgrim badges, rosaries, devotional pictures) or new movable visual works (triptychs, winged altarpieces, representations of the donkey carrying Christ into Jerusalem, movable crosses). All these things oscillate between the external and the internal, body-​focused and body-​denying practices, mimetic and non-​mimetic acts.69 And all of them are excellent examples of the double character of presence hinted at above. The medial representation of presence in the framework of the Passion is governed by an inescapable retrospectivity. At the same time, due to the abstracted, indeed unavailable nature of the phenomenon, it is able to allow the experience of something that cannot be experienced any other way. One of the promises of the Passion meditation—​and not the least important—​is therefore to mediate and facilitate experiences of proximity, indeed to create a proximity that goes even further than that granted to the authorities. This is the idea behind a text that researchers have entitled Christi Leiden in einer Vision geschaut. It begins with the situation of a Dominican monk who wishes to have a close, devotional experience of the Passion.70 He is able to fulfil this wish with the help of a booklet describing the intense participation of a woman (a nun) in the events of the Passion. This text resembles a piece of spolia, which seems to be inserted into the present text but bears marks of precarity itself:  it provides considerably more details—​especially of the cruel scenes of martyrdom—​than the Gospels. The frame narrator explains this as follows:  in the early days people did not wish to hear much about Jesus, and therefore the evangelists limited themselves to the barest necessities. Now, however, Jesus’s divinity is the innermost treasure of all Christians, and it is therefore appropriate to reveal “auch sin menschelich lyden noch eygentlicher synen vsserwelten frunden” (60.25f.; his human suffering even more clearly to his chosen friends). But where does this additional knowledge come from? From two visions nested within each other. The Dominican, severely ill, puts himself into the situation of the suffering Christ: “In this suffering, he crept, meditating, to Christ on the mountain, where he was kneeling in full presence (gegonwortich). And the same brother raised his hand and passed it over Christ’s face, which dripped with blood.”71 A singing heavenly 67  Durantis, Rationale divinorum officiorum, 1:480. 68  Thali, “Strategien der Heilsvermittlung,” 263.

69  Cf. Largier, “Präsenzeffekte”; Schnyder, “Kunst der Vergegenwärtigung.”

70  Christi Leiden (quoted); Kompilation aus Heinrichs von St. Gallen; for the text see Prica, “Zwischen Literaturwissenschaft und Theologie”; for the mediality of the vision see Ganz, Medien der Offenbarung. 71  Christi Leiden, 61.18–​21: “er sleich also siech mit betratungen hyn zo Christum vff den berch an die stat da he gegonwortich kneede. Vnd der selue broder nam syne hant vnd lies sy Christum ouer syn treyffende bloedich angesichte gaen.”

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host appears to him in a vision, and a youth promises that he will be part of this in the future. He thereupon recovers from his illness and, out of gratitude, distributes the text in which the experience of the Passion is depicted. This text, in turn, is the result of the grace which God accorded to a woman by leading her to the sites of the Passion. There she can “see and hear everything, because it is the wish of the heavenly Father that the sufferings of his child should be perceived and proclaimed.”72 There are therefore two instances of participation: one figure experiences the events personally, the other projects himself into them, and is thus inspired to disseminate what the first has experienced. The visionary assumes the role of Mary, who shares in the suffering of the Passion; the Dominican has the task of making her direct experience accessible to others. This matches a pattern familiar from the female spirituality of the time. Yet this pattern is made more potent here in that the Dominican, for his part, demands both transcendent and physical proof of the truth of the written report. This proof then constitutes another frame of the present text. In this way, the Dominican monk experiences a triple participation:  in the suffering of Christ in his mind, in the kingdom of heaven in his vision, and in the Passion as he follows the account of the sacred woman’s vision. This account, theologically the most questionable part of the text, constitutes the climax in terms of textual logic: it presents a situation of maximal presence, with which the text ends—​it does not return to the situation of the woman or of the Dominican monk. The different points in time from which reference is made to the past—​that is, the time of Christ—​are so blended into one another that the element which seems most mediatized, the woman’s vision, is at the same time the thing that conceals this mediality the most. At first the multiple figures involved demonstrate the precarious nature of the events of the Passion, which are simultaneously experienced and added to. Then, however, the ending creates a space of visionary immediacy beyond these figures, which is translated into the mediacy of the writing and at the same time released from it. Such phantasms of presence are not contradictory to the tendency of many texts and images to mediate even complex matters of dogma. The displaying of mediations and the creation of immediacy, or in general terms, the interpretation and “presentification” of the events of the Passion, can both complement and intensify each other. This is shown to striking effect by the Latin Passion tract by Michael de Massa from the first third of the fourteenth century, which was adapted into German ca. 1400.73 The starting point is the famous quote from Genesis, which forms the climax of Abraham’s sacrifice of his own son Isaac: “Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son” (Gen. 22:10). This evokes a passage that is traditionally interpreted as a reference to Christ, and in keeping with this, the idea of the sacrifice is also at the centre of the Passion tract. Initially, however, attention is focused on the days before Jesus’s arrest, and they are consistently marked in their temporality: on Friday the arrival in Bethany, on Saturday the 72  Christi Leiden, 62.31–​33:  “allet sament sehen vnd hoiren, want dat ist begerlichen dem hemelschen vader dat man syns kindes lyden bevyndet vnd bekennet.” 73  Heinrich von St. Gallen, Passionstraktat; Kompilation aus Heinrichs von St. Gallen. For the German-​language literature see Kemper, Die Kreuzigung Christi.

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meal with Martha, Lazarus, and Mary, on Sunday the entry into Jerusalem and the sermon in the Temple, in the days that follow movement back and forth between Jerusalem and Bethany. The emphasis is on the times of day and the simultaneity of actions, and the result is an ostentatious display of current events. “After this, on Sunday, Christ went to Jerusalem. There he was received with honour. There he drove the traders out of the temple with a whip of cords and taught all day. Late in the evening he had to leave the city without an evening meal because no one wanted to take him in with his disciples or accommodate them over night. And he had to walk back two miles to Bethany. On Monday morning he went back to Jerusalem.”74 These contemporary events draw closer to the Passion with dramatic inexorability, simultaneously focusing attention on this inexorability itself. The reader is always aware of the fixed, definitively shaped order of events, but their causal plausibility still needs to be established. Again and again, there is foreshadowing of what will and must happen in the days to come. Again and again, however, there are also attempts to avert these events. Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene try hard to dissuade Jesus from the idea of sacrifice; they engage him in difficult discussions about the need to sacrifice himself for mankind; they want to keep him in Bethany and not let him go to Jerusalem. This drama reaches its climax on Wednesday of Holy Week. The text relates this fourth day of the week, on which Christ was sold for thirty pieces of silver, to the fourth day of Creation: the day on which God illuminated the world with the sun is contrasted to the day on which the sun was darkened again. The time of Creation forms the background for the time of the Passion, just as the old Adam forms the background for the new Adam, that is, Christ. At the same time, the women see Wednesday as the last opportunity to change the course of events, and Christ sees it as his last opportunity to spend time with his loved ones. When his mother suffers pain because she knows that on Friday her son will “in irre kegenwortikeit von den valschen Juden bitterlichen gegeisilt und gecrucziget werden” (be bitterly whipped and crucified by the false Jews in her presence), Jesus reacts with a different kind of presentness: “He wanted to console his dear mother with his presence before his death, and therefore did not leave her for the whole day on Wednesday, but remained with her in Martha’s house in Bethany.”75 The inexorable passage of Christ’s time on earth leads to an intensified presence, which reaches its climax in the detailed depiction of the Passion. The scene of the Last Supper and the sacrament of the Eucharist, interpreted on the basis of tradition, serve as a link. The sacrament is found to contain a fourfold presentness: that of the Trinity, that of the angels, that of Mary and her pure virgins, and lastly that of all souls. Thus 74  Ruh, Heinrich von St. Gallen, 3.16–​24: “Dornach an dem sontage ginc Cristus gegen Iherusalem. Do wart er in eren empfangen. Do treib er us dem tempel mit einer geisele von stricken, die do kouften und vorkouften. Do larte er den ganzen tac. Des abendis spete muste er geen us der stat, ungessen, daz in niemant wolde behalden noch herbergen obir nacht mit sinen iungeren. Und muste bie nachte gen czwu mile gen Bethania. An dem montage gar vru ginc er weder kegen Iherusalem.”

75  Ruh, Heinrich von St. Gallen, 5.5–​8: “Her wolde sine libe muter vor sime tode trosten mit siner kegenwertikeit, und dorumme an der mitwochen den ganczen tac ginc her nicht von ir, sunder her bleip bie ir in dem huze Marthe czu Bethania.”

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the Eucharist proves to be the embodiment not just of the real presence of Christ, but of salvation history as a whole—​the text links more than a dozen figures from the Old Testament to it. The subsequent Passion concretizes the idea of sacrifice that underlies the Eucharist. It makes evident that unity of the divine and the human which the Host also contains metonymically; both are bound to the belief of the Christians that “sie ein dinc mit dem vatere sint, als der ist ein dinc selber mit im” (30.3f.; they are one thing with the father, as he is one thing himself with him). What applies to the Host also applies to the Passion itself: as stated at the end, those reading the tract are meant to witness the Passion, to appropriate it:  “in keeping with his will we are to ‘mould ourselves’ to fit into this work and this suffering.”76 Paradoxically, Christ himself is the model not only for the suffering but also for the imagined suffering. Citing the authority of Bernard of Clairvaux, the text describes in detail how Christ, in the Garden of Gethsemane, mentally anticipates his imminent pain and death with such intensity that his heart, his bones, the marrow in his bones, indeed everything that is in his body, teeth, eyes etc., trembles. Rivers of sweat run down his body. So vividly does he imagine his death that God the Father must send an angel to comfort his son. With scenes such as these, the Passion tract interweaves two tendencies:  on the one hand a “presentification” of the sequence of events of the Passion in the here and now; on the other hand a projecting of the reader’s self into the historical situation. This interweaving means a blurring of the difference between past and present. It is, however, itself pervaded by differentiations, arising from a double insistence: on constant reminders of the early prediction of the Passion on the one hand, and on its later interpretation on the other. This is a basic feature of late medieval versions of the Passion story, which refer more and more to the Old Testament to interpret the events. They relate its prophetic-​futuristic statements to the New Testament, and at the same time emphasize how the New Testament reflects the Old. Different moments in time are increasingly interlinked: historicity and ahistoricity, the primeval, supra-​temporal and “any-​time” nature of the Passion, the fulfilment of something that has its roots in history, and the open future that is yet to come. At the same time, however, the events of the Passion are increasingly interpreted with references to authorities such as the church fathers or figures from the history of piety, who have already interpreted or assimilated the events. Thus we find multiple reflections of the Passion in both earlier and more recent times, and a growing number of mediators and media to mediate it. In keeping with this, the version by Michael de Massa and Heinrich von St. Gallen is packed with references to the figural anticipation of the events, originating in the Old Testament. Jesus himself repeatedly cites the argument that what has been prophesied must necessarily be fulfilled. Indeed this argument is his final refuge when his mother’s questions put him under pressure: “der son ir muste antwerten und vlien czu den figuren der alden e” (5.16f.; the son had to answer to her and flee to the figures of the Old Covenant). Just as prominent, however, are the church fathers and Scholastic authorities, with whose assistance obscure points in the events of the Passion are elucidated, 76  Ruh, Heinrich von St. Gallen, 75.12f.: “in die selben werc und in das selbe liden sul wir uns weder bilden durch sinen willen.”

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and to whom the crucial insight into Christ’s role as mediator is attributed: “Gregorius spricht: Cristus was ein mitteler, der den menschen weder brochte” (1.20f.; Gregorius says: Christ was a mediator, who brought humans back to salvation). In contrast to the layering of different visions in Christi Leiden, the emphasis here is on the tension between report and commentary. Nonetheless, the basic idea is the same: there is a mediality in which that which is mediatized is ontologically present in the medium, a mediality that can also permeate other medial phenomena, which interweave in processes of temporalization and detemporalization. The shared metaphor for this idea is the mirror, which also plays a leading role in the Speculum humanae salvationis. In Christi Leiden, the Dominican speaks of the account of the Passion as a worthy mirror, which allows him to visualize the events. In the Passion tract, a vision of a mirror—​attributed to Ambrosius—​is inserted into the key passage describing the Last Supper: when Christ made the sign of the cross over the bread, we are told, there immediately appeared “in dem mittel des brotis und des cruczis […] als ein spiegel eine gotliche clarheit” (24.15f.; in the midst of the bread and the cross as a mirror a divine clarity). The text reports that three things appeared in the mirror: all the priests who will undertake the transformation until the end of time; the fact that all those who partake of the body of Christ become one with him; the fact that all those who partake of the body of Christ in the proper spirit will receive eternal life. Thus the mirror is a surface on which both the concrete and the abstract, the material and the immaterial appear.77 It mediates, represents, and manifests. But it also promises a form of transfer—​including the transfer of salvation—​that is not only visual, but also material. It is assumed that the thing that simultaneously mirrors the creation and serves as a mirror of and for the self will make it possible to capture the whole world and salvation history, and to advance one’s own self-​knowledge.

Complexities

Here, as elsewhere, the oscillation between ontological and medial presence cannot be separated from discursive and normative contexts on the one hand, and from models of perception on the other. If media forms are to be not just representations but also embodiments of salvation, if books and texts are to materialize the transcendent, and if prayer, liturgy, and communion are to make the divine present, then in a society characterized by increasingly complex institutions, they need insurance—​against misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and errors. The extent to which salvation becomes available in the lifeworld therefore has another side: in a sort of counterpoint, it encourages skepticism about devotion to external images, material facts, and physical phenomena. Media diversity means that the power of visual works to bring grace and salvation cannot be simply assumed, but must be discussed critically and linked to liturgical or theological conditions,78 or that readers/​viewers must be warned not to lose 77  Cf. Oswald, “Spiegelphänomene.”

78  Cf. Schnitzler, Ikonoklasmus—​Bildersturm.

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themselves in that which has been made present to the senses. Gert Groote proposes, as an antidote, that one should repeatedly and deliberately break through the illusion of presence: “if one imagines Christ or his actions as present, it may be useful to occasionally put up some defense against this, something that cancels out the presentness of Christ, that stops our eyes from being deceived by sensory phantasms, and in some way draws us back, mentally, from the current presence of Christ and his actions.”79 As a result of this, mystical texts feature a subtle merging of identities and differences. Sometimes, as in the case of Elsbeth von Oye, the presence of God can be directly experienced in extreme physical suffering, sometimes, as with Margaretha Ebner, it is linked to the name of God, and gegenwertkait is evoked verbally rather than actually produced.80 Sometimes it is grasped in abstract speculation. When Meister Eckhart speaks of the praesens nunc or gegenwertig nû, he is using a category in which time sequence and duration are both transcended, and the being of God and man’s participation in this being converge.81 The “present now” is understood as the “fullness of time,” in and with which absolute presence is mediated to the soul as a moment of insight. That which is present appears as something that is available to the subject in its actuality, and is simultaneously freed from actual limitations—​insofar as the soul is able to transcend its own connection to the present, indeed its time-​bound nature. Presence then means more than a here and now of the divine, or a real presence of the Son of God in the Eucharist. It is one of the categories in which divine and human being, the inner-​trinitarian mode of relation to the world, and the intrapsychic mode of experiencing God can be related to one another.82 Eckhart’s pupil Henry Suso shifts this abstract definition of presentness toward concrete visions and auditions. Yet these prove to be hardly less complex. They are not simply a manifestation of the divine. Medial transfers and interconnections give the scenarios reflexive traits. We will consider just three examples from the Exemplar, Suso’s own compilation of his writings from ca. 1360. In the forty-​first chapter of the first part, the Vita, he tells of a vision in which the so-​called servant of wisdom receives an image of Mary and the baby Jesus at her heart, bearing the word HERZENTRUT on his forehead in “sch=nen, wolgeflorierten bůchstaben” (140.7; “beautiful flowery letters”).83 This word is written in a special script, like the initial letter of a text, and in fact it forms the beginning of the enchanting song which the servant has just listened to with rapture. Sound and writing form a synesthetic unit. At the same time, writing is able to preserve the 79  Groote, “De quattuor generibus meditabilium,” lines 148–​52: “Sed tunc, cum quis se praesentem Christo vel actibus suis configit, non est inutile aliquid negans Christi praesentiam aliquando iuxta ponere, quod nos, ne phantasmate cadente ad oculos decipiamur, mente ab actuali Christi praesentia at actuum suorum aliqualiter revocet”; Schuppisser, “Schauen mit den Augen des Herzens”; Kruse, Wozu Menschen malen, 229f.

80  For the first text see Hasebrink, “Elsbeth von Oye,” Wünsche, “Präsenz des Unerträglichen”; for the second see Fuhrmann, Konfigurationen der Zeit. 81  Mediale Gegenwärtigkeit.

82  Cf. Hasebrink, “Diesseits?”

83  English: Suso, The Exemplar, 165.

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fading notes. In the metonymy of the word, it embodies the core of audiovision and its exclusivity: since it is secret (togen), the writing can only be read by those who are particularly sensitive (140.4–​6). The two other examples are found in the Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit, the second part of the Exemplar (also preserved separately). This booklet, which has a framing structure, beginning and ending with the Passion, is enclosed by a further frame, which cannot simply be described as paratextual, because it appears to be interwoven with the text itself. On the one hand, it begins by recounting how an inner epiphany led the Dominican to the one hundred observations made in the book. On the other hand, the text itself is linked with a divine apparition: we are told that when the Dominican had already written a few chapters, up to the point when the soul was supposed to set out for an actual inner experience of imitatio, he felt a resistance. During the afternoon quiet time he perceives, in a kind of vision, two clerics, whom he first reprimands for their idleness until he is given to understand that he should thread a needle for them—​with a three-​part thread, consisting of two smaller strands and one somewhat larger one. When he has difficulties doing so, he suddenly sees the scourged Jesus beside him, on whose skin white and red are mixed in the most natural way. He runs his own hands back and forth over the bloody wounds, then takes the three parts of the thread and quickly twists them together. He has now understood that God, with the dress fashioned from his wounds, wanted to “in ewiger schonheit kleiden” (clothe in eternal splendour) those “die nu ir stunden hie mit vertribin” (199.12f.; who spend their time with [this]). The individual components of this vision, the three-​part thread twisted together as an image of the Trinity, the notion of the wounds as a dress and a texture, the idea of weaving such a texture oneself with a saintly life, all of this is familiar from tradition. What is unusual is the way Suso links these elements with the genesis of the present text. Even if he does not explicitly state, at the end of the vision, that it has given him the impetus to continue the text, this does seem to be the point: to weave a visual experience of the divine into the account of this experience in such a way that the text does not seem simply secondary, but appears as the embodiment of an intensity. To do this, Suso uses the only half-​expressed analogy between different forms of texture. This makes it possible to create transfers. At the same time, however, these transfers remain free from any element of material, quasi-​magical salvific power. Just as Suso observes, shortly before the scene quoted above, that the visions communicated did not occur in “liplicher wise” (as actual physical events) but were to be understood as “usgeleitú bischaft” (allegory),84 he subsequently discusses the problem that every communication of the divine, especially in the vernacular, is insufficient in relation to the content communicated. The comparison between hearing music directly and hearing about it indirectly serves as an example. This does not imply any fundamental skepticism toward language. It is more a matter of recalling the constant need to transcend every representation—​or to transform it into an inner experience. In this sense, reflection on the texture of the text is not so much aimed at displaying its textuality, as at transcending the textual and reaching its core. 84  Suso, The Exemplar, 208.

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This is confirmed at the end of the Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit, when Suso creates a counterpart to the opening scene, further developing the comparison with music that appears there (322.21–​24.2). This is about a space that has supposedly remained empty in the manuscript of the present text. The servant is only willing to fill it with the help of the Mother of God, that is, with the help of the one who is simultaneously the subject of his text at this point. He receives the help in a vision; not, however, in the form of a (direct) Marian apparition. Instead he witnesses how a handsome youth with a harp and four other youths with shawms debate about a piece of music that is to be performed, but which the servant does not subsequently hear. Suddenly the youths are not holding instruments in their hands, but an exotic-​looking image of Mary, embroidered on cloth, with a white patch in the middle. As the empty space is filled with intricate stitches, the servant realizes that he himself is the one who “was supposed to finish the background, namely the empty space and the spiritual image”85—​though how this is done remains unsaid. The scenario aims neither at a direct presence of the divine nor at a simple solution to the problem of the blank space. Instead it allows the media forms to slide into each other, just like the subject of the speech and the speech itself. In the end it seems as though it is precisely the presence of the Mother of God, mediated on multiple levels, which opens up an inner experience, and as if the present text, which appears to be so materially concrete, ultimately takes place within the meditating subject. Seen from this angle, there is no contradiction between Suso’s focus on the visionary and the pictorial, and his upholding of the ideal of imagelessness at the end of the Vita. Both these things conform to the same idea: outer and inner images are to be converted into true images of the divine, which can then no longer be called images. The person seeking God should not devote himself to a being who appears outwardly, but should seek the mediation of the divine within himself.86 Medial reflexivity is then the possibility of bringing together mediacy and immediacy in the medium of the text.

Transformations

The examples outlined are all from the fourteenth century, in which diverse experiments were carried out with forms of divine presence, and with emphasizing, conceptualizing, intensifying, and controlling this presence. Interconnections, potentiations, and framings were able to lead to greater complexities, as seen above. The problem of evidentness could also come to the fore, however: how is it possible, in media forms, to lend evidentness or self-​evidence to a presence that is known (or can be assumed) to have been experienced physically or mentally, to make it credible to others? Late Scholastic philosophers discussed this problem with regard to the assumption that God 85  Suso, The Exemplar, 303.

86  Cf. Lentes, “Der mediale Status des Bildes”; Lentes, “Auf der Suche”; The Mind’s Eye; Gottes Nähe unmittelbar erfahren.

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could produce a direct manifestation (which normally presupposes the existence and presence of the thing), even if this thing did not exist or was not present.87 The following period saw, in practice—​for example in the development of the system of indulgences—​a definite increase in salvific presences: through the quantitative proliferation of prayers, pilgrim badges and relics, the growing number of occasions on which communion was received, and increasing physical, verbal, or visual contact with salvific forms. The new technologies of printing and reproduction supported this.88 They enabled salvation to be made present in more and more places and at different times, and salvific effects to be reinforced and rendered more efficient. Mechanically reproduced devotional images, pilgrim badges, and broadsheets may have lacked individuality, but at the same time they functioned not only as potential bearers of salvation, but also as concrete sources of salvation which, personalized in use, partook of the archetype—​be it as apotropaic objects, religious souvenirs, or memorial images, able to be used in various ways.89 At the same time, however, there were growing efforts on the theoretical level to channel salvific presences. The extent to which individual and private revelations increased also intensified the need to judge and classify these. The “Discernment of Spirits” gained importance, that is, the attempt to find criteria to differentiate diverse experiences of the extrasensory, external and internal apparitions, non-​ divine and divine visions.90 A significant phenomenon in this context is, from ca. 1400, the growing number of representations of the so-​called Mass of Saint Gregory, one of the most prominent forms of religious image in the second half of the fifteenth century.91 The focus here is not on the apparition of Christ in itself, but the fact that he appears before Pope Gregory. According to the story associated with the images, this apparition is said to have led to the establishment of an indulgence that was granted to those believers who spoke an Our Father and a Hail Mary in front of the figure. This links the presence of the Redeemer to an authoritative entity and a church practice, and apparently robs it of its immediacy—​ especially when further symbols (liturgical implements, arma Christi, vera icon) make it clear that the beholder is not looking at a unified visual space. The scenario, which often appears on altars donated by lay confraternities, in private books of hours, and on bourgeois epitaphs, thus seems not simply to evoke a presence, but to provoke the question of its character and evidentness.92

87  Maier, “Das Problem der Evidenz.”

88  Parshall and Schoch, Origins of European Printmaking; Griese, Text-​Bilder und ihre Kontexte.

89  Various examples in Spiegel der Seligkeit, as well as in Einblattdrucke; see also Schmidt, Gedruckte Bilder; Griese, Text-​Bilder und ihre Kontexte. 90  Cf. Largier, “Präsenzeffekte.”

91  Cf. Meier, Die Gregorsmesse; Das Bild der Erscheinung. 92  Bynum, “Seeing and Seeing Beyond,” see esp. 231f.

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Figure 3. Israhel van Meckenem, Mass of Saint Gregory (ca. 1490/​1500); Washington, National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection 1954.12.91. www.nga.gov/​collection/​art-​ object-​page.43037.html. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

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Nevertheless, the visual rhetoric can give rise to effects of presence. In the first phase of the representations, for example, the juxtaposition of the Man of Sorrows on the altar and the vera icon on the cloth leads to a contrast between the imprint of (just part of) the body on the one hand, and the appearance of the real body on the other—​lending the latter a “quasi-​tactile presence.”93 In the second phase, effects of presence arise from the greater encouragement given to the beholder to immerse himself in the image space, or from the way the figure of Christ, against the background of a Passion altarpiece, becomes, as a “figure of the life-​size, skin-​colored Passion body, the new version of past salvation history,” thus surpassing “all man-​made images of Christ.”94 It is only in the third phase, ca. 1500, that the rhetoric of presence is noticeably reduced, and the apparition of Christ is “once again more strongly excluded from the earthly space of the Mass, and ultimately even separated from the altar.”95 This corresponds to other tendencies of the time, including a critical questioning of visions and apparitions. In Bern, a stir was caused by the events surrounding the Dominican monastery and the tailor Hans Jetzer, who entered it as a novice.96 In 1507 Jetzer had had numerous apparitions of the Virgin Mary and of various saints, and one night he had seen the pietà in the monastery chapel weeping bloody tears—​which turned out to have been painted on. Under critical questioning, he claimed that four leading members of the Dominican order had staged the apparitions, which led to their death by burning. The background to these events included not only questions of dogma (Mary’s immaculate or non-​immaculate conception), but also political power games between the town, the confederation, and the pope. In Basel, Geiler von Kaysersberg, one of the most visually powerful authors of the late Middle Ages, undertook a deconstruction of the figural presence of death in a sermon cycle about death and dying delivered in 1495.97 He does at first allow death to appear as a personified interlocutor. Then, however, he dismantles the figure into individual allegorical parts, and turns it into a conglomeration of signs, assembled from heterogeneous traditions. He argues that since death, according to Christian thinking, is nothing substantial, has no existence, and indeed cannot be assigned to any category, it cannot really be represented visually. Representations (imagines mortis), he says, are no more than fictions, which at best give a veiled reflection of aspects of the phenomenon. The essential thing is to prepare inwardly for death. In Munich a devotional printed in 1510, based on a previously performed play, conceived salvation history less as a process of presence than as one of representation, possessing a specific temporal and spatial mediatory structure.98 The first part depicts 93  Ganz, “Christus im Doppelblick,” 221f. 94  Ganz, “Christus im Doppelblick,” 236. 95  Ganz, “Christus im Doppelblick,” 245. 96  Text edition: Von den vier Ketzern.

97  The sermon cycle was only printed posthumously (Latin 1514, German 1521); cf. Kiening, Das andere Selbst, chap. 1. 98  Drei Schauspiele.

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how Satan denounces sinful humans, God the Father threatens to destroy them, and the threat is intercepted by Mary as Mediatrix and Christ as Mediator. Three further parts offer scenarios from salvation history: the death and damnation of a worldly young man; the dying and judgment of three people, one destined for salvation, one for damnation, and one for purgatory; and finally the fate of the souls in purgatory. While the opening constellation suggests an actual presence of the key figures of salvation history, the following scenarios have the character of examples: they are not designed as direct encounters with the celestial, but as theatrical illustrations, embedded in the dialogue between a merchant and a scholar. The latter presents the scenes as didactic sketches, which shift attention from human temporality to divine eternity. This also demonstrates another point: when the Reformers break with the idea that salvation can be mediated via material forms, when they brand the complex of real eucharistic presence as an element of Catholic alterity, a foil for their own model of what it is to be filled with the Spirit, this does not come out of nowhere. Conversely, however, the abandonment of certain forms of material presence is not the same as abandoning the idea of immediacy.99 On the contrary, the immediacy of the experience of the divine is central to Reformation concepts. It relies on media forms such as the word and writing, or in concrete terms the sermon and the broadsheet. Yet it seeks to divest these of any self-​efficacy. The media forms become paradigms, whose effect takes place in the mind.

99  Cf. Medialität, Unmittelbarkeit, Präsenz; for a discussion using visions as an example see Höppner, Gesichte.

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WORD

Verbum The medium in which the tension between abundance and lack is expressed in its fundamental form is the word. Here materiality and meaning come together; hence the juxtaposition, already present in classical rhetoric, between the splendour and the weight of words (Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, 7.3.2f.). In the religious context, the divine word is at the origin of all that is: in the first account of the Creation in Genesis, the world is essentially created in the word, and the psalmist similarly states that the heavens were founded through and on the word of God (“Verbo domini caeli firmati sunt”; Ps. 32:6). For educated readers in the Middle Ages, the beginning of Genesis merged with the beginning of the fourth Gospel, which links the Creation by means of the divine word with the involvement of divine Logos in this Creation. Here the rendering of the Greek word logos with the Latin word verbum had major consequences. It opened up new possibilities both for the description of inner-​trinitarian processes and communicative events and for the construction of analogies between the divine and the human. The sentence in principio erat verbum, understood in Christological terms, implies on the one hand that man is involved in the very beginning of Creation, in the sense of an ontological mediation—​further underlined by the statement that the word has taken up residence “in us” (“Et verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis”; John 1:14). On the other hand, in the sense of an epistemological mediation, this beginning as the “word” is connected with dimensions of articulation, transmission, and mediality. Augustine is therefore able to ask provocatively, in one of his sermons: in what language did God speak? For what listeners?1 At another point, at the beginning of a series of lectures about the Gospel according to John (407–​18), the same Augustine understands the creative power of the word as one that mediates between the speaking God and the “made creature” (“inter dicentem deum et factam creaturam”), without causing the categorical difference between divine and human word to disappear. For while the word used by humans consists of letters and has a sound, while it is spoken, fades away, and becomes valueless through use, the divine word, being creative and immortal, is obviously different in nature. Its distinctive character can only be understood by man in an inner word (in nobis), formed not from sounds, but from concepts, a word of the heart (verbum cordis), which gives an inkling of what the word of God is like.2 The similarity of this inner word to the divine word is based on two components. From one perspective, whatever is materialized in signs and 1  Augustine, “Sermo Denis II” (399), in Vannier, Creatio, conversio, formatio chez S. Augustin, 206–​21, this passage 208, lines 18f.: “Qua lingua dixit? Ut quis audiret, dixit?” 2  Augustinus, In Iohannis evangelium tractatus, no. 8–​10.

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letters, in the sound and in the voice, always presupposes something that must have preceded it. Conversely, whatever exists on the inside, as an idea, archetype, or truth, requires an exteriorization, a transformation, if it is to be perceived and experienced by the senses.3 The concept of the verbum cordis was influential in both medieval theology and the philosophy of language.4 It is, for example, central to the linguistic theory of Thomas Aquinas, who retains the fundamental difference between human and divine word, but (following in Augustine’s traces) acknowledges the role of analogy.5 In De Veritate he explicitly considers whether the term verbum can be applied to God in the proper sense. The answer comes in the form of a distinction: while the external, phonetic word (verbum exterius), and the inner word (verbum interius), which constitutes an archetype of the outer one, can only be related to God metaphorically, the mutely articulated word of the heart (verbum cordis), brought forth by the intellect and free of all material things and their deficiencies, is one that can also be pronounced by God.6 The human word, as an external word, is fundamentally deficient. It must be transcended to reach the inner word. Its material form (vox) must be abandoned in favour of meaning (significatio). And yet this does not exclude the possibility of giving some weight to materiality in certain cases. Acts of linguistic magic, often invoking the prologue of the Gospel according to John, relied on the power of concretely materialized words and signs.7 Bible manuscripts invite readers not only to transcend the written word, but also to immerse themselves in it. Observers and readers are led to a performative experience of what it can mean that the Creation emerges from the primal matter as Logos, letter, word, and meaning.8 The following discussion will not attempt to trace the growing emphasis on the word, which runs through the whole of the Middle Ages and even influences the modern period, by way of the Reformation theology of the word. Instead the aim is to illuminate the phenomenon from the margins: from points where the power of the word is caught in the tension between religious and magical or religious and aesthetic dimensions. The hypothesis is that this is where the medial aspect can be observed most clearly, because these are points where effect is of central importance. 3  Cf. Johnson, “Verbum in the Early Augustine”; Toom, “Augustine on Ambiguity”; Morgan, Incarnation of the Word.

4  Arens, “Verbum Cordis”; Stephan Meier-​Oeser, “Verbum mentis (Wort des Geistes)”; Lenz, Mentale Sätze.

5  For the basic differences (the divine word contains no sequence of thinking and speaking, it is completely and fundamentally identical to God), cf. Thomas Aquinas, Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura. 6  Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae, vol. 3, qu. 4, art. 1.

7  Cf. Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen 2, index; A.  Jacoby, “Johannesevangelium”; Schulz, Beschwörungen im Mittelalter; Skemer, Binding Words. 8  Weinryb, “Living Matter.”

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A particularly intense word-​based mediation between the human and the divine occurs in prayer.9 The Old and New Testaments already present numerous varieties of prayer; the Psalms alone contain diverse forms of praise and supplication. The early church and the church fathers developed various theories and models of prayer, in parallel to the practice of prayer and as part of the process of defining ascetic, monastic, and liturgical principles.10 These theories found many emulators in the Middle Ages and early modern period, ranging from John Cassian, Guigo II (the Carthusian), John of Fécamp, and William of St. Thierry to the Devotio Moderna, the Hortulus animae, Jean Vitrier, Martin Luther, and Ignatius of Loyola.11 As diverse as the forms are, “invocation and address, salutation and blessing, grievance and petition, praise and thanks, invitation, enticement and persuasion, threat and recrimination, complaint and apology,” the thing they have in common is their reliance on the power of the performative: “Just as human speech is not mere enunciation or communication, but also aims at actually influencing, winning over or changing the mind of the other person, so does prayer primarily serve to persuade God to provide help or fulfil human wishes.”12 The path to this destination can assume different traits, however, depending on whether the event the prayer is concerned with has already occurred or not, and whether it relates to the self or to another person. Moreover, prayer is readily distinguishable from the eulogy or encomium in terms of predicative structure. In Derrida’s words: “Even if it is not a predicative affirmation of the current type, the encomium preserves the style and the structure of a predicative affirmation. It says something about someone. This is not the case of the prayer that apostrophizes, addresses itself to the other and remains, in this pure movement, absolutely pre-​predicative.”13 In the case of medieval orationes, praying constitutes a performative act, inspired by the assumption or hope that the world can be changed with the help of language (at least on a small scale). But unlike a blessing or a consecration, this act is not completed with the speaking itself. It is provisional and incomplete, dependent on the constituting authority to whom the speaker of the prayer addresses himself, and to whom the actual power of change is ascribed. The act expresses a trust in God that is simultaneously present and insufficient.14 And it is therefore not a purely magical act. Prayer is based on the possibility of sympathetic relations with a being who is inherently unavailable. Yet the hoped-​for communication with transcendence is both symmetrical and asymmetrical. 9  For more detail on the following, see Kiening, “Gebete und Benediktionen.” 10  Hamman, Das Gebet in der Alten Kirche; Fenske, “und wenn ihr betet …”

11  Overview in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 12 (1983):  31–​103; Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 4 (1995), 3rd ed.: 308–​20; Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft 1 (1997): 662–​64. 12  Heiler, Das Gebet, 140.

13  Derrida, “How to Avoid Speaking: Denials,” 137; cf. also Harasta, Lob und Bitte.

14  Cf. Härle, “Den Mantel weit ausbreiten”; also Lockmann, Dialog zweier Freiheiten.

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On the one hand, the words in which the expectation of an answer is inscribed mirror this expectation—​just as they have the character of actions, the actions answering them are conceived in linguistic terms. On the other hand, this answer cannot be obtained by force; it is to be understood, at least in the Christian context, as a product of grace and as categorically different in nature. Prayer is therefore also an ethical act. It has, besides the objective dimension, a subjective one. It expresses an attitude, an intention, and the prayer’s efficacy can be linked with the appropriateness of this intention. The history of Christian prayer, with all its subdivisions, from the eucharistic prayer developed in late antiquity to the forms that developed in the course of the Middle Ages, the individual Liturgy of the Hours and the mystical private prayer, is therefore interspersed with debates about the extent to which intentional, individual, and situational prerequisites for the ­efficacy of a sacrament—​in this case the fulfilment of the wish expressed in the prayer—​are necessary or not.15 And it is thus defined by “two tendencies that complement and influence each other: the ordering Benedictine principle, which divides the day into the liturgical hours of prayer, and the emotional Augustinian principle of dialogue with God.”16 The two tendencies go hand in hand with an interplay between institutionalization and subjectification. The first stipulates an external framework, a ritual self-​ efficacy, while the second develops internal conditions, subjective prerequisites. The first establishes formal types, situational facts, and liturgical orders; the second allows spontaneous, unfettered, free prayer, based on the assumption that salvific events can happen at any time. Hrabanus Maurus sums this up in his work On the Instruction of the Clergy, completed in 819 and frequently copied right into the twelfth century. Quoting Isidor and the Bible, he notes that prayer can take place as an inner process in omni loco, while at the same time it has a special connection to certain non-​public places and to the canonical hours of prayer.17 Connection and freedom—​this mixture gives rise to the precarious status of key prayers, such as the “eucharistic prayer with the words of institution.” Since the early Middle Ages, these had been called oratio periculosa, “because there was a danger of making mistakes when performing them, and thus diminishing their actual effect.”18 This effect could be divided among many different elements of the service: spaces, sounds, robes, bodies, gestures, utensils, bread and chalice. Yet the understanding of the service as a linguistic and verbal event meant that the performance of language and words had major significance.19 Acts of announcement (katabatic speech acts), such as proclamations, prophecies, or instructions, combine functions of remembering, making the past present, and offering orientation. Acts of prayer (anabatic speech acts) can be 15  Cf. Angenendt, Liturgik und Historik, 119f., 137f., and elsewhere.

16  Achten, “Das christliche Gebetbuch,” 7; see also Richstätter, Christusfrömmigkeit. 17  Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum, ed. Zimpel, 248–81 (2.1–16). 18  Angenendt, Liturgik und Historik, 121f. 19  Cf. Bieritz, Liturgik.

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divided into praise and thanks, supplication and intercession, blessing and consecration, confessions of faith and confessions of guilt.20 These diverse speech acts prove, in turn, to be closely interconnected in certain cases. The eucharistic prayer interweaves textual and paratextual elements, horizontal and vertical communication, dialogic and narrative sections. And the way it interweaves them gives rise to a complex layering and the greatest possible degree of auratization; for example, the words of Jesus are directly quoted in the Words of Institution.21 At the same time, the history of reception of the eucharistic prayer gives insight into  the repeatedly manifested tension between a focus on existing forms and their transfer to contemporary situations, such as lay spirituality or piety within religious orders. New prayers modify older ones, and at the same time expand their impact to new contexts—​individual needs, non-​clerical users, vernacular versions, which initially lack the aura and authority of the Latin prayer. All this finds concrete expression in the relationship between word and writing. Just as revealed written texts are generally meant to be brought to life orally, and conversely, oral speeches are based on authoritative written texts, the function of writing for prayer is not simply that of a medium for fixing and archiving, which runs counter to the oral performance of prayer. Instead it is performative in nature itself. Both product and model of a salvation-​oriented process of writing and working, the written word is able to record the necessary conditions for the performance of prayer. At the same time it can serve as a kind of musical score, suggesting new ways in which the prayer can be performed.

Patterns and Performances

A good example is a manuscript containing the earliest Latin-​German prayer book on this scale in the Middle Ages. The small-​format parchment manuscript Cod. membr. 69 (9 × 6.3 cm), preserved today in the Benedictine College in Sarnen (Switzerland), was created in the second half of the twelfth century in the Alemannic area, possibly in Muri, where it is first documented in 1790.22 Apart from some small additions, it is the work of a single person: a woman, possible a chorister, who indicates her identity with a few gender-​specific phrases. Apparently written without any major interruptions, the codex contains, on ninety-​five leaves, an abundance of German, Latin, and mixed-​language prayers, benedictions, blessings, and invocations. The compiler seems to have made frequent use of existing Latin and German texts, sometimes adapting them to the specific speech situation. Instead of a family, an individual woman is now addressed; utterances addressed to another person become 20  As classified by Schermann, Sprache im Gottesdienst.

21  Merz, Liturgisches Gebet; cf. also Budde, “Improvisation im Eucharistiegebet”; for the nature of prayers as speech acts see also Bieritz, Liturgik, 252–​70.

22  Edition:  Denkmäler deutscher Prosa, no.  29, 73–​96, 159–​77; for the collection and context see Ochsenbein, “Gebetbuch von Muri”; for more precise evidence see Kiening, “Gebete und Benediktionen.”

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first-​person statements: “Ich bevil mich N. dem almehtigin gote […], Ich bevil mich hute in die heiligun hant […], Ich biswere mich bi deme uatire und bi deme sune” (lines 617–​58; I commend myself N to almighty God [….], I commend myself today to his holy hand […], I appeal to the Father and the Son).23 That the scribe retains the blank space (N.), which can be filled in by others saying the prayer, shows that the subjectification is not aimed at a single individual. Instead it creates an elastic position, which can be occupied by different people: one subject prays for help for himself/​herself (line 139); another commends a man to the protection of the Archangel Michael, and of Mary, Mother of God, in a travel blessing (lines 129–​31); yet another implores God to restore marital love (fol. 93r) and enlists all heavenly powers to inflame a person with love (fol. 94r). At another point, the speaker of the prayer tries to reassure himself/​herself of the efficacy of the words accompanying the sign of the cross: “Innomine ihesu christi div wort sin mir war. und ueste. und sigehaft. des helfe mir dinu heiligu craft. div wort sin mir war. und also ueste. so daz pater noster an der misse. Paternoster” (lines 152–​55; Innomine ihesu christi the words are true and strong and victorious. So may your holy power help me. The words are true and as strong as the Lord’s Prayer at Mass. Paternoster). In keeping with the flexible subject positions, the addressees also vary:  one text contains instructions for communal devotions for nine women (fol. 3v–​4r); another gives advice in the second person singular on the form and efficiency of almsgiving; a third gives someone attending Mass tips on how to tell when to say the Lord’s Prayer: “Senne so du horest die leczun sancte paulo in misse so man lisit. lectio epistolae beati pauli apostoli. So soltu uf stan und solt driv pater noster lesen indie ere daz min trehtin den guotin sancte paulum bicherte” (lines 181–​84; When you hear in the Mass the reading from Saint Paul, that is when the phrase lectio epistolae beati pauli apostoli is read, then you should stand up and read three paternosters to honour the conversion of the good Saint Paul by my Lord). The instruction creates paradoxical conditions for the personal participation of the uneducated in the events of the Mass: the written communication of the words that are to be heard, which constitute the signal for saying one’s own prayer, produces a relationship of reciprocal implication between oral and written acts. This gives animation to the written word and durability to the oral word. Both work together in the service of a performativity that is highlighted as such: by the above-​mentioned instructions for saying prayers, and by the emphasis on magical efficacy. While requests for help in fear and need are generally addressed to God, the prayers also consistently appeal to the figures of the Trinity, and to the most important saints, to intervene in interpersonal relationships and to preserve the speaker from the harm that other people may cause.

23  Denkmäler deutscher Prosa, 93/​95.

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Figure 4. Gebetbuch von Muri (prayer book of Muri, ca. 1200); Sarnen, Benedictine College, Cod. membr. 69, fol. 1v. Used with permission.

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The first prayer of the collection, entitled Oratio bona ad deum (fol. 1r), already strikes this note—​in an artfully composed form: three times, invocations of God are supplemented with stage directions, which eventually lead into the Mass, ending with the recitation of six psalms. After a few lines which have been scraped off in the manuscript, of which only the initial S at the beginning is legible, the text begins as follows, on fol. 1v (Wilhelm 1–​11). The text is written without line breaks and is divided into units of meaning here: […] H(erre) almehtige got. ich bite dich   dur din heiliges houbit.   unde dur allv dinu heiligin werch.   und dur allv div heiligin wort. die du den menischon zignadon ie gispreche. du inphach disv liecht. und gibint und bitwinc hute an disime tage   alle die zungin. die minin scadin sprechin wellen.   alde die mich hute ansehin suln.   odir diheinen giwalt ubir mich haben suln. und chere   ir allir zungin.   und ir wort.   und ir willin an mine froude. und an mine hulde. und an mine minne

(Lord, almighty God, I ask you, for the sake of your holy face, and your holy works, and your holy words, which you mercifully bestowed upon mankind from the beginning: receive these lights and bind and subjugate today, on this day, all the tongues that wish to say harmful things about me, and all those who might look upon me or exert any power over me, and turn all their tongues and their words and intentions to my happiness and my advantage and my comfort.)

Like the widespread memento prayers, which recall all kinds of past acts of ­salvation in order to encourage such acts in the future, the prayer invokes the memory of metonymic aspects of a salvation history conceived in personalized terms. The word houbit (face) evokes the Passion and the similitudo between God and man, mention of werch (works) recalls the Creation and the historical actions of God, the wort (words) embody the turning of God’s attention toward mankind. These metonymic aspects (which, in other prayers, take the form of lists of the parts of Christ’s body) offer a concentrated version of historically documented salvific events. This serves as the basis for a contract, intended to ensure that these events will recur in the present time. But at the same time oppositions must be constructed, and transfers undertaken: between (1) the merciful words of God and the harmful words of men, (2) the holy thoughts of the Almighty, and the unholy attitudes of enemies, and (3) the power of the creator and the power to harm. In these oppositional relationships, the prayers all attempt to activate the first element and to disable the latter. Attention is focused more on interpersonal existential problems than on spiritual salvation. The prayer, tending toward the magical in

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this respect, functions as a transmitter, transforming negative into positive energies. For these positive energies, language once again plays a special role: the hope is that divine words will be channeled toward the speaker, forming a protective shield against harmful ones. At the same time, the relation to transcendence serves to empower the speaker in the earthly sphere, and to extend the prevention of harm into power over potential opponents. In general, the medieval practice of prayer would be unimaginable without the magical dimension. The prevention of harm was an area in which prayers and blessings, curses and magic came together. The Psalms repeatedly mention nameless enemies, and ask that divine revenge be visited upon them. In the tradition of the lorica, the prayer of protection, acts of prayer were understood as a means of simultaneously invoking the heavenly powers and keeping diabolical forces at bay.24 The aspiration to use coniuratio to “exert a salvific influence on the life-​determining things,” an aspiration that had its roots in the oldest Roman liturgy, led to a division into two acts: the “elimination of evil, or of evil spirits, which exorcism served to achieve, and then the invocation of good forces and spirits, which was the purpose of consecration.”25 Together these actions created the conditions for a salvific efficacy which was basically seen as objective in character, but was also associated with situational facts. In this way, the longing for predictability and the continued belief in the unavailability of transcendence went hand in hand, as did sacramental control and individual variation. In this sense, the Oratio bona cannot simply rely on an old, authoritative tradition, and its actions—​on the one hand averting harm, on the other invoking salvation—​require a specific empowerment. The prayer must produce its own validity, and it does so in several ways. Repetitions and groups of three create the impression of a ritualized language. Instrumental prepositional connectors (durh, Latin per) take divine self-​reflexivity as the impetus for the transfer taking place in the prayer. A further feature is the proximity to the (para-​)liturgical performance of an action: pointers to accompanying movements, gestures, and contexts shift the speaker’s perspective to the here and now. The “you” (singular) addressed is not God, but those who may be saying the prayer, who put their trust in the sequence of the prayer formula, and combine linguistic, physical, and liturgical performative acts. An example is the lighting of votive candles:  the first prayer, concerning the offering of candles, is followed by the sign of the cross on the chest (lines 12–​14), the second by the sign made in the right hand (lines 28–​30), “sanctifying” that part of the body presenting the candles; the third sign of the cross, finally, leads into the lighting of the candles, genuflection, and the singing of the Psalms. Benedictions in association with votive candles are well known from the Middle Ages. They are based on the one hand on the “apotropaic effect of the consecrated candles,” and on the other hand on the “symbolic meaning of the light as a sign of inner enlightenment and as a pledge of safe and happy guidance into eternity.”26 But while 24  Cf. Hill, “Invocation of the Trinity.”

25  Angenendt, Geschichte der Religiosität, 389f.

26  Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen, 456 (for a general treatment of the consecration of candles with the Latin texts see 442–​60).

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the main purpose of the apotropaic linguistic formulae is usually to keep the devil away from all human places and actions, the perspective changes in this collection: from the one great enemy of Christianity to the many small enemies close at hand. Furthermore, the focus shifts to the efficacy of the language, in which acts of invocation and instruction are intermingled. On the one hand, the words create the conditions for the the prayer’s relation to transcendence and its secure foundation in immanence. On the other hand, the symbols and gestures create conditions in which the words themselves become an event, analogous with the lighting of the votive candles. There is something distinctive, however, about the idea behind this action: it expresses not so much the pleasure of God as that of humans, not so much powerlessness in the face of the creator as power over his creatures. This idiosyncrasy gives glimpses of a form of piety which, at the intersection between the realms of the clergy and the laity, experiments with the possibility of subjectifying religious communication—​ in the performative internal dynamic of the written word, which merges performance and stage direction. In it, the external element of the lighting of candles, evoked in the middle of the first prayer in the reference to the bestowal of the heiligin wort, can move into the interior of the text. And the general liturgical event of the Mass can become an individual event, that of the subject defining its position in liturgical terms. After the third part of the prayer we read “tunc cantetur missa de sancta trinitate”; the prayer thus places itself in the framework of the Mass while at the same time subordinating the Mass to its own purpose of self-​care. Thus the prayers attach themselves to the liturgical just as they separate from it again. The final text of the manuscript illustrates this clearly once again. After the sign of the cross (In nomine patris etc.), the speaker of the prayer submits himself or herself to God’s protective power. At the same time analogies with salvation history are constructed, fuelling hopes of present help: “Herre so bivil ich dir hute. min lip. unde mine sele. zibihŏtinne. unde zibischirminne alse dv bischirndost danielem do er was indeme hole der lŏwon. susannam uon deme lugilichin urchunde” (fol. 94v/​95r; lines 667–​70; “Lord, I commend unto you today my body and my soul for your protection, just as you protected Daniel when he was in the lion’s den, and Susanna from the false witness”). At the end, the power of the divine name to constitute the world and salvation is explicitly expressed: “Nu bit ich dich herre widirzicominne dur din heiligin namin on. dur den so sint alliv dinc zideme ewigin libe. dv mich bischirmist. in disime geginwartigin zite” (fol. 95v; lines 678–​80; “Now I ask you, Lord, to return, by your holy name ON, through which all things are eternal, [and ask you] to protect me in this our time”).

Christian Magic

One aspect that connects many texts of the manuscript is the prevention of harm, for example injury by weapons, or misfortunes resulting from travel (expressed in travel blessings). Another common feature is that they do not simply invoke saints as mediators, but try to obligate them to provide assistance by recalling what they have experienced or suffered. Again and again, we find analogous actions combining different models: the incomparable gift that God bestows upon humanity is juxtaposed with the predictability of an exchange; alms for redemption with alms for the prevention of harm. The first type,

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central for Christian ethics, serves to assist another person, in this case petitioning for the troubled soul of a friend (lines 329–​57). The second focuses on the living, on the supplicant’s own existence; it is about averting harm from the subject, who is travelling, and the family members left at home (lines 315f.). Here correspondences with aspects of salvation history predominate: one “alms” (Almosen) should be given for the Ascension, one for Christ’s greeting of peace (“minen fride gib ich iv,” line 327; “My peace I give to you”), two for Christ as the supreme shepherd, three for the three shepherds at Christ’s birth, three for the three kings, who took a different route back, four for the four evangelists. As different as the two types of alms are in principle, in the given case they are closely connected. In each case the numbers create not only symbolic but also analogous relationships, implying material transfers: between the Trinity, the bread and the prayer, between the present alms and the supra-​temporal salvific events, between God’s actions toward the saints and the actions of the saints toward those saying the prayers. Words that have established their worth in salvation history appear not only to represent events, but to release the forces within them. They acquire the aura of entities in which signifier and signified become indistinguishable, but also in which authoritative and arcane elements are mixed. An example is a short text inserted between prayers for deliverance from trouble and hardship: “Ego signo crucis non clipeo protecturus aut galea. hostium cuneos penetrabo secura und segine din houbet fivnf stunt mit diseme zeichine † zanuel. und sprich den vers zuo deme der daobinan stat Ego signo. Paruc. domello. astac. effranis. protanis. Lezradis” (fol. 18r; “Ego signo crucis non clipeo protecturus aut galea. hostium cuneos penetrabo secura and will bless your countenance for five hours with this sign † zanuel. and speak the verse to that of the daobinan stat Ego signo. Paruc. domello. astac. effranis. protanis. Lezradis”). The Latin sentence (“under the sign of the cross, protected neither by a shield nor a helmet, I will safely break through the lines of the enemies”) comes from the antiphon for the Feast of Saint Martin, whose profile, even in eleventh-​century breviaries, was that of a warrior saint.27 This sentence is transferred from the general liturgical context into an individual, apotropaic one, in which the blessing conferred by the sign of the cross features alongside magical, incomprehensible words. In its conversion into the vernacular, the blessing “mit diseme zeichine † zanuel” not only transposes the Latin ablative into German, it also turns the verbal sign into a pictorial sign for salvation, and links the pictorial sign with an onomatopoeic word. The magic words (“Ego signo. Paruc. domello. astac. effranis. protanis. Lezradis”) take the place of the Latin antiphon, of which the first two words are quoted. They produce a combination of meaning, meaningfulness, tonality, and efficacy. This is taken even further in the love charm included toward the end of the manuscript. Here names from biblical history, names of God, and onomatopoeic words merge together: “Tu qui es alfa et ω. coniurationem facio per magos. Caspar. melchior. Balthasar. Leuiathan. protine. et crinite. sidrac. misaac. abdenago. christus on. elyon. tetragrammaton. elely. emmanuel. abra. abraa. abracham. abracala. abrachalauf. va. va. ha. fara. faza ziueletiel. uos creaturas dei coniuro per deum uiuum” (fol. 93r–​v).28 27  Maurey, “A Courtly Lover,” 206f.

28  Text of both coniurationes in Altdeutsche Predigten, 288.

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Figure 5. Gebetbuch von Muri (prayer book of Muri, ca. 1200); Sarnen, Benedictine College, Cod. membr. 69, fol. 18r. Used with permission.

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This shows, on a small scale, the overall tendency of the Muri manuscript: the effort to intensify the performative power of prayer, firstly by reminding God of his previous support and putting pressure on him to renew this support in the present, and secondly by hoping that saying, showing, and doing will transfer transcendent energy. This effort takes the form of work on the horizon of tradition: psalms, paternosters, and extracts from liturgy mark the collective space in which individual appropriation develops its intensifying effects. On the other hand, specific allocations of the prayers to the hours of the day or to particular weekdays or feast days are consistently avoided. This is about the general model, and with it, the inner dynamics of the written word, which is conceived of as mediating salvation itself. In the Passio sanctae Margarethae, located in the centre of the manuscript, Margaret prays that a Passion codex might have the same salvific effect as a relic for other people engaging in prayer. At the same time she recommends the written account of her own Passion as a remedy against sin—​to be touched, read, listened to, written, and purchased.29 This places the written word on the same level as the building of a church. The idea is that the performative act will not be fixed or immobilized by writing, but will be recreated each time, with new vigour, flexibility, and replicability. The small format of the manuscript already supported this flexibility by allowing its user to have a sample book of performative models with her at all times, offering guidance for new situations. The manuscript is therefore situated fairly early on in what would quickly become a flood of prayer collections in the vernacular or in a mixture of languages. From the thirteenth century onwards, an increasingly large proportion of these were private (illustrated) prayer books by nuns and mulieres spirituales.30 Soon there was an enormous variety of forms and types, traditional and individual, liturgical and non-​liturgical, textual and visual, complex and simple. The general proximity of prayers and benedictions, blessings, invocations, and magical formulae seems to be higher where the liturgical connection is loose. A fourteenth-​century Bavarian manuscript presents, before and after a legend about the Magi, various invocative blessings against eye complaints and other ailments.31 The narration of events from salvation history is used as a basis for accounts of analogous actions, often far removed from the biblical foundation. One such story tells how Christ, travelling in stormy weather, reaches the mountain of the witches or spirits (Bilwizberg), where his body is torn to pieces by the evil women: “sy ze legten im sein arm. si ze legten im sein darm. sy ze legten im sein pain” (lines 173/​174; “they tore apart his arms, they tore apart his entrails, they tore apart his legs”). As a result he gives more credence to the distress of Christianity and tells the story to Mary, who is able to help (lines 185–​87). 29  Nachträge, 344, col. b–​45, col. b.

30  Cf. the overview of mainly German-​language collections in Ochsenbein, “Deutschsprachige Privatgebetbücher.” For illustrated prayer books see Ochsenbein, “Bild und Gebet”; Storck, “Frömmigkeit des Einzelnen”; Wiederkehr, Das Hermetschwiler Gebetbuch. 31  Segen.

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As with other blessings and charms, the narratio has a double function. It provides the framework within and beyond which the magic words can develop their impact. It also, however, initiates a relationship that is not chronological, but analogous, and which proves that the whole text, not just the powerful words “inlaid” in it, is a potent performative act. Here, as in the Muri manuscript, the last prayer serves to expressly reiterate the principle of ontological nominalism. By analogy with the “amen” (so be it) Christ says to his disciples, and which they repeat after him, the subject of this text seeks to secure his own linguistic power: “nu müezzen mir alle die heut nach jehen und heln. die mich heut horen oder sehen” (lines 253/​254; “now all who hear or see me today must agree with me”). At the same time, it implies a proximity between its own text and the auratic word of the Lord: “disi wort müezzen heut sein als starch als die vil heylig gotz chraft. d. wort sein heut als vest sicut sanctus pater noster” (lines 259–​61; “these words must be as strong today as the most holy power of God, as firm sicut sanctus pater noster”). This shows once again that the performative dimension of texts such as these does not lie simply in oral, corporeal, situational acts. It is inscribed in the texts themselves as a condition of possibility, and reflecting on this condition does not limit their efficacy. Each prayer alternates between two attitudes: the assumption that the fulfilment of the wish depends on external approval, and the desire to achieve this fulfilment through the prayer’s own verbal power, relying on powerful names and words in a way that the official church might find suspect. While invocations were regarded as acceptable, for example, as long as they kept “solum ad verba divina et ad virtutem divinam,” they were classed as problematic if they used “ignota nomina.”32 In theological terms, this could apply to some texts from the Muri manuscript—​perhaps even to the erased first lines, which withhold written matter from us, but at the same time give us the opportunity to tangibly observe the performativity of acts of textual magic at their limits.

Transfers

The performative power of the word—​this was a source of fascination that was not limited to the religious context. The combination of materiality and meaning inherent in the word was also important for the secular culture evolving in the High Middle Ages. Despite the Christian skepticism toward speech more focused on form than content, this combination was developed as a subject of instruction in the artes dictaminis and the Latin poetics produced in substantial numbers from the eleventh/​twelfth century onwards.33 These not only discuss the parts and orders of speech, stylistic registers, classes of word and their usage, linguistic figures and forms of ornament, literary genres, and authorial functions. They also use, for example, semantics of dressing, seeing, hearing, and tasting, in which the phenomena themselves are viewed in aesthetic terms. Imagined scenarios allow the abstract phenomena to be manifested as living entities: in the Ars versificatoria of Matthew of Vendôme, Flora and Philosophy appear as in a dream, accompanied by 32  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2, 2, qu. 96, a. 4 (1719).

33  Camargo, Ars dictaminis; Worstbrock, Klaes, and Lütten, Repertorium.

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Tragedy, Satire, Comedy, and Elegy, who explain the threefold elegance of metric poetry.34 The figures who feature here also lend figurative traits to the model for the sensory, concrete nature of the words: the correspondence between concepts (which are immobile) and real entities (which are mobile) becomes visible from the relationship between the artful sentence structure and word order (cursus) and the movement of the words, which is manifested in the tone (currere).35 Yet the dimension of speech associated with the aesthetics of effect remains linked to the dimension of content: it is in relation to the materia that compositio and ornate derive their legitimacy, and it is their ontologically grounded semiotic character that provides a framework for the poetic forms. The detailed exploration of the pragmatic conditions and potential effects of speech also occurs largely within the boundaries of the idea that this speech is (at best) a fleeting manifestation of divine transcendence and of harmoniously ordered creation. The textual surface nonetheless gains importance, especially in narrative works in the vernacular, as the sensory-​material surface on which physically oriented communication appears. Detailed descriptions of feasts, ceremonies, and rituals, bodies and clothes, buildings and artworks produce sensory impressions.36 Glamour and gloss, colours, fabrics, and movements are accompanied by elaborate structures of form and sound, which could almost make us forget that the sensory phenomena still refer to models of extra-​sensory, divine, salvific manifestation. In this period, one of the themes that give special insight into the tension between the sensory and the extra-​sensory is love: the classic paradigm of a play with the positing and the cancelling out of mediality. Semantics of love oscillate between unity and duality or multiplicity. At the same time, they revolve around the forms of the “in-​between” and the ways in which it can be overcome. On the one hand, the things that stand between the lovers: spaces and walls, glances and words, texts and objects, media forms which both separate and connect, differentiate and mediate.37 On the other hand, the things that could eliminate these forms of the in-​between:  physical proximity, sexual union, moments of ecstasy, a shared death. In diegetic terms, the Liebestod overcomes the in-​ between, in poetological terms, this is what first reveals the mediated nature of such narratives. It is a “figure,” which makes medial intensity possible by defining the medial in its paradoxes38—​just as love is a code, which paradoxically “is able to enhance communication while largely doing without any communication.”39 Love and death thus prove to be complementary in medial terms. The latter seems to fulfil what the former aims at:  overcoming that which is only indirect and mediated. What they actually do, however, is make this visible by purporting to transcend it. They thus offer a particularly 34  Faral, Les arts poétiques, 151–​53. For a more detailed account of the following see Kiening, “Ästhetik.” 35  de Bruyne, Études d’esthétique médiévale, 2:12, with quote from Boncompagno. 36  Wandhoff, Ekphrasis.

37  Cf. Schneider, Liebe und Betrug. 38  Cf. Kiening, Das andere Selbst.

39  Luhmann, Love as Passion, 25.

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striking example of a general characteristic of media performances: the interlinking of self-​transcendence and self-​display. These are the ideas that are explored in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. What is unmistakable here is the fascination with the paradoxes of separation and connection, with the limits of the sayable, the aporias of signs.40 Signs are presented that must be read and interpreted, and what is shown always raises the issue of how the thing shown in it can be verbally articulated, conceptualized, and captured in discourse. Semiotic, aesthetic, and poetic aspects intermingle. Structures of meaning with their own power emerge, their claim to validity modelled on that of religious worship or ritual. One manifestation of this is the model of the Liebestod, which paradoxifies unity by proving it to be simultaneously impossible and possible: impossible in the world represented, but possible in the imagination, which is in turn limited by linguistic realization. The stories familiar from antiquity, of Narcissus and Echo, Pyramus and Thisbe, Hero and Leander, already work on a rhetoric of passions and suffering, which presents love as, in part, a metaphorical-​textual process (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 4:54: “lana sua fila sequente”; “the wool spun into thread”41). In associating life and death, narration—​itself alternating between the loss of the world and the mediation of salvation—​acquires a special presentness, which can be further intensified by participation: the participation of the story in patterns of worship and ritual, and that of the audience in the intensity of the “community of love” (Liebesgemeinschaft). I  shall select two examples here:  Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan and Konrad von Würzburg’s Herzmaere.

Performative Aesthetics of Love

Gottfried’s Tristan devises a performative aesthetics of love, in which the narration on the one hand promises intensity, but is on the other hand surrendered to reflection.42 Just as the initials of the lovers’ names are intertwined from the prologue onwards, a dense network of linguistic correspondences and recurrences unfolds, simultaneously producing evidentness and difference. Evidentness is produced by materiality, tonality, and permeability between outside and inside—​in line with the stylistic ideal established by Gottfried in his theoretical excursus on literature. Difference is produced by ambiguity, illusoriness, and the displacement of semantic content—​those things that are linked with Tristan’s history from his conception and birth onwards. Many of the elusive key words that pervade the text move between these poles. Following and merging into one other, oscillating between tautology and absolute metaphor, they enmesh readers and listeners in both the aporias and the intensities of the narration.43 40  Cf. for example Wenzel, Frauendienst und Gottesdienst; Camille, Medieval Art of Love. 41  Ovid, Metamorphoses, 92.

42  Gottfried von Straßburg, Tristan und Isold; for the state of research see Huber, Gottfried von Straßburg: Tristan.

43  For semantic shifts and paradoxifications see Gerok-​Reiter, “Umcodierung”; Köbele, “iemer niuwe.”

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This principle appears in programmatic form in the prologue,44 for example in the concept of reading. Lesen is the word that connects predecessors, author, and audience: those who have engaged with the story of Tristan and yet have not “reht […] gelesen” (line 134; “read […] aright”), the person (Thomas) who “an britunischen buochen las” (“read […] in books of the Britons”) and inspired the search for the correct version (lines 152/​154), the one (Gottfried) who read (gelas) the whole account in a book and now presents his own reading (lines 164–​70), those (the noble hearts, edelen herzen) who now appropriate this story as an ethics of virtue, a means of self-​improvement and an elixir of life (lines 171ff.).45 The expression lesen represents the principle of the transmission of material, without defining its exact shape. In the alternation between selection, production, and reception, it remains unclear how the story that Thomas read relates to the one Gottfried finds, and how that in turn relates to the one he now communicates. There is method in this lack of precision. It indicates that the quest for the right version cannot be a mechanical one, with a definitive solution, if rightness is defined both aesthetically and ethically. The implication is that the current lesen is a kind of narrative appropriation, which allows what is past to be fulfilled in the specific presentification. While this is a substantial claim, it does take into account the precarious nature of its realization. Like the model of lectio, which not only refers to an external reproductive act, but also an internal imaginative process,46 Gottfried’s model of reading mediates between processes of transmission and assimilation. It is both critical and salvatory. It creates both continuity and difference. It marks both the general approach to the material and the specific participation of those who make up the immanent sphere of influence of the story: the edelen herzen, who, as an ander werlt (line 58; “another world”), are the outer and inner world simultaneously. These two worlds are consistently interlinked: just as the ideal world is one that is perceived by the heart, and forms the heart of the “community of love,” uniting opposites, so the ideal noble hearts are those that constitute both a world of their own and the basis for the world commemorated and made present in the text. Both represent an interlocutor to whom something can be presented which is already contained in what is presented, as a non-​other. This model of reciprocal implication and explication does not simply follow a Platonic dialectic of world of ideas and world of phenomena. It assimilates this dialectic to a poetic procedure, which demonstrates its own principles and treats them as absolute. There is not the story on the one hand and its reception on the other. Both are inseparably linked to one another, and committed to a memorial act which brings to life what is dead. Yet this act is not so much thetically posited as aesthetically performed—​in a language that is itself a surface

44  For the prologue see (most recently) Kellner, “Autorität und Gedächtnis”; Mazzadi, Autorreflexionen zur Rezeption. 45  English: Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, 43. For the nuances of meaning see Schröder, “Die von Tristande hant gelesen,” esp. 309–​12.

46  Angenendt, Geschichte der Religiosität, 47f., 477f. For meditative reading in Gottfried’s work see Stevens, “Memory, Reading”; Lutz, “lesen—​unmüezec wesen”; for a general treatment see Stock, After Augustine.

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on which meaning appears. It mediates tonality and materiality, which find their own counterpart in the richly described musical practices of the epic world.47 The prologue already goes beyond the pattern operating on the surface, that of an introduction to the conversational situation and the subject, instead enacting a linguistic movement rising toward a culmination. It serves to simultaneously invoke and implement the bringing to life of the story. Practice and theory thus combine to create an aesthetics based on performance, consonance, and appearance. Performance, in that saying is proven to be showing and doing, and narration is turned into an event. Consonance, because word and meaning, history and present, text and life, and previous, present and future “readers” merge together. Appearance, because words are manifested to the senses along with the things and actions they (re-​)present. Yet the emphasis that becomes possible as a result of this is bound to modalities of religious communication: community and connection of hearts, ritual and commemoration of the dead, martyrdom and sacrifice.48 The implied conflation of once, now, and always in each new version of the communication of love occurs at the end of the prologue, from the perspective of a prayer-​like “we,” for whom the lectio is meant to be nourishing, indeed life-​giving:     wan swa man noch hœret lesen ir triuwe, ir triuwen reinekeit, ir herzeliep, ir herzeleit, Deist aller edelen herzen brot. hie mite so lebet ir beider tot. wir lesen ir leben, wir lesen ir tot und ist uns daz süeze alse brot. Ir leben, ir tot sint unser brot. sus lebet ir leben, sus lebet ir tot. sus lebent sie noch und sint doch tot und ist ir tot der lebenden brot.            (lines 230–​40)

(wherever still today one hears the recital of their devotion, their perfect loyalty, their hearts’ joy, their hearts’ sorrow /​ This is bread to all noble hearts. With this their death lives on. We read their life, we read their death, and to us it is as sweet as bread. /​Their life, their death are our bread. Thus lives their life, thus lives their death. Thus they live still and yet are dead, and their death is the bread of the living.)49

The allusion to the Eucharist creates “meaningfulness” without producing exact correspondences between the religious and the literary realm.50 It seeks “connection to the ritual of cultic renewal,”51 without eliminating the difference between the linguistic-​ magical gesture and the literary-​aesthetic inner dynamic. For in the same breath in which the overcoming of death is celebrated in the text, its limits are also revealed. As 47  Cf. Sziráky, Éros Lógos Musiké.

48  Cf. Kasten, “Martyrium und Opfer.”

49  English: Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, 44. 50  Cf. Köbele, “Mythos und Metapher.”

51  Huber, Gottfried von Straßburg: Tristan, 44.

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it is brought to life, the speech acquires tautological traits: ir, wir, wir, ir—​the pronouns mirror each other; brot, tot, tot, brot, brot, tot, tot, brot—​the rhyming words interconnect, embrace each other, are repeated; lesen, leben, lesen, leben—​the minimal pairs both posit and play down difference. The Enttöten (de-​killing) that is celebrated here has both powerful and powerless features. The presence created is charged to the maximum, yet it does not coincide with the real or real-​symbolic presence of the Eucharist. While in the Mass the performativity of the words allows, each time, a new embodiment of the word become flesh, in the literary text the performativity is divided: the love that leads to death comes alive in a language that reveals its own conditions. The word süeze is used to describe the still-​ living names of the lovers, as well as the reading of the story that unites life and death. The slippery semantics of suavitas point to a ritualization which, with its endless reflections between narration and reflection, does not obey any transcendent aesthetics, and constantly oscillates between the sensory and the meaningful.52 This oscillation produces elusive relationships between expression and content, language and action, discours and histoire, which on the one hand feed on the mingling of life and death, and on the other hand are broken apart by it—​as for example literary aspects and cultic-​ritual ones are both reflected in each other and move away from each other in the framework of Tristan. The literary transformation of death into life needs the cultic transformation, which allows it to emphasize its own aesthetics of linguistic-​reflexive inscrutability.

Materialization

In the reception, the cultic aestheticization of commemorative pleasure in the Liebestod was in some cases robbed of its aporias through the Christian traits given to the Liebestod.53 In some cases, however, these aporias were intensified. For example, the Herzmaere of Konrad von Würzburg seeks to outline the relationship between the semantic space of religious worship and the play of words in its material-​immaterial dimension. The text refers explicitly to Gottfried, making it clear that he serves as a stylistic model.54 It concentrates, however, on the basic elements: a knight loves the wife of another knight, who, becoming aware of this, decides to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre with her. The knight wants to follow them in secret, but the woman asks him to begin the journey before they do to avert suspicion. He dies of Minnesehnsucht, far from home, after charging his page with the task of giving his heart to the lady, embalmed in a box. The husband intercepts the page, orders his cook to prepare a delicious dish from the heart, and has it served to his wife. When she learns what she has eaten, her own heart breaks. 52  For Gottfried’s literary excursus see Quast, “Gottfried von Straßburg.”

53  Cf. Huber, “Spiegelungen des Liebestodes”; Ridder, “Liebestod und Selbstmord”; Kasten, “Martyrium und Opfer.” 54  Edition: Konrad von Würzburg, Kleinere Dichtungen 1 (combination of different versions).

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The minimalist configuration of the story, the classic erotic triangle, presented without any names, places, details, past histories, or side plots, shifts the focus of the events to the spectacular element of the eaten and broken heart.55 The only facts mentioned are those that are necessary for the teleology of the story: the journey to Jerusalem, which brings about the separation; the messenger role of the page, which allows the hearts to be reunited; the position of the husband, who is the representative of society and at the same time the catalyst for the union of the lovers in death. The story is turned into a paradigm, showing the difference between this and its model, Tristan.56 The prologue states that pure minne has become unfamiliar or strange (wilde) to the present time. According to the lengthy epilogue (of manuscripts D, H, and N), intense suffering as a result of love has been discredited; this echoes Gottfried’s “penitential sermon on love” (Minnebußpredigt). The task arising from this is the restoration of Minnepassion—​as a bilde (line 4), which serves as an example, as a rede (line 18), which proves the truth of the congruence between literary and lived minne. Yet the text does not limit itself to offering a didactic example of minne. In the matrix between exemplary predecessors and a criticized present, Konrad creates his own ways of participating in the tradition and at the same time outdoing it—​not least by giving spectacular literary form to the religiously charged (comm)unio of the lovers.57 The religious allusions are numerous: the andâht between the lovers (line 50), the departure for the Holy Sepulchre (lines 109, 121), the marter of separation (lines 217, 260), the “walling up” of suffering in the heart (line 244), and lastly the “reliquary” in which the innermost element of minne is preserved. Yet these are actually allusions: the story is not assimilated to the legend of the martyr, but is presented as a textual fabric which makes religious and worldly semantics virtually indistinguishable. This leads to a heightening of the element of unity that is already mentioned at the beginning as a characteristic of the lovers: “diu hæten leben unde muot | in einander sô verweben, | daz beide ir muot unde ir leben | ein dinc was worden alsô gar” (lines 30–​33; “[they] had heart and spirit so interwoven in each other that both their spirits and their hearts had become as one”).58 In the chiasmus of terms, grouped around the metaphor of weaving, the sentence not only formulates a matter of fact. It also throws up a double question: how is the precarious unity to be preserved? How is it to be mediated, by linguistic and literary means? The answer involves the category of the heart, central for the development of concepts of minne from the twelfth century. Konrad uses this to manifest the suffering of the lovers both linguistically and materially: linguistically, in the first instance, in the shifts between the abstract, the metaphorical, and the 55  For the significance of Konrad’s text in light of the tradition see Schulze, “Konrads von Würzburg novellistische Gestaltungskunst,” also Blamires, “Konrads von Würzburg Herzmaere.”

56  For the connections see Wachinger, “Zur Rezeption Gottfrieds von Straßburg”; Chinca, History, Fiction, Verisimilitude.

57  For the aesthetic dimension see Brandt, Konrad von Würzburg, esp. 80–​84. For Konrad’s aesthetics of reciprocal effect see Cormeau, “Überlegungen.” 58  English: Konrad von Würzburg, “The Tale of the Heart,” 118.

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concrete, materially in the alternation between symbolizing and desymbolizing processes.59 If the beloved heart is, on the one hand, actually eaten, and on the other hand this eating becomes the object of negotiation, then we glimpse that fluctuation between a real, a real-​symbolic, and a symbolic understanding of the Eucharist, which contemporary authors not only discuss theoretically, but also imagine in literature: for example in visions in which the Host is transformed into the bleeding baby Jesus (see previous chapter). In Herzmaere, however, this fluctuation has a function itself. It makes it possible to use the emphasis on objectification and the complexity of the verbalization to potentialize each other. In Konrad’s text, the material and the linguistic are not opposites in the same way as signified and signifier. The knight’s request to have his heart removed after his death “realizes” the attachment associated with the heart, without switching completely to the language of real symbolism; the talk is of the suffering that the lady must always have “am Herzen” (in her heart), and of the edelen herzen, whom God has never abandoned. Thus the tension between metaphorical and metonymic definitions remains unresolved, and pervades the following actions, which culminate in the motif of the husband’s revenge, familiar from the tradition. Revenge is the cruel punchline of the story, since cruelty is the condition of possibility for the union of the lovers, and, at least in Konrad’s version, it is cruelty that gives this union its particular intensity. The lovers initially aspire to a post-​ mortem community of memory: heart and ring, the central part and the central symbol of connection, serve as the expression and sign of an absolute love. They are combined into a unit, and elevated to the rank of skillfully wrought relics: stored in a box decorated with gold and precious stones, their purpose is to keep the loved one present. Yet the cleinœte, the little gem (line 406), is torn apart by the husband, and this is precisely what converts the memorial union into a paradoxical unio. It is paradoxical not only because the lovers are physically intertwined at the end, but also because presence and representation have become a reversible figure. Presence is produced by the preservation and transfer of the part of the body that is, on the other hand, dependent on the system of representation: on the practices of reprocessing and of repeated accounts and interpretations of events. Yet conversely, representation by means of different types of cultural refinement (the box, the meal) produces effects of presence—​the food is sweeter than any other before it; the lady describes it as zuckermæze (line 450), a classic term from hagiography.60 But while, in the case of saints, salvation is transferred from the unblemished dead to the living, here salvation is the result of an implosion of the model of transfer –​ instead of touch, internalization, instead of transfer, incorporation. But also, instead of immediate presence, mediated meaning-​making and symbolism. As in many of the short narratives focused on love and desire, the end of the story also brings a (provisional) end to a circulation: not just of objects, but of semantic potentials, which shift between the different figures and positions, and charge the textual movement with transformative energy. This circulation is also one between body and language. 59  For the terminology see Schulze, “Konrads von Würzburg novellistische Gestaltungskunst,” 468; for the (de-​)symbolization see Quast, “Literarischer Physiologismus.” 60  Cf. Stückelberg, “Der ‘Geruch’ der Heiligkeit”; Kötting, “Wohlgeruch der Heiligkeit.”

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The meal does not lead directly to the Liebestod, but only after the husband’s declaration and the lady’s vow of asceticism. On the one hand this underlines the catalyzing role of the third element; on the other hand it suggests that this death is akin to a sacrifice with religious connotations—​though its symbolic nature also appears in the process of unification. The heart, conceived of as a symbol, possesses its own evidentness; this becomes visible from the fact that it is immediately understood as an urkünde (lines 401, 475). Its symbolic nature is initially blocked when the husband has the heart cooked, and is only restored after the meal, when he gives a belated explanation.61 The deferral allows the deeper union of the hearts, but also the paradoxification of the symbols in an expanding network of connections and shifts: the lady’s hemorrhage (line 484) corresponds to the knight’s bloody heart (line 300), the refusal of future sustenance has its counterpart in the food that has been enjoyed, the broken heart corresponds to the eaten heart. Meaning shifts from one heart to the other, from the skillfully prepared one to the skillfully narrated one, from the plot sequence to the arrangement of signs. It is only as the difference between the (already) dead knight and the (still) living lady diminishes that the difference between the definable signs and the processes occurring comes to the surface. In the end this is not just a concretization of the metaphor of food, used by Gottfried for the emphatic presentation of his story. There is a constant merging of metaphorical and metonymic operations, culminating in a demonstration of the materiality of language. Like Tristan, Herzmaere also spins a conceptual web of correspondences and recurrences. Yet this web does not serve to produce congruence between surface and meaning, but rather to insist on the power of the words, their capacity to circumvent the boundary between world and poetry. One of these is the word wilde (wild, strange, unfamiliar).62 It occurs at the beginning, with the observation that lûterliche minne (pure love) has become wilde to the world (line 3). It returns at the boundary between the union and non-​union of the lovers: the wilde sea (line 150). And at the end it marks the crucial moment when the truth about the nature of the meal is revealed. The lady asks whether the dish was made of wild or domesticated animals, and receives the answer that it is both simultaneously—​wilde, because free of all joy, zam, because oppressed by care (lines 460–​65). The transfer between the concrete and the metaphorical level suggests a further transfer between the subject and the texture of the story: the heart, as the most familiar object and at the same time the least familiar, since it is incorporated into another person’s body, is the basis on which Konrad’s poetics of wilde and his aesthetics of appearance are developed. Invoked in language, extracted from the body, absorbed into another, and finally broken apart in that other body, it is the core element that allows the power over words, things, and their relationships to be displayed. The paradigm of the Liebestod, which Gottfried and Konrad follow in different ways, is based on a transcendence that is simultaneously Christian and non-​Christian. It uses the idea of a union of souls (or hearts) beyond the earthly, and uses elements of a 61  Quast, “Literarischer Physiologismus,” 316f. 62  Monecke, Studien zur epischen Technik.

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symbolic system in which death is a point of transit to new life, a place where salvation can enter, and a reference point for social memory. Yet at the same time this system is undermined: the new life is detached from the Christian options for the hereafter, salvation is seen as sensory, and memory is limited to an exclusive group. Nor can the subsequent bringing home of the dead lovers into the Christian community (in a shared grave) hide the fact that the absolute aspiration of love implies a different form of community to the Christian-​universal one. In keeping with this, the echoes of Christian symbolism of the Eucharist and the sacrifice do not merely serve to ennoble the literary discourse. They also emphasize its specific phenomenality, and focus on a fundamental challenge of Christian aesthetics: the representation of transcendence. The specific way in which the transcendent element in the love story (or the story of Liebestod), embodied in the heart, is always already immanent, allows interpenetrations of the subject and the world, which are in turn based on the capacity of (poetic) language to metaphoricize and concretize, to designate and characterize. The fact that the herze both is and perceives the world (Gottfried), is both consumed and breaks (Konrad), draws attention to the naming and transforming power of (poetic) language. It performatively shapes the process of union by exposing the differences that make it possible to understand union in the first place. The medially manifested word has religious connotations, but these serve an ingenious self-​auratization of the texts, a reciprocal implication of presence and meaning, of materializing and spiritualizing dimensions.

Poetic Options

There are few texts that deploy elements of the eucharistic transubstantiation in a comparably bold manner to intensify the literary word. More often, especially in Spruchdichtung and Meistersang, a theology of the word is invoked, and is combined with the poetology of the respective text. A frequent reference figure here is John, who was regarded as the author of the fourth Gospel and of the Revelation, and was thought to have privileged insights into the origins of creation and the connection between the creation of the word and its incarnation. Referring to John could mean connecting to the divine inspiration for succinct textual transmission of the origins and of their renewal. This might then encourage hopes that the concrete, uttered word could possess a genuinely creative, ontological force—​though on the basis of a difference that was not eliminated by John, as some texts show.63 This is the theme of a twenty-​one-​verse song in Marner’s “Langer Ton,” which links three seven-​verse song complexes into a kind of triptych.64 Each of the three parts deals with salvation history and its beginnings. The first extends from the resolutions of the divine persons and the Incarnation and Passion to the Eucharist. In the second we follow the vision of John, who receives insight into the Trinity, the creation of the word, and the 63  Cf. Volfing, John the Evangelist; a more detailed discussion of the following can be found in Kiening, Literarische Schöpfung. 64  Volfing, “Autopoetische Aussagen,” 356–​65.

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Incarnation, and at the end we encounter the sacrament of the Eucharist again. The third is once again concerned with what John was able to experience and communicate of the divine mysteries, and with what the human faculties are unable to comprehend; this part also ends with contemplation of the sacrament. One of the main things linking the three songs is the reference to John and to the sacramental process of transformation that is constantly renewed in the word. At the end of each of the three parts the formula from the eucharistic prayer, going back to the opening words of the Last Supper, is quoted: “Hoc est enim corpus meum.”65 This, however, is connected with an idiosyncratic depiction of the figure of the authoritative visionary. At first the focus on John seems to be a way to say more about salvation history than is written in the standard accounts, that is, to follow a witness who had come closer to the numinous events than anyone else. And yet it is not purely about following this example, but about how proximity to the events is actually to be imagined. Again and again, we read “John saw,” “John heard,” “John wrote.” We become, for our part, witnesses to a subjective process of perception and recording. The crucial words, for example the name of the Redeemer (“Jesus Christus”; 2.6.10–​12) and the greeting of the angel (“Ave”; 2.6.14), are communicated letter by letter, as if this were an actual process of deciphering, in which the deciphering subject has found his way into a scriptorium (“gotes kanczely”; 2.2.19) whose rules he must first understand. The difficulties confronting John, in the face of events of an implausible nature, are clearly shown. The things he sees pose a dilemma for him. More that once he is in danger of giving way to despair: despite all that he writes down, he is unable to find any reason, and feels ashamed at this experience of his limitations. Although God reveals himself to him completely, he is unable to define either the beginning or the end, and flees “hien vnd her” (3.5.5) when he hears God himself speaking. The experience of the word in which salvation history has its origins is a painful one, which almost makes him lose heart—​and yet he does his best to meet this challenge, “nit wichen” (2.2.20; 2.6.9; not to yield) and “nit abelon” (3.6.11; not to desist). He thinks of the situation in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus returned to his disciples three times and found them sleeping. He tries to stay awake himself, yet still experiences the revelation of the name of Jesus in a dream. John proves to be both a powerful and a powerless figure, and thus a suitable reference figure for the authorial “I” of the song. He has penetrated deep into the divine mysteries, yet is not the only one to have done so: the song also mentions Jerome, Augustine, and Ambrose, who all faced the same problem as John: they knew “des endes nit noch keinen anefang” (3.2.11; “neither the end nor any beginning”). This seems to be the origin of the promise inherent in the present text:  to say something about the beginning (and indirectly also about the end), something that is entirely dependent on the insights of the authorities, but is nonetheless able to reveal how these statements have come about, or where their boundaries lie. John thus becomes a medium, allowing proximity to the most spectacular moments of origin and change in salvation history. But he also serves to present the text as one that is created in parallel to John’s account, and yet in contrast to it: where John struggles with despair, the first-​person singer of the 65  The formula can be found in Matt. 26:26; Mark 22:22; Luke 22:29; 1 Cor. 11:24.

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present song is characterized, at the end, by joy and high spirits. At the same time he is able to assert himself in the triangle of the authorities (John, the church fathers, the Spruchdichter), by thematizing the renewal of the creative word in the eucharistic word, and weaving this eucharistic word into his own text. The common notion that the sacrament is a distillation of salvation history becomes an opportunity to point to something beyond John, and to make the tension between the mediating character of the word and the transcendent conditions of its possibility productive for literature.

Signatures

This is a good point from which to assess one of the shifts that took place in the early modern period. It did not concern the idea of the divine word per se. This idea had its heyday in the same period, where its medial implications were first fully developed.66 But the models multiplied, and the tension between them grew: interest in the word of God versus interest in the phenomena of nature, a focus on the inner word versus a focus on the outer word. While some wanted to conceive of the divine word as primarily internal, because every externalization brings distortion and distancing, others wanted to define its relationship to the human word—​and therefore its medial dimension. In this context John the seer, with his unprecedented participation in and transmission of the divine events of origin, was no longer the main authority figure. Instead Adam became the point of reference: the first human to be created, from whose language the people of the Middle Ages felt fundamentally cut off, due to the Fall and the linguistic confusion of Babylon. Adam, who was naturally associated with the Creation, now served as the basis for an attempt to rediscover the original names of the creatures, undistorted by later developments and historical contingencies.67 This occurred in the framework of the Christian reception of both Neoplatonism and the Kabbalah. In each case the central idea is that God created the world in a speech act. Its essence can therefore be understood by grasping the dimensions of this speech act. In the case of Neoplatonism, this means assuming a presence of the divine in the world, which does not imply total immanence, but a presence in essence. It can be illustrated in categories of visual or verbal transfer: for example a light source which makes the ray of light possible and has its effect in it, or a speaker without whom an utterance is unimaginable. This utterance, as the core of the human process of mediation, can then be the point where this process becomes transparent for divine mediation, which should be imagined as an analogous process.68 In the case of the Christian Kabbalah, human communication is also seen as comparable to divine creation, with something that is internal being embodied in something external. Yet here the letters and names play a greater role. As links between the profane and the sacred world, they represent the “media in 66  For more on Luther see Beutel, In dem Anfang.

67  Cf. Language of Adam; Assmann, Im Dickicht der Zeichen, 121–​48.

68  Klein, Am Anfang war das Wort, 65 and 73, with reference to Agostino Steuco and Agrippa von Nettesheim.

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which man, thing and God can come to an understanding.”69 They are material in character; they are virtually physical symbols or ciphers, and it is thought that contemplation of them allows a direct relationship with God. This idea seems to be in line with medieval semiotic theories, and yet its consequences have the potential to transform these theories in crucial ways. Traditionally, the divine word was considered to be something that, although revealed, could not be understood in all its dimensions without exegesis. This tends to lead to an opposition between the word and those aspects of the divine that are manifested to the senses in the world. This “book of nature” now becomes the place where the supernatural and extra-​sensory may be encountered. It is taken seriously in its linguistic and semiotic nature, and becomes the starting point for hermeneutic and semiotic operations which promise a privileged understanding of divine creation. The relationship between the two central media of Christianity is thus reversed: the Bible may still offer the primary access to the theological mysteries, but for the mysteries of creation the book of nature takes precedence. The reference to the original medium, Christ, is transferred to this: it is no longer only the Old and New Testaments, typologically linked, which prove Christ to be the centre of salvation history; nature too, in all its details, speaks of nothing but its creator and redeemer.70 Anyone who grasps the language of this book and approaches it in the right spirit can understand creation directly, and shake off the dependence on complicated traditions of exegesis, layers of transmission, and processes of mediation. This is the problem with which the Reformation understanding of the Bible also struggled: the idea of approaching Holy Scripture filled with the Spirit seems to counteract the inconclusiveness and the potential randomness of interpretation. It leads to new problems, however: how can one decide and monitor who is understanding the text in the right spirit, and acting in accordance with this? The model of reading the book of nature makes a vivid appearance in the early modern doctrine of signatures, as developed by Theophrastus Paracelsus and his successors Heinrich Kunrath, Oswald Croll, and Jacob Böhme.71 They do not simply take the world and humans as systems of signs, in which outer features give hints of their inner essence. What is crucial here is a certain understanding of representation, based on the idea that there are phenomena that are more than (referential) signs: material signs, symbols, embodiments, connected to the signified object by similarities, and having effects—​ for example theological sacraments, magical characters, iconically grounded indices.72 Perception and knowledge also play a central role here: the signatures are not only of interest in themselves, but in their relationship to the subjects who are exploring or meditating on nature. They are considered in the context of complex interrelationships and relations of exchange between representation and cognition, perception and transfer, which constitute the specifically medial character of the signatures. 69  Klein, Am Anfang war das Wort, 87. 70  Bergengruen, Nachfolge Christi.

71  Cf. Klein, Am Anfang war das Wort, 121–​44, 205–​16; Ohly, Zur Signaturenlehre. 72  Agamben, Signatura rerum.

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One of the most closely argued discussions of this matter is found at the beginning of Böhme’s text, De signatura rerum, written in 1622 but only published in 1635, more than ten years after his death.73 Much of its content goes back to Paracelsus, yet the emphases are different. The focus is on the transparency of nature for revelation, which manifests itself in language. The alchemistic terminology serves to “direct the seeking mind toward the ‘arcana’ of the eternal mystery, which are hidden in things.”74 It becomes clear from the start what sets the signature apart: it is neither a sign nor that which a sign signifies, neither the material phenomenon in itself nor the spirit that inhabits it. Metaphorically, Böhme understands it as the “behelter oder kasten deß Geistes darinnen er liget” (515:13f.; “receptacle, container, or cabinet of the spirit, wherein it lies”).75 It is located in the essence of a thing, and is like a musical instrument, a lute, which though initially mute, allows an understanding of the causal connections when it is touched. The underlying idea is that the Creation is not eloquent in itself, but has the potential to make sounds, to begin to speak. The function of the signature is to awaken this potential. It causes insight to emerge as the “instrument” sounds: “ALles was von Gott geredet /​ geschrieben oder gelehret wird /​ohne Erkändnuß der Signatur, das ist /​stum vnd ohne verstand /​dann es kompt nur auß einem historischen wahn /​von einem andern Mund /​ daran der Geist ohne erkentnuß stum ist: So jhm aber der Geist die Signatur eröffnet /​so verstehet er deß andern Mund vnd verstehet ferner /​wie sich der Geist auß der Essenz durchs Principium im Hall mit der stimme hat offenbahret” (514:7–​14; “All whatever is spoken, written or taught of God, without the knowledge of the signature is dumb and void of understanding; for it proceeds only from a historical conjecture, from the mouth of another, wherein the spirit without knowledge is dumb; but if the spirit opens to him the signature, then he understands the speech of another; and further, he understands how the spirit has manifested and revealed itself (out of the essence through the principle), in the sound with the voice”).76 Sound (Hall), as the embodiment of language, is the thing that not only links but fuses two entities, and awakens the signature in these, in such a way that they “inqualify” (inqualieren) (515:1–​11). Böhme’s thinking is focused on mediation. This mediation, however, is conceived in complex terms. It is not limited to causal or final relations, to relationships of correspondence or identity. Instead, numerous elements are involved: a thing (which can also be a person, a speech), its externalization (hall, but also stimme), its form (gestaldniß), its signature, the spirit that reveals this signature, the will, the intellect etc. While a Neoplatonic model of perceptual and cognitive processes presents a clearly graded sequence, going from outside to inside and back again, this is not the case here. Instead the different elements are sometimes dependent on each other, and sometimes correspond to each other. This can be seen as an answer to the following questions: how is it 73  For a specific discussion of Böhme’s doctrine of signatures see Haferland, “Mystische Theorie”; Bonheim, Zeichendeutung und Natursprache. 74  Böhme, Werke, 809 (commentary).

75  English: Boehme, Signature of All Things, 10. 76  English: Boehme, Signature of All Things, 9.

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possible to move from the dead letter to the living spirit? How are we to understand the meaning inherent in the phenomena (which ultimately comes from and leads to God), if it is neither simply hidden nor in plain sight, and can neither be simply communicated by verbal means nor transferred by means of an inner word? In Böhme’s view, understanding occurs as an exchange between two communicating systems, which are connected because of fundamental similarities, but require stimuli to become aware of these similarities. Understanding is thus conceived of as a process, based on the assumption of a non-​mechanical relationship between signifier and signified on the one hand, and the possibility of a change on the part of the perceiving subject on the other. There is always something in the outward appearances that shows a similarity with their meanings, but never the whole thing. At the same time these outward appearances always have the potential to trigger contrastive reactions: in a person, for example, they may turn a bad quality or attitude into a good one, or conversely turn good qualities into bad ones. This model for recognizing similarities and meanings is dynamic, but also rich in tension—​with regard to theories of signs and of the word. On the one hand, the potentially infinite world of signifiers is confronted with the inherently closed world of Christological or trinitarian signifieds. The joy of discovering similarities between phenomena, uncovering meanings and effects, is tied to a theological centre of meaning, yet this loses some of its binding force through the abundance of its referential possibilities. On the other hand, the model of language itself is undermined. If Böhme conceives of the whole world as a language, or more precisely, as a language under which another language is hidden, then this raises hopes of being able to decipher the grammar and semantics of this language/​these languages. At the same time, however, it becomes increasingly difficult to capture the complexity of outer and inner, concrete and abstract relationships in this model. Böhme understands the word as real, and sees the human word as corresponding to the divine word. But he also turns it into an analogous pattern, in order to link structures of signs with those of articulation and cognition. The conclusion: however much weight is accorded to the outer forms of appearance (sound, voice), the actual production of meaning is tied to the inner word. This corresponds to the attitude of spiritual reformers such as Caspar Schwenkfeldt, who sought to find immediacy purely in the medium of the spirit.77 This also means, however, that the aim of taking all that is sensory to be not only meaningful, but also directly effective, is countered by an ongoing preference for the non-​sensory. Or in other words, since the origin, as conceived in the theology of creation, is now thought to be found in every sign, every similarity, every relationship, this leaves only two alternatives for the word, the fundamental embodiment of the relationship between God and man: either to become a pale, abstract entity, or to be lost in the diversity of medial dimensions.

77  Klein, Am Anfang war das Wort, 169.

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Sublimity For the Christian culture of the Middle Ages, writing was more than an administrative and economic, archival and memorial medium. It was a sacred means of communicating with the divine, while also giving durability to this communication.1 Its origins were often attributed to a mythical prehistory, thus enhancing its status. There were Greco-​ Hellenistic models for this. Herodotus reports that the Ionians adopted letters from the Phoenicians who had immigrated to Greece under the leadership of Cadmus; he also claims to have seen letters from the time of Cadmus in the temple of Apollo Ismenius in Thebes in Boeotia (Histories 5:  58f.). Plato has Socrates recount that the Egyptian god Thoth invented letters, as well as numbers and arithmetic, the arts of measurement and astronomy, board games and dice (Phaedrus 273c). Other Greek authors name the great mythical inventors, artists, and heroes of their culture: Palamedes, Sisyphus, Prometheus, or Orpheus.2 Pliny presents the widespread view that Cadmus brought writing (a sixteen-​letter alphabet) from Phoenicia to Greece, and that Palamedes (or Aristotle) and Simonides added four further letters to it. For the earliest beginnings he juxtaposes the opinion of Anticlides, that the Egyptian Menon invented writing “15,000 years before Phoroneus, the most ancient of the Greek kings,” with that of Epigenes, that “the Babylonians had astronomical observations inscribed on baked bricks going back 720,000 years” (Naturalis historia 7:57).3 Nonnos poetically describes the introduction of writing by Cadmus: in Egypt, “he pressed out the milk of the holy books ineffable, scratched their scratches across with backfaring hand and traced their rounded circles” (Dionysiaca 4:267–​69).4 Isidore of Seville, the early medieval encyclopedist, assembles the different traditions into a not altogether coherent whole: he associates the beginnings of the Hebrew alphabet with Moses, those of the Syriac and Chaldean alphabets with Abraham, and those of the Egyptian letters with the goddess Isis, who found them in Greece and brought them to Egypt (Etymologiae 1.3.5). According to Isidore, the custom of marking capital letters in scarlet (Phoeniceus color) came from the Phoenicians, from whom Cadmus had transmitted the letters to the Greeks. The Greeks were responsible for the five mystical letters which were especially charged with meaning:  ϒ, symbolizing human life, Θ, signifying death, T, the symbol for the

1  In the following section the material from Kiening, “Die erhabene Schrift,” insofar as it concerns the Middle Ages, will be supplemented and to some extent presented from a new perspective. 2  Dornseiff, Das Alphabet, 8f.

3  Pliny the Elder, On the Human Animal, 102; Ernst, “Standardisiertes Wissen,” 205f. 4  Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 153; cf. Curtius, Europäische Literatur, 312.

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cross, and A and Ω as symbols of Christ as the beginning and end of all things (1.3.8f.).5 The invention of the Latin letters is attributed to the prophetically gifted nymph Nicostrate, also called Carmentis, “because she would sing in songs (carmen) of things to come” (1.4.1). Later Christian authors associate the “national” alphabets with saints and missionaries: Ulfilas for the Gothic alphabet, Cyril and Methodius for the Cyrillic, Mesrop Mashtots for the Armenian and Georgian.6 The idea is that all these figures wanted to use the divine technology to share a piece of the divine itself with humanity. Other religions of the book have similar notions. The Koran assumes that writing is divine in origin: in its ninety-​sixth surah the revelation of God begins with Mohammed reciting from the writings that the angel has brought from heaven: “Your Lord […] who taught by the pen, who taught man what he knew not.” Notwithstanding such stories of provenance, and a few texts dealing with the interpretation of letters and (sacred) abbreviations,7 detailed reflections on the dimensions and capabilities of writing were rare in the Middle Ages. Plato’s observations in Phaedrus, one of the most succinct and incisive commentaries on writing, remained unknown. According to Plato, writing makes it possible to preserve memories, but also has an element of the illusory and the superficial. It creates an impression of liveliness without really being alive. It stands for something that is absent itself, without being able to ensure original meanings on its own. This skepticism does not lead to outright condemnation, however. Plato sees writing as a pharmakon, both a remedy and an intoxicant.8 The alphabet constitutes a basic model of philosophical-​scholarly activity.9 The dialogues are informed by knowledge of the potential of writing, which is put to clever use “to produce the illusion of presence.”10 But Plato also highlights the limitations of writing, and tries to give his teaching a dynamic that points beyond the solidifying effect of writing. In Cratylus he has his figures discuss whether the letters and syllables imitate the essence of each thing (423e). In Phaedrus he presents a transcending of the written word in favour of lively communication between souls, which is in turn described with the metaphor of writing: the word of truth is “written with intelligence in the mind of the learner” (Phaedrus 276a).11 This process of “engraving on the soul” suggests that there is an “act of communication which, free of the falsifications of convention, aims directly at the inner being 5  Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, 40; Ernst, “Standardisiertes Wissen,” 210; Schreiner, “Litterae mysticae,” 278f.

6  Cf. Dornseiff, Das Alphabet, 4f.; J.-​C. Billigmeier and P. J. Burnham, “Alphabets,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Lindsay Jones, Mircea Eliade, and Charles J. Adams (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005), 2nd ed., 1: 269–​75.

7  Cf. Traube, Nomina Sacra, 3–​8; Maas, “ ‘Die Schrift ist ein Zeichen’ ”; Schlieben-​Lange, “Geschichte der Reflexion,” 104–​9. 8  Derrida, “La pharmacie de Platon.”

9  Villers, Paradigma des Alphabets; for Phaedrus see 77–​151.

10  Moser, Buchgestützte Subjektivität, 138; for a basic treatment see Havelock, Preface to Plato; Szlezák, Platon und die Schriftlichkeit. 11  English: Plato, Phaedrus, 567.

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of the addressee,”12 and is nonetheless able to achieve longevity. What it promises is to allow recording and transfer while excluding disruptions. Its form, however, insofar as it appears itself in the medium of writing, is the paradoxification and transcending of writing. Instances of the self-​transcendence of writing appear in the written text. And this gives rise to that fundamental tension between a critical and an emphatic concept of writing—​a tension that defines Western history.13 Even if the Christian Middle Ages remained unfamiliar with Plato’s reflections, this period was close to his thinking in two respects: on the one hand, it raised the status of writing, making it the foundation of history and salvation history, and on the other hand, it was constantly seeking to transcend and transfer a narrowly defined concept of writing.14 This led to repeated oscillations between materiality and immateriality, written text and oral teaching, fixing and revising, stabilization and animation. The background for this was a simultaneous adoption and transformation of early Jewish models of writing.

Recoding

For ancient Judaism, writing as Holy Scripture formed the basis for God’s actions toward humans. The letters were regarded as the physical embodiments of metaphysical facts. It was thought that God used letters in the creation of the world: according to the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation or Book of Creation) from the third/​fourth century, he chiselled and carved them, weighed them and changed their positions, and formed everything from them.15 Writing was a manifestation of the divine will—​as in that famous scene of Belshazzar’s feast, where a human hand sent by God writes mysterious words on the palace wall, which are interpreted by Daniel (Dan. 5). At first the writing is only visible and not readable—​and is effective precisely because of this. It mediates a presence of the signs and an absence of their author. It leads to an existential shock for the king, and a semantic explanation from Daniel, who identifies the mysterious signs as a form of the presence of God. Writing contains knowledge of both earthly and celestial things—​and this applies particularly to the Torah, which was the first of the ancient Jewish scriptures to be canonized, but continued to be accompanied by lively oral interpretation and debate. The complexity of the situation becomes clear if we consider the figure seen as the originator of both the written and the oral Torah: Moses. His story is not only closely connected with the handing down of the five books in which the history of the world and the salvation history of the people of Israel are recounted and interpreted. It also goes to the heart of what this salvation history is based on: the law. The second book, Exodus, which centres on the departure from Egypt, tells of the origin of the famous tablets containing the Ten Commandments, founding the covenant between God and 12  Koschorke, Körperströme und Schriftverkehr, 328. 13  Andree, Archäologie der Medienwirkung.

14  Verschriftlichung der Welt; for skepticism about writing see Mainberger, Schriftskepsis. 15  Schreiner, “ ‘Göttliche Schreib-​Kunst,’ ” 99.

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his people. The covenant is established as a form of simultaneously auratic and precarious textuality. Initially Moses writes down the words of Yahweh (Exod. 24:4); then, on Mount Sinai, he receives the two stone tablets of the law, inscribed on both sides by God’s own hand (Exod. 31:18; 32:15). Returning to his people, Moses finds them caught up in the worship of the Golden Calf, and destroys the tablets in his rage. God promises to create new ones (Exod. 34:1). In the end, however, it seems to be Moses himself who writes down God’s words (Exod. 34:28). This means that the law is divine in origin, but this origin itself is multiplied. In keeping with the complexity of the relationship between man and God, the written word proves to be both divine and human, both solid and fragile. The fact that God himself sets his words in stone does not guarantee stability under the conditions of the earthly. Yet it is precisely this double act of writing that makes it possible to reveal what forms the basis of history: repetitions. These, however, always raise the question of how original and later elements relate to each other. In the given case, the identity between the first and the second set of tablets can only be guaranteed by the oral word of God, which—​in written form—​is only a word handed down by humans. This suggests the possibility of several originals and beginnings, but at the same time obscures the way the texts at the different stages relate to one another. The auratized and legitimized processes of handing down likewise bring substantially identical “copies” and new acts of foundation, written transfers, and oral transmissions. This is also apparent in places where later books of the Bible refer back to Mosaic law. The book of Joshua tells how Joshua erected an altar on Mount Ebal, and, before the eyes of all the Israelites, “wrote on stones a copy of the law of Moses,” then “read all the words of the law—​the blessings and the curses—​just as it is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel” (Josh. 8:31–​35). In the second book of Kings, there is already explicit talk of a book of laws (to be imagined in scroll format), which is found in the house of the Lord, and is first read by the scribe on his own and then read aloud to the king (2 Kings 22:8–​13). This is therefore an archival textuality, but one that is dynamized by acts of orality.16 The Christian reinterpretation of the Jewish model of writing—​in which Paul played a key role—​goes much further in such dynamizations. In order to give an authoritative basis to religious communication in the new Gentile congregations, he refers back to the origin of the law on Mount Sinai, but ascribes a different significance to it. In the Second Letter to the Corinthians (3:1–​8), he writes: Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

16  Cf. Graham, Beyond the Written Word.

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Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—​not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?17

Here Paul distances himself both from the pragmatic model of writing represented by the letter of recommendation (which he himself had practised) and from the genealogical model of writing of the old covenant (which dominated Jewish thinking). He merges the Mosaic idea with the prophetic concept of the future founding of a new covenant, which Yahweh himself speaks of in Jeremiah (31:33):  “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” This takes concrete form in a pneumatic concept of writing, in keeping with the Christological notion of surpassing Jewish tradition. This concept eliminates both the separation of message and recipient, and the difference between divine and human originator. The Corinthians to whom the text is addressed are simultaneously the letter of the apostle and that of Christ. They are part of the community of hearts, which in turn appears as the “body” of the letter. Thus Paul, in line with Plato, establishes an opposition between dead and living scripture. This opposition would have major consequences, partly because, in the Christian tradition that was developing, it was no longer applied to the relationship between Old and New Testament, but to that between the literal and spiritual meaning of the biblical text. No less influential was another recoding:  that of the Jewish tradition of religious apocalypticism. The book of Revelation depicts, in a series of visions and auditions, the encounter with a salvation history that is now conceived of in Christological terms, one that lies in the past, but simultaneously points to the future and affects the present.18 From the beginning, the text is evidently caught in the tension between what the seer reveals of the things he has seen and heard, and the events that Christ himself uncovers in the story. This tension is manifested, not least, in key documents: on the one hand the scroll (biblíon) in the hand of God, written on inside and out, closed with seven seals, which only the Lamb, Christ, is worthy to open; on the other hand the little book (biblarídion/​biblidárion), already open, in the hand of the angel, which the seer is told to eat. It is as sweet as honey in his mouth, but causes bitterness in his stomach. The documents are concrete: they have seals, and writing on both sides; they are held, opened, or ingested. At the same time they are metaphorical:  the expression of multilayered spatio-​temporal processes between predestination and fulfilment. At once depositories and musical scores, they seem to both embody and enact and/​or record an event—​an event that plays out in appearance, image, and seeing, as much as in word, 17  For recent research see Hafemann, Paul, Moses; Scholtissek, “ ‘Ihr seid ein Brief Christi’ ”; Grindheim, “The Law Kills”; Davis, Antithesis of the Ages.

18  For more details on the following see Kiening, Mystische Bücher, with more detailed references.

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voice, and hearing.19 Writing is thus transcended in favour of a multidimensional process of perception. It records actions and events, images and figurations, words and tones. At the same time, however, it voluntarily sets these free. It steps forward to facilitate the recording and transmission of the events. But it also steps back again to give expression to what has been heard and read. Here, too, the point of reference is a pattern from the Old Testament. The two documents borrow elements from the book of Ezekiel: there the prophet sees a hand with a scroll stretched out toward him. This scroll contains “words of lamenting and mourning and woe” (2:10). Ezekiel must eat the scroll, and it is like sweet honey in his mouth. The point of the scene is that he must fully assimilate the words of God, be saturated with them, before he can speak to the stubborn house of Israel. The book of Revelation, in contrast, emphasizes how that which was seen by the prophet is fulfilled in the figure of the Messiah. The Christological dimension takes centre stage. The writing that has been consumed is both sweet and bitter: it promises fulfilment, but this is linked to suffering, sacrifice, and death, and thus mediates between the divine and the human. The scroll in the hand of God—​from which the whole apocalyptic sequence “unrolls,” and which, in its closed nature, reflects the idiosyncratic character of the apocalyptic text—​thus gives an inkling of what it contains, even in its rolled-​up state.20 The high-​ ranking legal document, with writing on both front and back, as in Ezekiel, embodies an abundance that is not readily accessible, but is hinted at.21 It expresses that mediation between the divine and the human which is also embodied by the Lamb, the only being who can receive the scroll and open its seals. Yet it is also the Lamb, Christ, who blurs the boundary between what is recorded in the writing and what happens as a result of it. Christ is not just the origin and originator, but also the subject of the book. As the alpha and the omega, he forms both the basis of scripture and the framework for its fulfilment—​fulfilment that also becomes visible as a written text, in this case the little book in the hand of the angel. Its prophetic text forms a counterpoint to the ontological text of the larger scroll. This is initially closed, and can only be opened by the being who functions as the absolute mediator. The little book, on the other hand, is already open, and is then withdrawn from view when it is eaten by the relative mediator, the seer. While the Lamb opens up the great book of fates to allow the events of the end time to unfold, the seer ingests the little book of fates in order to transmit the events to the Christian congregations. Thus writing sometimes seems more ontological, sometimes more communicative in character. This is the basis for transferring the aura of the scrolls described in the text to the book at hand, Revelation. At the beginning we read: “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it” (Rev. 1:3). At the end the two prophecies are explicitly

19  Cf. Barr, “Apocalypse as Oral Enactment”; Enroth, “Hearing Formula.” For the visual see Ulland, Vision als Radikalisierung. 20  For Revelation as a letter see Karrer, Johannesoffenbarung.

21  For classical representations of sitting figures with scrolls in their right hand see Birt, Die Buchrolle in der Kunst, 85–​91.

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equated: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll” (Rev. 22:18–​19). While, from an eschatological perspective, it was initially not the reading but the incorporation of the writing that led to the presence of the divine in man, it now turns out that this does not make the written text itself insignificant. It is especially important for a revealed text that its content be secured—​for example through a magical performativity. Thus the book becomes the embodiment of what it communicates, the way people treat it determines whether or not they will be saved, and prophecy becomes an instrument of magic. At the same time, the universal apocalypse that the book aims to reveal to the senses becomes an individual apocalypse, an opportunity for readers or listeners to prove themselves. The Mosaic tablets introduced the notion of a divine original text, which allowed later generations to legitimate their norms and rules by reference to origins. Paul’s writing on the heart was linked with the idea of direct communication, making it possible to both assimilate and transform the Old Testament concept of writing. John’s visionary writing brought a new proximity between revelation and concealment, offering a model for enlivening and dynamizing writing, in order to release the divine secrets embodied in it without simply divulging them to all and sundry.22 This allowed the archival character of writing to be repeatedly disrupted by other dimensions: an auratic dimension, concerned with the appearance of the writing; a performative dimension, in which actions are carried out with words; and an operational dimension, in which writing contains the program for the performance of an action.23

Materiality and Meaning

What emerges here is a tendency that will be fundamental for subsequent history: the tendency to relate specific manifestations to general structures of meaning. This can already be discerned from the use of the term scriptura, first encountered in the work of the Byzantine grammarian Priscian, as an abstract term equating to the Greek tá graphómena.24 Scriptura can mean both Holy Scripture and the principle of writing or its concrete manifestation in a manuscript—​which can, in turn, be a reflection of the general principle. In practice, especially sacred practice, writing keeps reappearing as a reversible figure between materiality and immateriality, the sensory and the meaningful. The letters are distinguished by material dignity and spatial effect. They are geometrized and stylized, and ennobled by the use of precious materials such as gold, silver, ivory, 22  Cf. Schneider, “Geschlossene Bücher”; for Latin orality see Haye, Lateinische Oralität.

23  For the operational character of writing see Krämer, “ ‘Operationsraum Schrift’ ”; cf. also Ludwig, Geschichte des Schreibens. 24  Cf. also William Graham, “Scripture,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, 12: 8194–​205.

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enamel, gems, or glass. In Hebrew manuscripts, God’s names appear in gilded letters, distinguished from the rest of the text. Yet the surface is always, in part, an invitation to penetrate into the depths. Scribes and readers alternate between inner and outer senses, interpreting and appropriating (ingesting, wearing), reading and observing, understanding salvation history and transferring the salvific energy to their own existence.25 The Bible, and in particular the Psalms, are used to gain hints of what is to come, by opening them to a random page as if by divination. Care is taken, however, to ensure that this does not degenerate into a mechanical process: the inaccessibility of the divine is highlighted, as is the necessity of a proper inner attitude. The vanishing point of writing remains the soundless, voiceless original word, the absolute, creative divine Logos evoked by the prologue of the Gospel of John, echoing Genesis. At the end of the same Gospel, we find the following statement about this word made flesh in Christ: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25). The magic of writing has two faces in Christian culture: powerful, but continually repressed, widely developed, but also controlled, integrated or bracketed by institutions. Written documents acquire a special, remote status due to their age and their relation to transcendence. At the same time, they need to be renewed and updated. Texts written down or dictated by Jesus and Mary themselves give the impression that they come from the early days of Christianity—​such as the Marian sequence Planctus ante nescia, which several manuscripts describe as dictated by Mary. But they can also appear anew, fall from heaven, in order to draw attention to current problems or to mark out particular figures as close to God.26 Names of God, names of celestial personages and angels, quotations from the Psalms, the beginning of the Gospel of John—​all these are noted down again and again, for example on little pieces of paper which are then buried, reworked into something else, eaten, or worn against the skin, and which seek to put the salvific power of writing to concrete use.27 But besides the immediate effect, the wealth of meanings always plays a part too. For example, the individual letters:  the A  and O/​Ω are thought to contain the whole potency of the alphabet; the Pythagorean Y functions as a sign of the crossroads and as a symbol of human life; the Greek Λ is regarded as the embodiment of Logos, which can in turn be transferred to the individual soul by means of the book.28 The cross-​shaped T, as the tau sign, is associated with the Passion of Christ, or more generally, in accordance with passages of the Old Testament, with the marking of the chosen: God is said to have instructed his angel to draw the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet (tav) on the forehead 25  For the magic of the book and of reading see Das Buch; The Book and the Magic. 26  Koep, Das himmlische Buch; Schreiner, “ ‘Göttliche Schreib-​Kunst.’ ”

27  For the use of the prologue to John see Schreiner, “Litterae mysticae,” 315–​22; for an overview of the magic of writing see Dornseiff, Das Alphabet, and Tiemann, “Schreiben, Schrift, Geschriebenes.” 28  Müller, Visuelle Weltaneignung, 65–​67.

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of the chosen ones (Ezek. 9), and to have ordered the Israelites to write it with blood on their door posts (Exod. 12).29 Scenes such as these fuelled the idea that writing was more than fixed information or a material manifestation—​that it was a principle. Here an important part was played by the metaphorical extension of the concept of writing to many different phenomena.30 Just as the human mind was able to become imbued, both intensely and enduringly, with God and the Spirit, so could creation itself—​nature, elements, stones, plants, living beings—​be understood as a communicative context founded on revealed scripture. For Plotinus and other Neoplatonists, the stars were “letters perpetually being inscribed on the heavens or inscribed once for all and yet moving” (Enneade 2.3.7).31 For Lucretius, the miracle of nature, the ever-​new creation and combination of forms out of particular elements, was reflected in the phenomenon of letters, which continually form new structures of sound and meaning: “It is not so different as you might think with verses, /​ For so many letters are common to so many words, /​ Yet the words and verses differ from one another /​And that is true of meaning as well as sound. /​And this is only a change in the order of elements; /​The variations for particles are more numerous /​And so make all the variations of nature.”32 The attempt was made, then, to grasp the relationship between God, world, and man in metaphors of writing, and thus to comprehend different realms of being, or things and signs, as mutually permeable. This could support the idea of a universal legibility of the world, as expressed in the hermeneutic of the different senses of scripture.33 It could also, however, fuel the ambivalence felt toward writing, which was regarded as secondary and indirect. Augustine, who thought writing had been invented “so that we might also be able to converse with those that are absent,” understood it as a third-​ degree order—​signs of words, which are in turn signs of things (De trinitate 15.10.19).34 In the visionary Ethiopian Book of Enoch from the early Christian era, writing appears to reflect the fallen existence of humanity. The fourth evil angel, who led humans astray, “instructed mankind in writing with ink and paper, and thereby many sinned from eternity to eternity and until this day. For men were not created for such a purpose, to give confirmation to their good faith with pen and ink.”35 John Chrysostom, in his Homilies on Matthew, reasoned: “It were indeed meet for us not at all to require the aid of the written Word, but to exhibit a life so pure, that the grace of the Spirit should be instead of books 29  Schreiner, “Litterae mysticae,” 280–​92.

30  Cf. Curtius, Europäische Literatur, 306–​52.

31  Curtius, Europäische Literatur, 311. English: Plotinus, Enneads, 39.

32  Lucretius, De rerum natura, 1:823–​29:  “Quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis | multa elementa vides multis communia verbis, | cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necessest | confiteare et re et sonitu distare sonanti. | tantum elementa queunt permutato ordine solo. | at rerum quae sunt primordiae, plura adhibere | possunt unde queant variae res quaeque creari.” English: Lucretius, De rerum natura, 36. 33  For readability see Blumenberg, Die Lesbarkeit der Welt. 34  Augustine, The Trinity, 411.

35  The Book of Enoch: One Enoch, 138.

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to our souls, and that as these are inscribed with ink, even so should our hearts be with the Spirit. But, since we have utterly put away from us this grace, come, let us at any rate embrace the second best course” (1.1).36 The “second-​best course” could also be interpreted more positively, however. Some thought that books were a healing medicine for the soul.37 Or that they offered an especially potent expression of the creation—​for example if an early, non-​phonetic alphabet revealed an inner connection between sign and signified. Plotinus observes of the Egyptian hieroglyphs: “each manifestation of knowledge and wisdom is a distinct image, an object in itself, an immediate unity” (Enneads 5.8.5f.).38 Iamblichus declares, in De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, that the Egyptians “revealed occult intuitions by symbols.”39 The Christian authors worked on the manifold correspondences between the two great books, the liber naturae and the liber scripturae. They savoured the charm of capturing key elements of salvation history in metaphors of the textuality of the book. Even in late antiquity, the Virgin Mary was regarded as a sheet of papyrus prepared by God, or as a book to be read and interpreted; yet she was also depicted as reading or writing herself, and the incarnation concentrated in the scene of the Annunciation was thought of as an act of inscription.40 Jesus could in turn be seen as having a special relationship to writing, although he himself left no writings. Identified with the alpha and omega, he embodied the fulfilment of the law. Represented with a scroll or codex, he was seen simultaneously as the creative word itself and its revelation.41 The only act of writing by Jesus recorded in the canonical Gospels is the scene in the Gospel of John where Jesus, in response to the accusations against the adulteress, writes in the sand twice (John 8:6–​8). The conclusion drawn from this was that writing had a special significance, since even “the Artificer of the world stoops down” to practise it.42 Also widely read was the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas from the second century, in which the young Jesus, who is supposed to be learning the letters, instead gives Zacchaeus an interpretive description of the first letter: “Hear, O teacher, the ordinance of the first letter and pay heed to this, how that it hath […] lines, and a middle mark, which thou seest, common to both, going apart; coming together, raised up on high, dancing […], of three signs, like in kind […], balanced, equal in measure]: thou hast the rules of the Alpha.”43 36  Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, 4; cf. Kemp, Christliche Kunst, 220f. 37  Cf. Herkommer, “Das Buch als Arznei.” 38  Plotinus, Enneads, 181.

39  Eco, Search for the Perfect Language, 145. For Egyptian writing see Assmann (various) and Morenz, Bild-​Buchstaben und symbolische Zeichen. 40  Kesting, “Maria als Buch”; Schreiner, Maria: Jungfrau, Mutter, Herrscherin, 159–​67; Schreiner, “ ‘Göttliche Schreib-​Kunst.’ ” 41  Cf. Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text, 122.

42  Richard de Bury, Philobiblon, chap. 16, lines 30f. (p. 123): “O scripture serenitas singularis, ad cuius fabricam inclinatur artifex orbis terre”; English: Richard de Bury, The Love of Books, 100.

43  The Apocryphal New Testament. The English translator notes that this is a literal version as the original text is unintelligible here; the ellipses refer to corrupt words.

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The passage just quoted shows what significance the visual dimension of writing had, from early on. In the subsequent period this was connected, to a considerable extent, with the transition from the (papyrus) scroll to the (parchment) codex, which took place in around the fourth century. This transition was closely linked to the new religion that was spreading at the time. Evidently it was mainly Christians who developed the new medium at first, motivated by the need to possess Paul’s letters in a user-​friendly form. In Judaism, the scroll form remained dominant into the eighth century.44 The codex brought new techniques of reading and page-​turning, a new flexibility in the presentation of knowledge, a new materiality that could become a veritable corporeality. Books were clothed and carried around like living beings. They were exhibited, laid out, and venerated like relics. They were able to act and suffer, like real representatives of people and institutions. As early as the Old English Exeter Book (second half of the tenth century), we find riddles that hint at the dangers to which writing is exposed (“a moth ate words”), or where the parchment itself describes how, starting from the original animal hide, it attained its current form as a result of the different production processes (“A good man covered me with protecting boards, which stretched skin over me; adorned me with gold.”).45 Saint Brandan, according to one version of the legend, finds a book in his monastery that tells of the wonders of the world—​but he does not believe it. He burns the book, and as a punishment, must experience the wonders for himself, on extensive journeys, until he is finally able to offer up the new book recording his travel experiences on the altar of the Mother of God.46 Saint Boniface, in his vitae, is given an increasingly elaborate death scene, in which a book plays a central part. He is said to have held this over himself in protection when attacked by the heathens, without a single letter being damaged—​a story derived from the Ragyndrudis Codex, venerated in Fulda, which is marked by deep cuts.47 Bishop Turgot, in his biography of Queen Margaret of Scotland (late eleventh century), recounts how her favourite evangeliary (now held in the Bodleian Library in Oxford) miraculously survived falling into water: Its leaves had been kept in constant motion by the action of the water, and the little coverings of silk which protected the letters of gold from becoming injured by contact with the leaves, were swept away by the force of the current. Who could have imagined that the book was worth anything after such an accident as this? Who could have believed that so much as a single letter would have been visible. Yet of a truth, it was taken up from the middle of the river so perfect, so uninjured, so free from damage that it looked as if it had not been touched by the water.48

44  Cf. for example Roberts, “The Codex”; Resnick, “The Codex”; Grafton and Williams, Christianity. 45  Anglo-​Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book; Bridges, “Mehr als ein Text,” 104f.

46  Cf. Strohschneider, “Der Abt”; Kiening, Zwischen Körper und Schrift, 14–​17.

47  Cf. Becht-​Jördens, “Heiliger und Buch”; Aris, “ ‘Der Trost der Bücher.’ ” For the evangeliary held above the head or laid on the head and the back of the neck as a ritual element of action see Schreiner, “Litterae mysticae,” 292–​301. 48  Turgot, Life of St Margaret, 67; Bridges, “Mehr als ein Text,” 109; see Rushforth, St Margaret’s Gospel-​Book.

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Like the martyrs, books withstand attacks and vicissitudes without suffering harm—​if they are godly in spirit. At the same time every manuscript was a singularity, and was presented in a particular way. The writing, for example embellished with gold on a purple background, engraved into the parchment, interrupted by holes, and adapted to the irregularities of the natural material, had a haptic quality. On the front of the page, the verso was faintly visible. Pointing hands in the margin highlighted particular passages. Instructions from the scribes sought to preserve the auratic dimension in the reception. The scribe of the Westgotisches Rechtsbuch (eighth century) writes: “Oh happiest reader, wash your hands and touch the book in this way, turn the pages gently, keep your finger far away from the letters.”49 In a manuscript from Corbie (ninth century), we read: “Friend, you who are reading this, hold back your fingers, so you do not accidentally spoil the letters, for a person who cannot write does not believe that he is looking at the result of work, but just as the sailor delights to see the harbour, so does the scribe delight to see the last line. The feather is held with three fingers, and the whole body is involved in the effort.”50 The visual aspect of the written texts was important. From early on, richly decorated book covers had the function of presenting key aspects of the content, or symbols encapsulating Christian doctrine, partly for the benefit of those who would not see inside the book.51 In the Exultet scrolls from southern Italy, covered with signs on both sides, the side with the pictures was turned toward the congregation. Giant Bibles, missals, and processionals were laid open for viewing. Key documents of monastic or feudal rule were displayed in transitional situations, “placed on the altar, visible and sometimes presented along with symbolic objects.”52 Large-​format imperial, royal, and papal documents vividly demonstrated claims to legality and validity; they were designed as artworks, and, as is clear from the documentary records, they were intended to be read, seen, or heard; some were evidently displayed at exhibitions of holy relics.53 In texts in the vernacular there is repeated mention of seeing the brief or the schrift.54 Inside the books, the gradual replacement of classical scriptura continua with separate words allowed faster visual reading, which was not dependent on reading aloud.55 The combination of writing with figural elements and graphic symbols drew attention to the optical dimension.56 Divisions within the pages served not only to structure the 49  Wattenbach, Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, 283: “O beatissime lector, lava manus tuas et sic librum adprehende, leniter folia turna, longa a littera digito pone.” 50  Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 12296, fol. 162r (CMD-​F 3, p. 283). 51  Cf. Ganz, Buch-​Gewänder.

52  Morsel, “ ‘Brief’ und ‘schrift,’ ” 313.

53  Blaschitz, “Schrift auf Objekten,” 152, with example from 1360; earlier example in Rück, “Urkunde als Kunstwerk”; overview in Graphische Symbole; Charters; Späth, “Kopieren und Erinnern.” 54  Morsel, “ ‘Brief’ und ‘schrift,’ ” 316, with further references. 55  Saenger, Space between Words. 56  Graphische Symbole.

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text, but also to establish distinct forms of perception and recollection.57 The representation of canon tables, for example, both realized and reflected the spatial dimension of the book: “In a book conceived of as a building, a picture appears which in turn makes it possible to understand the text of the book as a building.”58 It is mainly the initials that combine written and pictorial elements. Like the decorative elements at the beginning of a text, chapter, or larger section, they display architectural features, often those of sacred buildings: immersing oneself in the book, one enters a space of salvation; moving across the page, one traverses a mnemonic system for the localization of salvation.59 Decorative letters to highlight beginnings had already become common in late classical codices of pagan texts. Then, in the Irish-​Christian manuscripts of the seventh and eighth centuries, a dynamic linking of initials and text letters emerged: “The beginning of the lines in the large sections sinks toward normal text in a kind of diminuendo, from the height of the initials (distinguished by dotted outlines, red ink, spiral endings, and similar embellishments) and the monogram-​like ligatures down to the rank and file of the simple letters written in ordinary ink.”60 Other letters consist of the bodies of animals, which merge into one another and are again combined with ornaments. The initial “turns out to be an elastic being, filled with dynamic energies and possessing the ability to stretch or shrink parts of its body at will.”61 Most spectacular is the extension of individual decorative letters to take up an entire page. The Chi-​Rho initial, for example, used as a monogram for Christ, and marking the birth of Christ in the illustration of the Gospel of Matthew, offers a tapestry of ornaments, composed of pointed and rounded shapes, regular and irregular elements. The combination of initials at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark weaves the abbreviated name of Christ into a wonderfully intricate world of lines. The letters encourage the observer to combine reading and contemplation, awareness of the components of writing and immersion in the network of lines—​and to embark on the exploration of a microcosm. In this microcosm, it is expected that writing will have an ontological dimension, and that ontology will in turn prove to be writing, especially as there is an inner relationship, in the biblical and liturgical manuscripts, between the initial and the holy text which it introduces. The greatest emphasis is given to the beginnings of Genesis (“In principio creavit deus”) and the Gospels (in the Gospel according to John there is also an initial ‘I’: “In principio erat verbum”). For the Psalms, the initial B starting the text Beatus vir could be combined with the genealogical model of the Tree of Jesse or with the authorial model of David rex.62 57  For the role of colour see Ernst, “Farbe und Schrift.”

58  Gormans, “Geometria et ars memorativa,” 306. For the canon tables see also Kemp, Christliche Kunst, 137–​48. 59  Gormans, “Geometria et ars memorativa,” 291–​307.

60  Pächt, Buchmalerei des Mittelalters, 63; for the early period see Nordenfalk, Die spätantiken Zierbuchstaben; Jakobi-​Mirwald, Text—​Buchstabe—​Bild. 61  Pächt, Buchmalerei des Mittelalters, 65.

62  Pächt, Buchmalerei des Mittelalters, 88f., 94f.

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At the same time, the illustration of the Psalms shows the general development: a strict adherence to liturgical-​magical formulae—​manifested for example in the Stuttgart Psalter (ca. 830), in the interlinking of a graphically effective script and a verbally effective image63—​is superseded by a greater spiritualization and allegorization in high medieval psalters. The material side does not become unimportant, but loses its primary function of making meaning. It becomes part of a context of complex memorial practices. For example, the Te igitur of the first prayer of the Canon (in the Mass, the beginning of the so-​called Silence of the Canon), which was highlighted in the missals, is now linked with a representation of Jesus on the cross, and thus elevated to a rememoration of the Passion, taking place in the written text. Here, too, however, the letters have an ontological nature as signs. They transport a meaningfulness that is not simply based on a referential relationship, but on the implication that the thing referred to is actually present in the figure of the writing.64 The term “figure” can be used here in the truest sense of the word. In the early fourth century, at the time of the Constantinian shift, Porfirius, who referenced both pagan traditions and new Christian approaches, wrote a series of panegyric figured poems (carmina figurata) while in exile. He regretted that due to the circumstances he was unable to write them on purple parchment with silver writing and golden intexts, but could only write on ordinary parchment with black and red ink.65 The geometrical grid poems, which fill the whole page, repeatedly refer to the representative principle. They contain poetological reflections, point to the written nature of the texts, and offer explanations for the understanding of the intexts:  “In hac pagina per omnes partes tricenæ septenæ litteræ sunt et auro scripta est species palmæ”(on this page there are thirty-​seven letters each in all the parts and the figure of the palm in golden writing).66 The Anglo-​Saxon missionary Boniface explained the structure of his own figurative cross poem in detail in a letter of dedication to Sigebert: “Now I have placed a rectangle on the front page of my work, which contains in the middle the shape of the holy cross and presents the words ‘Jesus Christ.’ The rectangle is framed by two lines of verse, while others cross it diagonally. It offers, in a playful sequence of sentences, the letters that should be read against one another. You should know, however, that this rectangle is formed in the shape of the Old and New Testament.”67

63  Heinzer, Wörtliche Bilder.

64  Cf. Das Buch; this suggestion is developed more fully in Czerwinski, “Verdichtete Schrift.” 65  Ernst, Carmen figuratum, 97–​142, here 97. 66  Ernst, Carmen figuratum, 120, 128.

67  Bonifatius, Epistulae, 364f.: “Interea circulum quadrangulum in fronte huius laboris apposui in medio figuram sanctae crucis continentem JHS XPS et exprimentem, qui ludivaga sermonum serie duobus ambitus versibus, aliis in transversum currentibus socialis adiutorii utrimque sonantes in obviam offert litteras. Hunc autem circulum in scemate novi et veteris instrumenti figurari non nescias”; Ernst, Carmen figuratum, 160–​67.

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Figure 6. Initial H from French Bible, ca. 1175–​1195; New York, Metropolitan Museum, The Cloisters, 1999.364.1. https://​commons.wikimedia.org/​wiki/​File:Manuscript_​ Illumination_​with_​Initial_​H,_​from_​a_​Bible_​MET_​MED745cropped.jpg (accessed August 5, 2019). Public domain.

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In the Carolingian period, which saw a general rise in the importance of the written word,68 the tradition of the figured poem became enormously popular, now in the context of striking evocations and stagings of written culture. Hrabanus Maurus describes the holy task of copying the divine law in a poem addressed to the abbot of Fulda, Eigel. This pious work, he says, is not comparable to any other handiwork, as it not only delights the fingers as they write, but also the eyes as they see, and the mind as it studies the deep meaning of the divine words. There is no work that is not destroyed or undone by the passage of time—​except that of writing: “only letters are immortal and overcome death, only letters in books bring what is past to life. God’s hand itself carved letters into stone when he gave the law to his people, and these letters reveal everything in the world that is, has been, or may be in future.”69 In Hrabanus’s Liber de laudibus sanctae crucis, written in 813/​814, the twenty-​ eight poems of the cycle all contain fields and figures, letters, signs of the cross, and symbols of the evangelists, highlighted in each case by different coloured ink or different backgrounds. At the same time these turn out to be texts that supplement and expand on the main text.70 Page after page, the letters are “scattered” anew (litteras spargere), creating an overall composition of text and image whose unity Hrabanus himself points out. Not only does he describe himself as both a poet and a painter (opifex), he also notes in his letter of dedication to Hatto: “I ask you, brother, if you give the work sent to you to someone to copy, that you remind him to preserve the figures contained in it and the sequence of the letters, so that he does not spoil the value of the work by changing the shape of the figures and the arrangement of the text.”71 The texts on the individual pages also provide declarationes by Hrabanus, which make it easier to understand the poems and give a religious interpretation of their individual elements. In one poem, four Greek letters, which form a cross, are related in their numeric equivalents to the years of salvation history, from the Creation to the death of Christ, and are simultaneously interpreted “in relation to the three Pauline virtues, according to their orthographic form.”72 Another poem adds “a further play on letters to the universalist symbolism of the cross: the O at the end of the arms of the cross, and the M in the centre, surrounded by As, mark the beginning, middle and end of the alphabet, and thus characterize Christ on the cross, who encompasses the universe.”73 The figure 68  Cf. McKitterick, “Text and Image.”

69  Poetae Latini aevi Carolini (2), p.  186 (no.  21), lines 9–​14:  “Grammata sola carent fata, mortemque repellunt, | Praeterita renovant grammata sola biblis. | Grammata nempe dei digitus sulcabant in apta | Rupe, suo legem cum dederat populo | Sunt, fuerant, mundo venient quae forte futura | Grammata haec monstrant famine cuncta suo.” 70  Cf. Reudenbach, “Verhältnis von Text und Bild”; Ernst, Carmen figuratum, 222–​332.

71  Epistolae Karolini Aevi, p. 382, lines 1–​4: “Quapropter obsecro te, frater, ut si cui commissum tibi opus ad rescribendum tradideris, illum admoneas, ut figuras in eo factas et conscriptionis ordinem servare non negligat, ne forte, si formas figurarum variaverit, et scripturae ordinem commutaverit, operis precium perdat.” 72  Ernst, Carmen figuratum, 268. 73  Ernst, Carmen figuratum, 291.

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Figure 7. Hrabanus Maurus, De laudibus s. crucis, Fulda, ca. 826; Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Cod. 9, fol. 10v. Used with permission.

of the evangelists places the symbols of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, in the shape of the cross, around the Agnus dei in the middle.74 The figured poems of Hrabanus continued to inspire others throughout the Middle Ages: nearly eighty manuscripts, spread over the centuries, have been preserved, and the early age of the printing press also took an interest in them. Numerous other manuscripts from the Carolingian period should be considered in conjunction with these: manuscripts in which writing is linked with architectural structures, in which the pages are geometrized, in which individual letters or words are especially conspicuous. In the splendid 74  Ernst, Carmen figuratum, 286.

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Godescalc Evangelistary (between 781 and 783), commissioned by Charlemagne himself, and one of the earliest examples of the use of the Carolingian minuscule script, every page is “subjected to a system of ruling that is fixed to the millimeter and followed throughout.” But the book also draws attention to “the transformation of the word of God into writing and book, the authenticity of the Gospels,” and the “salvific and redemptive character of the word of God.”75 This program culminates in the dedicatory poem on the last two pages of the codex. It begins: “The golden letters are painted on purple pages. They reveal the kingdom of heaven, opened through God’s rose-​red blood, and the shining joys of the starry sky; and the word of God, shimmering in worthy splendour, promises the glorious reward of eternal life.”76 The first Bible of Charles the Bald (845/​846), in the presentation of the book of Revelation, combines on one page elements of writing that are to be contemplated and those that are to be enjoyed: at the top a monumental codex on a throne, decorated with gold and silver, beneath it John, eating the book an angel hands to him, and a personification of the unity of scripture which replaces the book on the throne. On other pages poems are integrated into the manuscript. Written in gold letters on purple parchment, they compare scripture with food, and urge the recipients to become one with it.77 Insofar as the word of God is thought to be manifested in the written word, the aim is to continually re-​energize this: through the mobility or colourfulness of its appearance, the interplay between the two-​dimensionality of the page and the linearity of the writing, the invitation to a synesthetic reception. This is the idea behind the dedicatory poem of the Dagulf Psalter (late eighth century): “Golden letters paint the songs of David; it is right that such songs should be so adorned. Golden words sound out […] Fittingly, they are beautifully decorated with tablets of ivory.”78 Otfrid of Weissenburg, in a letter dedicating his Old High German book of the Gospels to Archbishop Luitbert of Mainz, not only reflects on why the text is written in the vernacular, why the style of writing tries to take into account certain idiosyncrasies of the Frankish language, and why the principle of the end rhyme is observed. He also devises the model of a comprehensive impact of the Gospel text on the human senses, as they strive for something higher. “What we fail to achieve by seeing, smelling, touching, tasting, hearing, we achieve by bringing to mind the text of the Gospels: we purify ourselves of all our depravity. Our vision, illuminated by the words of the Gospel, shall become dull for the perception of useless things; no longer shall an ear open to wicked things do harm to the heart; the senses of smell and taste shall renounce all wickedness and bind themselves to the sweetness of Christ; the inside of the heart shall always touch these texts, composed in the vernacular, with its mental power.”79 75  Reudenbach, “Die Londoner Psalterkarte,” 89, 84.

76  Reudenbach, “Die Londoner Psalterkarte,” 98f.: “Aurea purpureis pinguntur grammata scedis | Regna poli roseo pate—​sanguine—​facta tonantis | Fulgida stelligeri promunt et gaudia caeli, | Elouqiumque dei digno fulgore choruscans | Splendida perpetuae promittit praemia vitae.” 77  Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art, 87.

78  Cf. Mettauer, “Orthokratie und Orthodoxie,” 46 and Figure 11.

79  Otfrid von Weißenburg, Evangelienbuch, 20f.: “Quicquid visu, olfactu, tactu, gustu, audituque delinquimus, in eorum lectionis memoria pravitatem ipsam purgamus. Visus obscuretur inutilis,

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The Carolingian educational reform had no immediate sequel. It was only from the late eleventh and the twelfth century that writing became more widespread in law, administration, and economic life.80 The Scholastics worked on making texts accessible: through elaborate page layouts, different levels of text, column titles, tables of contents and indexes.81 These tools supported a more sophisticated mnemonics: the colour, form, and position of the letters, the “trace of the letter or the ornamented surface of the parchment,” according to Hugh of St. Victor in De tribus maximis circumstanciis gestorum, served to stimulate the memory.82 This was linked with an effort at abstraction which would have major consequences: “A set of about two dozen new graphic conventions used the old set of two dozen letters as building blocks for an unprecedented construct. […] The dictator had landscaped the parchment as a garden of words. The new kind of thinker and auctor, with his own hand and in quick, cursive letters, cleared a building lot for the cathedral of a summa.”83 The alphabet gained significance as a tool for the encyclopedic ordering of material. But it was also reflected on and staged in a new way. The early thirteenth-​century Joachite tract De semine scripturarum unravels the prophetic mystery of the letters, but also uses the sequence of the letters to explore the salvific significance of the individual centuries between the founding of Rome and the end of the world.84 Among the letters, tau became a particular focus of attention. The pilgrims chose this sign, with its eschatological connotations. The Antonites made it the symbol of their order. Francis of Assisi adopted it from them, seeing it as the seal of the living God, and as his personal sign. He put it on the walls of his cells and on his letters, for example the famous blessing for Brother Leo, where the T is combined with a head. Leo noted, on the same sheet of paper: “Simili modo fecit istud signum thau cum capite manu sua” (In the same way he made this tau sign with the head with his own hand). Just as, here, the general meaning of the sign of salvation was linked with the individual authenticity of the autographic sign, the name of Jesus came to be used, somewhat later, as an individualized and personalized sign of salvation:  in manuscripts, for example, it was highlighted with gold lettering, or depicted as bleeding, so that a particular codex could appear to be soaked with the blood of Christ.85 inluminatus evangelicis verbis; auditus pravus non sit cordi nostro obnoxius; olfactus et gustus sese a pravitate constringant Christique dulcedine jungant; cordisque praecordia lectiones has theodisce conscriptas semper memoria tangent.” 80  Cf. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record.

81  Parkes, “The Influence”; Rouse and Rouse, “Statim invenire”; Mise en page; Michael, “Textus und das gesprochene Wort,” 201–​5. 82  Carruthers, Book of Memory, 109, 264.

83  Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text, 119–​20. 84  Arnaldus de Villanova, Introductio.

85  Largier, “Der Körper der Schrift,” 242.

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In general, it became important for recipients to combine the reading of texts with imitatio Christi.86 While the psychology of the High Middle Ages saw the religious subject as having a liber conscientiae, liber cordis, liber memoriae, liber rationis, or liber experientiae, from which the individual disposition toward salvation or damnation could be discerned,87 the Passion meditation of the late Middle Ages transferred the old metaphor of the liber vitae, found in the book of Revelation, to Christ.88 In the fourteenth century, Petrus Berchorius (Pierre Bersuire) established direct equivalences: The Son of God made man was dictated by the Father, written on virginal parchment by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, brought to the knowledge of the world in the revelation of the birth, corrected in the Passion, scraped off in the scourging, dotted and punctured in the piercing of the wounds, placed on a lectern in the act of crucifixion, illuminated, i.e. embellished with red letters through the shedding of blood, bound in the resurrection, and finally put up for disputation at the Ascension […]. The ‘Book of Christ’ will be opened on the Day of Judgment.89

The idea that the “book of life” registered those admitted to the kingdom of heaven was connected with the idea that the “book of works” recorded human deeds, and would be opened at the end of times—​the fifth verse of the Dies irae begins: “Liber scriptus proferetur, | in quo totum continetur, | unde mundus iudicetur” (A book will be opened in which everything is recorded, and according to which the world will be judged).90 Writing was considered not only as a fact, but also as a process. The act of reading was viewed as a performative act, a physical one, involving an assimilation to that which was read. The finger followed the letters while reading. The eyes and the mouth, mutely articulating the words, approached the page. Occasionally the lips touched salvific letters or words. The ears listened out for the voices of the books, the voces paginarum.91 The act of writing was one of the activities that perfectly embodied the Benedictine ora et labora.92 It was work that was described in metaphors of fertilization: “That which brings more benefit [than actual sowing and watering]: the hand shall reach for the pen as its plow, instead of fields you shall cover the pages with divine words, on the paper you shall cultivate the beds of the divine word, and when the seed is ripe, that is, when the books are finished, they will feed the hungry readers with diverse fruit, and thus the heavenly bread will satisfy the life-​threatening hunger of the soul.”93 86  Cf. Stammberger, Scriptor und Scriptorium, 23.

87  Leclercq, “Aspects spirituels”; Köpf, “Das ‘Buch der Erfahrung.’ ” 88  For the early tradition see Koep, Das himmlische Buch.

89  Schreiner, “ ‘…wie Maria geleicht einem puch,’ ” 1449f.; Wenzel, “Die Schrift und das Heilige,” 35. Another example can be found in Specchio dei croce by Domenico Cavalca, also from the fourteenth century; Ernst, “Farbe und Schrift,” 292f. 90  Schreiner, Maria: Jungfrau, Mutter, Herrscherin, 154f. 91  Balogh, “Voces paginarum.”

92  Cf. Heinzer, “ ‘Exercitium scribendi.’ ”

93  Petrus Venerabilis, Letters of Peter the Venerable, 1.38f.: “quod est utilius, pro aratro convertatur manus ad pennam, pro exarandis agris divinis litteris paginae exarentur, seratur in cartula verbi

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This agricultural work of providing nourishment also meant trouble and suffering, however, as many scribes emphasized in their postscripts.94 One miniaturist presented this humorously at the end of a manuscript of Augustine’s De civitate dei (ca. 1140): while the assistant Everwin is engrossed in drawing a tendril, the scribe Hildebert is distracted by a mouse, which is devouring a piece of cheese and has already knocked a bowl off the table. The text in the book refers to this with a curse: “Pessime mus. Sepius me prouocas ad iram ut te deus perdat” (“Wicked mouse. You often incite me to anger, may God destroy you”).95 The dynamic mouse, a popular subject for discussions about the efficacy of the sacraments in cases of interruption,96 is contrasted with the contemplative act of writing, which is subject to various dangers. The demon Titivillus, who worked his mischief in the late Middle Ages, most notably in English texts, keeps a negative version of the book of works, in which he records the sins and errors that people make with words, both in church and in the scriptorium.97 Only the act of writing performed with the right attitude can really be seen as mediating salvation—​or at least as being potentially conducive to salvation. In Orderic Vitalis’s Historia ecclesiastica, which he continued to update until 1142, Abbot Theodoric tells of a monk who had inclinations to both sin and writing. After his death all the letters he has written are counted and weighed up against his sins—​with the result that the letters outweigh the sins by one, and his soul is allowed to return to his body to make good its transgressions.98 On the title page of a slightly later manuscript of Isidore’s Etymologies, we see in the top section the author, a scroll in his left hand, which the editor of his writings, Braulio, is supporting with his right hand; it bears the inscription “Fac mea scripta legi que te mandate peregi” (“Prepare my writings for reading, which I have written at your command”), and it mediates between two unfolded sheets of parchment, as a sign for the passing on of the work. The lower section shows the scribe of the present manuscript (Swicher) lying on his deathbed. His work, personified in a codex, is weighed on the scales of judgment and is found to be sufficiently weighty. An angel takes up his soul, while the devil flees. Christ himself, as the judge with the book (of life) in his hand, shows his appreciation of the scribe and his work through the direction of his gaze. Mediating between the two sections are lines of writing, expressing humilitas toward the divine word; these can be seen as referring to both the original author and his later scribe: “Scriptoris miseri dignare deus misereri. Noli culparum pondus pensare mearum. Parva licet bona sint superexaltata malis sint. Nox luci cedat. Vite mors” (“God, have pity on a pitiable scribe. Do not weigh up the weight of my sins. Even if the good deeds are few, may they outweigh the bad ones. dei seminarium, quod maturatis segetibus, hoc est libris perfectis, multiplicatis frugibus esurientes lectores repleat, et sic panis caelestis laetalem animae famem depellat.” 94  Wattenbach, Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, 278–​99, 317ff. 95  Stammberger, Scriptor und Scriptorium, 44f. 96  Cf. Aris, “Quid sumit mus?” 97  Cf. Jennings, “Tutivillus.”

98  Ordericus Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, 50f.

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Figure 8. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae; ca. 1160–​1165; Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibl., Clm 13031, fol. 1r. Used with permission.

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May night give way to day, death to life”).99 Another scribe, Radulf, a monk in the monastery of Saint-​Vaast d’Arras, while copying Augustine’s Enarrationes in psalmos, sees himself as being observed from heaven by Saint Vedast; the saint notes “how many letters I draw with the pen, by how many lines the page is furrowed, by how many sharp points the sheet is pierced, here and there”—​and will grant the corresponding absolution.100 Often the significance of writing in a particular context is associated with the mystery that surrounds it. One of the Marian miracles included by the Cistercian prior Caesarius of Heisterbach ca. 1220 in his Dialogus miraculorum involves the story of a monk who, stepping into the chancel at night, sees the Mother of God, her son and numerous saints above the altar. Mary urges him to read the inscription on the golden band of her crown. Finally, at his third attempt, “he succeeded at last in reading and received the command that he should reveal it to no man.”101 In this way the written word, which—​unlike the spoken word—​always has the potential to reach addressees other than the original ones, is preserved from the randomness and ambiguity that had already been perceived by Plato. It is marked out both as a collective, inclusive medium which a community can use for orientation, and an individual, exclusive medium, in which the individual communicates with the divine. This plays an important part in the development of piety from the High Middle Ages onwards: writing is a point of intersection between the growing significance of lay circles for the mediation of salvation, and the increasing relevance of individually intensified approaches to transcendence based on reading and meditation.

Staging

Here vernacular literature, which had been developing continuously since the twelfth century, generated its own particular dynamics.102 Often the texts in prologues or epilogues refer to books, documents, and original versions. They thus assert claims to validity based on those of the Latin tradition. At the same time, they reflect on their own conditions of possibility.103 This is especially important for religious texts (legends, stories of salvation), since these always raise the question of how the idea of transcendence can be successfully communicated. In some cases it is sufficient to point to the authority of original versions, and to affirm that one has not added anything to these, or left anything out. Often, however, the problem of tradition or of the relationship 99  Stammberger, Scriptor und Scriptorium, 58f.

100  Legner, “Illustres manus,” 217, with Latin text.

101  Caesarius von Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, 7.19, ed. Nösges and Schneider, p.  1344, lines 24–​26 (ed. Strange, 2:24): “tertio eodem modo depositus et reductus, litteras quidem legere et intelligere potuit, sed ne scripturam ulli hominum proderet, interdictum accepit.” English: Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogue on Miracles, 1.481. 102  Cf. Ernst, “Formen der Schriftlichkeit”; Kiening, Zwischen Körper und Schrift.

103  Cf. Wandhoff, “Speicher-​und Schauräume der Schrift”; Wandhoff, Ekphrasis; for the Latin literature see Ratkowitsch, Descriptio Picturae.

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to (canonical) pre-​texts inspires an exploration of the need for authentication—​and the opportunities this offers. Complex scenarios of justification are devised, demonstrating how vernacular texts can be seen as media of salvation history, although they inevitably have the status of latecomers or successors compared to the authoritative, transcendence-​imbued texts of the tradition. Konrad von Heimesfurt, for example, in his German-​language reworking of the Evangelium Nicodemi (ca. 1220), makes the text point beyond a mere rewriting or copying of the pre-​text, on several levels.104 The core of the story is a miracle: the account of the Descensus Christi ad inferos is delivered by two witnesses who were dead themselves, but are now back in the world of the living. They represent the greatest possible proximity to that which remains inaccessible to those confined to this world, from whom even the body has been taken away. According to the rules imposed on them, however, the witnesses are not permitted to give an oral report, but only a written one. This report is the actual miracle, because the texts written by the two witnesses, independent of each other, turn out to coincide in both content and form: “When the text was looked at and read, both the letters and the meaning were the same, in such a way that nobody, comparing them, could find even one iota too much or too little, and neither of the two called into question the truth of the other: their two texts proved to be identical.”105 In the age of unique, individual manuscripts, complete indistinguishability is objectively unattainable. It can therefore be seen as a miracle, as a flash of transcendence in the specific medium of writing, which belongs to the earthly, but allows glimpses of the celestial. But is this not merely an assertion? Can the aura of the event be transferred to the text at hand? Konrad chooses two strategies. On the one hand, he refers in the prologue to a culture of writing which is accustomed to correcting texts, working on parchment with pumice and scraper, adding what has been forgotten in the margin.106 By trying to protect his own work from such practices, he simultaneously undertakes to prove—​in all humility—​that this work is necessary: without it, a story rich in salvific meaning would fade away. On the other hand, he links the preservation of the form of his text with the recognizability of its author—​he mentions his name in an acrostic that runs through the text: “chunrat von heimesvurt hat diz buch gimachet des raten unde turt guten samen swachet” (Konrad von Heimesfurt made this book, [knowing that] weeds spoil the good seed). The acrostic forms a quatrain alluding to the biblical parable of the weeds (Matt. 13:24–​30). As a counterpart to the written account of the witnesses, which is also meant to be both read and viewed, it highlights the connection between the textual and visual 104  For a basic treatment see Strohschneider, “Reden und Schreiben”; cf. also Strohschneider, “Textheiligung.”

105  Konrad von Heimesfurt, Urstende, lines 1686–​92: “dô man die schouwet unde las, | dô wâren buochstap unde sin | so gar gelîch daz mê noch min | wider einen puncten niemand vant | und ir deweders hant | dem andern sîn wârheit brach; | ir ietweder schrift gelîche jach.” 106  Konrad von Heimesfurt, Urstende, lines 13–​18: “daz ich ez sô besniten habe | daz mir iemen iht dar abe | mit pumz oder mit mezzer | schabe und mir bezzer | in dem margine dâ bî | des in dem blate vergezzen sî”; see Quast, “Hand-​Werk”; also Strohschneider, “Reden und Schreiben.”

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dimensions of writing. In conjunction with this, Konrad expresses the hope that his own text will not produce weeds, but will be good seed, which will germinate as it is read. The forms of textuality presented in works such as this are striking, unusual, exceptional. Similarly, in the worlds depicted here, writing is seldom a normal, everyday means of communication. It nearly always has unusual features: it appears on objects, has a special aura, is enriched with elements of inaccessibility. Thus for example the heroes of legends are associated with forms of auratic writing, which simultaneously help to legitimate the version of the text at hand. In a courtly version of his life from the first part of the thirteenth century, the early medieval emperor and warrior against the heathens, Heraclius, a prototype of the Christian knight, receives a sign of divine selection shortly after his birth: “When the child was baptized, it happened one day around midday, when he was lying in his cradle and sleeping, that a sealed letter fell on him. The mother noticed and was very startled. She took the letter in her hand. On the outside, written in glowing letters, she found instructions to look after the child well, take great care of him, make him familiar with books, and keep the letter until he was able to read and understand it himself.”107 Another prototypical saint, Alexius, after living undiscovered in his own father’s house for a long time, has his story recorded as he is dying, so that he can be identified. It ensures that the anonymous body will have its story, a story that could never be deduced simply by looking at it—​just as this body, conversely, guarantees the truth that the writing could never convey on its own.108 In one of the vitae of the relatively unknown Albanus it is even the protagonist himself who records his adventurous life, featuring incest and the murder of his parents. The figure of a bishop is then needed, at the end, to identify both the miracle-​working corpse and the spectacular vita, and to integrate these into the community. In the case of another so-​called sinner-​saint, a written document becomes a veritable mirror of the process of sanctification.109 When, in ca. 1200, Hartmann von Aue tells the legend of Saint Gregory, based on an Old French model, he confronts his audience with a story that is starc ze hœrenne: the protagonist is the result of an incestuous union, and enters into one himself. The son of a young pair of twins, he is exposed at sea after his birth, is washed ashore on an island, and taken in by a family. Once he has grown up, knightly inclinations awaken in him. He leaves the island and, on the other side of the sea, unwittingly marries his own mother. When the disaster is discovered, he goes to a remote, rocky island, where he spends seventeen years atoning. After the death of the old pope, a celestial sign shows that Gregory is destined to take his place. At the centre of the story is an ivory tablet with writing on it, a valuable item, decorated with gold and gemstones.110 The mother gives it to the child as she sends him on his way, with a long explanatory text which also states the purpose of the tablet: a constant 107  Otte, Eraclius, 45 (lines 387ff.).

108  Alexius, Altfranzösische Legendendichtung, 19–21 (6.55): “Cum autem completum sibi tempus vitae suae cognovisset, postulavit a deputato sibi ministro tomum chartae et calamarem et scripsit per ordinem omnem vitam suam.” 109  Cf. Wenzel and Wenzel, “Die Tafel des Gregorius,” Kiening, Zwischen Körper und Schrift, 17–​20. 110  For its character as an artifact see Ott, “Die Tafel des Gregorius.”

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call to humility and repentance. This is exactly what happens: Gregory takes the tablet with him on his way, and uses it for ritual demonstrations of repentance. This eventually leads to the uncovering of his identity, and to his path to atonement, again accompanied by the tablet. It does not find its way to the rocky island, however: Gregory leaves it in the house of a fisherman, thus leaving behind his previous existence in every respect. It is only when he is almost on his way to Rome, purified of sin, that he remembers the tablet again. It is found in a derelict house under weeds and manure, and is—​a divine miracle—​as spotless as it was on the first day. Writing, as is shown very clearly here, is more than just a means of communication. It is the bearer and the embodiment of meaning in one. A material structure and the expression of a social status, the tablet offers information on the one hand, and leads to the performance of actions on the other. It is a memorial object, similar to a portable reliquary, before and with which Gregory performs acts of penance. It marks a paradoxical blank space, which conceals identity and at the same time makes identification possible. It functions as a miraculous sign of Gregory’s purification from sin, effected by God. And above all: it does not merely accompany the action, it also guides it. It contains a program for the hero’s path, and ensures that this program is realized—​in both positive and negative aspects. The boy receives an education, but after reading the tablet and setting out in search of his own history he repeats the incest, which in turn embodies that monstrous sin whose elimination is demonstrated by the story. This elimination is also ultimately manifested in the tablet, first in its discovery, then in its disappearance. When it is rediscovered, it is spotless, that is, the seventeen years that have turned Gregory’s body into an emaciated, dirty, matted thing have not had the slightest impact on it. It becomes the symbol of his sainthood. While it initially embodied his sinful origins, it now embodies the cancelling out of these origins. At the same time it disappears from the story, since what it represents here is the starting point that has to be overcome. While the material from which the tablet is made is long-lasting and precious, the text written on it is provisional and incomplete—​a point at which the divine can enter the world, a divine element that cannot be defined in material terms, an auratic medium, whose impact owes at least as much to its appearance as to its content. This was a model that could also be applied to non-​legendary material. Wolfram von Eschenbach, who flaunts his lack of book learning, deploys only materially striking forms of writing in his texts. In Willehalm these are elaborately decorated epitaphs, which give the hero an inkling of the way other countries honour their dead. In Titurel, a mysterious hound drags behind it a long leash with a text made out of precious stones—​to a pair of young lovers who are confronted with a premonition of their own fate in the text that is enfolded in the interlacing bands.111 In Parzival (1200/​1210), the mystery of the tale’s origin is connected to the mystery of the messages of the Grail in that both relate to writing.112 What is outlined here is a chain of sources. In its centre is a figure called Kyot: an over-​determined connector between a text that reaches back into heathen or 111  Cf. Kiening, Zwischen Körper und Schrift, chap. 10. 112  Strohschneider, “Sternenschrift.”

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Old Testament times and is linked to the stars, and the current story, which is relocated into the Christian context. Kyot, it is said, found a heathen book in Toledo, presenting the story of the Grail that Flegetanis had read in the stars and written down. Able to understand both heathen books written in ciphers (karacter; 453.15) and French and Britannic texts, Kyot searched in Latin chronicles for the history of the Grail dynasty, and finally found it in Anschouwe (Anjou). This same dynasty, however, proves to be deeply connected to sublime textuality. The Grail becomes doubly charged with transcendent energy: in the form of a dove, which lays a communion wafer on the stone every Good Friday, and in the form of a text in ciphers which appears at the edge of the stone (“von karacten ein epitafum”; 470.25)—​it names those who are called to the Grail, then disappears again. Writing is thus located at the intersection between celestial origins and mysterious transfers. The principles of transcription and translation are literary ones, but they are part of complex relationships in which horizontal and vertical communication are interwoven. The supra-​material text of proclamation combines an enduring writing material (stone) with a fleeting presence (appearing/​disappearing). At the same time, it brings together celestial and earthly components: firstly, the conditions under which the suffering Grail king can be redeemed are communicated in a precise set of instructions. At the end, however, the conditions in which the knights of the Grail may stay in foreign countries are also described—​one of these is that they must not tell anyone their name and origin, indeed, they are not even allowed to be asked for this information. This prohibition of questions is presented, in the Grail text itself, as a direct reaction to the (long unfulfilled) command to ask questions of the suffering Grail king—​a mechanism that seemingly relates to the psychology of the Grail, which injects the logics of the world into those of the transcendent world. Even in a huge complex of works such as the early thirteenth-​century Lancelot-​Grail Cycle, which recodes the story of the Arthurian knights in religious terms, first in Old French, then in Middle High German, writing is mainly encountered in its auratic forms. It occurs as an epitaph revealing past and future events to the heroes; as an inscription on the mysterious ship of Solomon, on which Galahad, the redeemer, experiences the allegory of faith in a form of symbolic crucifixion; as a letter from heaven, which one of the protagonists receives from the hands of Christ. An additional concern is chains of transmission/​tradition: the clerics’ accounts of the adventures of the Arthurian knights, written in Latin, are bound into books and preserved in an abbey, where they can be found and translated by a later author. The most extensive pretense of auratic origins can be found in a long prologue to the Estoire del Saint Graal, a prequel to the actual story of Lancelot, written somewhat later, which takes the reader back to the early Christian period. Here the first-​person narrator dates the event central to the text’s history to the year 750: Christ himself (who can only be recognized with divine assistance) appeared to him in a dream, and pressed a tiny book into his hands, a book that contains the great whole within itself. In Christ’s own words: “Inside are My secrets, which I Myself put there with My own hand, that no man might see if he be not purged beforehand by confession and three days of fasting with bread and water; and after that he must speak in such a way that he speaks the language

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of the heart and not that of the mouth.”113 Like the little book given to the author of Revelation, John, this book contains ontological signs, which, due to the power of the words (la forche des paroles), exactly correspond to what will happen cosmologically. At the same time, it has a healing effect on body and soul: anyone who looks into it with the right attitude will find delightful words in it, will be freed from earthly care, and elevated to celestial love. But he will also—​in an apotropaic sense—​be protected from sudden death. The little book has several dimensions. It is a piece of auratic textuality: originating from Christ himself, who, we later learn, wrote nothing other than the story of the Grail after his resurrection (p.  258), it offers a document of virtually unsurpassable character, which takes its place directly beside the Bible. At the same time it functions as a metonym—​with regard to both the world and Christ. Its wondrous abundance of letters and words, comparable in this respect to Borges’s figure of the Aleph, represents being itself, and the originator of being, Christ, who created the world by means of the word, and for his part “can put a great many words in a small place, and who can fill a large place with very little” (“qui grant plenté des choses puet metre en petit de lieu et ki grant lieu peut aemplir de peu de choses”; 8, 12–​14).114 In keeping with this, the little book is on the one hand eagerly read by the first-​person narrator, but on the other hand treated as a sacramental object. Placed in the tabernacle with the Host, it enters into a peculiar union with it: first the eucharistic transformation fails to happen on Good Friday, because once the truth has arrived, the figure—​that is, the sacrament—​must give way to it.115 Then the narrator, as he is about to receive the (silent) communion, is interrupted by a visionary trance in which he learns the mysteries of the Trinity. This is then the prerequisite for the communion which subsequently takes place, which is by implication no longer purely figurative in character, but imbued with truth. The truth also seems to be contained in the little book, which repeats the process of Passion and resurrection: locked up in the tabernacle on Good Friday, it vanishes for the next few days, only to reappear in another chapel at some point in the week after Easter, when it is finally returned to its original place on the altar. This happens before the closing of the monastic day with vespers and compline. The mentioning of these hours of prayer corresponds to the initial reference to the Little Hours that start the day (prime, terce, none). So although it is explicitly mentioned that the action takes place between the night before Good Friday and the Monday after Easter Week, it simultaneously seems to fit into a single day. 113  L’Estoire del Saint Graal, 4 (6, 7–​11): “si i sont mi secré ke je meïsmes escris de ma main, ke nus hom ne doit veoir, se il n’est avant espurgiés par confession et par jeüne de trois jours en pain et en iaue, et après che les doit il en tel manière dire ke il les die de la langue du cuer, si ke ja chele de la bouche n’i paraut, car il n’i puent estre noumé par nule langue mortel.” English: Lancelot-​Grail, 5; for a detailed interpretation of the prologue see Waldmeier, “Ritterliche Heilsgeschichten.” 114  Lancelot-​Grail, 6.

115  Lancelot-​Grail, 9 (12, 11–​16):  “la ou la verités vient avant, la figure doit estre arriere mise” (where truth comes to the fore, the figure must be set aside); this corresponds to Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 3ª, q. 61, a. 4, arg. 1: “Veniente enim veritate, debet cessare figura.”

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The different temporalities and the different functions of the little book both find their vanishing point in the figure of the first-​person narrator, who is given the book and the heavenly instructions associated with it. He is the recipient of apparitions, visions, and trances. He finds, in the celestial writing, not just the story of the Grail, but also that of his own genealogy (lignaige), closely related to that of the Grail. At the end he is given the task of copying the little book by Ascension Day, since after this it will “never more be seen on earth” (“il n’iert ja veüs en terre”; 30.12). Alongside the sanctification of the text, then, a sanctification of the mediating figure also takes place. The narrator has features of both John, the visionary, and of Paul, transported into the third heaven, who momentarily grasps the highest of all mysteries, the essence of the Trinity. At the same time he is meant to be seen as the protagonist of and eyewitness to the actions of the Arthurian knights. Remaining anonymous and yet singled out, participant and reporter, experiencing, seeing, hearing, reading and writing, he becomes a veritable interface between the diegetic and extradiegetic levels—​which have a fundamental tendency to merge into each other. Just as the little book initially appears in a vision, but is then in the narrator’s hand when he wakes up, so is the narrator in two places at once: his body in a monastic environment, and his (enraptured) soul in celestial spheres. In the second part of the prologue a celestial voice sends him on a queste for a destination that will only be revealed at the end of the journey. Accompanied on this quest by a seemingly mysterious and apocalyptic animal, he finds himself caught in the tension between the world of knights and that of hermits, between heavenly and demonic powers. Against the latter he is able to use the rediscovered book. All in all, this is a bold miscellany of traditions and motives, giving the story of the Grail the greatest possible authenticity without concealing the fractures in the construction. The abundance of the accumulated patterns of meaning conforms to the logic of a textual history that promises to lead back to the beginnings on which the tales of the Arthurian/​Grail knights are based. Yet these tales are not told from the same first-​ person perspective as the prologue. And they also differ from what is said there in other ways:  while the narrator finds several sections with their own titles or incipits in his little book (“Chi est li commenchemens de ton lignaige, Chi commenche Li livres du saint Graal, Chi est li commenchemens des Paours, Chi commenchent Les Merveilles”), this cannot be completely reconciled with the structure of the five-​part Lancelot-​Grail Cycle. As is so often the case, the relationship between given texts and authoritative pre-​texts remains ill defined. There are all kinds of authorities, which both fall short of the figure of maximal abundance of meaning established by the prologue, and, by directly linking events and accounts, create new authentications. The style and content of the prologue of the Estoire draw on the mystical textuality of the book that was developing in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is precarious, because it deals with confessions about individual experiences of divine mysteries, with statements that may be theologically questionable and therefore need to be backed up by real spiritual authorities (and not only those that appear in the text).116 Experiences of 116  For the processes of textualization between inspiration, revelation, and codification see Löser, “ ‘Schriftmystik’ ”; Meier, “Von der Inspirationserfahrung zum Codex.”

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the divine are already, inherently, at the limits of the sayable. To expose them to writing, to its latencies and potential for distortion, is risky, even life-​threatening: when a beguine such as Marguerite Porete dared to portray a soul becoming free from itself and everything else (including the church’s remedies and institutions), both she and her book, the Miroir des simples ames, were burnt at the stake in 1310. Another beguine, Mechthild of Magdeburg, in Das fließende Licht der Gottheit (ca. 1280), tries to contain the explicitly noted dangers to which the book is exposed by retreating behind her own work. At the beginning she lets God himself speak, approving the title of the work at hand and its direct communication with pure souls: “Dis bůch das sende ich nu ze botten allen geistlichen lúten beidú bösen und gůten […] Es sol heissen ein vliessende lieht miner gotheit in allú dú herzen, dú da lebent ane valschheit” (18.3f.12f; “This book I hereby send as a messenger to all religious people, both the bad and the good […] It shall be called a flowing light of my godhead into all hearts that live free of hypocrisy”).117 Here the naming is not mere designation. It announces the act, indeed it merges syntactically into the act in which the signified changes from book communication to the communication of the heart. This communication of the heart evolves in dialogue between the soul and divine minne. But it also concerns the nature of the work as a book. Just as the light which determines the title is both an ontological and an epistemological metaphor, so is the book an expression of both divine self-​communication and human transmission of meaning. Once again, the point of orientation for this is the tradition of prophetic, inspired texts, with a direct link to God. The work thus distances itself from the notion of the book as a medium of knowledge (572.23f.), and blurs the boundaries between speaking and hearing, writing and reading, letter and speech.118 Frequent emphasis on the process of writing is matched by equally frequent highlighting of the revealed nature of the text:  it is, supposedly, from God itself; it is the expression of the grace accorded to the seer; it is not simply made, but is “gesehen, gehöret unde bevunden an allen lidern” (266.1f; “seen, heard, and felt in all members”).119 In it are manifested ungehörte ding, and bearing witness to these is both necessary (with regard to God) and dangerous (in view of people who do not understand) (148.11–​14). With reference to the textuality of the book, this means that in those places where the dangers threatening the book are most drastically depicted, the most powerful figure is put there to confront them. God reveals himself to the soul with a book in his right hand, this same book, whose trinitary materiality he interprets as follows: “The book is threefold /​And portrays me alone. /​The parchment that encloses it indicates my pure, white, just humanity /​That for your sake suffered death. /​ The words symbolize my marvellous Godhead. /​ It flows continuously /​ Into your 117  Mechthild von Magdeburg, Das fließende Licht der Gottheit; English: Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light, 39. Cf. Grubmüller, “Sprechen und Schreiben”; Palmer, “Buch als Bedeutung­ sträger”; Andersen, Voices of Mechthild of Magdeburg, 104–​25; Poor, Mechthild of Magdeburg; Kiening, Mystische Bücher. 118  Ortmann, “Buch der Minne,” 173.

119  Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light, 156.

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soul from my divine mouth. /​The sound of the words is a sign of my living spirit /​And through it achieves genuine truth.”120 In the interplay between material, substantive, and performative dimensions an act of direct communication is invoked, releasing the book from the earthly contingency that endangers it. This separation from the concrete tradition, however, also means that it does not offer later generations any immediate means of feeling close to the divine. Thus the longing to not only understand processes of (self-​)sanctification, but also to possess their material foundation, could remain intact: the group of “Friends of God” (Gottesfreunde) in Strasbourg elevated documents, such as autographs and original copies, to a fetish-​like status. Distinguished by the fact that they contained especially cryptic sections, which were not to be found otherwise, and only accessible to a closed community, defined by their connection to original texts, these documents are the epitome of exclusive media. Due to their concrete mediality, however, they lose the universality guaranteed by adherence to the spiritual dimension of writing.121

Hybridity

Again and again, it becomes apparent that the material text leads to a supra-​material one, the outward performance of an action to an inward one. But with the spread of textuality in the late Middle Ages, not least in religious communication,122comes awareness of the circumstances that can endanger the interplay of materiality and supra-​materiality. A manuscript of the Sachsenspiegel shows the book of law, with God rising up from it and the author looking out from underneath it, being attacked by the enemies of the law—​both verbally with abusive words, and physically with kicks.123 The English diplomat, lord chancellor and bishop, Richard de Bury, in his Philobiblon (1345), sets out the promises and problems of the textuality of the book. He sees books as individuals, ephemeral in their bodies but enduring in their content: copying them is like fathering sons, and thus the cleric must ensure that a “sacred book paying the debt of nature may obtain a natural heir and may raise up like seed to its dead brother, and thus may be verified that saying of Ecclesiasticus [30:4]: His father is dead, and he is as if he were not dead; for he hath left one behind him that 120  Mechthild von Magdeburg, Das fließende Licht der Gottheit, 136.15–​21: “Das bůch ist drivaltig und bezeichent alleine mich. Dis bermit, das hie umbe gat, bezeichent min reine, wisse, gerehte menscheit, die durch dich den tot leit. Dú wort bezeichent mine wunderliche gotheit; dú vliessent von stunden ze stunde in dine sele us von minem götlichen munde. Dú stimme der worten bezeichenet minen lebendigen geist und vollebringet mit im selben die rehten warheit.” English: Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light, 96–​97. 121  For the complex of literature relating to the Friends of God see Krusenbaum-​Verheugen, Figuren der Referenz. 122  Cf. Blaschitz, “Schrift auf Objekten”; Boockmann, “Über Schrifttafeln”; Boockmann, “Belehrung durch Bilder?”; Slenczka, Lehrhafte Bildtafeln; Signori, Räume, Gesten, Andachtsformen, 36–​73. 123  Wenzel, “Die Schrift und das Heilige,” 42f.

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is like himself.”124 In practice, however, the genealogical chain of books can easily break when books are handled by users as well as scribes. Richard takes delight in describing their scandalous deeds: they smear the book with nasal mucus and spray it with spit when speaking. They underline passages with dirty fingernails, eat fruit or cheese over the book, or put flowers between the pages. Above all, they become “commentators, and wherever they find an extra margin about the text, furnish it with monstrous alphabets, or if any other frivolity strikes their fancy, at once their pen begins to write it.”125 Nonetheless, the idea that a concrete text could allow a glimpse of the transcendent remains intact. It can even be intensified by the integration of orality and imagery into complex communicative events.126 Images of the Annunciation, for example, show Mary stopping in the middle of her reading, and take this opportunity for elaborate depictions of the open pages of the Bible or book of hours. But they also show the chosen one receiving the (oral) divine Logos via the angel, and using a quote from the Psalms (50:17) to ask that God may open her lips so she can sing his praise. Oral and written communication are interwoven in the same way as transcendence and immanence. The divine Logos becomes visible as writing, but this writing, in gold letters and sometimes shown upside-​down, is different to that of the book. In the late Middle Ages the banderole with the Ave Maria is often presented as a written document. It becomes “a sealed letter containing the plan for salvation, which the angel hands to Mary. The incarnation of God in Mary’s womb appears as a self-​communication of God through a sealed decree, which is only transformed back into the word (verbum) from which it has come in Mary, who receives it.”127 A similar observation can be made for the areas of governance, law, and administration in the late Middle Ages: the increasing use of writing does not make this an everyday thing; it does become more normal, however, to rely on material evidence of validity. Orality is not simply repressed, but is used deliberately to increase communicative efficiency.128 This is in turn reflected in narrative performances, in which a sublime written 124  Richard de Bury, Philobiblon, chap. 16, lines 13–​17: “quod liber sacer, solvens nature debitum, hereditarium obtineat substitutum et simile semen fratri mortuo suscitetur verificeturque statim illud Ecclesiastici XXX°: ‘Mortuus est pater illius et quasi non est mortuus, similem enim sibi reliquit post se.’ ” English: Richard de Bury, The Love of Books, 99. 125  Richard de Bury, Philobiblon, chap. 17, lines 52–​56: “incipiunt fieri glossatores incongrui, et ubi largiorem marginem circa textum perspexerint, monstruosis apparitant alphabetis; vel aliud frivolum qualecumque quod imaginationi occurrit celerius, incastigatus calamus protinus exarare presumit.” English: Richard de Bury, The Love of Books, 107. 126  For university teaching see Michael, “Textus und das gesprochene Wort.”

127  Wenzel, “Die Schrift und das Heilige,” 29; cf. also Schreiner, Maria: Jungfrau, Mutter, Herrscherin, 116f.; for tituli see Arnulf, Versus ad picturas.

128  Cf. Müller, “Zwischen mündlicher Anweisung und schriftlicher Sicherung” (Fechtbücher or martial arts manuals); Sablonier, “Verschriftlichung und Herrschaftspraxis”; Teuscher, “Notiz, Weisung, Glosse”; Teuscher, Erzähltes Recht; for the development of late medieval textuality see Keller, “Vom ‘heiligen Buch’ zur ‘Buchführung’ ”; Ludwig, Geschichte des Schreibens, 125–​209.

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Figure 9. Eike von Repgow, Sachsenspiegel (third quarter of fourteenth century); Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibl., Cod. Guelf. 3.2 Aug. 2°, fol. 85va. Used with permission.

text is positioned between oral and written practices, auratizing and de-​auratizing tendencies. Heinrich Wittenwiler, in his enigmatic epic poem Der Ring (probably ca. 1408/​ 1410), recounts an episode in the peculiar love affair between Bertschi Triefnas and Mätzli Rüerenzumph. He tells it as a tussle between professional written communication and rustic bodily communication: as Mätzli has been locked up in the attic by her father, Bertschi must communicate by letter, but as he cannot write himself, he needs the assistance of a scribe. The latter turns Bertschi’s orally conceived love letter into a written version (lines 1878–​922), which is “arranged in exemplary fashion, listing the gifts requested in paragraphs.” Furthermore, in keeping with administrative practice, the end of the letter uses graphic means to distinguish the identical beginnings and endings of several lines. As a result, the written document proves to be “only conceivable on the letter, and only perceptible with the eyes”; it thus preserves “the character of the letter as a written and only a written document.”129 Yet this document does not mark the start of a sophisticated correspondence. Instead we find a disconcerting blurring of the boundary between crude materiality and subtle allegoricity: the briefel, tied to a stone and thrown into the attic, injures Mätzli’s head; she summons a doctor to learn the content of the message. He exploits this to seduce her. After he has described a means of feigning 129  Cramer, “Nabelreibers Brief,” 215.

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virginity, he in turn composes an answering letter which is several hundred lines long (lines 2261–​554), and outdoes the pragmatic textuality of the first letter with an auratic textuality: Bertschi’s letter now becomes a letter from heaven; Venus and Mary appear, characterized by written texts in their crowns. The scenario cleverly conceals the misconduct, and simultaneously outlines a fundamental model of opposite orientations in life.130 The text becomes a reversible figure: composed with questionable intentions, and yet presenting ideas worthy of consideration, it can serve both to destroy meaning and to give orientation for salvation. It allows various modes of reading—​the green and red lines in the margin of the autograph manuscript draw attention to this.131 Other texts are also concerned with reversible figures. In the Melusine romances popular in the fifteenth century, one of the protagonists, Geffroy, comes upon a grave marker in a mountain cave. It consists of a recumbent figure and a statue holding in its hands a tablet inscribed with writing, from which he learns the story of Melusine’s parents, his own grandparents.132 The length of this story alone exceeds the materiality of the tablet. But it also offers a potentiation of the action, insofar as the taboo surrounding the fairy is ascribed, here, to a further (broken) taboo. Thus the relationship between (hi)story and prior (hi)story proves to be elusive. The tablet reveals a constitutive element of writing: the power to preserve potential meaning for later meaning-​ making. As a genealogical founding text, it mediates between the dead grandfather and the undead ancestress Melusine. It creates memory, but also conceals connections. It leads to origins, which at the same time become visible in their inaccessibility. This in turn allows an empowerment of the text at hand: similarly situated between a remote past and one with an ongoing impact, it becomes a mystery itself. Another multi-​level story of textual origins is offered by the prologue to the heroic epic Wolfdietrich D. A  book was allegedly found in a monastery; it first came into the possession of the bishop of Eichstätt and then that of his chaplain, who in turn brought it to the convent of St. Walburg in Eichstätt, where the abbess ordered that it be memorized by two masters, who added melodies to it and disseminated it within Christendom by “singing and saying.” This clearly shows that writing does not automatically lead to the (greater) dissemination of texts. There is always a certain latency associated with it. At some point it can become influential, acquire a new (oral) currency. But it can also tend toward self-​reflexivity—​there is no mention of the actual content of the heroic story, which the Wolfdietrich prologue describes as being passed down in several stages. This is firstly about the old practice of oral transmission, viewed from the perspective of the manuscript, and then, on the next level, about the status of the manuscript itself: the print versions of the text dispense with the element of memorization and oral presentation; they speak of translating, and make the work produced by the meister appear unchanging, with an “aura of the unique, which is only accorded to the manuscript from the perspective of printing.”133 130  Cf. Lutz, Spiritualis fornicatio, 246.

131  See Putzo, “Komik, Ernst und ‘Mise en page.’ ”

132  Cf. Kiening, “Zeitenraum und ‘mise en abyme.’ ” 133  Müller, “Alte Medien,” 16.

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The possibilities of mechanical reproduction using xylography and especially typography did not bring a radical change from one day to the next.134 The broadsheets initially tried out various combinations of text and image, and focused on metonymic elements: touching and observing, assimilating and appropriating the writing.135 A sheet from the early sixteenth century, for example, combines the Jesus monogram with a statement connecting the present text to Holy Scripture, against the background of two passages from Paul: “Ein yeclicher der do anruffet den namen Jesus des herren der wirt selig. Den keyn ander nam den menschen geben ist selig zu werden dan diser” (“Anyone who calls the name of Jesus the Lord will be blessed. For no other name is given to humans to become blessed than this”).136 Like these broadsheets, largely printed from woodcuts, the early books produced on printing presses also based their writing and layout on the manuscripts. Sometimes printed without initials, and often without punctuation, they were still designed to be personalized and “completed” by buyers and users. Old methods were also used to establish the validity of the new medium: a focus on subject matter from salvation history, and ennoblement by means of spiritual patterns. In the colophon of John of Genoa’s Catholicon (1460), printed by Gutenberg, God is praised for the fact that this excellent book has been “printed and completed not with the aid of the reed pen, the stylus or the feather, but through the wonderful conformity, accuracy and unity of form of the punches and letters.”137 In the colophon of Justinian’s Institutiones (1468), “the inventors [are compared] with the most skilled artisans of the Old Testament, who created the tabernacle (tabernaculum) and temple implements.”138 Guillaume Fichet praises Gutenberg as an achiever of divine things, who created “letters out of ore,” which were “fast, clean and beautiful,” universally suited to writing down, rewriting, and handing down everything that can be said or thought.139 The aspect emphasized by Konrad von Heimesfurt—​formal and substantive identity—​was regarded as a miracle. A comparison of copies of a printed missal, undertaken in 1484, found that the text coincided completely with the originals in every respect: letters, syllables, words, parts of speech, punctuation, headings.140 There were opposing voices: the abbot of Sponsheim, Johannes Trithemius, had a tract entitled De laude scriptorum printed in 1494, as part of the drive for monastic reform. Here he argues that printed works also need handwritten models, and that the work of copying is a holy one, which will earn a heavenly reward. But the arguments seem artificial. Trithemius compares the ephemeral nature of editions printed on 134  Neddermeyer, Von der Handschrift zum gedruckten Buch. 135  Cf. Griese, Text-​Bilder und ihre Kontexte.

136  Griese and Honemann, “Zauber—​Segen—​Katechese,” 240.

137  Geldner, Die deutschen Inkunabeldrucker, 29, with illustration. 138  Müller, “Körper des Buchs,” 206.

139  Giesecke, Buchdruck in der frühen Neuzeit, 148–​50. 140  Müller, “Körper des Buchs,” 213, based on Geldner.

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paper with the permanence of copies produced on parchment. Yet he is quite aware that, on the one hand, luxury editions are printed on parchment, and that, on the other hand, paper has long since become the norm for manuscripts. In a letter to his brother in 1506, borrowing a phrase already used in the colophon of the Mainz Psalter (1457), he speaks of the “ars illa mirabilis et prius inaudita imprimendi et characterizandi libros.”141 A conspicuous development in the period that followed was that the codex gradually lost the function of securing tradition with its materiality. Longevity did not guarantee the text as such, or the knowledge it embodied. What became important were the institutions “which select a constantly growing output of writing and allow it to have an impact,” and the intentions that could be “sought behind the written tradition.”142 The theological implication is in line with Luther’s views: Holy Scripture is not holy because it has been written with the “finger of God” or has fallen from heaven, but because it bears witness to Jesus Christ. The principle of sola scriptura not only does away with the church’s unauthorized construction of traditions, but also with the binding of scripture to its external manifestation. The return to the original text becomes interwoven with the discovery of God’s word within oneself. A radical version of this idea was developed by Sebastian Franck, who initially converted to Protestantism but then pursued the idea of a supra-​denominational, undogmatic Christianity. He disputes “the scripturality of truth,” and “[calls] into question the connection between sign and signified guaranteed in the written word.”143 For him the divine, transcending all that is medial, cannot be grasped as “writing,” either in itself or in the creation that emanates from it. The world is not readable. In it, absence predominates; at most we find traces that can serve as clues, mysterious non-​phonetic “Bůchstaben /​Character /​vnd handt eins schreibenden an ein wand” (Kronbüchlein, 1534, fol. 123r; letters /​ characters /​ and the hand of a person writing on a wall). This is the negative side of the skepticism toward writing already found in Plato’s work: a reduction to the visual and the material. Franck dismisses writing as an ontological entity, only to give it a new significance as a (rhetorical) figure of thought. He places it in the centre of metaphorical definitions of the relationship between God, the world, and the subject—​the subject which, in its inner experience, its struggle to find truth through writing, overcomes the deadening character of the letter. The imagery of writing is part of Franck’s movements of paradoxification: he turns against the scripturalism of his era, and no longer assumes that scripture can mediate between God and man. The living word is something that can only be pointed to by “every individual subject” as a form of testimony, “but for this writing is needed again.”144 141  Giesecke, Buchdruck in der frühen Neuzeit, 184. 142  Müller, “Körper des Buchs,” 215.

143  Müller, “Buchstabe, Geist, Subjekt,” 653.

144  Müller, “Buchstabe, Geist, Subjekt,” 673f.

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In the same period, writing as a concrete entity underwent a diversification of its forms and functions.145 Manuscript culture continued to play a major role, indeed since the general ability to write was spreading, it encompassed ever broader circles.146 Richly decorated manuscripts were created, but mainly circulated within families and among friends. An example is the “Vergänglichkeitsbuch” (book of transitoriness) of the Swabian count Wilhelm Werner von Zimmern (1485–​1575), illustrated with over one hundred pen drawings. For this contemplative scholar, the copying of existing texts and images served, in the Benedictine tradition, as an act that mediated salvation, in which the celestial could be imagined in view of the limits of the earthly. In contrast, the copies of his original carried out by professional scribes and painters are picture books. Their aura has more to do with family history than salvation history. Instead of aiming to mediate transcendence, their purpose is to delight the eye.147 The calligraphers produced elaborate manuscripts, which functioned as objects of value.148 Their concern was with the monumental appearance of the text, which was also cultivated in the Habsburg administrative system around the emperor Maximilian. Here Fraktur rose to prominence, an odd hybrid of handwriting and print: produced with mechanical types and serialized letters, but resembling calligraphy. Just as the new technology was becoming the foundation for state administration and for the exercise of political power, it sought to acquire a nobler status by borrowing from sacred and magical writing practices. These were two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, a demystification of the old writing, based on corporeality, presence, and an abundance of meaning: “Instead of manoeuvres in the medium of presence, the pompous staging of administrative activities, liturgical proclamations and the showcasing of documents of the Staufer emperor in secular processions, the new administrative offices carried out their activities invisibly, in closed-​off rooms in the town halls or back rooms of the court.”149 On the other hand, a new enchantment resulting from the secretive character of a blackletter script and its amalgamation with exuberant pictorial forms: a “super-​ cult of pictography,” which kept referring back to hieroglyphics, and producing effects of meaningfulness—​the “elaborate letters, imitating a decorative script […] do not hide any actual arcane knowledge, but conceal, behind the ornamental surface, a lost mystery.”150 The writing practice of the imperial administration was as much conservative as it was progressive. It monumentalized writing, but did so in the new medium of printing and the woodcut. This in turn required the imagination of the users, in which the mighty structures and features could become a reality.

145  Cf. Steinmann, “Von der Handschrift zur Druckschrift.” 146  Maas, “Lesen—​Schreiben—​Schrift.”

147  Cf. Wilhelm Werner von Zimmern, Totentanz, “Nachwort.”

148  Doede, Schön schreiben, eine Kunst; Flügge, Auswirkungen des Buchdrucks. 149  Vismann, Akten, 155. 150  Vismann, Akten, 156.

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Figure 10. Letter A: Johann Theodor de Bry, Nova alphati effictio (Frankfurt/​M. 1595) (1528–​1598); Houghton Library, Harvard University, Typ 520.95.241. https://​commons. wikimedia.org/​wiki/​File:Houghton_​Typ_​520.95.241_​-​_​Nova_​alphati_​effictio_​historiis_​ad_​ sigulas_​literas_​correspond%C4%93tibus.jpg (accessed January 22, 2019). Public domain.

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Figure 11. “Guide for Constructing the Letters f and g.” Georg Bocskay and Joris Hoefnagel, Mira calligraphiae monumenta (Vienna 1561/​1562, 1591–​1596); Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 20, fol. 143v. Digital image courtesy of Getty’s Open Content Program.

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This all took place at a time when the utilitarian forms of writing were increasingly taken for granted, its calligraphic forms were becoming more and more striking, and its character and history were the subject of ever more reflection. For example, the French humanist Geoffrey Tory, in his three-​part work Champ Fleury (1529), links reflections on the status of the vernacular with thoughts on the nobility of writing.151 Citing numerous classical authors, he first deals with the origins of the letters and some related myths, then with the basic forms and their figurative analogies, and lastly with the individual letters in their proportions and the meanings attached to them, considered in alphabetical order. The work ends with an appendix of different alphabets, beginning with the Hebrew one. Among the views of the ancients on the invention of letters, discussed at the beginning, Tory presents explanations relating to both worldly and biblical history: according to Lucan, the Phoenicians were the first to try to fix the human voice “en figures descripture & en lettres.” According to Flavius Josephus, it was the sons of Adam, writing in two columns, who wanted to communicate to their descendants the countless evils and miseries of the future (fol. Vr). The key figures for Tory’s project, however, are Virgil, to whose plant imagery he refers in his title, Euclid, with whom he associates the idea of perfect geometric forms, and Vitruvius, to whom he refers when linking the body with geometric forms. In line with the humanists’ philhellenism, Tory rejects the hegemony of the Latin alphabet. Instead he highlights the Greek origins (which he specifically connects with French history). Like other humanists, he also posits a close relationship between orality and textuality:  in harmony with classical rhetorical tradition, writing is thought of as secondary to the oral word, as a way of fixing and remembering it.152 On the other hand, the oral word itself is regarded as the realization of a (mute) written primal word which is inherent in it. Writing and spelling prove to be almost identical. The Platonic difference between the illusory and the true, the playful and the serious, was becoming less marked just as Phaedrus and Cratylus were being rediscovered—​the alphabet was seen as the seedbed of the humane; with the help of the letters, its seeds were both sown in the soul and disseminated from it.153 There were hopes of regaining access to the divine original text via the alphabet, which was seen as a field for contemplation, where “for the philologically initiated, a spiritual process takes place in (physical) actions of the reconfiguration of words and letters.”154 The new medium of printing also played a part here: in order to curb the proliferation of Gothic script, the printed letters were geometrically measured: a series of tracts, mainly published in Italy, dealt with forms and theories of the (Roman) letters.155 Albrecht Dürer devotes the whole third book of his Underweysung der Messung (1525) to the construction 151  Tory, Champ Fleury; some images in Massin, La lettre et l’image, 45–​63.

152  Examples from Spanish literature in Bouza Alvarez, Communication, Knowledge, and Memory, 8. 153  Cf. Goldberg, Writing Matter, 180.

154  Klein, Am Anfang war das Wort, 95.

155  Cf. Ryder, Lines of the Alphabet; Carter, “Theories of Letterform Construction”; for the theory of letters see Duplan, “Pour une sémiologie de la lettre.”

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of letters, which should be uniform in themselves and in comparison to other letters, and should also, when placed on buildings, appear to be the same size in perspectival terms. Proportion is understood as something divine, in which the principles of the world are enfolded, and at the same time as specifically historical: to show the unique perfection of their letters, asserts Tory, the ancients formed these on the basis of the three most perfect geometrical figures: the circle, the square, and the triangle.156 Tory demonstrates how the remaining letters can be formed from the I and the O by breaking, turning, leaving out, and putting together. He also shows that the nine muses can be inscribed into the guide marks for the geometrically determined I, and the seven liberal arts into the O. Moreover, the two letters correspond to the ideal proportions of the human body and the human face. The I represents the golden chain mentioned in Homer, linking celestial with earthly beings. Yet this meaningfulness does not apply solely to the I and O. The A, for example, is related to the elementary Christian sign of the cross, and is also considered as the basis for all letters. Symmetrically constructed, with two main lines and a sharp point enclosed by them, it is both a magical sign and one in which form and articulation coincide: it is the “index for the voice coming out of the mouth between part of the palate and part of the upper cavity” (fol. XXXIIIIr).157 In the dictionaries and encyclopedias of the time, too, the A appears as the original letter, as the first, Adamic, masculine sound, wondrously preserved as the first letter in all languages—​a mystery, explained by the fact that “the A is formed in the deepest parts of the human breast, and is also the first [sound] that humans pronounce. From there it goes out of the lips, and with a ringing sound, it sends more breath (piu di spirito) to heaven than any other vowel or letter.”158 Together with the Y, it can also be found in the figure of the lily or the hyacinth. Tory associates this phenomenon with the gods of antiquity, who turned humans into plants, and at the same time left clues to their meaning and origin in the plants. All in all, the letters are “si Nobles & Diuines, quelles ne veullent auscunement estre contrefaictes, mutilees, ne changees de leur propre Figure” (fol. LXXIXv; so noble and divine that they by no means wish to be counterfeited, mutilated, nor changed from their own figure).159 Here writing is seen as having an abundance of meaning which is independent of the Christian tradition, and which will reappear repeatedly in the years to come, culminating in the Romantic fascination with writing.160

156  Tory, Champ Fleury, fol. Xr: “Les anciens voulant monstrer la singuliere perfection de leurs lettres, les ont formees & figurees par deue proportion des trois plusbonnes & parfaictes figures de Geometrie. qui sont, la figure Ronde, la Quarree, & la Trigulaire.” 157  Genette, Mimologics, 54.

158  Francesco Alunno, Ricchezze della Lingua Volgare sopra il Boccaccio, Pisa 1543, 1551, 3rd ed., p. 4v, quoted in Küster, Geordnetes Weltbild, 423. 159  Cf. also Duplan, “Pour une sémiologie de la lettre,” 308. 160  Cf. Kiening, “Die erhabene Schrift.”

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BODY

Body/​Medium The body is, it seems, the primary medium available to humans: a means of perception—​ via the different senses; a means of experiencing space—​due to the specific shape of humans (upright posture, frontal face, symmetry); a means of expressing things—​such as emotions—​with gestures and facial expression. And yet the body is not simply a medium. It can also be made into one, in situation-​specific ways: when it becomes part of communicative actions, conveying markings, traces and signs, or in general terms information. And it can serve as a model for other media forms: by conceiving of themselves as bodies, political, social, and religious structures position themselves in a direct relationship to humans, and at the same time naturalize themselves. Therein lies the special quality of this medium: it is simultaneously natural and artificial, a product of both biological processes and social and cultural formatting. The one is inconceivable without the other: the formatting is unthinkable without the substrate, which can be classed as natural, and this substrate is unimaginable without the refinements and conventions that are inextricably linked with the body.1 The fundamentally paradoxical relationship between nature and culture returns here—​two sides that implicate each other, two options that are both mutually exclusive and mutually causative. Because just as the body seems to break open the discourse, by proving to be its external condition of possibility, it seems, conversely, to exist only within this discourse, surrounded as it is by conventions and attributions. What this means for the Christian Middle Ages is that the human body is a primary medium, mediating between God and creation, the extra-​sensory and the sensory world. The classic point of reference for this is found in the accounts of the Creation at the beginning of Genesis: man is the pinnacle of creation, created in God’s imago and similitudo (Gen. 1:26); God’s own hand has formed him, and God has breathed life into him (Gen. 2:7). But there is also the second account, which is actually older in terms of textual history: man is driven out of paradise, mortal, at the mercy of the cycle of growth and decay, his body exposed to pain and suffering. This requires an explanation. Did God change his mind? Is his work, created from ephemeral material, not such a success that he wants to keep it? Or is there a powerful opponent who must be silenced by means of a sacrifice? In order to answer questions such as these, medieval commentators sought to explicate the underlying assumptions they imputed to the text of Genesis. They argued, for example, that God’s creation had always been mortal, but that man had been freed from this mortality in the abundance of life in paradise—​a privilege that he lost after the Fall.2 1  Cf. Koschorke, “Zur Epistemologie der Natur/​Kultur-​Grenze.” 2  Cf. Hypomnesticon.

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Whichever explanations the commentators resorted to, the biblical text supported two different perspectives, which had no point of intersection. On the one hand, the body was seen as a time-​free medium of the divine order of creation, a microcosmic mirror of the macrocosmic order;3 on the other hand, as a time-​determined medium of salvation history, initially sublime, perfect, godlike, then deficient, disfigured, sinful, diseased, transient, and finally, in the context of the resurrection of the body at the end of times, optimized, purified, and spiritualized.4 In the bodies of the saints, this sequence can already be glimpsed in the here and now, according to the logic of inversion that governs legends: they are often initially glamorous and attractive in the profane social context, then become unsightly due to a change in lifestyle, poverty and asceticism, or are deformed by martyrdom, until at the end, transported to heaven, they once again display an unblemished ideal form. According to this model, it is only the killing off of the earthly body that allows the emergence of the heavenly body.5 Another notion exists alongside this, however: the idea that a saint’s body is inherently indestructible. As a corpus incorruptum, it is as impervious to tortures and torments as it is to nature’s processes of decay. There are countless stories telling how, when a saint’s grave was opened to remove the bones, the body was found miraculously intact.6 This idea, however, seems to conflict with the importance of saintly relics, which may also be wondrously preserved as parts, but nonetheless presuppose the fragmentation of the body.7 The conflict may become less acute if we distinguish between different historical phases. The idea of the corpus incorruptum seems to have been most popular in the early Middle Ages, when there was also skepticism toward the division of relics: the dead bishop Ulrich of Augsburg is said to have whispered, as Gebhard of Constance (d. 995) was about to exhume his bones, that he wanted to keep his body complete until Judgment Day.8 Yet the idea was not lost, even when the removal, rehousing, and redistribution of relics became commonplace. Thus as the cult of relics developed, it did become possible, in practice, to combine the two logically irreconcilable options: that a saintly body remained intact, and that at the same time every single part embodied a whole. The tension between them makes the paradox of the saintly body visible: as with an absolute medium, totum and pars coincide here, as do individuality and universality. On the one hand, this body is linked (retrospectively) with a specific history; on the other hand, it manifests its effect (prospectively) in history. This links the saint’s body with its archetype, the body of Christ, which—​already transfigured and absent since the Ascension—​creates extreme tension between the 3  Kurdziałek, “Der Mensch als Abbild des Kosmos.”

4  For the debate about the form of the resurrection of the body see Bynum, Resurrection of the Body.

5  For the early Christian development of this discourse see Rousselle, Porneia; Brown, Body and Society; Pettersen, Athanasius and the Human Body; cf. also Bachorski and Klinger, “Körper-​Fraktur”; Hammer, Erzählen vom Heiligen, 279–​87. 6  For the corpus incorruptum see Angenendt, “Corpus incorruptum.” 7  Swinarski, “Der ganze und der zerteilte Körper.” 8  Lutterbach, “Ein direkter Zugang,” 17.

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abstract principle and its concrete manifestation. At the same time it becomes clear to what extent bodies, apparently suited to producing evidence, rely for their part on the production of evidence. Surfaces on which the divine is manifested, they themselves are integrated into complex semiotic processes. Bearers of the signs of salvation history, they themselves are very much in need of interpretation, and are dependent on how the relationship between signifier and signified is conceived: outward ugliness can correspond to inner corruption, or it can mark a person as chosen for salvation, and outward beauty can be paired with either exemplary moral rectitude or soteriological depravity—​depending on the constellation and point of view.9 This may be a warning against seeing the dualism at work here as absolute. The body is not simply the counterpart, but also the complement of the soul; it is not simply to be overcome, but also to be preserved. This tension applies even more to the period from the twelfth century onwards, when the practices of piety change markedly. For one thing, the material and visual become more important. The intangible suddenly seems more than tangible: relics are elaborately dressed and displayed, the Host is shown and carried around, the bleeding Christ Child appears in it, and statues and pictures also bleed or weep.10 For another thing, theological aspects are increasingly treated as, in part, anthropological. The great questions of salvation history are now asked in relation to the human position in the cosmos, the human potential to acquire knowledge and grace. Attention now focuses on the human, corporeal, suffering Christ, the Christ of the Passion, who becomes the object of description and contemplation, imagination and meditation, compassion and appropriation, as people re-​enact physical movements and mental or spiritual exercises, or experience material and medial zones of contact between Christ and their own lifeworld.11 This applies in particular to the human body. If Christ, the mediator between God and man, is understood as the one who, through his specific incarnated form, reintegrates humans into the salvific process, this gives rise to new options for the corporeal: from now on, even the deficient body can take on a special role as a medium of salvation. Hunger and thirst, infirmity and illness, pain and suffering are no longer simply the expression of earthly existence; they also offer glimpses of salvation history. The material and the bodily, flesh and blood, skin and hair, coverings and garments, all these offer a preview of divine grace—​a preview in the literal sense, because what appears here is only a prelude to true salvation. In the widespread model of descent and ascent, the sensory or material is seen as a transitional stage—​just as God abased himself in his son, in order to save humanity, humans can make themselves similar to the son of God by forms of abasement and thus reach the divine themselves. These forms aim to simultaneously highlight and overcome the body: they offer points of access, but also make adjustments—​the deformed and transformed, fragmented and mutilated body reveals that which transcends it. 9  Cf. Schulz, Schwieriges Erkennen.

10  Cf. Bynum, Wonderful Blood and Bynum, Christian Materiality.

11  For a summary see Köpf, “Die Passion Christi,” and Köpf, “Passionsfrömmigkeit”; Kemper, Die Kreuzigung Christi.

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Figure 12. Jesus Attracting the Faithful to Heart (Ulm, ca. 1490); Washington, National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection 1943.3.853. www.artsy.net/​artwork/ ​jesus-​attracting-​the-​faithful-​to-​heart (accessed August 5, 2019). Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

This was an opportunity, not least for those who were not at the centre of the clerical system for the mediation of salvation: men and especially women who were leading a religious but not monastic life were able to view the body as a specific entry point for the divine, a surface for inscription, more direct and individual than the institutionally prescribed means of grace.12 For mulieres spirituales such as Margarethe of Magdeburg, Christina of Stommeln, or Elsbeth of Oye, excessive illnesses became proof of proximity to God.13 Suffering and pain offered a privileged way to communicate with the divine, to produce signs, which then had to be translated into the signs of the texts or images. There, however, they were subject to criteria of plausibility. When anyone can in principle become the medium of the divine, the genealogical and phenomenological classification of the traces or signs is important. Are they an expression of human practices, of ascetic “virtuosity” (Max Weber), of a radical punishment of the body by mortification, or even self-​mutilation, as was reported for hermits and recluses? Or are they the manifestation of divine interest in the subject, a phenomenal act, such as is repeatedly thematized in 12  Cf. Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, and Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption.

13  Cf. Weiß, Margareta von Magdeburg; Ruhrberg, Der literarische Körper der Heiligen; Ochsenbein, “Die Offenbarungen der Elsbeth von Oye”; Gsell, “Das fließende Blut.”

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mystical texts? Or are these twilight zones between human and divine activity? Jacques de Vitry, confessor of the beguine Marie d’Oignies (d. 1213), recounts that she cut pieces out of her flesh, overcame the bodily pain, and, in a trance, saw at her side a seraph with six wings.14 In such a framework, the body is a borderline phenomenon between the real and the medial: presupposed as concretely physical, it becomes accessible in semiotic structures, which adapt the extraordinary to the discursive facts. Instead of the experiencing subject, it is commentators and external authorities who take charge. The internal dynamics of the body are replaced by those of scriptural practices, which try to make writing and body appear as transparent, for example with metaphorical operations. When Caesarius of Heisterbach, in his Dialogus miraculorum (ca. 1220), considers the Passion of Christ as a lectio, a context of meaning that is absorbed through reading and interpretation, he transforms the metaphor of the book of life into a detailed analogy for Christ: “The small and black letters of it were written on the parchment as it were of His own body, by the bruising blows of the scourge; the red letters and capitals by the piercing of the nails; and the full stops and commas by the pricking of the thorns. Well had that parchment been polished beforehand by many a blow, marked by buffeting and spitting, and lined with the reed.”15 The maltreated Christ resembles a page of parchment prepared according to the customs of the time. Conversely, however, this also means that the reader, turning his attention from the meaning of the text to its appearance, can gain an impression of the Passion from the page of parchment. The relationship between the traces on the battered human skin and the signs on the prepared animal skin is a double one: it suggests a correspondence on the level of being, and not merely that of representation. At the same time, it ties the recognition of this analogy to a feat of the imagination—​the intensity of the presentification and the reality of the manifestation work together. Caesarius tells of a novice who, during a prayer to the Trinity, and while thinking about the Passion, felt the sign of the cross being pressed into his forehead (“crucem fronti suae imprimi sensit”; 8.23). He thus expresses the idea of an inscription carried out not by man, but by God, an idea enormously popular within the female and lay spirituality of the time. It makes it possible to document and legitimate one’s own form of existence through writing, and also to prove the immediacy of this writing. Here the same medium serves to both justify and transcend religious “virtuosity.” Writing is added retrospectively to what is shown in bodies and actions. But it also precedes this, insofar as a divine original text allows itself to be read in the bodies and actions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the most spectacular high-​medieval transformation of a human body into a medium of the divine: the stigmata of Francis of Assisi. 14  Cf. Calzá, Dem Weiblichen; Mary of Oignies.

15  Caesarius von Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, 8.35, ed. Strange, 109: “In pelle siquidem corporis eius scriptae erant litterae minores et nigrae, per lividas plagas flagellorum; litterae rubeae et capitales, per infixiones clavorum; puncta etiam et virgulae, per punctiones spinarum. Bene pellis eadem prius fuerat multiplici percussione pumicata, colaphis et sputis cretata, arundine liniata”; cf. Küsters, “Narbenschriften,” 83f. English: Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogue on Miracles, 2.35.

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Stigmata

The stigmatization, which was dated to the year 1224, two years before Francis’s death, was disputed right from the beginning.16 Elias of Cortona, who succeeded Francis as the head of the Order of Friars Minor, had written a letter to the provincial minister of the order immediately after Francis’s death; in the tone of Luke the Evangelist announcing the birth of Christ, he proclaimed “a great joy and the news of a miracle” (“gaudium magnum et miraculi novitatem”), and shared some details about the nails and the wound in Francis’s side. Thomas of Celano added further components to this when—​in 1228/​ 1229, after the canonization—​he was officially commissioned by the pope to write the first description of Francis’s life. His additions would be significant for the period that followed: the apparition of a seraph, who shows the figure of a crucified man between his six wings, and the public revelation of the stigmata. But the actual debate about the stigmata was only just beginning, and the criticism was not all from outside. Secular clergy and members of other orders had their own interests, and only a limited willingness to share the belief in this unheard-​of original event, but even within the Franciscan order opinion was divided. The early companions of Francis evidently tended to adhere to the maxim that Thomas of Celano had formulated, but not followed: that it was better not to scrutinize too closely the true reason for the “awe-​inspiring mystery.” On the other hand, those who wanted to put the stigmata at the centre of the institutional stabilization of the order had to venture onto the quicksands of authentication. This occurred mainly in the 1250s, when the Franciscans were concerned with clarifying their approach to their own history. While the Spirituals held fast to a radical ideal of poverty, the community advocated adaptation to current needs, wanting the order to have a firm place in the centre of the social structures of the time rather than at their margins.17 Here it seems that the stigmata acquired a new role: as the incontrovertible sign of a way of life approved by Christ himself, they became a strong argument in the discourse.18 Pope Alexander IV, for example, a vigorous protector of the Order of Friars Minor, was a devotee of Mount La Verna, and saw himself as an eyewitness to the stigmata. He gave official recognition to the reports of the stigmatization, and even to the statements about the nature of the stigmata, and threatened deniers with excommunication and removal from office. The debate that evolved explored the space between the extremes: on the one hand, the saint’s self-​defined, imaginative, ascetic virtuosity; on the other hand, his externally defined, real-​physical, miraculous apotheosis. But also: on the one hand, a new validation of the early eyewitnesses and the archaic tradition; on the other hand, a tendency toward systematic reconstruction. On the one hand, an ongoing cacophony of voices; on the other hand, greater efforts to achieve an “unité de doctrine,” 16  A precise (but controversial) reconstruction of the internal Franciscan discourses is presented in Bösch, Franz von Assisi; cf. also Schmucki, Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi; Frugoni, Francesco e l’invenzione delle stimmate; Bouflet, Les stigmatisés; Daxelmüller, Süße Nägel der Passion. For more detail on the following see Kiening and Beil, Urszenen des Medialen, chap. 6. 17  Cf. Dalarun, François d’Assise; Die Bettelorden im Aufbau. 18  Cf. Bösch, Franz von Assisi, 109–​17.

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the longing to combine all the existing legends into “one good one,” as the General Chapter in Rome put it in 1257: a valid one that could also serve as a basis for liturgy.19 The person who took on this task, Bonaventure, appointed Minister General of the order in 1257, was a representative of the second generation. Though only five years old himself when Francis died, he did at least know some of Francis’s companions, and was able to make use of the presence of eyewitnesses: “In order to have a clearer and more certain grasp of the authentic facts of his life, which I was to transmit to posterity, I visited the sites of the birth, life and death of this holy man. I had careful interviews with his companions who were still alive, especially those who had intimate knowledge of his holiness and were its principal followers” (LM Prol. 4).20 On the level of facts, Bonaventure scarcely offers anything new in his Legenda maior, adopting most of his material from his predecessors. In some sections, for example the early history or the miracles, he more or less copies the texts of Thomas of Celano. But he does correct inconsistencies and omit dubious elements. He creates a universal metatext, intended to replace the earlier legends and to offer an authoritative point of reference for the later historiography of Francis. Only at the beginning does the text follow chronology. Most of the fifteen chapters, however, aim at “a more thematic order” (“ordo aptae iuncturae”). The arrangement and conception, stringency and balance of the narrative are thus carefully considered. An overarching interpretive framework emerges, extending from Francis’s self-​perception, and the perspective of those around him, to the situation of the biographer and his readership. A series of paths can be glimpsed, leading from the via purgativa to the via illuminativa and then to the via unitiva—​and culminating in the stigmata.21 The centrality of the stigmata for the Legenda is already apparent in the Prologue, which evokes all the available metaphors for Francis.22 The poverello is shown to be a successor of the prophets Elijah and John the Baptist. Against the background of the book of Ecclesiastes, he is compared with the morning star and the rainbow. But he is also seen as the embodiment of an image (similitudo) predicted in Revelation (7:2): the angel of the sixth seal, “coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God.”23 Bonaventure links this idea with the stigmata (signum Dei vivi), and thus places these in the centre of his theology—​a theology of the sign and of the body, which exhausts all possibilities of evidence and significance: mysterious presences and powerful moments, but also analogies, similarities, references. Here everything seems to revolve around the following question: how can man attain salvation via the one medium, Christ, his re-​ embodiment in Francis, and the media of presentification (vision, image, writing)? But 19  For the various histories of the founding of the order see Wesjohann, Mendikantische Gründungserzählungen.

20  Bonaventura, “Legenda Major; Legenda Minor,” 755–​1013, this passage 890–​92 (LM 13.1–​3); English: Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God, 183. 21  Cf. Bougerol, Francesco e Bonaventura, 36–​46. 22  Cf. Brooke, Image of St Francis, 255.

23  For Bonaventure’s emphasis on the apocalyptic Francis, cf. Flood, “Franziskus und die Offenheit der Geschichte,” 97–​106.

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another question is also central: how can an event be highlighted in its absolute singularity, but at the same time be discursively guaranteed in its authenticity? Step by step, Bonaventure leads the readers up La Verna, where he allows them to perceive the apparition of the seraph to Francis almost from an internal perspective. Straight away, however, he also confronts them with the discussion about what aspects of the event reached whose eyes, ears, and hands. The accounts of miracles immediately following the descent from La Verna rely on a direct transfer of salvific energy. Francis reaches out to a poor man suffering from the cold, and “at the touch of his sacred hand, which bore the burning coal of the seraph, immediately the cold fled altogether and the man felt great heat within and without, as if he had been hit by a fiery blast from the vent of a furnace” (LM 13.7).24 The subsequent passage, in contrast, lists the occasions on which the stigmata were viewed. The dominant feature here is the effort to precisely prove which forms (oaths sworn on the gospels, written and spoken testimony, sermons) and which people (brothers, sisters, cardinals, pope) can vouch for the authentication. The quantities—​the number of witnesses, the measuring of the wounds—​become important here. Thus the overall characteristic is an oscillation between mediation and immediacy. On the one hand, there are concrete spatial and temporal parameters: Mount La Verna, Lent, the Feast of the Cross. They anchor the stigmatization in the Christian tradition and in the cycle of the Christian year. On the other hand, however, there are elements of the intangible: the lightning-​fast flight of the seraph, the mysterious nature of the apparition, the miracles, through which “the miraculous though hidden power of the stigmata might be made manifest by the brightness of divine signs.”25 The “brightness of the signs” (claritas signorum) is the key phrase which sums up the whole episode: the events are meant to be seen as symbolic, as referring to something that they are not identical to. At the same time, these signs are supposed to allow glimpses of the signified, undimmed by the refraction of a sign-​bearer. More than mere indicators, they are meant to embody the abundance of salvation itself to some extent, and to bring to fulfilment Francis’s Christ-​ like nature. These signs also turn the idea of transubstantiation into a reality, an idea Bonaventure had worked on in his early opus, the commentary on the Sentences. It becomes real in a concrete figure—​but not in the form of standard Eucharist miracles or visions of the Host.26 In Francis, the Host is not simply transformed, for a visionary moment, into the bleeding body of the infant Jesus. Instead the archetype itself is permanently present in him. Or in other words, the worship of Christ, his body, and his traces can hardly be separated from an assimilation to Christ in the sense of a new embodiment. Francis is the “living icon,” in which “artificial” and “natural,” figurative and physical forms of mediation meet.27 24  Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God, 309.

25  LM 13.5:  “ut illorum occulta et mira vis stigmatum manifesta pateret claritate signorum.” Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God, 308. 26  Cf. Browe, Die eucharistischen Wunder, and Browe, Eucharistie im Mittelalter. 27  Belting, “Franziskus,” 30, 23.

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At the same time it was important to avoid giving the impression that Francis had brought about the assimilation on his own. Bonaventure says voluit crucifigi, “he wanted to be crucified,” but the realization of this wish does not lie in the power of the expert ascetic; it requires a transformation by means of the thing he is assimilating to. It was therefore important for the Franciscan tradition that the founder of the order, as a sign of his humilitas, tried to keep the stigmata secret, but that this secrecy had only limited success. And hence the Legenda refers at key points to divine control of events: divina providentia causes Francis to go up the mountain; a divinum oraculum counsels him to use the Bible itself as a prophetic device; a divine revelation (Domino revelante) enables him to understand the apparition of the seraph. The main indication that Francis’s relationship with Christ will—​at the behest of a higher power—​intensify on Mount La Verna comes from the divinatory use of the Gospels. At the same time, this creates a connection with tradition: Augustine was well known to have had his definitive conversio after hearing the phrase tolle, lege, which led him to Paul’s letter to the Romans (Confessiones 8.12.29). Francis himself had, according to the biographer’s account, linked the beginnings of his movement to an oracular book. In 1208 he went to the church of San Nicolò in Assisi with one of his first followers, Bernard of Quintavalle, to find out what the right path in life was. Three times, on opening the missal, he came upon passages from Matthew and Luke which confirmed his own idea of poverty and abstinence from worldly things.28 Thus the oracular book consulted one and a half years later, on La Verna, provides a fitting conclusion to his history and that of the order. Unlike the earlier events, the opening of the Gospels now leads, three times, to the story of the Passion: then “the man filled with God understood that just as he had imitated Christ in the actions of his life, so he should be conformed to him in the affliction and sorrow of his passion, before he would pass out of this world.”29 The difference between the present moment and the preceding way of life lies in the difference between imitatio and conformitas: the one refers to a deliberately performed act, the other to an event that cannot be influenced. What is critical is the point where they coincide, where subjective and objective factors form a dynamic unity.

Textures

In Bonaventure’s account, the process of assimilation involves an oscillation between inside and outside, vision and realization, archetype and copy, language and reality, quotation of scripture and its implementation. Already, at the beginning of the chapter, the mediation between the earthly and the celestial is represented in the traditional image of the ladder, or more precisely, Jacob’s ladder from the book of Genesis (28:12), on which the patriarch “like the heavenly spirits […] either ascended 28  Cf. Feld, Franziskus von Assisi, 145–​50.

29  LM 13.2:  “intellexit vir Deo plenus, quod sicut Christum fuerat imitatus in actibus vitae, sic conformis ei esse deberet in afflictionibus et doloribus passionis, antequam ex hoc mundo transiret” (cf. John 13:1). Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God, 304.

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to God /​or descended to his neighbour” (LM 13.1).30 The dreaming Jacob becomes the model for the visionary Francis, who, like Moses on Mount Sinai, climbs up La Verna to be close to the divine and to rise above the world in spirit. But the scenario instantly acquires New Testament/​Christological accents; there are echoes of the words spoken by Jesus when sending out the disciples (Luke 10:11), and at his transfiguration on Mount Tabor (Matt. 17:1). The pattern of prophecy and fulfilment places Francis in a relationship to Christ which is analogous to Christ’s relationship to the prophets who preceded him. At the same time, however, Bonaventure multiplies the references: Francis refers not only to Christ but also to his various predecessors, and to the angel of the end times. He becomes a figure in which all the ages seem to intersect: a universal signified, to which an infinite number of signifiers can refer; a mediator, in whom past becomes present, and language is transformed into physicality, but also one in whom the mediality of embodiment—​in the form of the vision, the sign, the image—​is glimpsed. Carefully, Bonaventure leads toward the climax: isolation from the world, the ascent of the mountain, the self-​immersion in the Passion, the longing for martyrdom—​all this prepares the way for the two crucial events in which the action culminates: the apparition of the seraph and the transfer of the stigmata. Francis’s desire is seraphic, and it is a seraph that he encounters. This, too, has an Old Testament background. Francis experiences what Isaiah experienced when he was called to be a prophet: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying” (Isa. 6:1–​3). The medieval exegetes repeatedly commented on the vision of Isaiah. They related the two angels standing above God’s throne to the two testaments, and the three pairs of wings to the different senses of scripture. The question of what exactly had been hidden by the wings was discussed by Hugh of St. Victor, for example, in the context of his interpretation of Noah’s ark.31 The change undertaken by Bonaventure is inconspicuous, but weighty:  “Two of the wings were lifted above his head, two were extended for flight and two covered his whole body.”32 This reverses the relationship between revealed and concealed parts: the body, which is apparently visible in Isaiah’s vision, remains invisible for Francis, and instead another body is displayed—​that of the crucified Christ. Thus the scenario is once again related to the Passion of Christ, but this time not in the sense of a linguistic blending of Old and New Testament, but as a peculiar, indeed scandalous merging of the unblemished angel with the tortured son of man, the immortal with the mortal. 30  Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God, 303. 31  Prica, Heilsgeschichten, 97–​101, 141f.

32  LM 13.3:  “Duae alae super caput ipsius elevabantur, duae ad volandum extendebantur, duae vero totum velabant corpus.” Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God, 305.

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What are we to make of this fusion of seraph and crucified Christ? Francis encounters Christ “under the appearance of the seraph” (“sub specie Seraph”)—​an unmistakable echo of the phrase used for the transubstantiation: “under the appearance of bread” (“sub specie panis”).33 Where exactly is the crucified Christ revealed? “Between the wings,” but between which of the pairs of wings? Bonaventure clearly has no interest in providing answers to these and other questions. Instead his terminology allows more scope for different interpretations. The angel bears an image of the crucified Christ: “effigies hominis crucifixi.” So Francis does not encounter Christ himself, but a representation—​which is, however, labelled with the elusive term effigies. The term can refer in general to a material image rather than an imaginary one, but it can also designate the true face of Christ, the death mask, and, in the late Middle Ages, the replica of the king’s dead body. In any case it transports elements of a magical real presence,34 or elements of a copy that is not a copy. While in Thomas of Celano’s account (first vita) the poverello sees a man hovering over him who is like a seraph (“quasi Seraphim”), Bonaventure initially distinguishes more clearly between the seraph and the crucified Christ—​only to perform a subtle transfer in the next step. The text implies that the image is more than a mere image or copy, and is closer to a replica or double. It leaves an impression. It looks at Francis (“cernebat se conspici”). It fans a wondrous fire in his heart. And it eventually gives way to a further effigies—​that of the stigmata (signa) that have been imprinted on the body (impressit), no less wondrous than the vision itself. The mediation of the apparition of Christ by the angel is thus transformed into the immediacy of the stigmata that reveal themselves. But between the two is a non-​figurative revelation of God (“Domino revelante”). It is this that reveals the meaning of the apparition to Francis: “so that, as Christ’s lover, he might learn in advance that he was to be totally transformed into the likeness of Christ crucified, not by the martyrdom of his flesh, but by the fire of his love consuming his soul.”35 This also means, however, that the readers do not simply experience a protagonist who is gripped by the events of grace, but one whose perception shifts between inner and outer vision, one who moves from immersion to reflection, who goes from seeing to feeling and marvelling, and from there to comprehension. In the moment in which he understands (“intellexit”), the apparition disappears (“disparens visio”), but leaves its traces, both inner ones (“reliquit ardorem”) and outer ones (“impressit effigiem”). In this way, extreme spirituality and extreme corporeality are brought into close proximity. The vision appears simultaneously as imagined and corporeal. The stigmatization is recounted simultaneously as an action and a process of perception and reflection. The fact that Bonaventure now describes what happens to Francis with the same term, effigies, that he had previously used for the image of the crucified Christ creates a relationship between the first, visionary impression, and the second, physical one. 33  Cf. Davidson, “Miracles of Bodily Transformation.” 34  Cf. Marek, Die Körper des Königs.

35  LM 13.3: “ut amicus praenossit, se non per martyrium carnis, sed per incendium mentis totum in Christi crucifixi similitudinem transformandum.” Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God, 305–​6.

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This relationship is underlined by the remark that the emerging stigmata correspond to the signs “he had seen a little before in the figure of the man crucified.”36 It is only after he has woven this complex web of inter-​references that Bonaventure describes the stigmata themselves: the pierced hands and feet, showing the black heads and the bent points of the nails, growing out of the flesh and protruding beyond it, the gaping wound in his side, “as if pierced with a lance […] from which his sacred blood often flowed, moistening his tunic and underwear.”37 These are the exact words that Thomas of Celano had used in his first vita. The sentences have the effect of an authentic piece of spolia from the early history of the order: read and repeated a thousand times, they have become a sort of formula for the Franciscan community—​and even in Bonaventure’s text they are, for some moments, not interrupted by any commentating voice. Otherwise, however, the diversity of voices and perspectives is the defining characteristic of the Legenda. Sometimes we experience Francis from outside, sometimes from within. Sometimes events are communicated, sometimes feelings and perceptions, sometimes interpretations. Sometimes there are tangible facts, sometimes metaphorical internal dynamics. The terminology shows the pervasive influence of tradition: Old and New Testament tradition, patristic and Scholastic tradition, but also contemporary theology and mysticism. It serves to situate the events discursively, and yet repeatedly disrupts the discursive by producing presences. The systematizing tendency can therefore not be separated from the increased emphasis given by exclamations, addresses, repetitions, echo effects, semantic loading. Although it is permeated with reflection, the fabric of interwoven terms is not designed to rationalize the event itself, which is supposed to retain its mysterious character. Revealing and concealing continue to be bound together in Franciscan mediality, as do the roles of the body as a source and bearer of meaning, as a salvation-​filled divine medium and an insufficient earthly one.38 As a result, the stigmata have multiple functions: they are proof of the validity of the Franciscan Rule, signs of a supernatural process, seals of a unique event, and marks of a real transfer. At the same time a multifaceted Christ-​likeness arises: between outer and inner image, between real and figurative conformitas, between imago, visio, effigies and impressio, and between a transubstantiated and a transfigured body. Bonaventure ends the Vita with Francis’s death, at which the stigmata are more visible than ever before, the nails black, the wound in his side as red as a rose in bloom, but now in a snow-​white, dazzlingly beautiful, transfigured body: “His limbs were so supple and soft to the touch that they seemed to have regained the tenderness of childhood and to be adorned with clear signs of his innocence” (LM 15.3).39 36  LM 13.3:  “quemadmodum paulo ante in effigie illa viri crucifixi conspexerat.” Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God, 306.

37  LM 13.3:  “quasi lancea transfixum, rubra cicatrice obductum erat, quod saepe sanguinem sacrum effundens, tunicam et femoralia respergebat.” Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God, 306. 38  Pavlick, “ ‘The Sanctified Senses of the Holy Man.’ ” 39  Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God, 322–​23.

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In Bonaventure’s account, Francis’s Christ-​likeness does not imply total identity, but the greatest possible proximity to the Christological event. Its own nature as an event does not reach its linguistic climax until the descent from La Verna, which again recalls that of Moses from Mount Sinai. Francis, according to the account, bore the image of the crucified Christ on his person, “which was depicted not on tablets of stone /​ or on panels of wood /​by the hands of a craftsman, /​but engraved in the members of his body /​ by the finger of the living God.”40 The sentence refers to the famous scene in which Yahweh hands Moses the two Tables of the Law: “tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God” (Exod. 31:18). It is also, however, premised on Paul’s recoding of this Mosaic text, which essentially claimed that it was not writing on stone, but the writing of the heart which allowed direct communication (2 Cor. 3:3). This idea now undergoes a further recoding: from the heart to the body (in carneis membris), from the internal, invisible organ to the external, visible surface. Unlike the Mosaic tablet, however, this is not made of dead, but of living material—​a material that has not only been written on by God, but resembles God himself. In Francis, then, the Mosaic tradition of exclusive divine writing converges with the Pauline tradition of a universal communication of the heart, made possible through Christ. The founder of the order proves to be not simply a bearer of signs, but a medium of divine self-​communication, in which Christological mediality is transferred to a new time, new institutions, and new media forms. These media forms are not so much those of the image as those of the word and writing: while the image (imago/​effigies) constituted by Francis himself is distanced from the artificial images (tabulae) that represent the divine, we read at the end of the episode that praise for the holy stigmata was proclaimed in sequences, hymns, and antiphones (“laudes sacrorum stigmatorum prosis et hymnis et antiphonis”; LM 13.10). Bonaventure presents not only a biographical synthesis, but a medial one. In its centre are writing, image, and body—​as those three forms in which tradition and presentness, substance and appearance, materiality and transfer meet. In the text they seem to come one after the other: the path leads from meditation to vision to impression; from the use of the book to the apparition of the seraph to the imprinting of the stigmata. At the same time, however, the three forms of writing, image, and body are interwoven:  physical practices (fasting, suffering) prefigure what will then occur as a radical bodily experience; elements of the writing return even after the descent from La Verna; the key words visio, effigies, and figura are taken up at the end in a speech directly addressed to the saint (LM 13.10). Furthermore, all three are paradigmatically linked to one another. They each have a double character: both general and specific, abstract and concrete. Writing is given as sacra scriptura, as Holy Scripture (itself divided into two parts), revealed, authoritative, the origin of traditions, the constant point of reference of speech. It is also given, however, as a material entity, as a liber sacer, as the actual book of the Gospels which Francis has with him, and which gives him, in the oracle, the ultimate certainty that he can become the person he already is in his innermost being. The image 40  LM 13.5: “non in tabulis lapideis vel ligneis manu figuratam artificis, sed in carneis membris descriptam digito Dei vivi.” Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey into God, 307.

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is the effigies that appears to Francis in his visio, but it is also he himself, who becomes an effigies, bearing the crucified Christ on him and with him (secum ferens). The body is that of the angel and of the crucified Christ, but is also that of the ascetic, onto which the signs are transferred. In any case this is not a static form, which retains, reproduces, or represents something, but a dynamic one, with which and in which something happens: a form that is in motion, that changes and also causes other things to change. In this context, writing, image, and body are not simply distinct, institutionalized types of mediation, transfer, dissemination, storage, or communication. They overlap, complement each other, engage in dialogue. The actual medium is Francis, in whom the original medium, Christ, is re-​embodied. As a “sign of the living God” and “testimony to truth,” he is, in the spirit of the age, an exemplar: the image of an archetype which becomes an archetype itself, the perfect embodiment of a medium which simultaneously reveals itself and something else. He represents the paradoxical combination of identity and difference, the tautology that simultaneously conveys the unheard-​of, the transfer in which the transferred and the transferring, the tangible and the intangible are intertwined.

Exemplar

Bonaventure’s synthesis was intended to unify the multitude of voices, to give the heterogeneity of the tradition a new foundation. But it could not prevent the debates from flaring up again in the period that followed, debates in which the stigmata and the conclusion to be drawn from them—​the role of Francis as a true alter Christus—​were hotly disputed. The discussions were partly to do with internal Franciscan issues. But again and again, they also touched on fundamental questions: the interpretation of the ideal of poverty; the relationship between worldly, monastic, or eremitic forms of existence; views on chastity, purity, and corporeality. These questions were also raised in other orders. It is therefore not surprising that it was a Dominican friar who revisited the scenario of stigmatization and gave it an influential new form. In his mid-​fourteenth-​century vita, already touched on above, Henry Suso, the pupil of Meister Eckhart, describes the imitatio Christi of a servant of eternal wisdom. He describes it as a process in which the bodily experience of the divine plays a key role. The text is preserved in the book Suso referred to as Exemplar, a collected edition of the texts he had written over several decades.41 This has both a codical and a personal dimension. The “exemplar” is on the one hand the book, which comprises “vier gůté bůchlú” (3.2), and on the other hand the figure of the author and protagonist, who, as the servant of eternal wisdom, is declared by wisdom itself to be “ein spiegel der gotheit, ein bilde der drivaltkeit and ein exemplar der ewikeit” (237.7f.; “a reflection of the divinity, […] an image of the Trinity and a model of eternity”)42—​not merely a copy, then, but a complex, indeed paradoxical one, something like a fundamentally or potentially identical copy of the one, 41  Heinrich Seuse, Deutsche Schriften; English: Henry Suso, Exemplar. 42  Suso, Exemplar, 238.

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original pattern, which is regarded as the first and the eternal exemplar (331.18; 338.5). Truth itself defines this first exemplar as follows: “This is his eternal being according to how it gives itself universally to creatures so that they might come to be.”43 The idea of the exemplar offers a category in which the divine and its mediation, archetype, model, and copy, Christ, the servant and the book can be related to each other, and indeed merged into each other. This category also interweaves the content of the book, an exemplary life, with the materiality of the book, in which this life is repeatedly re-​embodied: whoever holds the book in his hands, it is implied, has access not only to a copy of the text, but—​in the spirit of the professionalized academic business of writing at the time—​to the “master copy,” a representation of the archetype, which leads here to divine wisdom itself, via the figure of the servant. This evokes the virtually physical identification of book and author which pervaded the whole Middle Ages, and which becomes explicit with the designation of the first part of the book as der Súse. At the same time, however, this is about the equally traditional idea that everything that is perceptible to the senses can embody the extra-​sensory, or lead toward it. For this the body plays a central role.44 What is depicted here is excessive ascetic practices: for years, indeed for decades, the servant undergoes the most painful mortifications. He wears a hair shirt and a specially made penitential garment for his lower body, handcuffs, gloves fitted with metal pins, and a cross studded with iron nails on his back, which pierces his flesh when he flagellates or prostrates himself. He intensifies the pain by applying vinegar and salt to the wounds. He cuts open his arteries, does not sleep in a bed, but on an old door, and avoids any warmth, even in the deepest winter. One of the most extreme acts, and one with the greatest consequences, is described right at the beginning. The servant longs for a minnezeichen that can serve as an eternal urkúnde between his own person and God, and finds it in the form of the name of Jesus, the Jesus monogram IHS: in a bloody autography, he engraves it into his skin over his heart with a stylus—​“und stach also hin und her und uf und ab, unz er den namen IHS eben uf sin herz gezeichent” (16.10f.; “He jabbed back and forth, up and down, until he had drawn the name IHS right over his heart”).45 Like the stigmata that are imprinted on Francis, the monogram tatoo is a point of entry for the divine, which is supposed to penetrate into the heart (16.20), from whence it can then radiate out of the body. Falling asleep on a volume of the Vitas patrum, the servant sees, in a dream, a light shining out of his heart—​“do erschein uf sinem herzen ein guldin krúz, und dar in waren verwúrket in erhabenr wise vil edelr stein, und die luhten zemal schon” (17.5–​7; “there on his heart appeared a golden cross into which many precious jewels had been skillfully inlaid. These sparkled beautifully”).46 43  Seuse, 331.20f.: “Es ist sin ewiges wesen in der nemunge, als es sich in gemeinsamklicher wise der kreature git ze ervolgenne.” Suso, Exemplar, 311.

44  Cf. Diethelm, “Durch sin selbs unerstorben vichlichkeit”; Fenten, Mystik und Körperlichkeit; for the connection between body and writing see Beling, “Körper als Pergament.” 45  Suso, Exemplar, 70. 46  Suso, Exemplar, 71.

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The pouring out of light from the heart corresponds to the inscription of the letters into the skin. The one confirms the other through the material sublimity that it brings. At the same time, the application of the writing proves to be an opportunity to turn the servant into a transparent medium focused on Christ and the divine, which in turn radiates onto the inner being of the servant. The writing mediates between inside and outside, the tangible and the intangible world, materiality and immateriality. As with the stigmata, this minnezeichen, although self-​inflicted, is one whose fulfilment does not lie in human hands. And as with the stigmata, this is something that is hidden, but does not remain completely hidden: the servant allows a friend to see and touch the sign (143.22f./​28f.). Moreover, that which initially occurs in the intimate space of the cell later acquires a public dimension: the servant’s spiritual daughter, Elsbeth, produces red silk cloths with the Jesus monogram, which the servant places on his heart, and which she “mit einem göttlichen segen sinen geischlichen kinden hin und her sante” (155.3f.; “would then send them all over, with a religious blessing, to his spiritual children”).47 There is no direct reference to Francis and the stigmata, either here or anywhere else in the Vita. Yet the central event of the Franciscan tradition was unquestionably so well known that the profiling of the servant against the background of the stigmatized saint could hardly be overlooked: both make a covenant with a figure who personifies Christ, in Francis’s case poverty, in the servant’s case wisdom. And both decide to abstain from a worldly life because of this covenant.48 Furthermore, the servant is granted a vision which unmistakably references the apparition on Mount La Verna: when he asks to be instructed in the proper compassio, what appears before him is described as follows: “there appeared to him in a spiritual vision the likeness of the crucified Christ in the form of a seraph. This angelic seraph had six wings. With two wings it covered its head; with two it covered its feet; and two it used for flying. On the two bottom wings was written: ‘Receive suffering willingly.’ On the middle ones: ‘Bear suffering patiently.’ On the top ones: ‘Learn to suffer as Christ did’.”49 Manuscript illustrations for this passage show the servant in the attitude of Francis receiving the stigmata—​and thus ignore the modification made by Suso. He does not follow Bonaventure’s idiosyncratic alternation between the concealed and revealed angel’s body. Instead he returns to Isaiah’s reading, to which he adds a Christological component. Instead of a bold combination of the angel and the crucified Christ, there is now a symbolic connection (glichnús, bilde). This does not lead to any supernatural transfer to the body of the ascetic. Instead of becoming immediately Christ-​like, he receives written instructions on how to come closer to Christ in his suffering. The Latin Horologium sapientiae, where Suso makes brief reference to the engraved monogram, 47  Suso, Exemplar, 174. For this scene see Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary, 263–​66. 48  Cf. Ruh, “Zur Grundlegung,” 254.

49  Seuse, 144.25–​45.4:  “in einer geischlichen gesihte ein glichnús des gekrúzgeten Cristus in eines Serafins bilde, und daz selb engelschlich Serapfin hate VI vetchen: mit zwain vetchen bedacht es daz hobt, mit zwein die füsse, und mit zwein flog es. An den zwein nidresten vetchen stůnd geschriben:  enpfah liden willeklich; an den mitlesten stůnd also:  trag liden gedulteklich; an den obresten stůnd: lern liden cristförmklich.” English: Suso, Exemplar, 168.

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Figure 13. Christ as seraph: Henry Suso, Exemplar (ca. 1490); Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibl., Cod. 710, fol. 86r. Used with permission.

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also contains no mention of a supernatural inscription, but instead evokes an ennobling of the body: the bloody letters seem to bloom, as on the body of a saint, and to exude immeasurable joy. Here Suso is referring to the Pauline recoding of the Mosaic scene of writing, but not to the Franciscan notion that the “finger of the living God” had imprinted the stigmata on Francis and “the members of his body.”50 In this way the body is portrayed as a medium of salvation, but as a medium that is mainly central in the first phase of spiritual life. Just as the servant has to learn in the subsequent course of the Vita that bodily suffering is only the prelude to an experience of God in which everything—​the body, the senses, the images—​must eventually be left behind, so does the autography scene at the beginning undergo a transformation. At the end of the Exemplar, in the last letter of the Little Book of Letters, Suso places the motif of the Jesus monogram in a broader context. He relates the writing to the words of the bridegroom from the Song of Songs: “Place me like a seal over your heart” (8:6; “pone me ut signaculum super cor tuum”). Like the earlier image of the writing on the heart, his image of the seal combines a concrete and a metaphorical dimension: as a visible authentication, the seal completes the urkúnde (16.2) which the servant has begun with his autography and his sharing of his own (albeit concealed) “autobiography.” It brings the book to a close, and simultaneously transforms it into a sign that mediates salvation, reaching beyond the materiality of processes of writing and inscription. Suso interprets the phrase from the Song of Songs as a reference to the constant presence of God in human existence:  “ald wir gangen, wir essen ald trinken, so sol alwent daz guldin fúrspan IHS uf unser herz gezeichent sin” (392.6f.; “whether we are at rest or going somewhere, whether we are eating or drinking, the golden clasp IHS should be inscribed on our heart”).51 Thus the Jesus monogram is not simply something that is found on a body or on a piece of cloth. It proves to be a sign of life, accompanying and shaping life, and indeed containing and sublating human life itself. From this perspective, the initial autography appears as the concretization of a biblical quotation, as an act performed in the tension-​ filled space between literal and figurative dimensions of meaning. If the signaculum can be both a small sign and an enduring seal, then it is a minnezeichen, in which the writing is also an image, an image that is meant to be sublated by other images—​in the imageless unity of the first, original, and eternal “exemplar.”52

The Writer’s  Body

Suso’s Exemplar is written in the third person throughout. In many respects it does not meet the criteria of an autobiography in the proper sense: we can neither follow how 50  Seuse, Horologium, 596f.:  “ipsius nomen non in tabulis lapideis aut vestimentorum picturis, rubrica vel atramento conscriptis, sed in tabulis carnalibus cordis, atque litteris sangwineis, rosea vernantibus floratura consignatis, se gestare indelebiliter in suis precordiis gaudebat.” 51  Suso, Exemplar, 360.

52  For the question of images see Lentes, “Der mediale Status des Bildes.”

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a subject became what it is at the time of writing, nor is it at all clear that the servant’s account is to be accepted as something that Suso experienced himself. The relationship between the figure and the author is precarious—​as is shown, not least, by the simultaneous highlighting and blurring of authorship. The prologues outline complex textual processes, on the one hand referring to the author’s responsibility for his texts, and on the other hand linking their creation and dissemination to external agencies: God, eternal wisdom, a high-​ranking Dominican theologian, a spiritual daughter, who is not only a (secret) medium of recording, but a figure whose own experiences become important in the second part of the Vita. It seems that it was only in the course of Suso’s reception in the fifteenth century that the identification of the servant with the author became firmly established53—​that is, at a time when Passion piety with its physical excesses was at a peak, but there was also a growing skepticism toward excessive devotion to the physical and material, the visible and tangible. To some extent the body continues to serve as a medium for the manifestation of salvation and doom. In the new, in some cases egocentric forms of chronicle—​descriptions of lives, private letters, wills, commemorative, family and dynastic books, commercial books of accounts etc.—​religious elements are still influential. At times “God [appears] as an active agent” who communicates “with the writer by means of signs manifested on the body”; at times “the imitation of Christ is emphasized by the particular way in which physical suffering is represented.”54 Yet there is no overlooking the fact that the spectacle of the body finds new locations in which it can unfold, and develops new functions. No longer relating solely to the exterior (or not to the same extent), but equally focused on the interior, questions of mechanics, observation, and control begin to feature, alongside the symbolic dimension.55 At the same time, writing about one’s own body gives the option of portraying the subject as a movable relay in the network of energies of the body and the environment, and transforming medical or theological discourses by referring to this subject. A particularly telling example can be found in a humanist context, in which the writer’s own conditions of life, work, and writing become the object of reflection. I will select three authors who were in dialogue with one another in the second and third decades of the sixteenth century:  Willibald Pirckheimer, Ulrich von Hutten, and Erasmus of Rotterdam. They depict the body as one which is plagued by illnesses—​gout, syphilis, or kidney stones—​and which, in the area of tension between the individual and the general, becomes a specific medium of the self. Willibald Pirckheimer’s interest in medicine is attested by letters, but also by glossed manuscripts.56 In Italy he evidently acquired medical knowledge, most notably the humoral conception of the body, popular since antiquity, which posited a direct connection between liquid ratios, illnesses, and mental states. While his correspondence 53  Altrock and Ziegeler, “Vom Diener der Ewigen Weisheit.”

54  Frohne, “Der Blick auf den ‘gebrechenhaften’ Körper,” 210, 218.

55  Cf. Lumme, Höllenfleisch und Heiligtum, and, for the following, Kiening, “Der Körper der Humanisten.” 56  Reicke, “Willibald Pirckheimer und sein Podagra,” 190; Pirckheimer, Briefwechsel, 1:10.

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(especially, from 1505, with Lorenz Beheim, who also suffered from podagra) refers frequently but only briefly to gout,57 a patient’s diary in Latin, kept from 1512 to 1520, contains more detailed information, in each case entered after the end of an attack.58 The main focus here is on the nature of the treatment: rubs and poultices, ointments, oils, and herbs. Laxatives were supposed to bring the humores into balance, but failed due to the “agitation of the undigested juices.”59 As well as inner disorders, the writer describes outer wounds, which are likely to have come from the attempted treatments: On 18 February 1517 a great pain came on in my right foot, with a mighty flow, because the foot was open. I therefore applied various painkillers, but they were no use. Finally I bathed the spot with cloths dipped in lye, and the pain subsided. I was forced to bathe in this way for nearly four days, and because a great deal of matter came off, I did not think that the podagra would come back. Hence I took no pills, but on the third day after the beginning and again after three days I took […], and because I was thirsty and had a desire for wine, I drank wine, and then the podagra came. Hence on the Monday [February 23] I had severe pain, and also on Shrove Tuesday. On the third day, Ash Wednesday, I therefore took pills, abstained from wine, and sprinkled fragrant powder on my head.60

The body Pirckheimer speaks about is a reduced one. Its exterior consists of painful parts: feet, shins, knees, elbows, shoulders. Its interior is determined by the flow of (surplus) fluids, which are able to drain away if remedies are applied successfully, but simply change location if the remedies are unsuccessful: from the knees to the feet, from the neck to the shoulders etc.61 Pirckheimer regards the success or failure of the humoral therapy as dependent on astrological conditions. Like many of his contemporaries, then, he sees the body as part of a universal system of microcosmic and macrocosmic interrelations, which, as the quoted extract suggests, also apply to the concrete influences of eating and drinking on the ratio of the fluids: Pirckheimer was not unfamiliar with the damaging effect of wine consumption on podagra. He does not, however, accept it as a fact. In the preface to the Apologia seu podagrae laus (Praise of the Gout, Nuremberg: Peypus 1522), written shortly after the patient’s diary was discontinued, he calls himself foolish because for seven years he followed the advice of the doctors and abstained from wine. But in the same context he speaks of the “old way of life” which he had been “forced to lead, even against his will,” and which is now evoked by the personification of podagra, justifying itself in front of an imaginary court.62 In fact the speech to the court, which has echoes of Lucian and Erasmus, blames the outbreak of the disease entirely on the immoderate lifestyle of those afflicted, and/​or on hereditary problems passed down by their parents. In this context there is 57  Pirckheimer, Briefwechsel 3, index (entry: Podagra).

58  Extracts from the now lost manuscript can be found in translation in Reicke, “Willibald Pirckheimer und sein Podagra,” 184–​202. 59  Reicke, “Willibald Pirckheimer und sein Podagra,” 191. 60  Reicke, “Willibald Pirckheimer und sein Podagra,” 192. 61  Reicke, “Willibald Pirckheimer und sein Podagra,” 195.

62  In Humanismus und Renaissance, 116–​35, this quote 116.21f. For the traditions and impact of the text see Holzberg, Willibald Pirckheimer, 269–​71.

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no talk of how the disease manifests itself; instead its positive aspects are discussed. According to the text, it frees people from everyday troubles and occupations, gives them rhetorical skills (in inventing excuses) and botanical knowledge (in dealing with medicinal plants), and makes them more aware of the influences of the stars (which they can perceive in their own bodies).63 Above all, however—​according to the final section—​it encourages its sufferers to despise earthly things, to recognize the frailty of the human body, and to focus their mind and soul on higher things. Thus the initial question about the avoidability or unavoidability of the disease is absorbed by a traditional dichotomy, which sees the body as instinctual/​animalistic matter, only allowing the soul to escape from its prison if it is subjected to the rule of the spirit.64 In the Apologia seu podagrae laus, the theological perspective displaces the empirical perspective, and even develops its own version of humorism. When Pirckheimer observes that gout not only domesticates the body, its also extends life by reducing excess fat, consuming moistures, and redirecting “the harmful and rampaging substances” from the vital parts of the organism (brain, heart, liver, stomach) to the peripheral ones (joints),65 this internal circulation no longer has anything to do with the draining of the fluids by means of pills and poultices. Body and disease now remain abstract, and are subordinated to a double morality, which on the one hand criticizes the lifestyle leading to the illness, but on the other hand puts a positive spin on the real-​life consequences arising from it. This is in turn part of a rhetorical game, which reveals itself as such in the internal dynamic of the podagra speech, but also in the opposing tendency of the preface (letter of dedication): there Pirckheimer leaves no doubt that for him personally the ailment cannot be viewed in a straightforwardly positive light.66 The preface is an interface between the private and the public, in which it simultaneously becomes clear that the systematic recording of (physical) symptoms and the rhetorical presentation of (moral) effects are unable to be reconciled. Empirical experience and the allegory of illness only coincide superficially. They do not relate to a common real-​life subject, or to a common body: while the body in the patient’s diary consists only of parts, that in the Apologia exists only as a vanishing point. But even here it becomes apparent, although ex negativo, that the overcoming of the body by the spirit is theoretical in nature, while the autonomy of the body as a reason for existence is practical in nature. Here Pirckheimer’s thinking coincides with that of Hutten, who had 63  Pirckheimer, Apologia, 125–​27.

64  Pirckheimer, Apologia, 128.19–​23:  “Sunt enim corporis sensus tanquam equi quadrigae sine ulla ratione currentes, animus vero instar aurigae currentium frena retinet ac ideo, quemadmodum equi absque rectore praecipites ruunt, ita corpus sine ratione et animi imperio in suum fertur interitum.” 65  Pirckheimer, Apologia, 129.16–​20:  “Deinde et vitam, ut medicorum norunt pueri, prolongo, nisi enim noxiam ac furentem materiam illam ad membrorum articulos impellerem, absque dubio in cerebrum, cor, epar aut stomachum impetum facerent ac perquam facile spiritum extinguerent vitalem.” 66  Pirckheimer, Apologia, 117.4f.: “tantum abest, quo ego ullum Podagrae beneficium agnoscam, ut illam quotidie sentiam molestiorem.”

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written, in his famous letter of justification to the Nuremberg humanist in 1518: “Were it in my power to flee from evils, which would I want to flee sooner than those of the body, I mean the diseases that sometimes move me, but never take me anywhere?”67 Like Pirckheimer, Hutten sees that man does not escape his body, that he is exposed to the consequences of a strenuous way of life even if he strives for moderation in his diet. More clearly than Pirckheimer, however, he observes that the body does not forget: “through study and wanderings [I have] contracted a weakness of the stomach and undermined the health of my body. I have endured many discomforts on my journeys, cold and great heat, hunger and still more often thirst, and have sometimes suffered severe exhaustion while travelling. I also suffered, as a result of the excessive loss of blood from my wounds, a weakening of my body and a diminishing of my innate strength.”68 Hutten knows what he is talking about. The mention of his wounds is a reference to the syphilis which had begun to afflict him in the winter of 1508. The letter itself was written in Augsburg, where he underwent a general course of treatment and first came into contact with guaiacum therapy, which subsequently seemed to offer hope of a cure. In the following year, after (initially) successful treatment, he published a text entitled De Guaiaci medicina et morbo gallico (Mainz: Schöffer 1519), which presents in detail the options for treatment using the Haitian wood.69 The text, which helped to make guaiacum therapy the dominant method for decades, is marked by radical subjectivity. Hutten does not spend much time on either the history or the interpretation of the disease. He does report both the theological hypothesis on the origin of syphilis, which focuses on the sinfulness of humanity and the anger of God, and the astrological theory, which refers to conjunctions between Saturn and Mars and eclipses of the sun.70 He does not unreservedly concur with either of these, however. More important, for him, is the distinction between two phases of the disease, and the weighing up of various expert opinions. The minimum consensus which he retains from these is that the disease is nothing other than “a suppuration of the corrupted blood, which then dries out into ulcers and hard lumps, and has its source in a damaged liver.”71 The general features of the cause and course of syphilis, and of its cure, are mainly of interest insofar as they can be converted into instructions for practice. On the one hand, 67  Ulrich von Hutten, Schriften, 1.195–​217, this quote 206:  “Porro mala si possem fugere, quae vellem prius quam illa corporis; morbos puto qui me aliquando movent, nunquam dimovent?” For more on the text see Peschke, Ulrich von Hutten, 83–​87; for Pirckheimer’s relationship to Hutten see Bernstein, “Willibald Pirckheimer und Ulrich von Hutten,” 11–​36. 68  Ulrich von Hutten, Deutsche Schriften, 206: “studio ac peregrinatione stomachi imbecillitatem contraxerim et corpus infirmum reddiderim; quod et in peregrinatione multa sustinui incommoda, nunc frigus et aestum acerbius, nunc famem et sitim frequentius, aliquando nimiam itinerando fatigationem perpessus. Quae propter ob nimium e vulneribus emissum sanguinem virium corporis exinanitio, et nativi roboris attenuatio accessit.” 69  Latin text in Ulrich von Hutten, Schriften, 5.399–​497. For text and context see Peschke, Ulrich von Hutten, 163–​95 and elsewhere Rueb, Der hinkende Schmiedegott Vulkan, 161–​82. 70  Cf. Müller-​Jahncke, “Die Krankheit aus dem Gestirn,” 117–​27.

71  Ulrich von Hutten, De Guaiaci medicina, cap. 2, §4 (404.21–​5.3).

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Hutten is not concerned with the theory, but with the experience of disease; on the other hand he is not interested in the reason for the therapy, but in whether it works. Again and again, references to experientia and to the author as expertus support criticism of mere assumptions or of scholarly opinions that are far removed from actual practice. Conventional medicine is judged by the extent to which it coincides with personal experience. Like Pirckheimer, Hutten is skeptical about the doctors of his time—​though he does recommend that guaiacum therapy should not be undertaken without medical supervision. And like Pirckheimer, his ideas on disease and therapy are based on a humoral model: for treatment, he recommends that various aspects be taken into account, corresponding to the sex res non naturales of Hippocratic–​Galenic dietetics:  climate, diet, excretion, movement, sleep and mental state, and also the choice of season.72 The basic idea is that influencing the outward circumstances, reducing food intake, draining bodily fluids and taking the guaiacum drink will restore the balance of the fluids, with visual judgment being critical here. Thus the humoral model is also related to the forms of the writer’s own experience; the symptoms of the illness and the consequences of an overdose of mercury treatment are drastically demonstrated on his own body. Hutten describes the beginning of the illness in his left foot, its continuation in the inflamed, putrid abscesses on his shin, and the way it spread over his whole body: My left armpit also hurt, so that I could no longer raise my arm, and the shoulder became numb, with no sensation, and in the middle of the muscle was a lump the size of an egg, while the rest of the arm, down to the hand, was completely atrophied. I also had an abscess on my right side below the bottom rib, which did not hurt, but from which foul-​ smelling pus flowed, and dirty fluid. It was formed like a fistula, with a narrow opening on the outside, but a wide cavity on the inside. Above this abscess was another lump, again so hard that it looked as though an extra lump had grown out of the rib there. Lastly, somewhat behind the top of my head, I had a painful, suppurating opening, which was, from the start, so sensitive that even at the slightest touch my head hurt as though I had received a blow to the skull. Furthermore, if I wanted to look behind me I could only turn around with my whole body.73

What Pirckheimer only confided in his private patient’s diary, Hutten makes public. At the same time he describes what he perceives with greater exactitude:  the segments of the body come together—​in line with the spread of the disease—​to form a more or less coherent continuum; the wounds become distinguishable by means of comparisons; the real-​world connections are more than just loose points of reference. The body appears not as a collection of parts, but as a sensorimotor and psychomotor unit, dependent on diet, movement, and activity. It features as both an individual and a general, a private and a public entity. Hutten seems to be laying himself open to scrutiny, but at the same time he is turning himself into a model, an exemplary display of symptoms and treatments. By establishing personal experience as the benchmark for medical judgment, he allows each individual to follow this himself. Four years after expressing the hope that the guaiacum 72  Peschke, Ulrich von Hutten, 190f.

73  Ulrich von Hutten, De Guaiaci medicina, cap. 25, §10–​12 (484.13–​22).

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treatment would allow him to “live for many more years, fresh and healthy” (cap. 25, §15), he died; this did not, however, diminish the impact of his text.

Self-​Observation

At the time of the publication of the guaiacum text, Hutten was still good friends with Erasmus of Rotterdam. A few years later, the relationship had changed.74 In Spongia adversus aspergines Ulrici Hutteni, published in 1524, a year after Hutten’s death, Erasmus paints the Frankish knight in the worst possible light, starting with the physical: marked by disease, disfigured by “a mutilated nose, rashes on his hands, a purulent discharge from the nose and both ears.”75 Explaining why he did not receive Hutten in Basel, he mentions as one of his reasons the different conditions they require for living: he himself cannot bear heated rooms, even in winter, while warmth is precisely what Hutten needs; so if Hutten can stand the cold in his sitting room, he will gladly receive him.76 The difference in their political-​religious position is manifested in the difference between their bodies and the spaces in which they exist. Five years earlier, in his text on syphilis, Hutten had made amicable mention of Erasmus as an example of the positive effect of daily massage: it was to this, he said, that the humanist owed the relative health of his inherently weak body (“valde imbecillis alioqui corporis”; cap. 26, §36, 493.4f.). This did in fact reflect Erasmus’s own view of himself.77 Again and again, his letters express the awareness that he is afflicted by a sickly constitution. They tell of the monastery-​school pupil who could not cope with fasting, but struggled with stomach aches and a weak heart;78 the cosmopolitan traveller who sprains a vertebra while riding and thinks himself close to death;79 the ageing humanist who suffers increasingly from the inclemencies of the climate and changes of air.80 Erasmus describes his own body as a corpusculum, a “little body,” which is—​for this very reason—​an individual entity (“hoc corpusculum est singulare”; EE, 8.440.4). It must be carefully tended, and its instability must be compensated for in conditions based on long experience. A detailed letter from Erasmus to Beatus Rhenanus (ca. October 15, 1518) shows the direct impact of travel-​related disturbance, unfavourable weather, and poor nutrition.81 74  Cf. Honemann, “Erasmus von Rotterdam und Ulrich von Hutten,” 61–​86. 75  Rueb, Der hinkende Schmiedgott Vulkan, 258.

76  Erasmus, Spongia, 124.41–​44:  “libens cum illo confabulor vsque ad satietatem et curabimus vit sit luculentus focus” (see also introduction, 93–​114, for the relationship between Erasmus and Hutten).

77  Cf. Huizinga, Europäischer Humanismus, 106f., and for example Zweig, Triumph und Tragik, 51–​59.

78  Erasmus, Opus epistolarum (subsequently abbreviated to EE) 2, no.  447 (August 1516, to Lambertus Grunnius); cf. also EE 11, no. 3049 (August 31, 1535, to Peter Tomiczki), p. 220. 79  EE 2, no. 301 (August 30, 1514, to William Blount), pp. 5–​7. 80  EE 11, no. 3049, p. 220.

81  EE 3, no. 867, pp. 392–​401. English: Erasmus, The Correspondence: Letters 842 to 992, pp. 113–​26.

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A long drive to Aachen in a carriage and pair, in stormy wind and drizzle, leads to exhaustion, and the cold carp ravenously devoured in the evening leads to an upset stomach. Experience has shown that the only remedy is warm gruel. Nonetheless, after a two-​ day stay Erasmus rides on to Maastricht and Tongeren—“with incredible torment of my whole body” (Latin p.  398, line 167; “incredibili totius corporis cruciatu”).82 His liver and kidneys hurt, excessively vigorous rubbing in the abdominal area (“to provoke a movement of the bowels”) leads to inflammation, combined with swelling of the lymph nodes in the groin, and in addition his eyes react with sensitivity to “exposure to the cold weather” (Latin p. 399, lines 175f.). The state of suffering reaches its culmination in Leuven, the destination of the journey. Several abscesses have opened up, various doctors diagnose the plague. Erasmus, however, is unwilling to accept their verdict, which he considers superficial, and cites numerous counter-​arguments:  the inflammation and vomiting did not come of their own accord, but could be explained by the circumstances, and his urine shows no signs of pestilence. There is still the worrying possibility, though, that the horse might have caused an infection. In the end, abandoned by the doctors, the humanist places his trust only in “Christ the great physician” (Latin p. 400, line 233), and overcomes the crisis: “If it was indeed plague, I drove the plague away at the cost of great effort and discomfort and determination; for often a great part of any disease is our fancy that we have it.”83 The self-​confidence is retrospective, legitimated by the apparently successful self-​medication. It nonetheless marks two premises that are central for Erasmus: the assumption that illnesses have their origins in a psychosomatic, situational complex of causes, and the certainty that this complex can most readily be analyzed by the patient himself. The prerequisite for this, however, is precise (self-​)observation. Only this makes it possible to develop meaningful hypotheses about the origin of a disease and appropriate ways to treat it. Erasmus therefore keeps a meticulous record of his medical history. In a letter to the personal physician of Thomas Wolsey, Johann Francis (October 1526), he describes in detail the kidney stones that have troubled him for years, and reconstructs the central moment in the course of the illness: But lately I felt on the tip of my penis the sort of sensation we often experience as children when exposed to the wind. It is generally known as “chilly urine.” I  suspect the trouble began when I stayed out too long after sunset talking in the open air. I applied camomile oil to the belly below the navel—​that is usually effective—​and I felt no discomfort after that. Then one day, when I was having a cheerful dinner with my friends, I drank, contrary to my usual custom, half a pint of Burgundy mixed with water in the manner described above. As I discovered later, the wine had been hung up but had not settled. After my first sleep I passed water in a great burst, the passage was badly swollen and the pain was excruciating. I did not feel it in the side, where it is usually most severe, but in the bladder and the muscles of the penis. A great quantity of stones, both big and small, and a lot of matter came out with the urine, causing lesions in the passage. This

82  English: Erasmus, The Correspondence: Letters 842 to 992, 120

83  EE 3, no. 867, p. 401, lines 250–52: “Si pestis fuit, peste eam labore et incommoditate animique robore depuli: quando saepenumero magna morbi pars est morbi imaginatio.” Erasmus, The Correspondence: Letters 842 to 992, 125.

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happened more than ten times during the night, though there was no pain in the stomach. I did not preserve the urine, which I now regret. I kept what I passed in the morning—​it looks like milk mixed with bits of stone. The matter was like chalk. All this time the pain in the bladder was most disagreeable.84

Erasmus surrenders himself unsparingly to the medical gaze. He depicts a body in motion, a body of autonomous processes which cannot be controlled but can be logically analyzed, a body that acquires clearer contours than Hutten’s syphilis-​afflicted body because the states of pain have become more nuanced, the historical-​biographical circumstances more concrete. Erasmus dynamizes the illness by making it present in a real-​life snapshot. Unlike Hutten, he no longer focuses solely on the elimination or reduction of the physical disorder, but also on its origin and logic. On the one hand he refers to a situation more than twenty years earlier, in which his stomach had been compressed when he was forced to return to his writing desk immediately after eating: “I suspect that, as a consequence, my stomach expels the food in a half-​digested state, and that the spirits are driven off to another part of the body. This explains why the stone does not grow large.”85 On the other hand, he observes a direct connection between the movement of the stones and the kind of wine he drinks. The light, diluted imported wine that he enjoyed in moderation over a period of months brought relief, but did not have the same effect on the passing of the stones as the heavy burgundy: “So I dismissed the doctors and as a last resort decided on a moderate regime. I drink Burgundy, but in small quantities and only when it is old, and I compensate for its age by adding a lot of sugar and liquorice boiled in water. My stomach has now improved and so has my brain, which was exhausted by the frequent vomiting. My urine is still clouded and chalky and there are stones in it, but too small to cause the usual torture. I prefer this chronic discomfort to the sort of pain that is intermittent but unbearable.”86 The humanist who keeps and analyzes his urine becomes the physician of his own body. He does not supply his English friend, the professional medicus, with a collection of symptoms, but with elements of diagnosis and therapy. In doing so, however, he avoids the traditional humoral classification, which drew an (apparently) causal link between the imbalance of the fluids and the diseases of the body, in favour of an organological introspection, which exactly locates infections and disorders of the metabolism in the real world. There is no talk in Erasmus’s letters of blockage or drainage of fluids, nor of the administration of enemas, a frequent remedy of Pirckheimer’s. If he does assist the emptying of his stomach, it is only to dispel nausea. In Erasmus’s writings, as in Hutten’s, all dealings with the body are based on experience. Unlike Hutten, however, Erasmus not only considers current symptoms, but is genuinely 84  EE 6, no. 1759, pp. 422f., lines 15–​30. English: Erasmus, The Correspondence: Letters 1658 to 1801, p. 379.

85  EE 6, no.  1759, p.  424, lines 64–​66:  “suspicor stomachum cibum semicoctum coepisse deiicere, spiritibus alio vocatis, itaque fieri vt calculus non concrescat in magnitudinem.” The Correspondence: Letters 1658 to 1801, p. 381. 86  EE 6, no. 1759, p. 423, lines 34–​41. The Correspondence: Letters 1658 to 1801, 379.

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interested in the physical nature of human existence. As a sensorium that reacts directly to deviations in diet and changes in the weather, the body is a burden: not only—​as emphasized in the Enchiridion militis christiani—​does it hinder humans on their path to salvation, but more importantly, as the letters show, it makes it harder for the scholar to devote himself to science.87 Both Erasmus and Hutten show an awareness of being bound to their own weakness, at the mercy of their own bodies, but in Erasmus’s work this is expressed in ironic rather than grim self-​presentation. In a caricature at the edge of a page of manuscript he sketches “his silhouette, the big nose, the wide mouth, the eyes reddened from a cold and even the drop hanging from his nose.”88 In a letter to Pirckheimer he speaks jokingly of podagra and kidney stones as the sisters they have each married. On the other hand, however, he compares the passing of stones with a strange act of birth: “women become sterile with advancing years, old age makes me more fertile.”89 The play with gender differences and gender transgressions indicates that aspects of the subject’s identity are also at stake in the discourse on illness. The illnesses from which Pirckheimer, Hutten, and Erasmus suffer all have, albeit in different ways, something to do with male sexuality. Pirckheimer talks about how podagra keeps its sufferers away from unchastity, whoring, and adultery, and even inspires an aversion to the female sex;90 Hutten urges those afflicted by syphilis to abstain from sexual intercourse, so as not to endanger the healing process;91 Erasmus excludes himself from the system of desire when he thinks of himself as married to the illness, which simultaneously—​in a seamless imitation of the sequence of conception, labour, and birth—​turns him into a “woman.” In each case the illness becomes an integral element of the sufferer’s life history, and corporeality the condicio sine qua non of his way of life. The quest for a remedy establishes the body as the medium that can occasionally be silenced, but cannot be made to disappear. If we believe that the history of bodily awareness or bodily sensation begins only with the idea that “through nervous information, […] the body [is] capable of modifying the activity of the soul and, in turn, of being modified by the soul,”92 then none of the authors discussed here has a place in this history. If, however, we investigate the modalities of self-​observation, the rejection of both the theological model of the body as an ambivalent medium of salvation, and the medical model of “transmission of information” by way of fluids, then we can at least see signs of a potential new discourse here, a 87  The letter to Rhenanus (EE 3, no. 867) makes multiple references to the editing work on the New Testament, which depended on Erasmus’s state of health (p. 396, lines 76f.; p. 400, lines 235f.). 88  Newald, Erasmus Roterodamus, 255; illustration in Gail, Erasmus von Rotterdam, 137.

89  EE 6, no. 1558 (March 14, 1525), p. 47, lines 118f. English: Erasmus, The Correspondence: Letters 1535–​1657, 69; see also EE 6, no. 1759, p. 422, lines 5f.: “nec erat parturiendi, pariendi, concipiendi finis.” For the relationship between Erasmus and Pirckheimer see Eckert, “Erasmus von Rotterdam und Willibald Pirkheimer,” 11–​22; Holzberg, Willibald Pirckheimer, index (entry: Erasmus). 90  Pirckheimer, Apologia, 130.22–​28 (Eckert and Imhoff, Willibald Pirckheimer, 214f.). 91  Ulrich von Hutten, De Guaiaci medicina, esp. cap. 26, §3f., §43f. 92  Starobinski, “A Short History,” 23, with reference to Descartes.

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discourse in which the suffering body does not lose its individuality, but gains an exemplary status in dealing with pain.93 The interest in controlling pain and understanding the logic of bodily processes does not lead to a technical-​functionalist understanding of the body. The desire to look at the skin and under the skin, to “uncover” wounds, abscesses, cramps, and internal injuries does not yet follow the idea that the body is a stringently constructed machine—​an idea that Leonardo was testing in the same period in his graphic analogies, that Descartes would develop a century later in his interpretation of pain as a trigger for protective and defensive reactions, and that La Mettrie would radicalize, another century later, in his reduction of the mind or spirit to the mechanics of physiology. In the writings of Erasmus and his circle, the observation and documentation of the body makes virtually no attempt to gain confirmation from a general mechanics. Instead it archives bodily states in conjunction with models of action, all of which aim more at concrete diagnostics than abstract analytics. The categories of description that are used here are scarcely new in themselves. What is new is that they only have value insofar as they are applicable to the individual case. Talk about the body remains tied to the conditions of the literary public sphere. But it begins to change these, in the sense that the intimate (within its boundaries in each case) appears as that which is actually human, and the elaboration of the body simultaneously serves to valorize individual experience and real-​life authenticity. This creates a terrain on which the internal dynamics of the physical can evolve—​to the point where Michel de Montaigne, in his Essais (first published in 1580), will say that he wishes to lay bare not only his skin, but what lies under it, in order to reveal the core of his being; he wants to focus the dissecting gaze on himself, and to make this self, in the unity of body and mind, of sensation, feeling, and thought, the matière of his book: “Je m’estalle entier: c’est un skeletos où, d’une veuë, les veines, les muscles, les tendons paroissent, chaque pièce en son siège. L’effect de la toux en produisoit une partie; l’effect de la palleur ou battement de coeur, un’autre, et doubteusement. Ce ne sont mes gestes que j’escris, c’est moy, c’est mon essence” (“I expose myself entire: my portrait is a cadaver on which the veins, the muscles, and the tendons appear at a glance, each part in its place. One part of what I am was produced by a cough, another by a pallor or a palpitation of the heart—​in any case dubiously. It is not my deeds that I write down; it is myself, it is my essence”).94 Once printed, this self-​exposure surrenders itself to an anonymous public, and at the same time withdraws from this public. Despite the introductory warning that the book satisfies nothing but a domestic and private interest,95 the body is by no means ruthlessly exposed by an unobstructed gaze, but is repeatedly veiled in generalizing reflection. It presents itself as an anatomical model. Where overly intimate matters from the area of sexuality are touched on, Montaigne switches to Latin quotes from classical authors.96 93  Cf. Toellner, “Der Körper des Menschen,” here 140f.

94  Michel de Montaigne, Œuvres complètes, 359 (2.6: De l’exercitation); English: Montaigne, The Complete Essays of Montaigne, 274; cf. Starobinski, Montaigne en mouvement. 95  Montaigne, Œuvres complètes, 9 (Au lecteur): “Il [le livre] t’advertit dés l’entrée, que je ne m’y suis proposé aucune fin, que domestique et privée.” 96  Starobinski, Montaigne en mouvement.

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The detailed account of bodily complaints and diseases which he confides in the little notes of his mémoire de papier (3.13, p. 1071) is not included in the Essais. The Journal de voyage which he kept in 1580/​1581 on his journey through Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, a document rich in self-​observation, remained unprinted in his lifetime. As a medium, the body alternates between revealing and concealing. Writing about it is an opportunity to enrich the text with the truth that always seems to elude it because of its written nature; it is a paradoxical opportunity, however, because the very body that the text claims to authentically depict owes its discursive existence to the text.

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MATERIALITY

Materiality and Transcendence In the Middle Ages material circumstances were crucial for the media forms used for archiving, storage, and transmission: texts, images, and objects were not simply seen as interchangeable information carriers, but as specifically given entities. Similarly, perception and recognition were not viewed as purely abstract processes, but as operations involving interactions between the objects and the mind, which were themselves connected via mediating agencies. In accordance with the Scholastic axiom that there is nothing in the intellect or mind that is not first in the senses (“nihil in intellectu/​ mente quod non prius fuit in sensu”), the external senses were regarded as the foundation for all knowledge. Among them, the sense of touch (tactus) was the lowest, but at the same time the most fundamental and intense.1 On the one hand it was indispensable; on the other hand it relied on the higher senses, which allowed greater proximity to the divine: vision, for example, which was itself conceived as a relation of exchange between the sense of sight, the eye, light, and objects.2 In general, processes of transmission and transfer were linked with elements of contact and proximity, even if they took place across large spaces and over long periods of time. The work of the senses was conceived of as that of messengers, taking the data gathered in the outside world into the human interior. The exchange of information was seen as an exchange between individuals, indeed between bodies. The question of whether or not the content of a piece of writing was faithfully reproduced or passed on thus depended largely on those who had possession of it, delivered it, or made it known. The idea that a medium embodies someone who is absent was omnipresent. In Chaucer’s account of a dream vision, Hous of Fame, which I will discuss in more detail below, we encounter the notion that every word spoken anywhere is materialized in the House of Fame in the form of the person who spoke it: “That spak the word, that thou wilt gesse | That hit the same body be” (lines 1080f.). Certainly the materiality of the vox or of the imagines plays a crucial role in communication via words or images; if it is to lead to higher insights, however, it cannot function without an inner organ (verbum cordis, imago animae). The workings of the memory, but also those of texts and visual works, are described in accordance with the model of the imprint. The most prominent example of this is the seal: the impressio guarantees a non-​ contingent relationship between two entities, one in which the substance of the form is 1  Lechtermann, “Berührt werden.”

2  Lindberg, Theories of Vision; for the outer and inner senses see Camille, “Before the Gaze”; Largier, “Inner Senses.”

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preserved and at least a basic sameness can be produced.3 This can be seen as a two-​way relationship: moulded by the divine creator, man for his part—​as stated in reflections on the Passion, for example—​is expected to strive to “press” himself into the divine, that is, to become as similar to it as possible.4 The tension between emphasis on what is sensorially given and its transformation recurs with regard to existing materials, especially precious ones.5 Gemstones and pearls are highly prized; they are regarded as miraculous because they appear to shine without exposure to light.6 Also highly prized are gold, silver, and bronze, marble, glass, and corals, ivory, mother of pearl, and purple cloth.7 Their distinctiveness or rarity leads to associations with the divine, though neither their material value nor their brilliance are seen as salvific in themselves.8 What is crucial is meaningfulness, the possibility of appealing—​by means of material, colour, light, or smell—​not only to the senses but to the mind or spirit, leading it beyond earthly things. The classic phrases on this subject come from the late classical writings of Pseudo-​Dionysius, which were translated into Latin in the early Middle Ages, among others by John Scotus Eriugena. The text on the Celestial Hierarchies (De caelesti hierarchia) sets out the diverse forms of dissimilar similarity in which the earthly and celestial are related to each other. The “immaterial hierarchies” become tangible “in material forms and composite shapes.” The “pleasant smells perceptible to the senses” could be considered “as types of spiritual aura, and material lights as a symbol of immaterial illumination.” The “super-​celestial spirits” are presented “in images perceptible to the senses, by means of the outlines drawn in the Holy Scriptures,” in order to “lead [people] upwards to the spiritual by means of the sensory, and from the sacredly outlined symbols to the simple peaks of the celestial hierarchies.”9 The material must be adapted so that its meaningfulness can emerge. Just as, according to medieval thinking, primary matter must be formed by God or nature, and poetic materia must be subjected to rhetorical forma, so too must raw materials be processed and refined. Ovid had already noted, with reference to the doors of the Palace of Apollo, that their material was valuable, but that this value was surpassed by that of 3  Bedos-​Rezak, When Ego was Imago.

4  For a general account of the tension between materiality and immateriality in the context of the medieval church, see Matérialité et immatérialité. 5  For a general treatment see Robertson, “Medieval Things.” 6  Suckale, “Gotik als Architektur des Lichts.”

7  Büttner, Perlmutt; Reudenbach, “ ‘Gold ist Schlamm’ ”; Lutz, “ ‘Der dumpfe Geist’ ”; for textual materialities see Materiale Textkulturen.

8  For the problematic materiality of the religious image see Rimmele, “Der Körper des Bildes Gottes.”

9  Iohannes Scotus Eriugena, Expositiones, 12–​18 (cap.  1, lines 435f., 519f., 531f., 615–19): “immateriales ierarchias materialibus figuris et formalibus compositionibus […] sensibiles suauitates figuras inuisibilis distributionis […] [e]‌t immaterialis luculentie imaginem materialia lumina […] sensibilibus imaginibus supercelestes descripsit intellectus in sacroscriptis eloquiorum compositionibus, quatenus nos reduceret per sensibilia in intellectualia, et ex sacre figuratis symbolis in simplas celestium ierarchiarum summitates”; Dionysius, Hierarchien, chap. 1, §3.

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the workmanship (“opere superante materiam”; Metamorphoses 2:5). In the Middle Ages this was adopted or adapted in different ways—​and at times a preference for the simple and the reduced could seem a better fit for the divine. Cistercian churches were expected to remain free of painting and decoration; the only exception was representations of Christ. The grisaille technique was used for glass windows; the compositions of vegetal ornaments, standing out from the milky-​white base colour, came to be seen as especially precious. The period after 1300 saw a general rise in the demand for monochrome painting: combining effects of differentiation and accentuation, it seemed to be a means of approximating the simplicity of the apostolic ideal, paralleling the contemporary ideal of fasting.10 Thus not only the use of materials but also the (apparent) choice not to use them could be charged with meaning. And in each case this led to a new oscillation between material manifestations and a spirituality that transcended the material.11 Let us take a striking example: the massive cast bronze church doors which began to appear in large numbers in the High Middle Ages. One of the earliest examples, the door of Hildesheim Cathedral (1015), shows a subtle play of materiality and immateriality.12 The two wings depict the history of human salvation (and doom) from the creation of man to the death of Abel, and from the Annunciation to the resurrection of Christ. They present this history as a process of divine–​human mediation, materialized in the motif of the hand: the creating, judging hand of God, the welcoming hands of Christ and the angels, the hands of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. Between them all are the large door knockers, which refer to both the concrete use of the door and its metaphorical dimension—​evident in the representation of (half-​)open gates and passageways. In this way visitors and viewers at the threshold of the salvific space are confronted with the representation of a threshold, which connects the spatial with the supra-​spatial and the temporal with the supra-​temporal. And at the very point where the doors open and efface themselves as doors, they themselves appear as a medium—​between outside and inside, the tangible and the intangible, the given abundance of meaning and the promised abundance of salvation, the materiality of Christ and the withdrawal of his body. Other medieval threshold objects function in a similar way. Baptismal fonts mark the entry into the community of salvation and the institution of the church, in the form of a material object. This preserves the medium of salvation that is the consecrated water, and is part of a ritual in which the original ritual of Christ’s baptism in the River Jordan is repeated. The fonts are thus located at the intersection between the historicity of baptism as the foundational institution of Christian community, and the fullness of truth in the eschatological, supra-​temporal community. At the same time, they allude to this intersection in the scenes they show. At least this applies to the early baptismal font in Liège (probably from between 1107 and 1118).13 It is (or was originally) supported by twelve bronze 10  Cf. Krieger, Grisaille als Metapher; Michler, “Materialsichtigkeit”; Brahms, Zwischen Licht und Schatten. 11  Raff, “Materia superat opus.”

12  Bogen, “Türen auf Bildertüren.”

13  Reudenbach, Taufbecken; Raff, “Materia superat opus”; Études sur les fonts baptismaux.

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oxen, which metonymically evoke the molten sea described in 1 Kings 7:23 in connection with Solomon’s construction of the temple—​as a figural model that is simultaneously sublated and surpassed, realized and reflected in this font. It is reflected, for example, by the representation of scenes of baptism: Christ’s baptism is framed by other scenes showing the spread of baptism and thus of Christianity through the Jewish and Greco-​Roman, the profane and sacred world. These events are presented in three dimensions, protruding from the side of the font; at the same time they are given greater weight by the aura of the writing that surrounds the figures. Written documents prove that Peter and John are authoritative witnesses to the divine word; inscriptions make the word of the evangelists present, and the performative act of salvation comprehensible (ego vos baptizo). The font refers to a past work of art and of salvation, to a famous place of salvation (the Temple of Solomon), and to salvific acts, all of which are integrated into a performative act of meaning, which both displays and transcends its medial dimension. Horizontally and vertically, the earthly spread of the divine Logos unfolds as a convergence of symbolically generalized media (baptism, water, spirit) and media related to dissemination (sermon, scroll, book). At the same time, the oscillation between materiality and symbolism fuels the hope that the font itself, as a medium, can not merely show the giving of salvation, but allow the faithful to participate in it. A contemporary chronicle sums this up, linking the material and the subject matter (materia) of the baptismal font with the mystery of salvation performed in the baptismal church: “Materia est de mysterio | quod tractatur in baptisterio.”14

Materials—​Circulations—​Intensifications

The efforts to bring together materiality and transcendence reach a high point in the work of Suger of St. Denis (near Paris).15 In 1122 Suger was appointed abbot of the royal abbey and burial place. He rapidly initiated a radical reform of monastic life and of the liturgy, and devoted himself to the economic and administrative consolidation of the abbey. He secured, renewed, and expanded the church’s possessions, and renewed and expanded the Carolingian/​Norman abbey church, which was dedicated to Saint Dionysius. The western façade was completed in 1137; all three portals were given richly decorated display zones; the accentuated central portal evokes an entrance into the heavenly Jerusalem. In 1140 the new choir was completed. In contrast to the previous architectural tradition, its irregular ribbed vault combined the ambulatory and the apse chapels in a unified space. After 1144 the church was given a different kind of keystone: Suger wrote a text which, in the only extant manuscript (thirteenth century), bears a title added in the fifteenth century, Gesta Suggeris abbatis. And indeed this text is concerned with Suger’s deeds and achievements.16 Usually referred to by researchers 14  Études sur les fonts baptismaux, 22. 15  Cf. Büchsel, Geburt der Gotik.

16  Suger von Saint-​Denis, Ausgewählte Schriften (quoted with section and line numbers); for the background to the tradition see Linscheid-​Burdich, Suger von Saint-​Denis; for the question of the materia see Claussen, “materia und opus.”

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Figure 14. Bernward of Hildesheim, door of Hildesheim Cathedral (ca. 1015); replica, Adolphus Busch Hall—​Harvard University—​Cambridge, MA, USA. https://​commons. wikimedia.org/​wiki/​File:Bronze_​doors_​in_​the_​west_​portal_​of_​Hildesheim_​Cathedral,_​ 1015_​AD,_​plaster_​replica_​c._​1901-​1903_​-_​ ​Adolphus_​Busch_​Hall_​-_​ ​Harvard_​University_​-​_​ DSC05712.jpg (accessed January 22, 2019). Public domain.

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as De administratione, it records his endeavours in relation to the monastery’s property and the abbey church, supplementing the document of decree (Ordinatio) and the report on the consecration of the church and the relics (De consecratione). It reveals the intentions behind the design and furnishing of the church, most notably the desire to create a new Temple of Solomon, dominated by light—​refracted through the stained-​ glass windows—​as the central medium of the divine.17 Suger undertakes to document and contextualize the exuberant splendour of the building and the objects found in it—​but also to transcend this. He creates a monumental document of authentication for an equally monumental reliquary.18 Informed by an underlying awareness that the abundance of mediations of the divine manifested in the building cannot possibly be captured in writing, the text nonetheless embodies the hope of giving coherence to all the things that are difficult to see in full or to experience in detail—​not least in the subject responsible for the building. This subject places himself at the centre of the text, making himself the focal point of a work that—​reflecting the multiplicity of forms in the building—​includes a wide range of genres: a list of the possessions of the abbey (increased by Suger) and the associated revenues, an overview of the building works, a compilation of the newly acquired or altered treasures, a metatext on the documents and texts produced in the framework of the organization of property and the expansion of the church, a commentary on the significance of individual elements of the church (in terms of salvation history), a narratio of Suger’s work for the abbey, and an account of the miracles that attest (or are meant to attest) to the ennobling of this work.19 At the heart of this is a fascinating question: how could a church be turned into a place of salvation, making extensive use of the media of salvation? But there is also a concern: how can the giving of salvation be put on a permanent footing? At the beginning of the text we read that pen and ink are meant to help commit the renovations, conceived of as memorial acts, to the memoria of later generations (posteritas, successores). They are a means of giving the laborious and expensive efforts a different kind of permanence to that of stone or gold: they can provide the story that the concrete objects are not able to tell. They can charge these things with meaning, beyond their purely material manifestation. And they can convert the economic processes into a different kind of economy.20 The general tenor of the first part of the text is that Suger has counteracted the imminent abandonment, dereliction, and decline of the church’s property with an effort at expansion (augmentatio, incrementum). Through more effective administration, he has succeeded in repaying debts, redeeming pledges, and revising rents. New vineyards have been planted, new villages founded, new subdivisions made. Countless new sources of income have been created. They form the material basis for the expansion of the church. But according to the logic of the text they also have two other effects: they constitute 17  Cf. Suckale, “Gotik als Architektur des Lichts.”

18  See Chaganti, Medieval Poetics of the Reliquary.

19  For more on this kind of account book see Berkhofer, Day of Reckoning.

20  For sacred economics in the monastic context see Kehnel, “Heilige Ökonomie.”

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a link with the church’s treasures, whose elaborate creation (or restoration) is also assessed in monetary terms. And they lend argumentative support to the rightness of a procedure that transforms revenue in two respects:  horizontally, into expenditure on the church, which is, however, linked with the restoration of the property of Saint Dionysius; vertically, into earnings of a different kind, namely divine proofs of grace and miracles. Thus economic transactions turn into trans-​economic circulations; monetary payments into earthly and celestial gifts (donum, munus), unidirectional “upgrades” into complex relations of inclusion and participation. What emerges is a network of mutually supporting “building blocks,” which lend spiritual sublimity to the material structure. Ostentation and transformation of the church’s materiality go hand in hand. At every opportunity Suger emphasizes both the costliness and the preciousness of the materials used. On the altar in the upper choir, the frontal is said to have cost an estimated forty-​ two gold marks. At the same time, he writes, the abundance of stones, engraved gems, jacinths, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, topazes, and pearls, from rings donated by worldly and ecclesiastical dignitaries, exceeded all expectations (nos. 193–​96). Yet the material has no self-​efficacy. It wondrous radiance is only perfected when it is formed (“tam forma quam materia mirabile”; no. 218, lines 988f.). It is refined by skilled craftsmanship (“materiam superabat opus”; no. 218, lines 988f.). And it is reliant on having its deeper meanings explained:  with the naked eye, says Suger, it was possible to recognize the complexity of the materials, but not the work per se, whose figurality was only apparent to the learned. This is why he arranged for the installation of the tituli, which he now records meticulously in De administratione.21 These tituli contain instructions on how the work and its materials are to be received, following an Augustinian theory of signs, according to which the human longing for salvation is satisfied more by that which is designated than by that which designates:22 a prioritizing of signified over signifier. This applies even to the medium which, for Suger, embodies the divine like no other: light. He writes that he had a text inscribed on the door, expressing the hope that the brilliant appearance of the church might enlighten the observer and lead him to the true, supersensory light, to Christ, who is at the same time the true door to the kingdom of heaven. This suggests that the material is necessary so the spirit will rise up (surgit). This rising up, however, simultaneously leads it beyond the material—​back to itself and to Christ (resurgit).23 In keeping with this, the sight of the material splendour is able to appeal to the outer senses and at the same time lead toward the inner ones. Yet this is only the first step in the movement of transcendence. With regard to his own person, Suger writes: 21  No. 220, lines 993–​97. For the verse inscriptions see Linscheid-​Burdich in Suger von Saint-​ Denis: Ausgewählte Schriften, 112–​46. 22  Inscription on the gold altar frontal in the upper choir: “Significata magis significante placent” (no. 197, line 886).

23  No. 174, lines 778–​83: “Nobile claret opus, sed opus, quod nobile claret, | Clarificet mentes, ut eant per lumina uera | Ad uerum lumen, ubi Christus ianua uera. | Quale sit intus, in his determinat aurea porta. | Mens hebes ad uerum per materialia surgit | Et demersa prius hac uisa luce resurgit.”

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Sometimes when, because of my delight in the beauty of the house of God, the multicolour loveliness of the gems has called me away from external cares, and worthy meditation, transporting me from material to immaterial things (de materialibus ad immaterialia transferendo), has persuaded me to examine the diversity of holy virtues, then I seem to see myself existing on some level, as it were, beyond our earthly one, neither completely in the slime of the earth nor completely in the purity of heaven. By the gift of God I can be transported in an anagogical manner from this inferior level to that superior one.24

The anagogical experience of the ascent from the world of the heterogeneous to the world of the One is meant to be possible from any point of the material, visible, audible work. Yet it needs to be mediated by the text, which is able to show the specific spatial and temporal interweaving of material facts and transcendent meanings. This, however, makes it more than a mere supplement to the administration of the abbey and the construction of the church. The danger here is that the resources used in the building of the church could be exhausted by sensory/​material elements, and that the effort and expense invested in media could fail to achieve transcendence. In response to this, Suger creates an archive of the things he has done to generate meaning and salvation. This archive fulfils several purposes. It connects to an authoritative past (Christ, Dionysius, Dagobert, Charlemagne). It preserves historical events. And it seeks to use remembrance in prayer as a means of ensuring the future of the community and the individual in salvation history. In this way the lack that characterizes writing, in comparison to the abundance of the material forms of manifestation, is compensated for by charging it with materiality, which is simultaneously able to transform the writing into spirituality. In the distinctive manifestation of the writing (pagine presenti; no. 117, lines 530), the different material and medial forms that distinguish the church can be preserved. The inscriptions, for example, composed in skillful hexameters by Suger, are inserted into his metatext like spolia, as letters that are not dead but living—​a reference to the Pauline recoding of the Mosaic scene of writing on Mount Sinai. At the same time the divine miracles taking place around the construction, miracles that cannot be detected from the building itself, can become present in the text. Suger pays exaggerated homage to material things. In the same breath he spiritualizes them. He initiates movements of mediation between material entities and symbolic orders of meaning, implying a complex relationship between materiality and mediality. The material is by no means simply the condition of medial processes, nor are these processes simply functions of material substrates. Instead we encounter interconnecting media forms that are both manifested in concrete materiality and convey an abstract symbolicity. These forms complement, coincide with, and superpose each other, they 24  No. 224, lines 1016–​23:  “Vnde cum ex dilectione decoris domus Dei aliquando multicolor gemmarum speciositas ab exintrinsecis me curis deuocaret, sanctarum etiam diuersitatem uirtutum de materialibus ad immaterialia transferendo honesta meditatio insistere persuaderet, uideor uidere me quasi sub aliqua extranea orbis terrarum plaga, que nec tota sit in terrarum fece nec tota in celi puritate, demorari, ab hanc etiam inferiore ad illam superiorem anagogico more Deo donante posse transferri.” English: Suger, On What Was Done During His Administration.

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relate both paratactically and hypotactically to each other, and thus prove to be second-​ order forms, integrated into a text that functions as a universal medium—​both inclusive and exclusive, intensive and extensive, related to specific events and cutting across time, localizing and transcending, telling and showing. Unlike other writings of the time, Suger’s text does not create a commemorative space.25 He does follow a certain logic in describing the church fittings: first the doors, then the choir, the nave with the main altar and additional altars, then back to the choir and its windows at the end. Yet this does not result in a clear spatial guide or a clearly structured “system of reference.”26 Instead the text keeps lingering at new objects. It discusses the abundance of details at exhaustive length. It moves between counting, listing, and recounting. And it presents itself as a medium of both salvation and dissemination, the self and the community. A medium that makes a paradoxical promise: not to match the materiality of the church with its own materiality, but to point to something beyond it, to produce validity, even if estates were to once again succumb to the wilderness, if cash flows were to dry up, buildings decay, and objects be destroyed.

Material Meaning

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries theologians, philosophers, and poets proved to be universally attracted by material structures, which became an object of interpretation and a springboard for the imagination. They developed detailed designs for interiors and architectures. They created microcosms in which the macrocosm could be viewed and experienced. At the same time, they invited discussion of the principles of medial representation. Baldric of Bourgueil (ca. 1100) describes a room furnished with tapestries according to the instructions of Countess Adela. It includes a representation of the six ages of the world, which come alive before the eyes of the readers.27 Alanus ab Insulis depicts the Palace of Nature, decorated with murals, in which nature brings forth the new man (Anticlaudianus, 1181/​1183), while Gottfried von Strassburg evokes a grotto from earlier heathen times, which is first described in detail then interpreted in relation to phenomena and processes of minne (Tristan, ca. 1210).28 Often the transitions between spaces, architectures, and objects are fluid. Grave markers, garments, a valuable chalice, an elaborately crafted saddle—​all of these, usually adorned with pictorial elements themselves, serve to exhaust the presence-​creating possibilities of descriptio, ekphrasis, and rhetoric in general, but also to explore the relations between materiality and meaningfulness.29 It is here that the medial dimension also comes into play: sometimes, when the texts are concerned with the conditions of narration, the descriptions refer to the tension between orality and textuality. Sometimes they shift between image 25  Carruthers, Book of Memory.

26  Suger von Saint-​Denis: Ausgewählte Schriften, 60. 27  Lutz, Schreiben, Bildung und Gespräch.

28  Cf. most recently Mertens Fleury, Zeigen und Bezeichnen. 29  Cf. Wandhoff, Ekphrasis; Interartifizialität.

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and text, or between illusionistic presence and ostentatious pretense. And they always seem to raise the following question: how can a structure of meaning be simultaneously substantive and artificial, materially manifest and spiritually meaningful? Such tensions become explicit in exegetic texts relating to biblical structures, such as the Mosaic tabernacle, Noah’s ark, Solomon’s Temple, or the heavenly Jerusalem, which are in turn linked with contemporary forms of building.30 Hugh of Fouilloy devotes a large part of his treatise De claustro anime (after 1132), which comprises four books and has been preserved in more than five hundred manuscripts, not only to interpreting Solomon’s Temple, but to applying the allegorical method to the cloister: first described in its forms and modes of organization as a concrete claustrum materiale, it is then interpreted morally as a claustrum anime, relating to the virtues located in the individual soul, and finally, anagogically, as a celestial cloister (claustrum celeste), “whose happiness awaits the chosen ones in the heavenly Jerusalem, and which is prefigured in the earthly cloister.”31 Hugh also uses the example of the city of Jerusalem to explain the principle of the four senses of scripture: the counterparts to the details of the cloister (walls, courtyard, communal building etc.) lead to a closed system of meaning production. The inner dynamics of this system lie mainly in the fact that one single thing has several meanings, which, however, are hierarchically ordered. In contrast to this, the medial dimension is more prominent in the somewhat older tracts by Hugh of St. Victor, De archa Noe and Libellus de formatione arche (ca. 1125–​ 1130). In these two texts, which are linked to each other, Hugh uses the interpretation of the ark to develop comprehensive teachings on the order of the Christian church. He does not stop there, however, but also makes use of a medium that mediates in crucial ways between the biblical content, the exegetic traditions, and the contemporary opportunities for experience: a visual, or more exactly, a graphic or diagrammatic representation.32 Already, in De archa Noe, Hugh had used the image of the house as something shifting between the external and the internal. On the one hand, it refers to the different places where God lives—​the world, the church, the soul. On the other hand, it conveys an exhortation: to erect dwellings for God in the inner space of the heart, and to develop and embellish these—​with reference to biblical models (temple, tent, Ark of the Covenant, Noah’s ark). The tract concludes that these models should be kept in mind as a pattern (exemplar); creating an external, painted depiction of these serves simultaneously to produce an inner form (exemplaris forma), in the sense of a model for virtuous Christian behaviour.33 This idea is revisited in the Libellus. It begins by offering instructions on how such an exemplar might actually be created: first, writes Hugh, 30  Cf. Whitehead, Castles of the Mind.

31  Schuppisser, Hugo de Folietos “De claustro animae.”

32  Cf. most recently Prica, Heilsgeschichten, 84–​150; Kieft, “Construction imaginaire”; Rudolph, The Mystic Ark. 33  Hugo, De archa Noe/​Libellus, 117:  “Nunc igitur ipsius arche nostre exemplar proponamus, sicut promisimus, quod exterius depingimus, ut foris discas quid intus agere debeas, ut cum huius exemplaris formam in corde tuo expresseris domum Dei in te edificatam esse leteris.”

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I find the centre of the plane on which I want to draw the Ark, and there, I fix a point. Around this point I make a small square […] And around this square also I make another, a little bit bigger than the first […] Next, I draw a cross in the innermost square in such a way that the four limbs of the cross meet each of its sides, and I go over the cross with gold. Then, I colour in the spaces between the four angles of the cross and those of the square: the two above with red, the two lower ones with blue; in such a way that one half of the cubit resembles fire, with its bright red colour, and the other half resembles a cloud with its blue. Next, in the band around the cubit, above the cross I make an alpha [A], which is the beginning. Opposite that, under the cross, I make an omega [Ω], which is the end. Next to the right limb of the cross, I make a chi [X], which is the first letter in Christ’s name. The chi [X] signifies the decalogue of the law, which was given first to that ancient nation, as being elect and rightly placed at the right hand. Next to the left limb of the cross, I make a sigma [ς], which is the final letter in Christ’s name. The sigma, in that it stands for 100,34 signifies the perfection of grace, which was first given to the gentile nations; the gentile nations, before they received the faith, were at first not in favour, and so they belonged on the left hand. Then, in the space within the band I paint two bands of colour: a band of green inside, and a band of purple outside. In the middle of the golden cross, I paint a yearling lamb, standing.35

This is not simply a set of instructions, telling fellow friars or intellectual interlocutors how to prepare a painted model, in order to more easily imagine or memorize abstract matters relating to salvation history. This function does play a part, but when Hugh, in the following section, shifts between the two-​dimensional surface of the drawing and a three-​dimensional space, and then also mentions the non-​representability of the theological mysteries, it becomes clear that he is concerned with a multifaceted movement of transcendence. It does not simply lead from the material to the immaterial. It traverses a complex field of tension between the exegetic tradition which Hugh sees himself as part of (but also tries to preserve his independence from), and the question of appropriate possibilities for imagining and representing the divine. An ontological and epistemological chain connects the real historical object, its biblical representation, the 34  The English translator notes: “Hugh interprets the Greek letters chi (χ) and sigma (lunate form, ς), as the Roman numerals X, C.”

35  Hugo, De archa Noe/​Libellus, 121f.: “Primum in planitie, ubi archam depingere uolo, medium centrum quero, et ibi fixo puncto paruam quadraturam equilateram ad similitudinem illius cubiti. […] Itemque illi quadrature aliam paulo maiorem circumscribo […]. Hoc facto in interiori quadratura crucem pingo, ita ut cornua eius singula latera quadrature attingant, eamque auro superduco. Deinde spatia illa, que in superficie quadrature inter quatuor angulos crucis et quadrature remanent, colore uestio, duo superiora flammeo et duo inferiora saphirino, ita ut medietas una cubiti in flammeo colore ignem et altera medietas in saphirino colore nubem representare uideatur. Post hec in limbo cubiti super crucem scribo A, quod est principium. Decontra subter crucem scribo ω, quod est finis. Ad dextrum cornu crucis scribo X. Que littera prima ponitur in nomine Christi, et significat decalogum legis, que antiquo populo primum quasi electo et iusto ad dextram collocato data est. Ad sinistrum cornu pono C. Que est ultima in nomine Christi, et significat in centum perfectionem gratie, que data est gentilitati que primum propter infidelitatem abiecta et ad sinistram collocanda uidebatur. Deinde spatium limbi circumquaque purpureo et interius uiridi colore induo: exterius purpureo et interius uiridi. Et in medio crucis auree quam feceram agnum anniculum stantem pingo.” English: Hugh of St. Victor, “A Little Book about Constructing Noah’s Ark,” 45.

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exegetic tradition, and the assimilation of the model by individuals, a chain in which the imagined/​painted diagram forms a shifting link, mediating between representation and imagination, materialization and spiritualization, revelation and concealment.

A Temple of the Intangible

The example shows that medieval allegorical or exegetic texts do not simply generate equations of meaning. They play—​especially those texts where the allegorical element is embedded in a plot that is more than mere window-​dressing—​with ambiguities and surpluses, with the tension between the immaterial and the material, with processes of mediation between the transcendent and the immanent, the abstract and the concrete, the textual and the visual. An extraordinary example is provided by the most detailed description of a building preserved in any medieval romance: the description of the Grail Temple in the so-​called Jüngerer Titurel. This text, written ca. 1270 by an otherwise unknown cleric by the name of Albrecht, is a hybrid in every sense. It consists of more than six thousand long-​ line stanzas, each four lines long, containing numerous references to natural science, and owing much to the metaphor-​and hyperbole-​rich geblümter Stil (florid or flowery style). Largely composed behind the mask of Wolfram von Eschenbach, it presents a story in which the quest for the Grail, the minne plot, and the oriental adventure are interwoven. The basis is both Wolfram’s Parzival romance and his Titurel fragments, which tell of the decline of the Grail dynasty and the tragic young love between Sigune and Schionatulander. Albrecht incorporates these fragments into his own romance, not without changing their emphasis. The older text derives its dynamics partly from the quest for a mysterious, inordinately large, jewel-​studded dog leash, which, when unfurled, contains a text that the female protagonist is desperate to read; as we know from Parzival, this will lead to the death of her young lover. In the later text this piece of writing loses its mystery,36 and it is read out in public on several occasions. Yet it does not contain the solution to a riddle, but a sixty-​three-​stanza theory of virtue, which causes general well-​being wherever it is presented, due to the jewels that form the letters. What is foregrounded here is a materiality that promises meaning, but is also self-​effective. It points to a source of energy that is thought to be both withdrawn and within grasp: the Grail—​a new variation on those forms of mediation in which, very much in the spirit of Borges (see ­chapter  2), extremely large contexts are condensed into an extremely small space. The Grail occupied the contemporary imagination from the late twelfth century onwards. In vernacular romances, it appears as an overdetermined symbol. An expression of abundance and salvation, of the celestial reaching into the earthly, it is an object of desire, from which it simultaneously withdraws. The central point of a community that lives by special rules, combining the spiritual and the worldly, ascetic piety and Christian knighthood, it is also involved in earthly contingencies, from which it

36  Cf. Baisch, “lere lesen”; for general remarks on writing in the Jüngerer Titurel see Volfing, Medieval Literacy.

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ultimately escapes into the Orient. Some authors present the Grail as a golden bowl, decorated with precious stones, containing a consecrated Host. Others see it as a stone or a stone vessel (also containing a Host), which provides the Grail knights with food and drink, causes the burning and rebirth of the phoenix, and protects against old age and death. Still others interpret it explicitly as the chalice from the Last Supper, in which, according to the Gospel of Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea collected the blood of Christ at the cross. It is only at the end of his text that Albrecht links these traditions: Titurel defines the Grail as a valuable stone, brought by angels, from which a bowl, that of the Last Supper, was made. It is only here that it becomes clear what actually drives the quest of the knights and the machinery of the narration to such an extent, and for what purpose a whole temple is erected at the beginning of the romance, hugely expanding on a passing mention in Parzival. The description of the building erected by the Grail king, Titurel, on Montsalvat in Salvaterre (Galicia) extends over more than one hundred stanzas; half as long again is the somewhat later discourse in which Titurel refers to and interprets the building, partly in allegorical terms.37 This is an utterly miraculous structure, based on a model drawing originating from the Grail itself, a drawing which Titurel, himself led to Salvaterre by angels, finds on the onyx substrate after clearing the rock. The process of construction is also pervaded by celestial elements: the stones can be cut without noise, and the Grail provides all that is needed. The miraculous becomes evident in the valuable materials used, and in the skill with which they are crafted: the building consists mainly of red gold, precious stones, and rare agarwood (which was believed to give warmth without burning). This riche kost (rich treasure) is refined by spæhe list (clever skill) and wæhe kunst (fine art) into a mighty rotunda, recalling the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It has a gilded roof with niello decorations, and a staggering seventy-​two choirs, which each have an east-​facing sapphire altar and are separated from the interior by an ornate rood screen. The crystal floor reveals a sea containing fish and mythical creatures, the water apparently moved by waves. Above it rise bronze pillars, arches, and cornices, adorned with gems, pearls, and corals. In general, there is not a centimetre of the building that is without decoration. The windows are not made of glass, but of beryls, crystals, and other precious stones. The vault is studded with sapphires and carbuncles, depicting the starry sky. On the altars, protected by baldachins of shimmering green silk brocade, are the figures of saints, reliquaries, and an enamelled pyxis, decorated with more figures. There are representations everywhere, not painted, but sculpted: patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins on the arches of the chancels, archangels and evangelists in the ribbed vault, a Last Judgment over the west portal, and, in non-​specified locations, a crucifix and a figure of the Madonna, as well as further sculptures of the evangelists and their symbols. 37  Albrecht von Scharfenberg, Jüngere Titurel 1; for important explanations see Zarncke, Der Graltempel; for an analysis of the earlier literature, translation, and commentary, see Brokmann, Beschreibung des Graltempels; for the ekphrastic structures see Bußmann, Wiedererzählen, Weitererzählen und Beschreiben.

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All this representational decoration is not mere ornament; the exuberant materiality is not meant to lead to a solidification in the monumental. Just as the building is flooded with light and colour, it is also filled with life and sound. Again and again, the narrator emphasizes the aspect of liveliness, an artificial liveliness produced by cunning mechanisms. Sculpted leaves and vines seem to move naturally in the wind. Birds appear to sit in the branches of the “organ tree,” animated by hidden bellows, which also make the instruments of four trumpet angels sound out. In the vault there is an astronomic clock, from which, by means of a wheel mechanism, a dove on a string (symbolizing the Holy Spirit) can lead an angel to the altar and back during the Mass. Such movable, acting visual works were not unusual in contemporary Gothic churches.38 In other respects too, it is fair to say that nearly all the elements of Albrecht’s description have parallels in contemporary buildings and are likely to have reminded the audience of these. Yet anyone hoping to find the model for the Grail Temple in any particular Gothic cathedral will be disappointed, as will anyone who thinks they can precisely define its architecture. Albrecht is aiming neither at a realistic impression of the temple as a whole, nor at a harmonious interplay between its individual parts. The crystal floor and the sapphire sky, which introduce a cosmological dimension, the seventy-​two choirs, reflecting the medieval view that the world had seventy-​two languages, the gemstone facings throughout the building, making it look like an oversized reliquary from the outside, the emphatic absence of a crypt, implying that this building should not be thought of as having any previous history—​all these things show that this is about ideality per se, the ideality of a monumental and singular building. The Grail Temple encompasses everything that a Christian house of God might be imagined to be. At the same time, with its combination of material wealth, splendour, size, workmanship, and effect, it surpasses every possible historical model. This makes it an appropriate location for that unique object, which is itself viewed as the embodiment of heaven on earth: the Grail. It is kept in a temple in the middle of the temple, a sacristy, which contains a miniature version of all the components of the outer building except for the choirs. This holy of holies houses the holy of holies. This is the focus of the activities of the Grail knights, who have their dormitory in a tract adjacent to the temple, and are confronted with models of knightly behaviour in the visual representations on the outside wall of the temple. In this way, Albrecht attempts to anchor the Grail, this precarious symbol, unsupported by any authoritative older tradition, in the innermost heart of the Christian church. He places it in the centre of the choirs, which span the whole of Christian salvation history, beginning with the main choir in the east, dedicated to the Holy Spirit, and continuing in the choirs of Mary, John, and the apostles. The fact that the choirs do not recur in the miniature temple building underlines the specific relationship between the Grail and the Christian church: a temple within a temple, not in the sense of potentially endless mirroring, but of simultaneous equivalence and supplementation. The smaller building repeats the larger one, but is also surrounded by it and superposed on it. The seventy-​two choirs ultimately surround both temple rotundas. At the same time the

38  Cf. Tripps, Das handelnde Bildwerk; for the representations in the Jüngerer Titurel see Schmid, “Überbietung der Natur.”

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outer walls of the large temple, by referring to the Grail knights, mark the threshold between transcendence and immanence, non-​physical and physical world, inside and outside. Conversely, they also refer to that core which the castle of the Grail, the temple of the Grail, and the knights of the Grail have been established to protect. The complexity of this relationship also applies to the material dimension of the building and its relation to spiritual meanings. In the description itself, Albrecht is strikingly reticent about explicit attributions or transfers of meaning. Only the gemstones are dealt with in some detail, but less from a Christological or Mariological perspective than in relation to their aura and effects. Titurel’s somewhat later speech, with which he takes leave of his office and the company of the Grail, contains elements of allegorical interpretation, yet these are elusive.39 The old Grail king does refer to the temple, yet he treats it primarily as a model for comprehending the divine. No one, according to Titurel, can exhaust the abundance of meanings (zeichenunge) of the Grail in word or speech. “I have built the temple for worthy Christian people so that they may learn the right lessons from it, and want to look faithfully to God through the temple’s design.”40 This would make the temple a kind of hypermedium, able to give a preliminary glimpse of what the Grail is, and what God is in the innermost core of his being. The precondition for this would be an understanding of the meaningfulness of the individual elements, as established, for example, through the multiple senses of scripture and the richly developed symbolism informing the construction of Christian churches.41 In fact, several such referential possibilities are hinted at: the comparison of the temple to the heavenly Jerusalem, its figurative use to refer to the human soul, the construction of a parallel between the singular Grail temple and the paradigmatic Temple of Solomon.42 This is not, however, associated with an exact interpretation according to the senses of scripture. The allegorical dimension (Temple of Solomon) and the anagogic dimension (Jerusalem) play only an occasional role in the following. The moral reading is central: the temple as a temple of souls.43 But even this is not presented in detailed correspondences. Description and explanation or instruction are not related to each other exactly or with any great complexity. This also means, however, that the excessive materiality of the building retains its own autonomy. It is not supposed to be self-​indulgent in nature, but nor is it subsumed into the allegorical mode, into sheer meaningfulness. Overall, it can be understood as an image of what a devout Christian might imagine as the innermost 39  For a summary see Brokmann, Beschreibung des Graltempels, 221–​27.

40  Albrecht von Scharfenberg, Jüngerer Titurel, 516:2b–​4b: “den tempel han ich werden christen lu(e)ten | zu rechter lere merke wol erbowen, | ob si zu got mit triwen | ans tempels zeichenunge wellent schowen.” English: Albrecht, “Grail Temple,” 89. 41  Cf. Sauer, Symbolik des Kirchengebäudes.

42  Albrecht von Scharfenberg, Jüngere Titurel (JT), 517:1f.: “Der Jerusalem exempel im vronen paradise | ist hie zem gral der tempel; JT 528:1–​3: Dem tempel gar geliche sol sich der mensche reinen. | er bedarf wol zierde riche, sint daz sich got dar inne wil gemeinen | des menschen sele zu werdem hus genoze”; JT 537:1f.: “Zwo tur an allen kören sint wol zu rechte wesende. | daz mac man gerne hören, swa man iz von Salamon ist lesende.” 43  See in particular Bußmann, Wiedererzählen, Weitererzählen und Beschreiben.

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sanctum of the soul, open to God. It remains unclear, however, how a material wealth that is not meant to be translated into the spiritual can be related to a theory of virtue focused on worldly matters. At the same time, materiality takes on ambivalent traits. Even as materiality, it is, for all its abundance, always deficient as well: artful but also artificial, it serves to represent, not to transform. What it manifests is an effort to come closer to the divine, but not a miracle, an apparition, or any actual divine presence.44 It is elusive in character, not least because the narration oscillates between process and result, and between intradiegetic and extradiegetic worlds: Albrecht does not offer any systematic description of the building, for example from bottom to top or from inside to outside. Instead the gaze moves through the interior and the exterior three times, in a kind of circular movement. Moreover, the temple sometimes appears to be still in the process of becoming, sometimes already completed, and is sometimes presented from a figure-​related perspective, sometimes from an authorial perspective. What emerges is not actually a space of memory or imagination, through which the readers move in spirit. Instead it is a specifically textual space, which exhibits its own verbal virtuosity; a narrative space, in which the figure of the narrator himself repeatedly comes to the fore; a verbal showroom, in which vivid images are evoked one moment and undermined the next moment by the complexity of the language and syntax, the syntagmatic and paradigmatic connections. With his Gesta, Suger of St. Denis had tried to hold together the threads between the different material elements that define the church as a building, and to secure the meanings of the individual elements. Albrecht faces a different task. He must create the building in the first place, prove its significance, and embed it in the logic of the plot. While Suger, as established above, produces a kind of monumental document of authentication for a reliquary containing an unheard-​of number of high-​ranking “relics,” Albrecht creates several reliquaries, which in some cases enclose each other (the text encloses the Grail temple, the temple encloses the sacristy), and in some cases stand side by side. Yet the central relic they contain, the Grail, withdraws, leaving behind only its surrogate, the theory of virtue—​which may or may not be able to lead to the Grail. This text is, or so it promises, more than just a theory of virtue. It seeks to simultaneously mediate salvation and knowledge—​ as a counterpart to the spectacular structures it devises. Already, when describing the castle of the Grail, even before he starts on the temple, the narrator remarks with a sigh that verbally presenting (“erbowen mit worten”; 319.1) the whole ornamentation would take more than thirty years (the number later cited for the building of the temple). Yet he is also hinting here, like many who use this topos, that this is exactly what he intends to do. This is spelt out in a forty-​two-​stanza section in praise of the Virgin Mary, found in a group of manuscripts between the description of the temple and Titurel’s farewell speech.45 Here the previously described temple is compared with one supposedly built by the apostle Thomas in India for King Gundoforus—​built with words. The same is meant to apply to the Grail 44  For the tension between abundance and lack see esp. Mertens Fleury, “Allegorische Vermittlungen.” 45  Albrecht, Jüngerer Titurel, 111–​17; Zarncke, Der Graltempel, 125–​50 (497–​522).

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temple: it is supposed “al menschen kunne | mit gedanken geben exempel zu engelschar und himelischer wunne” (JT, stanza 4,1f.; “all humankind in its spirituality serves as an example of the world of the angels and of heavenly delight”). Thus it is meant to be the starting point for an inner movement leading to the divine. It is then immediately outdone (hypothetically at least) by a further temple, this time in Mary’s honour, which is one mile wide and one mile high, and is surrounded by five hundred choirs—​in comparison to this, the Grail temple would only take up the space of one choir. This gigantic structure is embellished with some details and allegorical meanings, but in the end it is left behind in the movement toward spiritualization.46 The stanzas in praise of Mary bridge the gap between the description of the Grail temple and the conversion of this description into the model of the temple of the soul. It also shows, however, how useful it could be for the hybrid, cumulative approach of the romance to leave the relationship between materiality and spirituality in limbo. A writer who does not wholly sublate the material in an attitude of religious praise retains the possibility of presenting his own text as an event that has not only meaning, but also sensory impact.

Autoreflexivity

The description of indescribable objects, the comprehension of incomprehensible, gigantic structures, has various mediological implications. In terms of theories of perception and knowledge, the scholars of the time were fascinated by the question of how the mediation between the things of the outer world and the inner space of the intellect took place. How, in the process of seeing, could large objects find their way into the small eye? One explanation was that this involved interaction between passive and active dimensions, and several agents of mediation: on the one hand, the object penetrating the eye; on the other hand, the rays of vision emanating from the eye or the organ of sight. In his Opus majus (before 1267), Roger Bacon writes: Concerning the multiplication of this species, moreover, we are to understand that it lies in the same place as the species of the thing seen (species rei visae) between the sight and the thing seen, and takes place along the pyramid whose vertex is in the eye and base in the thing seen. And as the species of an object in the same medium (medium) travels in a straight path and is refracted in different ways when it meets a medium (medium) of another transparency, and is reflected when it meets the obstacle of a dense body; so is it also true of the species of vision (species visus) that it travels altogether along the path of the species itself of the visible object.47

46  Philipowski, Die Gestalt des Unsichtbaren, 230–​34.

47  Roger Bacon, Opus majus, 2:53 (pars 1, dist. 7, cap.  4):  “De multiplicatione autem ejus intelligendum est quod jacet in loco eodem cum specie rei visae inter visum et rem visam, et fit secundum pyramidem cujus conus est in oculo et basis in re visa. Et secundum quod species rei in eodem medio recte incedit et frangitur diversis modis, quando occurrit medium alterius diaphanei tatis, et reflectitur quando venit obstaculum densi corporis; sic est de specie visus, quod omnino incedit secundum incessum speciei ipsius visibilis.” English: Bacon, Opus majus, 2:471.

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In examples such as the one presented here, this kind of mediation process is transferred to the text itself: it manifests itself as a medium by being able to include other media forms in itself, which then, combined, produce complex interconnections between the tangible and the intangible.48 This is an appealing possibility, especially when dealing with phenomena of transcendence. But the danger is that it may result in a game with no relevance for anything other than literature. Is the text transparent; does it, in the spirit of a participatory mediality, allow glimpses of a salvific truth, or is it an opaque medium itself? Here, too, however, this reversible figure does not simply apply to a relationship between two states. It includes crossovers: just as the apparent transparency of the transcendent can actually reveal its inaccessibility, the apparent opacity of the literary form can, on a more abstract level, be an appropriate means of representing the inaccessible. The various options arising from this can be assessed on the basis of two texts which also place striking buildings at their centre. Unlike those discussed above, these texts do not use the buildings to create a state of medial limbo between materiality and significance, and yet they specifically profile their own mediality in relation to materiality. The first example is from the Swabian nobleman Hermann von Sachsenheim, who wrote several poetic works in his old age, including a Marian allegory, which he himself refers to as a “golden temple” (1321 lines, dated 1455).49 More clearly than in Albrecht’s work, this temple is one built with words, it is made of “synnwerck, nit von stein” (line 632), and takes shape in a more or less ordered sequence in the mind’s eye of the reader: at first the gaze falls on the walls and doors, then the choir, its 364 windows, the altar, sacristy, rood screen and choir stalls, murals and tapestries, then it moves up to the vault and the covering of the nave, and finally back down to the baptismal font, the bells, and the pulpit. All this is already presented as full of significance during the description, but its symbolic nature is explicitly revealed in the final section. The four doors, we now learn, correspond to the four points of the compass, the twelve towers correspond to the twelve months and the twelve signs of the zodiac, the ten steps leading to the choir correspond to the Ten Commandments, which, if obeyed, pave the way to paradise. The four walls are related to the four elements, the two sentinels guarding the temple to the poles of the earth, the four bells in the tower to the four holy church fathers, Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, and Gregory, supplemented by numerous smaller bells (such as Bernard of Clairvaux). The ten organs refer to the most important universities of the time, beginning with Prague. All in all, it is an extensive structure in both temporal and spatial terms. It contains the basic forms of cosmological temporality and Christian salvation history, displayed in the pictorial decoration: the paintings in the choir present typological juxtapositions of scenes from the Old and New Testaments; a precious wall hanging shows the stories of the Old Testament patriarchs. Time and history are interwoven with spatial dimensions, which are also cosmological and related to salvation history, and are concretized in a 48  For the relationship between optical theory and allegory, see Akbari, Seeing through the Veil.

49  Hermann von Sachsenheim, Hermann von Sachsenheim, 232–​71; for the text see Blank, “Kultische Ästhetisierung.”

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focus on the centres of the Christian faith: the baptismal font in the middle of the Temple signifies the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the sacristy to the right of the choir signifies Rome. Thus the overall structure of meaning, dedicated to the mother of God, aims to show how Mary, the Mediatrix, encompasses the cosmos and salvation history in herself. This, however, exceeds the possibilities of poetic speech, just as it challenges us to reflect on them. In depicting his building as symbolic from the start, the author blurs the boundaries between representation and interpretation. Combining elements of the city, the temple, and the church, he obscures the outlines of the basic structure that is to be elucidated. He avoids an unambiguous allegorical interpretation and draws attention to the idiosyncrasy of his discourse. And, like nearly every author of a work in praise of the Virgin Mary, he takes refuge in his subject: he calls on Mary to help him with his composition, to enable him to spin words which the angels will then weave into a texture (“Daran die engel engel weben”; line 125), to empower him to lay the foundations, to find the right proportions, to furnish the church. Using elaborate and in some cases newly coined artificial words, Hermann tries to describe the corresponding activities:  ziborieren, historieren, polieren, sublimieren, temperieren, punzieren—​the verbs show how different modalities of representation and production interconnect. At the beginning, the stated intention of designing the model of the temple “with unusual interpretations and diverse details” (lines 14f; “Mitt fremder glos exempel | Vnd richer differencz”) seemed to be conceived mainly in textual terms. Now aspects of stonemasonry, goldsmithing, or painting are involved—​as metaphors for poetic activity, and at the same time, elements of its transgression. Not only does this mean that, due to constant transitions and transfers, the genuine work with words is dissipated in a general mediation-​like quality, founded on materiality and craftsmanship, but that the agent responsible for the discourse loses his solidity. At times he is the subject, at times the object. Sometimes he asks for the ability to create or compose well, sometimes he asks to be created or shaped himself: Maria is asked to polish the narrator’s message, to help him to inscribe and seal himself into her document of salvation, to weave himself into her wreath of salvation, to construct his framework, to have well-​pointed brushes at his disposal etc.50 Hermann summons up all the metaphors of writing and production available at the time, thus revealing—​and then concealing—​the medial conditions of his text. He demonstrates the problem inherent in the allegorical mode: producing tension between two or more levels of meaning, it always draws attention to itself as well. The transparency the text aspires to is therefore always clouded: it occurs in a medium which, as a synnwerck, is inevitably both meaningful and constructed. Some allegorizing texts show the medial dimension of this problem even more clearly. Our second example, from the early phase in the work of Geoffrey Chaucer, illustrates this. The Hous of Fame, written in 1379/​1380 under the influence of Boccaccio, borrows from Virgil’s and Ovid’s concept of personified Fame, but also from Dante and 50  Der Goldene Tempel, lines 116f.: “In dinr genaden rodel | Mich schriben und versigeln”; lines 146f.: “Flechten und verstricken | In diner gnauden krancz”; lines 152–​54: “Min gerüst uffrichten und stüln | Und meysterlich besitzen | Min bensel scherpffen und spiczen.”

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contemporary theories of acoustic transfer.51 At the heart of the incomplete text, which ends abruptly after 2158 lines, is a dream vision. The subject is first transported, in book one, to the Temple of Venus. There he finds a bronze tablet containing lines of verse, which turn out to be the English translation of the beginning of the Aeneid. He reads these and follows the story of the fall of Troy and the fate of Aeneas, depicted on the walls. In book two the first-​person narrator, now addressed as Geoffrey, is borne up into the air by a shining golden eagle, sent by Jupiter, and is taught about the propagation of sound—​a second John, who is given insight not into divine mysteries, but into the mythologically embellished circumstances in which traditions are formed. These become tangible in book three when the narrator is introduced to the Palace of Fame and the House of Rumour. The two buildings incorporate aspects of the one described in the first book, but also bring others into play. The Temple of Venus was made entirely of glass and richly furnished—​with golden statues, tabernacles, and numerous “figures | of olde werke” (lines 126f.). The Palace of Fame has walls made of beryl, which has magnifying effects; the roof and the floor are made of solid gold; the whole thing shows not a single joint, and is completely encrusted with jewels and ornamentation—​battlements, alcoves, cornices, statues etc. The House of Rumour, in contrast, is an airy wicker house—​but one that is sixty miles long. Unlike the (semi-​)religious allegorical texts, which often refer to elements of church construction and church furnishing, Chaucer’s text is inspired more by models of minne allegory and philosophical allegory. There are individual elements that point to a Gothic church, or evoke religious semantics, but what is foregrounded is an interest in tradition as such, with its dynamics and its flexibility. In keeping with this, the text does not create verbal buildings, then gradually transpose them onto a symbolic level. Instead the buildings serve as concretizations of the central question that guides the text: how the essence of Fame, the principle of the transmission, dissemination, and consolidation of news and opinions, is to be understood—​a question rooted in the theory of communication and the history of tradition. The fact that Chaucer devotes the whole of the second book to a theoretical exposition, largely disconnected from the plot, shows the fundamental nature of this question. In relation to this systematic core, books one and three form the concrete framework, based on what Virgil and Ovid had already said about Fame: that she spreads truth and lies simultaneously.52 In this sense, the things the subject perceives in the Temple of Venus already follow a particular perspective, the Ovidian revision of Virgil common from the twelfth century, which blamed Aeneas for Dido’s fall. According to this view, his false words caused her misery and death; it was his fault that Dido would forever be linked with the image of the woman who loved too much and yielded too quickly. Dido’s own lament is also a denunciation of Fame: “through you my good name is lost and all my acts are read and

51  Chaucer, Student’s Chaucer, 326–​48; commentated bibliography at http://​uchaucer.utsa.edu/​ cgi-​bin/​Pwebrecon.cgi; media aspects are particularly stressed in the studies of Olson, “Speaking Walls,” and Hardie, Rumour and Renown, chap. 15; see also Mertens Fleury, Zeigen und Bezeichnen, 325–​46. 52  Cf. Fama; Hardie, Rumour and Renown.

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sung about over all this land, on every tongue. O wicked fame!—​lo, there is nothing so swift as she is!”53 This implies that a particular (positive or negative) posthumous reputation is fixed not on the basis of historical-​teleological necessity, but of contingent circumstances, arbitrarily and at the same time irrevocably. This is exactly what the narrating subject experiences at the end, in the Palace of Fame: new groups of people keep appearing, asking Fame for this or that reputation, a good one or a bad one, a distinctive one or none at all. And the goddess, playing the role of Fortuna, gives them her decisions, sometimes one way, sometimes the other. Following her whims, she grants or refuses their requests. And depending on which it is, she has Aeolus, god of the winds, blow his black or golden trumpet. She has no solid basis for her judgments: the news that reaches her from the nearby House of Rumour is an inseparable mixture of falsity and truth (“fals and sooth compouned”; line 2108). What seems radically contingent here is made to seem consistent with natural laws in the middle section. According to the lesson which the eagle gives the visionary, Fame, that principle of the medial per se, is not just some abstruse being who has set up her kingdom in a remote location. Fame’s palace is situated in the centre of the sublunary world, between earth, sky, and sea, in the very place where all the sounds made on earth meet. This idea, adopted from Ovid, is based on two premises: that every object strives to reach or to remain in a place of its kind; and that sound, as broken air, moves upwards until it reaches its destination—​in this sense, language, like “voice or noise, or word or sound, just like multiplication, [is carried up] until it reaches the House of Fame.”54 There the sounds, now only existing as resonating bodies, are reconnected with the actual bodies of their originators; there and only there the disparate fragments, considered through the magnifying beryl, acquire the character of tradition. This, however, cannot conceal its contingency: the names of the authors, engraved into the ice on which the palace stands, have already become largely illegible where the sun falls on them. What the dreaming poet learns, on his journey through the air to Fame, is the part played by literary discourse in the total quantity of all that is articulated. He encounters the countless nameless artists, the rhapsodists, musicians and minstrels, the jugglers and acrobats, who fill the space outside the palace, and he meets the well-​known, exemplary representatives of the older and newer tradition, who have found their place on pillars inside the palace: Josephus, Statius, Homer, Virgil, Ovid (in the highest position), Lucan, Caesar, Guido of Colonna, or Geoffrey of Vinsauf. But neither the former nor the latter become especially significant for Geoffrey. Nor does the abduction of the poet and his involuntary journey to the House of Fame bring a revival of literary inspiration, liberation, and revitalization, as promised by the eagle. He was supposed to see wonder 53  Lines 346–​50: “For through yow is my name lorn, | And alle myn actes red and songe | Over al this lond, on every tonge. | O wikke Fame! for ther nis | Nothing so swift, lo, as she is!”; modern English: Chaucer, Chaucer’s Other Works, 29.

54  Lines 817–​21: “Everich air in other stereth | More and more, and speche up bereth, | Or vois, or noise, or word, or soun, | Ay through multiplicacioun, | Til hit be atte House of Fame.” Modern English: Chaucer, Chaucer’s Other Works, 35.

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thynges there (line 674), and gain new knowledge about things that he knows only from literature. This does not happen, however. There is no distraction or diversion, and no change of heart. The countless incidents and stories that circulate in the House of Fame fail to awaken Geoffrey’s curiosity, as do the stars and star signs which he comes close to on his journey—​he declines the eagle’s suggestion that he could learn more about them. The only thing he takes away from the experience is the insight into the essence (condicioun) of Fame as such, and into the nature of her regime (“the ordre of hir dome”; line 1905). At first it seemed as though the authorial subject, reading the stories of Troy, Aeneas, and Dido on the walls and in the books, was inscribing himself into the tradition and testing the possibility of presenting, evoking, and reflecting on it. Looking back from the end, another picture emerges: inserted into the confusion of voices and sounds, confronted with the lack of transparency of news accounts, and the indistinguishability of truth and falsehood, the tradition loses its dominance. Though there are hierarchies in the kingdom of Fame between vocal artists and poets with differing degrees of talent, all of them become part of the general babble. The authority of tradition is lost in the materiality of communication. In his text, Chaucer uses this materiality as a means of demonstrating a virtuoso approach to different materials of transmission, the textual and the visual, the verbal and the theatrical, the adopted and the adapted.55 The fact that the text ends with the first-​person narrator encountering a man “of greet auctoritee” (line 2158), whose identity we do not learn, may be seen as an unintentionally fitting culmination of the dream vision—​in that it remains open whether the tension between materiality and significance can still be explored with reference to tradition.

New Materiality

The balance between the ostentatious display of materiality and its transcendence is something that medieval writers keep coming back to; the fragility of this equilibrium becomes apparent in various ways. It is based on the idea that every material element of the world can have spiritual meanings, and can be charged with transcendent energy. But it is at risk of overturning, both in places where the material retains its internal dynamics, and in those where it is absorbed into the meaningful. In the later Middle Ages, matter acquires an almost sanctified status, and becomes more and more important for practices of piety. Miracles associated with relics, Hosts, and images repeatedly feature sacred or salvific substances, and the natural sciences increasingly embrace the idea that materia is not something fundamentally transient, which dissolves and decays, but something from which new things can also emerge.56 At this point the material side seems to be gaining the upper hand in the tension between materialization and spiritualization. And yet it is accompanied by opposing efforts at spiritualization. 55  Cf. Mertens Fleury, Zeigen und Bezeichnen, esp. 342–​46 (abundance and lack).

56  Cf. Bynum, Christian Materiality; Ritchey, Holy Matter; for the forms of generatio see van der Lugt, Le ver, le démon et la vierge.

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This tension alters more fundamentally in the early modern period. On the one hand, as seen in ­chapter 4, the doctrine of signatures gives new prominence to the idea of being able to read from the book of nature. Furthermore, there are—​for example in Lutheran churches—​still sacred places serving as reproductions of the Temple of Solomon. Panels on the altars can present, in golden letters, the words Jesus used to establish the Holy Communion. Overall, however, the church interior changes its face. It changes from a space of cultic-​sensory performance, linked to sacramental action and material objects, to a space where the word of God, as mediated by the sermon, is heard and absorbed, and gives the impetus for internalizing contemplation. At the same time, the church interior acquires more museum-​like traits. It becomes an exhibition space, in which religious objects are accumulated and displayed, or sometimes even a natural history collection, enthralling the senses of the faithful with all manner of curiosities.57 In general, the rule in relation to material objects seems to be that they are omnipresent in early modern culture—​for example as metonymies of foreign countries, exotic facts, noteworthy events. Yet the mode in which they are encountered is not so much one of reverence as of wonder and curiosity, appraisal and ordering. When Albrecht Dürer sees, in Brussels, the Aztec treasures which Hernán Cortés had sent to the Spanish king Charles in 1519, he mentions them fleetingly in his diary, and notes that they are “much finer to look at than prodigies. These things are all so precious that they are valued at 100,000 gulden, and all the days of my life I have seen nothing that reaches my heart so much as these, for among them I have seen wonderfully artistic things and have admired the subtle ingenuity of men in foreign lands.”58 The Spanish court chronicler Peter Martyr takes pains to give an exact phenomenological assessment and ethnological classification of the same objects: he determines the size and weight of the two disks (millstones); he counts the exact number of jewels and bells on the gold necklace; he lists each of the many elaborate replicas of animals. His interest is in the production technique and the original modes of use.59 In general, then, we can observe not so much a radical recoding of older material semantics as a shifting and loosening of these semantics. The vertical dimension shifts to make way for the horizontal: material objects no longer function so much as signs of transcendence, but rather as elements of global circulations—​in economic, political, or social respects.60 They point to orders of nature and art, and serve to test orders of knowledge. Moreover, the connection between the things perceived and the perceiving sensorium is loosened: with the Cartesian distinction between res cogitans and res 57  Cf. Laube, Von der Reliquie zum Ding.

58  Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlaß, 155: “allerley wunderbahrlicher ding zu maniglichem brauch, das do viel schöner an zu sehen ist dan wunderding. Diese ding sind alle köstlich gewesen, das man sie beschäczt vmb hundert tausent gulden werth. Und ich hab aber all mein lebtag nichts gesehen, das mein hercz also erfreuet hat als diese ding. Dann ich hab darin gesehen wunderliche künstliche ding und hab mich verwundert der subtilen jngenia der menschen jn frembden landen.” English: Durer, Memoirs of Journeys. 59  Kiening, Das wilde Subjekt, chap. 5. 60  Cf. Jardine, Worldly Goods.

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externa, the attempt to create equivalences between the outer and inner world becomes obsolete; the two are now conceived of as interpenetrating or materially-​immaterially interwoven. This gives objects a different medial status, or a new medial freedom: the increasing potential to mediate between a wide variety of reference parameters comes with a decrease in participatory relationships. Or in other words, the new wealth of meaning owes its existence to the relinquishing of a firm core of meaning. The charging and the devaluation of material structures converge. Again, it is in literary texts that this is closely observed. I will mention only two of the most influential ones. In the prose novel Fortunatus, first printed in 1509, money and jewels play a central role. Their relationship to one another is unclear. At times they seems to belong to different orders, one to an economic-​bourgeois order, the other to a feudal-​aristocratic one. At times, however, it seems possible to convert one into the other, as jewels can also be quantified in monetary terms. This is made more complicated by the status of two magical objects shaping the plot: a purse that provides unlimited money in the relevant local currency, and a hat that allows the wearer to be wherever he wishes. Both objects are shabby, but have a huge effect; the combination of the two fulfils the economic dream of increasing one’s wealth and simultaneously avoiding the contingency of changes in location. Yet they are by no means removed from earthly contingency and the processes of circulation: unlike sacred or auratic objects, they are subject to the dynamics of profit and loss, right and wrong decisions, clever and foolish behaviour—​everything that an individual has acquired through effort and luck can suddenly be lost in the next generation. The other example is the Continuatio to Simplicissimus teutsch by Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1669). In one of its episodes (chap.  11f.), while the plot is at a standstill, the material condition of possibility of the text comes to the fore. The hermit, setting out into the world again, holds a long dialogue in the latrine with the toilet paper (Scheermesser), which consists of well-​thumbed printed pages. The paper turns out to be the embodiment of the unceasing transformation of all the substances in the world, part of the endless “chain of beings.” Dolefully, it lists the many stations and states it has passed through before meeting its end in the lavatory. This lament, however, is also a record. It presents, throughout, a close scrutiny of the different operations of production and processing, and an exact appraisal of the resulting increases in value—​right through to the forms of use that ultimately lead to its decay. Materiality, it seems here, does not mean stability, but instability. It is subject to constant change and to the production of new meanings; it is a reversible figure, allowing new things to emerge on the one hand, but condemning them to destruction on the other, an allegory of textual conditions which negates itself. As a record of the processes in which a text/​textile comes into existence and then ceases to exist, the first-​person account of a martyrdom allows glimpses of literary conditions, and of the processes in which the present narrative is constituted. At the same time it uses these to create its own reversible figure. At the end, just as the first-​person narrator executes the paper’s sentence, by bringing about its necessary destruction, the paper is given one final opportunity to speak. Here it makes it clear to the narrator that he will in future be helpless in the face of death—​unlike the present moment, when

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the paper could have been preserved from its final demise. At the moment of its disappearance, materiality has the last word, but in such a way that its obliteration can be expanded into a threat to the human realm. Here, however, the hope of overcoming it prevails: when the editor, naming himself with the author’s initials, states that he has found Simplicissimus among the papers left by Samuel Greifnson von Hirschfeld (an anagram of Grimmelshausen), it becomes clear how much we are dealing with a text that is entirely made up of texts itself. The text picks these up in such a way that it becomes protean itself—​shifting between the materiality of the writing, which reflects the inconstancy of the world, and the immateriality of the meaning, which overcomes this inconstancy. A medial paradox par excellence: with the writing, the writing rises above the writing—​like Pegasus, who, on the front page of the Continuatio, storms over the earth and out to the stars.

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SPACETIME

Salvation History and Passion In Christian thought, the concept of salvation history is based upon a paradox. Salvation is thought of in temporal terms, grounded in a progression and the meaning-​filled order of this progression in the form of history. At the same time it is thought of in supratemporal terms—​the idea of salvation, after all, refers to a plenitude in which time would be sublated and all times would be united in a single, coeternal totality. Time is held to be the necessary complement to the world: created at the same time as the world (as was widely believed in the Middle Ages), time serves—​in the form of history—​as a form of intuition. In time, man is capable of experiencing the God-​given principles of salvation history. At the same time, however, he must learn that time—​always-​already related to its end—​can ultimately only be grasped in the mode of transcendence. However much time can be understood as the condition of possibility for a meaningful order, it is nonetheless also inscribed with the unavailability of the final meaning of this order. This results in both optimistic and skeptical positions with respect to the knowability of temporal-​historical teleology, and above all attempts to bridge the gap between eternity and temporality: by understanding the eternal as something that appears in the temporal; by attempting to systematize an increasingly complex history as an orderly continuity; by demonstrating that not only earthly, but also heavenly relations are calculable; and by linking the core moments of universal salvation history with the temporality of human subjects. These are some of the tendencies present in the late Middle Ages for dealing with salvation history, eternity, and temporality. They frequently refer to the figure of Christ, who was linked early on not only to the conception of a “middle” of time, but also to that of a mediation between eternity and temporality.1 From the twelfth to the thirteenth century, this occurred with particular frequency with reference to the Passion.2 In the form of the Passion, the temporal paradox becomes, as a medial paradox, capable of both negotiation and figuration—​in that the relationship between the human and the divine is not worked out in abstract theological categories but in concrete, material forms. In each case, these forms bring with them their own unique temporalities, in which the supratemporal can appear. Late medieval texts and images of the Passion take over at the point where the canonical texts (the Gospels, the Epistles, the early commentaries) had come to a halt. The former supplement the latter, filling out gaps and competing for authenticity. At the same time, they make the original events present once again, transforming them into corporeal and imaginative acts. Thus, these late medieval texts 1  Cf. Cullmann, Christus und die Zeit, passim; Conzelmann, Die Mitte der Zeit, passim. 2  Cf. this book, chap. 3.

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and images operate within a perspective that is at once historical, contemporary, and forward-​looking, thereby testing out complex models of temporality. On the one hand, the interpretation of historical events takes place on the basis of increasing recourse to the Old Testament. Its prophetic statements are related to the New Testament, in which the Old is in turn found to be reflected: historical and ahistorical moments, primordial ones, timeless and quotidian ones all dovetail into one another. On the other hand, the interpretation of historical events takes place under increasing recourse to authorities such as the church fathers or figures from the history of piety, who had themselves already interpreted or appropriated the movement of history. When the Dominican friar Felix Fabri of Ulm visited the holy sites in Palestine toward the end of the fifteenth century, he certainly encountered the material records of the Saviour’s earthly existence. At the same time, however, he bore with him the knowledge of a long tradition. In the Chapel of Thomas, where the apostle is said to have touched the crucifixion wound, Fabri was reminded of Bernard of Clairvaux, to whom the crucified Christ leaned down from the Cross, Francis of Assisi, who received the stigmata, and Catherine of Siena, who drank from the wound in Christ’s side.3 Thus the Passion is extensively reflected in both older and contemporary times. At the same time, the medial figures and forms that mediate the Passion multiply. Interpretation and presentification of the events of the Passion go hand in hand, and theoretical, performative, and narrative elements complement one another. What results is an oscillation between two aspects: one imagines being part of the historical series of events, and at the same time makes this series present in the here and now. Spatially and temporally, this means that meditation is based upon the meditator’s present as well as the historical temporality of the Passion. And this meditation takes place in a present, proximate space, which contains vistas into the distance, as well as in a historically distant space, which meditation is supposed to bring closer. The two aspects can emerge in a complementary manner in texts and images because temporal and spatial dimensions are bound together in them:  the difficult-​to-​grasp temporality of salvation history is translated into spatial dimensions (centre/​border, east/​west, north/​south). Conversely, spatial aspects of the church or cloister allow glimpses of temporal aspects (the Old Covenant, the New Covenant, the time of the church, the end time). Such relationships of exchange between time and space are supported by the fact that the various medial forms rely upon a similar paradigm: the division of the Passion—​on the one hand into individual moments, on the other into individual stations. Such a division began to accompany the development of Passion piety relatively early on. The church year was conceived as a repetition of the life of Christ. From Friday to Sunday, the liturgy of the week led from the sufferings of Christ to his resurrection. The way monks, clerics, and eventually pious laymen structured the course of the day also followed the paradigm of the Passion. The Meditatio passionis Christi, which is presumed to have arisen in the second half of the thirteenth century, was the first to rigorously divide the events of the Passion in accordance with the seven canonical hours of

3  Fabri, Evagatorium, here 1:95b; cf. Latin-​French edition: Les errances de Frère Félix; see also Meyers, “L’Evagatorium de Frère Félix Fabri.”

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prayer, and found a number of successors in the late Middle Ages.4 The various moments of the Passion thus began to seep into everyday temporality. However, the Passion was also understood as a series of events that were very much temporally determined. A vernacular tract on the Passion, created ca. 1400 on the basis of Latin archetypes, pointedly places the events in Jerusalem in a very precise temporal frame: “Afterwards, on Sunday, Christ went to Jerusalem. There he was received with honour. There he drove the merchants out of the temple with a scourge made of rope, and taught the entire day. Late in the evening, he was forced to leave the city without any dinner, because no one in the city wanted to take in him and his apostles or lodge them for the night. And he had to travel two miles at night back to Bethany. Monday morning, he went back to Jerusalem.”5 The same can be said of the spatial dimension. The events of the Passion are understood as being divided into distinct spatial stations. The thirty-​fifth chapter of the Speculum humanae salvationis, written shortly before 1324, tells how the Virgin Mary visited the various sites of memory in passionate meditation following her son’s ascension: Nazareth, Bethlehem, Mount Tabor, Mount Sinai, and the grave. Mary appears here as the ur-​form of the pilgrim, demonstrating the model that Christians are to follow: “thus, following her example, we as well must visit the locations mentioned and shed tears in fervid memory of the sufferings of Christ. Should we be unable to visit them with our body, then we must at least visit them mentally, with thoughtful hearts.”6 This mental pilgrimage operates for its part with a transposition of the moments of the Passion onto current spatial conditions. In his Vita, Henry Suso describes a re-​enactment of the Passion which oscillates between the corporeal and the mental or spiritual: He began by joining with Christ at the Last Supper and suffering together with him from place to place until he accompanied him to Pilate. Finally, he took his condemned Lord to his trial and went with him then the lonely way of the cross from the place of judgment all the way to under the cross. His way of the cross was as follows: When he came to the doorstep of the chapter room, he knelt down and kissed the first footsteps Christ made when, already condemned, he turned and was about to go to his death. He began to recite the psalm of our Lord’s suffering: “Deus, deus meus, respice me.” And then he went through the door and into the 4  Kemper, Die Kreuzigung Christi, 70–​76.

5  Ruh, Der Passionstraktat des Heinrich von St. Gallen, 3:16–​24:  “Dornach an dem sontage ginc Cristus gegen Iherusalem. Do wart er in eren empfangen. Do treib er us dem tempel mit einer geisele von stricken, die do kouften und vorkouften. Do larte er den ganzen tac. Des abendis spete muste er geen us der stat, ungessen, daz in niemant wolde behalden noch herbergen obir nacht mit sinen iungeren. Und muste bie nachte gen czwu mile gen Bethania. An dem montage gar vru ginc er weder kegen Iherusalem”; cf. Kiening, “Mitte der Zeit.”

6  Speculum humanae salvationis 1, lines 73–​76:  “Praedicta ergo loca debemus exemplo eius perambulare | Et passionem Christi recolendo ferventer deplorare; | Quod si nequimus ea perambulare corporaliter, | Perambulemus saltem ea devoto corde spiritualiter”; for the pilgrimage of the mind, see Ganz-​Blättler, Andacht und Abenteuer, 255–​63.

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cloisters. […] Then he got up quickly and strode after his Lord to catch up with him. His imagining was sometimes very vivid, just as if he were really walking at his side.7

The cloister becomes a location in which the Passion repeats itself and the servant of wisdom relives it. The servant imagines himself participating in the events, while in the same breath—​through the use of psalms, prayers, and epistles—​adapting these events to the well-​known liturgical forms. Past and present, distant and proximate trade places. At the same time, the division of stations allows for an intensification: the experience of the Passion spreads itself out over a number of distinct moments, in which various types of events—​the new and unique, the historical and recurrent, those of the present—​interpenetrate one another. The individual events function as abbreviated versions of the events of the Passion, which is present as a whole in each individual event—​just as the arma Christi, whose popularity grew steadily from 1300, used excerpts to make the Passion accessible in new ways.8 The individual signs are indexical and metonymic in nature: they do not, so goes the claim, merely refer to the thing on the basis of similarity, but rather—​ideally, at least—​lead to direct contact with the original phenomena. They are meant to make it possible to evoke and complete the totality of the Passion from a number of different points. It is in this sense that the introduction to a cycle of songs in the Hohenfurter Liederbuch (fifteenth century) declares that for a procession or a pilgrimage, one could choose “whichever piece one liked for the song; if the way is long enough, one can sing it all the way to the end.”9

Loca Sancta

The procession is perhaps the most striking example of the division of the Passion into stations mentioned above—​and also a striking example of the process of temporal and spatial unfolding that takes place in the course of this division.10 On the one hand, the procession is to be understood in concrete terms: Corpus Christi processions have existed since the fourteenth century, and emphasize the Christological basis of salvation

7  Seuse, Deutsche Schriften, cap. 13, 35–​36: “Er vie es an mit ime an dem jungisten nahtmale und leid sich mit ime von stat zů stat, unz daz er in brachte fúr Pylatus. Ze jungst nam er in vor gerihte also verteilten, und gieng mit im us den ellenden crúzgang, den er tet von dem rihthus unz under den galgen. Und den krúzgang begie er also: So er kom an die swellen des capitels, do knúwet er nider und kúste die ersten fůsstapfen, die er tet, do er also verteilte sich umb gekerte und in den tod wolte gan, und vieng denne an den salmen von unsers herren marter: Deus, Deus meus, respice etc. […] Dar na stůnd er geswind uf und trat sinem herren bald na, unz daz er an sinen siten kom. Und daz bild waz im etwen als gegenwúrtig, reht als ob er liplich an siner siten giengi.” English: Suso, The Exemplar, 84–​85. 8  Berliner, “Arma Christi”; Suckale, “Arma Christi”; Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 2:184–​230; The Arma Christi.

9  Ein deutsches geistliches Liederbuch mit Melodien aus dem XV. Jahrhundert, 17: “ainer mag jm in den ruff ain stückel für nemmen, welches er wil. Es wär dann der weg als verr, so heb er es vor an pys an das end.” 10  Cf. Felbecker, Die Prozession; Gvozdeva and Velten, Medialität der Prozession; in the following, I take up aspects of what I analyzed there (“Prozessionalität der Passion,” 177–​97).

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condensed in the Eucharist.11 The Good Friday processions developed somewhat later, becoming ubiquitous in Catholic regions in the early modern era—​at the same time that the stations of the cross and the related devotions became institutionalized.12 The procession, however, also presents a kind of musical score for the imagination. It offers a paradigm for (internal) performative and processual acts, in reading or in observation.13 Intended to intensify perception and thought, it accentuates, as a ritualized form of movement in space and time, a series of events which relate to one another “in the sense of an internal process of growing together or ‘concretization’.”14 Both have historical as well as present dimensions. They are an attempt to gain proximity to the historical locations of the Passion, the loca sacra or sancta, locations already invested with tradition.15 The locations are places of memory, in which central moments of Christian history are preserved, and from which this history can be set free again, transformed into living, present intuition. This takes place through a movement which begins in a wider area (Europe/​Palestine), then shifts to a narrower one divided into stages (the Holy Land, Jerusalem). In the Holy Land, the sites both stand out individually and merge into a single process that encompasses them all.16 Those who studied the popular pilgrim’s guide by Burchard of Mount Sion (end of the thirteenth century) found there the suggestion to perceive Jesus bodily, “as he preaches in the temple, as he instructs his disciples on the Mount of Olives, as he eats his evening meal on Mount Sion, washes the feet of the disciples, gives his body and his blood, prays in Gethsemane, drips bloody sweat, kisses the betrayer, is spit upon, mocked and dragged after being captured, how, after his conviction, he bears the cross, collapses under its weight at the gate of the city, follows along behind Simon of Cyrene and completes the mystery of the Passion for us at Calvary.” Burchard also stresses that this personal experience of Christ’s Passion refers both to the ensemble as a whole and to its individual moments: “at all these places and at each individual one, the memory of the events is just as fresh as on the day on which they actually and bodily (presencialiter) took place.”17 11  Cf. Browe, Eucharistie im Mittelalter; Niedermeier, “Über die Sakramentsprozessionen”; Rubin, Corpus Christi, for a summary. 12  Cf. Kneller, Geschichte der Kreuzwegandacht.

13  Cf. Kiening, “Präsenz—​Memoria—​Performativität”; Literarische Performativität.

14  J. P. Beckmann, “Prozeß II,” Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie 7 (1989): 1558–​60, here particularly 1558, with reference to Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: Macmillan, 1929). 15  Reudenbach, “Loca sancta.”

16  For the distinction between “spaces” and “places,” see de Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 115–​30; for Jerusalem as a place of memory, see Bieberstein, “Jerusalem.” 17  Burchardus de Monte Sion, “Descriptio Terrae Sanctae,” 1–​94, here 19–​20: “ut videat et audiat in templo Ihesum predicantem, in monte oliueti discipulos instruentem, in monte Sion cenantem, discipulorum pedes lauantem, corpus Suum et sanguinem tradentem, in Gethsemani orantem, sudore sanguineo defluentem, traditorem osculantem, captum trahi, illudi, conspui, iudicatum, crucem baiulantem, sub pondere crucis in porta ciuitatis … deficientem, Cyreneum Simonem

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In the late Middle Ages, ever-​increasing numbers of pilgrims set out for Palestine. Their journey took them to visit the sacred sites in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, where they used the spatial proximity to relics left over from the time of Christ to immerse themselves in his time. They became inspired by the material-​symbolic images (imagines), whose association with the city dated back to Bernard of Clairvaux.18 They fed on the salvific energy present in these locations, and sought to take a piece of it home with them: in material relics, souvenirs, pilgrim badges, sketches, images—​and texts.19 In each case we are dealing with complex medial forms that enable transfer not just in space, but also in time: in taking their lead from existing paradigms and old topoi, they make a connection with the tradition, while at the same time charging these paradigms and topoi with the specificity of a current realization. In this sense, the texts are on the one hand reports, lending evidence to the information then circulating about the Holy Land; on the other hand, they are documents attesting to the presence of the author at the sites of salvation, authenticating him as the medium of an individual and collective experience.20 Themselves metonymic in nature, they also collect metonymic elements, culminating in the visit to the loca sancta. In the introduction to his 1479/​1480 travelogue, the Nuremberg merchant Hans Tucher gives as his objective “to visit the holy sites and particularly the locations where Christ our Saviour lived and wandered in his divine humanity, the places where he carried out wonders and for our salvation suffered his Passion, his torments and his death, the place where he had his real corporeal burial, and particularly the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem and others of his holy places of rest.”21 Like other pilgrims, Tucher describes the locations in accordance with a stereotypical pattern of movements. The stations of this pattern were based on the widely distributed Peregrinationes totius terrae sanctae, which appear to have been compiled out of older texts by the Franciscans, following their settlement in 1333 on Mount Sion, and also seem to have been supplemented with remarks on the indulgence which is to be granted at each station.22 Felix Fabri mentions that he had succedentem, in Caluaria pro nobis mysteria passionis celebrantem. Horum omnium locorum et singulorum adhuc ita plena et manifesta exstat memoria, sicut in illo die exstitit, quando presencialiter erant facta.” 18  Cf. Raedts, “St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Jerusalem.” 19  Cf. Schröder, “Reiseandenken aus Jerusalem.”

20  Scholars have described this numerous times; see Zrenner, Berichte der europäischen Jerusalempilger; Hippler, Reise nach Jerusalem; for the role of Jerusalem in the European imagination of the fourteenth century, see Yeager, Jerusalem in Medieval Narrative. 21  Herz, Die ‘Reise ins Gelobte Land’ Hans Tuchers des Älteren, 339.7–​40.1: “die heiligen stete vnd besunder die ende, so Christus Jhesus vnser seligmacher jn seiner heiligen menschheit sein leben vnd wesen gehabt, gewandelt, gotliche wunderwerck erzaigt vnd, vmb vnsers hails willen, sein manigueltigs pitters leiden, marter vnd tod geliden, vnd sein erlich leiplich begrebnuß erwelt vnd gehabt hat, besunder sein Heiliges Grab zu Jherusalem, vnd furbaß andere seiner lieben heiligen rastung zu besuchen.”

22  Fünf Palästina-​Pilgerberichte, 28n58; see also Paulus, “Ablässe der Kreuzwegandacht”; Hippler, Reise nach Jerusalem, 125–​26.

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himself bought one of the little books intended for the processionalis peregrinatio, which contained all of the necessary songs and texts for a visit to the holy sites.23 Positioned prominently at the centre of both Latin and German texts is the visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Here in turn the Holy Sepulchre, located in the centre of the rotunda, was afforded particular significance—​pilgrims were as a rule already familiar with it, through replicas and illustrations.24 Visitors passed through the church in a ceremonial procession, two abreast, stopping at stations based on liturgical elements. Girnard of Schwalbach wrote in 1440: It is now typical that when one enters the temple, one finds either immediately before it or within it wax candles offered for sale in ample supply. Everyone buys a candle, and then one moves ceremonially, with the Templar and priests in the front, in rows of two to the sacred sites in the temple. There is a rest at every location, and one of the Templars announces what took place here and what indulgence is granted here. This is done as often as one enters the temple. Every time, the honoured sacred sites are visited in the manner of the procession described.25

In an anonymous Bavarian text from the same era, the pilgrims are described as follows: “In such a way they once again come before the sacred temple, and in entering form themselves into a reverent procession, which is then completed behind closed doors. On the inside, one sees ten sacred sites. At each one, the appropriate song of praise is sung, and while kneeling one speaks a psalm and an altar prayer for the Passion of Christ.”26 The individual sites are located in distinct chapels: a chapel of the Virgin Mary is held to be the location where Christ appeared to his mother following the resurrection. It is also, however, deemed to be the site of the wonder that enabled Helena to identify the true cross, where a fragment of the column on which Christ was scourged stands in a barred niche. Other chapels show the dungeon in which the suffering Christ was held prisoner; the marble block he was sitting on as the crown of thorns was placed upon his head; the hole in which the cross was placed; and the gravestone upon which Mary rested with her dead son in her lap, following the deposition from the cross. Also 23  Fabri, Evagatorium, 1:244: “in quibus omnes versiculi, collectae, responsoria signantur et hymni et psalmi circa loca sancta legenda et cantanda per omnia loca transmarinae peregrinationis.” 24  For the images, see Betschart, Zwischen zwei Welten, 118–​27.

25  Fünf Palästina-​Pilgerberichte, 128: “Jtem ist ez auch eyn gewonheyt, wanne man in den tempel get, so syn vor dem tempel vnnd in dem tempel kirczen von wass gemacht gnung feyl. Da keyffet iglicher eyn kyrcz, vnnd get man zochtiglich in eyner processien, die hern vnnd prister an, vnnd dar nach ye zwene neben eyn ander zu den heilgen steden in dem tempel. Vnnd da blibet man an iglicher stadt sunderlichen sten, vnnd da verkondigen die barfußen herren eyner, waz an iglicher stadt gescheen ist vnd waz ablaß an der stadt sij. Vnnd daz dut man als dicke, als man in den tempel kommet. So sucht man die lieben heiligen stede mit der procession obgeschriben etc.” 26  Fünf Palästina-​Pilgerberichte, 52: “So kömen sy wider fur den heyligen tempel vnd schicken sich, dar ein zw gen mit der andechtigen processen, die sy thün mit verslosner thür. Vnd sind merklich x heylig stet jn wendig. Zw yeglicher stat singet man ain sunder lobgesang vnd spricht da knienent ainen psalm vnd ain collect von dem leiden Cristi.”

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included in the procession are encounters with the stone on which Helena sat as the Jews sought the cross, and with the cliff walls below Calvary, where the cross, nails, lance, and crown of thorns were found. The tour continues outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with visits to the sacred sites on Mount Sion, the Lion’s Gate, Solomon’s Temple, and the sacred sites on the outskirts of Jerusalem: the Valley of Josaphat, the Garden of Gethsemane, then Bethlehem and Bethania; an excursion to Saint Catherine’s monastery on Sinai can also be added on.27 What emerges here is an ensemble of moments from the Passion. This ensemble is not linear in nature. It is, to be certain, linked to a syntagm of movement, but not to one that is firmly fixed. It is possible to set out on the path at different points, even from the end. In every case, it produces the paradigm of the Passion, which draws upon the abundance of material givens and historical moments. The large number of locations and the proximity make chronological ordering difficult, and can even lead to confusion: in his Evagatorium, Felix Fabri speaks of the peculiarity that in the Holy Land, one first encounters the traces or footprints of the resurrected Christ, and then those of the crucified Christ. He concludes from this that a great mystery lies in the apparent chronological reversal: it shows that all striving toward heaven can only succeed through a carrying of the cross (bajulatio crucis).28 The consequence of this intersection of different temporal elements is that the texts focus on topography, and not chronology—​while nonetheless according the temporal dimension a decisive role. Locations from the Old and New Testament, from early church history and even the anticipated end times (the Valley of Josaphat) are touched upon in succession. Each of these locations is associated with a huge expectation of meaning, which in turn leads to almost excessive creations of meaning. Every stone and spring, every tree and ruin, every part of the way and the fields is assigned a position in salvation history: the gate that Jesus was led through on his way up to Calvary is supposedly the same one through which Abel went to the place of his death and Isaac brought in the wood that was to serve for his own sacrifice.29 Such associations show that what is typologically related is also topologically and historically linked. The central Christological sites appear in an immediately obvious relationship to both their prehistory and their post-​history. For example, various locations are associated with Helena and the history of the discovery of the cross. This makes it possible to encounter two types of phenomena at each location: the foundations of the Christian religion and the monuments of an early institutionalization, transformation, and translation of Christian principles. In both cases, what is at stake is, first of all, the concrete form of historical remnants, which are more or less precisely recorded in the reports. More important, however, is the fundamental connection between location and event, which the texts evoke and offer to their readers’ imaginations. The series of events is on the one hand reproduced as historical, on the other withdrawn from the realm of the historical; this occurs as events 27  For the paradigms, see Jahn, Raumkonzepte in der Frühen Neuzeit, here particularly 67–​120. 28  Fabri, Evagatorium, 1:240.

29  Prescott, Jerusalem Journey, 125.

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that were not originally directly linked come together and acquire a new presentness. As, for example, when accompanying illustrations show not the locations, but rather the original events: four pen drawings with Passion scenes have been inserted into Jörg Pfinzing’s travelogue of 1445, while Francesco di Alessandro da Modena’s travelogue of 1516 includes five representations of scenes from Christ’s life.30 One of the texts’ most important tasks was, alongside the simple fact of documentation, to turn the journey into something that could be repeated in the imagination.31 This would enable non-​travelling (or no-​longer-​travelling) readers to recreate and follow the first journey. In this manner, the increasing historicization of the Passion lived from the relationships of exchange between near and far. At the same time, this historicization went hand in hand with an interiorization that detemporalized the historical sequence of events, making them ubiquitously accessible. For the texts, this means that concrete, imaginative, and transposed spaces and times interpenetrate and overlap one another within them, in what are in each case unique ways. In terms of function and effect, there is no strict distinction between those that refer to an actual journey, and those that refer to a pilgrimage which takes place only in the mind.32 Both use performative strategies in order to make the holy sites present in the homeland. And both address not so much the travellers in distant lands as the readers and observers in the immediate vicinity. The latter have a substantial advantage over the former: the absence of heat, disorder, and noisy pilgrims hunting for souvenirs means that they require less effort to put their minds in the contemplative mood appropriate for the holy locations. In the introduction to his Sionpilger (1492), a journey in the mind composed primarily for nuns, Felix Fabri lists a number of the nuisances one might encounter along the way. Although himself an enthusiastic peregrinator, Fabri does this in order to show the difficulties that could be avoided by those who made their pilgrimages in spirit and with the aid of his book.33 For their part, the spiritual pilgrimages deal with spatial and temporal dimensions in a range of different ways.34 Many texts deriving from the context of pilgrim brotherhoods recommend a “walking with the mouth” in the form of uniformly repeated prayers. For a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, one was supposed to say twelve thousand Our Fathers and just as many Hail Marys. This number reflected the real distance between Jerusalem and Upper Swabia. However, true importance lay not in the destination, but rather in the path: divided into the smallest prayer intervals, the journey is experienced temporally as a structure of repetition, and spatially as the ubiquitous presence of salvation. Fabri, on the other hand, opts for a different method. Going through the days of a year, he touches upon all the “places that appear in the readings from the epistles” and leads the 30  Betschart, Zwischen zwei Welten, 141.

31  Cf. Zwijnenburg-​Tönnies, “Die Kreuzwegandacht.”

32  For the mental pilgrimage, see Ganz-​ Blättler, Andacht und Abenteuer, 255–​63; Herbers, “Spiritualité nouvelle”; Miedema, Rompilgerführer, 389–​462; Rudy, “Virtual Pilgrimage”; Lehmann-​ Brauns, Jerusalem sehen. 33  Fabri, Evagatorium, 1:250: “se excitare ad actualem devotionem et ad contemplationem.” 34  For the following, see Klingner, “Reisen zum Heil.”

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nuns through a space of divine salvific effects, supplementing the traditional figures for the mediation of salvation with order-​specific (in this case Dominican) figures. Here the pilgrims’ journey appears to him “to only serve as a background enabling one to make present specific contents (which otherwise had their place in the liturgy of the ecclesiastical year and the saints’ days, or in the refectory readings) in a new order—​and in a mnemonically convenient spatial configuration.”35 For example, the description of the movement from one holy place to another is linked with references to the corresponding hymns. Upon the pilgrims’ entrance into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, we read that “the priests form a processional order, and when all pilgrims are present with their pilgrim books, the cantor begins the hymn Ave maris stella. The procession comes to the chapel of the Virgin Mary while singing verse after verse. There, the pilgrims sing an antiphon of the cross and the hymn Originale crimen; there are also indulgences there.”36 In the manuscript, the hymns and antiphons are always emphasized with red ink. This makes the procession audible for the liturgically trained readers, while cross symbols, drawn in red ink, turn the indulgence into something attainable in the here and now. This is the case even when a text offers barely more than a list-​like enumeration of sacred locations. Here, too, signs of the cross can create a basic framework, which can be elaborated to show the overall trend of historical events. These signs also allow for a double transposition: from the Palestinian context into a Central European one, and from the collective of the pilgrims to that of the readers.

Transfers

One factor in such transfers is that of comparison:  between specific proportions and forms, or even between general phenomena in the Holy Land and in the homeland.37 Another factor is the numerical:  the figure recorded in the text, giving the number of years of indulgence in each case, is intended for the pilgrims, but also holds relevance for the readers.38 The reported sizes of buildings and objects, as well as the distances between the loca sancta, claim to be based upon measurements made on the spot.39 But just as this often takes recourse to prior accounts of distances available to the author, so 35  Klingner, “Reisen zum Heil,” 71.

36  Fabri, Die Sionpilger, 113:8–​12; 114:5–​7: “Da ordent die priester ain process · vnd so die process in der ordnung stăt · vnd alle bilgrin da seind · mit irem processional biechli · so hebt die singerin an den ÿmps · Aue maris stella et cetera · Vnd singen vers umb vers · vnd mit dem gesang kumpt die proceß in die capell marie […] Da singen die bilgrin · Antiffen · von dem crútz · vnd den ÿmps · Originale crimen necans et cetera vnd ist da † ablas.” For the text, see Classen, “Imaginary Experience”; Herbers, “Felix Fabris ‘Sionpilgrin’ ”; Beebe, “Reading Mental Pilgrimage”; Lehmann-​ Brauns, Jerusalem sehen, chap. 5; Klingner, “Reisen zum Heil.” 37  Esch, “Anschauung und Begriff.”

38  Cf. Angenendt et al., “Gezählte Frömmigkeit.” 39  Cf. Reichert, Erfahrung der Welt, 146f.

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it also incites acts of renewed measurement in the spirit or on the reproduction. These then feed on the facticity of a completed movement. In the case of Hans Tucher, this is not just an occasional occurrence, but is developed in some detail. In a letter to his brother, written in 1479, as well as a travelogue written shortly thereafter, he spends several pages drawing parallels between the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of St. Sebald in Nuremberg. The latter is itself a paradigm for salvational spaces steeped in diverse earthly and transcendent temporalities.40 Although the chapel in Nuremberg is, as Tucher reports, somewhat larger than its counterpart in length and breadth, comparing the two churches nonetheless “allows the holy locations in the Temple to remain in one’s memory all the better.”41 The re-​memorization of the Passion takes place in a complex memorial space: one in which Jerusalem and Nuremberg are superimposed on top of one another; one in which the origin of Mass celebrations appears in the present ceremony; one in which the historical origins of salvation coincide with one’s own salvational hopes—​Tucher knew that he himself “would be buried in St. Sebald.”42 An additional insight can emerge when the Holy Sepulchre is compared with an imitation of it. Such is the case for the Nuremberg patrician Stefan Baumgartner, who in 1498 travelled from Saxony to the Holy Land with Henry IV the Pious, Duke of Saxony. Baumgartner records the following in a handwritten report about his visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: “Afterwards, we went with the procession into the Temple of the Holy Sepulchre, which is a tiny little church shaped like the one in Nuremberg in the Spitalkirche churchyard.”43 What emerges from the text is a multi-​stage oscillation between here and there: the (Nurembergian, to give but one example) readers follow the path of one of their countrymen into the Holy Land, who then for his part takes his bearings from things in his homeland which had previously been “transported” to Nuremberg from the Holy Land. The stay in Palestine appears as both past and present simultaneously: like other authors, Hans Tucher moves constantly back and forth between temporal registers. The description of his own journey is in the preterit (“darnach gingen wir mit der processen,” 402.9; afterward we went with the processions), while the description of the locations is in the present tense (“Do stet ein weite runde kirchen,” 402.11; there stands a broad, round church). In this way, the event of having been in the Holy Land becomes in the same breath both an individual historical-​factual occurrence, and one that is contemporary and repeatable for other individuals. The historical-​factual dimension is further underscored by the above-​mentioned numerical figures given for times and spaces—​figures which in each case attest to a kind of personal inspection. In pursuing one of these inspections, Sebald Rieter even appears to have climbed onto the roof of the interior Holy Sepulchre 40  Cf. Weilandt, Die Sebalduskirche in Nürnberg.

41  Herz, Die ‘Reise ins Gelobte Land,’ 391,3f.: “die heiligen stet jm tempel einem desterpaß jngedenck sein zu mercken”; Jahn, Raumkonzepte in der Frühen Neuzeit, 73–​77. 42  Jahn, Raumkonzepte in der Frühen Neuzeit, 74.

43  Baumgartner, Reise zum Heiligen Grab, 37–​38: “Item dornach gingen mier mit der proceß vonn derselbigen stadt inn tempel zu dem heyligen grab. Ist ein klein kirchlein, gefurmet alß das zu Nurmberg auff dem spital kirchoff stet.”

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chapel and “recorded the static load-​bearing functions of the division of the pillars.”44 Tucher, for his part, admittedly takes numerous pieces of information from the travel diary of his predecessor Rieter, but he also corrects and personalizes them. On one of his notes, transmitted by the humanist Hartmann Schedel, he gives the measurements of the Holy Sepulchre and its internal dimensions according to his own shoe size.45 At the same time, he relates them to the depiction of the Holy Sepulchre in the Holy Sepulchre Chapel in Nuremberg (created in 1459 by the merchant Jörg Ketzel), which was supposed to date back to a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. According to Tucher, the prevailing opinion was that the Sepulchre in Nuremberg resembled the one in Jerusalem; in fact, however, the one in Jerusalem was nothing like the one in Nuremberg (“nindert gleich dem hiigen”). Thus, a claim of authenticity predicated upon the factor of experience was taken into account for architectonic imitations as well—​the latter had served as the basis from which the “presentifying” memory of the Passion lived, and as the source from which many churches claimed their institutional validity.46 This experience, forged at the sites of the Passion, is transformed in the pilgrim’s report into an experience for readers—​in a double movement. Tucher begins by depicting the route to the procession’s point of departure. He emphasizes three stations: the location of the deposition from the cross; the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, and the chapel of the Virgin Mary. From the very beginning, they are brought into relation with familiar objects: the chancel of St. Catherine’s within St. Sebald; the Holy Cross chapel in Eichstätt, with the depiction of the Holy Sepulchre; and the chapel of the Twelve Brothers’ House in Nuremberg. In each case, however, Tucher indicates that he will describe the locations with more precision only within the framework of the processional order. In this manner, the “approach” and the main event appear distinct from one another. Normal movement differs from ceremonial movement from station to station. That which is suggested in the former is realized only in the latter. This second, ceremonial procession starts from the chapel of the Virgin Mary: as a “lobliche processen” (394.4; “devout procession”) which proceeds with burning candles and antiphons and, at the individual stations, culminates in the naming of the indulgence to be acquired there. These details give concrete form to what was recorded in general fashion at the beginning: those who enter the church on Calvary in Christian faith and good disposition have earned forgiveness of all their sins (392.4). At the same time, this leads to a circular structure: still within the framework of a comparison with the church of St. Sebald, Tucher refers back to the beginning of the procession multiple times during his descent from Calvary: “geleich als vor stet, do man erstlich jn tempel gegangen ist” (402.1f.; “just as said earlier, when one had first gone into the temple”), “alß zu Eystet in vor der stat, alß ich vor am anfang deß tempelß dauon geschriben habe” (402.12f.; “as in the outskirts of Eichstätt, as I  have written about 44  Zittlau, Heiliggrabkapelle und Kreuzweg, 96. 45  Herz, “Briefe Hans Tuchers.”

46  For reconstructions of the Holy Sepulchre, see for example Maisel, Sepulchrum Domini, as well as a number of works by Dieterich, “Anastasis-​Rotunde und Heiliges Grab” and “Das Konstanzer Heilige Grab.” For the instances of measurement and experience, see Kiening, “ ‘Erfahrung’ und ‘Vermessung’ der Welt in der frühen Neuzeit.”

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earlier, at the beginning of the temple”), “wie vor stet, do man die processen anfing” (403.10f.; “as said earlier, when one began the processions”). He thus creates a framework which carries the manifold processionality of the spatial movement into a complex processuality of the text that presentifies this movement.

Ways and Paths

For the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the stations of the cross always appear meaningful in and of themselves. In most pilgrims’ reports, on the other hand, the description of the way of the cross to Calvary adheres closely to the order of the historical route. Here, too, however, syntagmatic and paradigmatic dimensions are interwoven. There exists a sketch map created by Hans Tucher. A preliminary remark from his brother Endres notes that the map is a product of a lengthy stay in Jerusalem, which owing to circumstances took place before Hans’s departure to Saint Catherine’s monastery on Sinai: “At the same time, the Guardian of the Carthusians showed them this path and others, and told them the corresponding stories (amongst other things). They subsequently walked along this path often and devoutly, measuring or pacing it out.”47 The way or path is thus experienced on the one hand as a syntagm (of steps); on the other hand, what becomes manifest on this path, in paradigmatic fashion, are the stories associated with it. And the written record seeks to make both the path and the stories accessible to experience, by naming moments of the Passion narrative and communicating information about the distance between the individual stations: “It is 85 steps from the 200-​step-​point to the corner, etc. On this corner, Christ sank to the ground under the burden of the cross. There they forced Simon of Cyrene to help Jesus carry the cross.”48 The sketch map survived because Endres had it bound into his personal copy of the print of Hans’s travelogue. He did the same with a copy of the letter that Hans sent him from the Holy Land on August 6, 1479. According to Endres, this letter went through so many eager hands that the original version “gancz zurissen vnd beschediget wardt” (“was entirely torn and damaged”). Here, too, then, we find metonyms of metonyms: the letter is an authentic witness to the presence of the Nuremberger Hans Tucher in the Holy Land. At the same time, it serves as a proxy for the one who has apparently not yet returned home. Incorporated into the codex, it becomes a memorial sign (gedechtnuß)—​one which by virtue of being handwritten possesses a particular degree of authenticity. In the codex, it encounters other documents that also oscillate between here and there, between the event of reading and that of observing, between the visit to the Holy Land and the Passion. 47  Herz, “Briefe Hans Tuchers,” 78:5–​7:  “In der selben zeit do weisset in der gardian von den parfussen dissen weg und anderß, und saget in von den geschichten etc. den weg sie dor noch offt mit andacht gingen und abmassen oder ab schritten etc.” 48  Herz, “Briefe Hans Tuchers,” 78:21–​23: “Von dem puncktlein der 200 schridt, so sein 85 schridt piß auf das eck etc. An dem eck sanck Christus nider untter dem kreucz. Do nötten sie Simon Cireneus, das er dem Heren Jhesu musst helffen das kreucz thragen.”

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Tucher’s sketch map shows the itinerary of Christ’s final path within a framework marked by the points of the compass. The way leads from the ascent of the sun to its descent, that is, from east to west—​the direction of movement that was generally held, in the Middle Ages, to be that of the march of history as well.49 But the map not only symbolizes Christ’s path in the sense of the universality of salvation history; it also makes possible a double reading. At first glance, it offers a linear depiction of the path, with Pilate’s palace as the beginning and Golgotha as the end-​point. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes a multi-​layered and circular structure—​one only disclosed when the page is turned around. This is the result of distinct directions of writing. If we begin at the geographic point of origin, Pilate’s palace, then we must start in the lower-​right corner (with the word auffgang (ascent) below standing upside down) and proceed to read the individual paragraphs from bottom to top. Here, however, we acquire only rudimentary information about the individual stations, mostly about the distances between them. If we want to know more, we have to turn the sheet sideways (so that the word auffgang is on the right), and read the right-​hand paragraphs from top to bottom. As it turns out, these paragraphs go together with those on the other side of the line marking the way, as the line leading down the middle and the insertion of small arcs makes clear. So we travel for a second time from the house of Pilate to Golgotha, this time receiving information about the events linked to the various locations. While on the one side all we could read was “Von Pilatuß hauß piß auff das puncktlein, so sein 200 schridt etc” (“From Pilate’s house up to the little point, it is 200 steps etc.”), now we can read: “Do stundt Maria und sach Jhesum außfuren und wardt anmechtig etc” (78.19f.; “There stood Mary and saw Jesus departing and fell unconscious etc.”). But if we want to understand the connection between the notes on event, location, and distance, we have to continually turn the sheet this way and that. The text appears to reflect this when it says: “So man das puch legt in die vier ort, so sicht man eigenlichen, wie…” (77.17f.; “When one places the book in the four places, one actually sees how”). What is offered here is a model for the spatial visualization of the way of the cross and its stations—​a model that goes beyond what is characteristic of other maps and diagrams containing multiple directions of reading.50 Perception is made dynamic and the imagination is stimulated in a very specific manner: the moments of the Passion are mentally joined up into a whole alongside the diagrammatic and textual elements. The production of the syntagm goes hand in hand with an opening toward the paradigm of the events of the Passion (indicated as such through the “etc.” signs). This makes it possible to experience both the teleological linearity of the events and their multiple interlinkages. At the same time, the event of encounter with the sites of the Passion is relocated from abroad into the reader’s homeland. This is immediately obvious from the foreword to the map. On the lower left-​hand side, above the indication vnterganck (descent), Hans Tucher writes, in summary, of the 1050 steps to be covered from Pilate’s palace to the location of the Crucifixion. Endres, in his foreword, relates this number to a way of the cross in Nuremberg: “it is just this far here in Nuremberg from the New Gate 49  See Maurmann, Himmelsrichtungen; Kugler, “Himmelsrichtungen und Erdregionen.”

50  For such diagrammatic models, see Sicard, Diagrammes médiévaux, and Müller, Visuelle Weltaneignung.

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to the cemetery at St. Johann’s. This has been paced out and explicitly fixed in writing in the cemetery—​even before my brother, Hans Tucher Senior, began his journey into the Holy Land.”51 This remark adds a further nuance to the medial dimension. It becomes clear that sacred sites and the real movements between them do not stand on one side of a division, opposite the medial forms that mediate them (letter, map, travelogue). Instead, experience itself is already shaped by mediations (the notice in the cemetery). It is they that determine what can be experienced.

Reconstructions

Devotions linked to ways of the cross were only occasionally found in the fifteenth century. It was not until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that, spurred on by the Counter-​Reformation and now unified into fourteen stations, they really began to come into their own.52 An interesting feature of the early reconstructions of the way of the cross is that they mostly arose in relation to those returning home from the Holy Land. These repatriates transported not only the knowledge but also the salvific energy that fuelled the reconstructions. Sometime before 1420, Alvaro of Cordoba created a way of the cross in the area around his hometown, in the form of a staircase ascending to the Scala Coeli cloister. The first examples in German-​speaking areas emerged ca. 1468 in Lübeck and Görliz. In the case of the latter, the story goes that Georg Emmerich, son of a rich merchant, impregnated the daughter of a neighbour and refused to marry her; conscience-​stricken, he undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1465, which led to an absolution of his sins. An imitation of the Holy Sepulchre, far more exact than other imitations of the era, seems to have been created shortly after this.53 To be certain, there had been a Corpus Christi procession in Nuremberg since somewhere between 1336 and 1340. However, there is no concrete evidence of a way of the cross until ca. 1500, when the sculptor Adam Krafft created monuments containing (here as elsewhere) seven stations:  the so-​called “falls” plus crucifixion and entombment. These probably influenced other Frankish reconstructions appearing shortly thereafter.54 The statement from Endres Tucher quoted above thus seems to attest to the presence of a relevant site in Nuremberg predating 1479. Above all, however, it demonstrates how much, in this period, a reflection on the individual stations of the Passion of Christ moved between two points of reference: the monumental remains in the Holy Land and the memorial imitations in the homeland. Both have metonymic character: the former because they derive from the origins themselves; the latter because they 51  Herz, “Briefe Hans Tuchers,” 77:11–​14: “So weit ist hie zu Nurembergk von dem newen thor piß an den goczaker pei Sant Johanns. Das hot man abgeschritten und do auff dem goczaker eigenlichen geschriben vor etlichen jaren, und ee mein pruder, der Hans Tucher senior, uber mere fure.” 52  See Kneller, Geschichte der Kreuzwegandacht; Picard, “Croix (chemin de).” 53  Meinert, Die Heilig-​Grab-​Anlage in Görlitz; Lausitzer Jerusalem.

54  Cf. Zittlau, Heiliggrabkapelle und Kreuzweg; Wegmann, “Der Kreuzweg des Adam Kraft in Nürnberg”; Wegmann, “Der Kreuzweg des Adam Kraft im Spiegel spätmittelalterlicher Frömmigkeit.”

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have come into contact with those origins through the acts of the pilgrims. Indications of distance or the number of steps allowed this contact to be inscribed in a quasi-​corporeal manner into the reconstructions themselves. On the other hand, even these concretized reconstructions were only aids to a reflection that had to be carried out internally, in a space where visio and imaginatio interlock with one another. This is also a central concern for written and printed books on the stations of the cross. A Middle Dutch Franciscan manuscript from the mid-​fifteenth century begins with a discussion of the twelve stations that are to be paced out both physically and mentally: “then, when you are walking, imagine to yourself that you see our Lord before you as he bears the cross. He is bent far toward the earth with his crowned head, and he often falls against the sharp stones, such that the crown of thorns pressed into his head and neck, which caused him particular anguish. […] Join the aggrieved mother and look at her often, see how her virgin heart was so aggrieved.”55 A southern German manuscript from the end of the fifteenth century, today in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsénal in Paris, served as an aid to private devotion. This begins at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and proceeds through the stations of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the other sacred locations. In each case, an illustration of the station is followed by the corresponding prayer texts.56 The widely known booklet of the priest of Bethlehem, furnished with information about distances and indulgences, extends the way to Calvary through a depiction of the full sufferings of Christ, distributed across the seven days of the week.57 A book on the stations of the cross entitled Die geystlich straß (The spiritual road), published in Nuremberg in 1521, already referred explicitly in its introduction to the current tendency to construct ways of the cross.58 The anonymous author first criticizes what is in part a merely aesthetic perception of the representations of the Passion: “Even if there are many statues of Christ’s sufferings in the churches and on the streets, one nonetheless sees little compassion in their inspection. People behave more like art-​obsessed observers who pay more attention to the colour, the artfulness, the form and sculptural shape etc. than to devotional immersion in his suffering. Many look at a wooden panel painting or stand before a sculpture in the church or on the street without praying a single Hail Mary, or even wasting a single thought on the meaning of the image—​let alone conferring some sort of honour upon it.”59 In any case, there were others willing to train themselves in compassion and have images 55  Kneller, Geschichte der Kreuzwegandacht, 149–​50.

56  Rudy, “A Guide to Mental Pilgrimage”; see also Rudy, “Virtual Pilgrimage for Holy Week.” 57  Kneller, Geschichte der Kreuzwegandacht, 153–​59; Huschenbett, “Priester Bethlem.”

58  Die maynung | diß büchleins. | Die geystlich straß bin ich genant | Im leyden Christi wol bekant. Nuremberg: Gutknecht 1521 (40 leaves, VD 16 G 979).

59  Fol. [1v]: “wiewol vil des leydens christi bildnuß sein zu kirchen vnd strassen /​so ist doch wenig mitleydung zu anschawung solcher bildung /​ wan mer seind die menschen höflich besichtiger solcher bildnuß /​warzunemen der kunst /​farb /​wolgestalt /​possierung vnd der gleichen /​dann andechtig betrachter des leydens /​dann mancher besichtig offt ein tafel /​oder steet vor einem bild /​ zu kirchen oder strassen /​da vor er nit ein Aue maria pet oder kain gedancken hat auff bedeutung der figur /​oder auch kain eer erbeut.”

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Figure 15. Die maynung | diß büchleins | Die geystlich straß bin ich genant; Nuremberg: Gutknecht 1521, fol. F [4r]. Used with permission.

produced for this purpose. These showed parts of the events of the Passion, or even the entire sequence: “the way of the cross with all its elements and parts, as they correspond to the events all the way up to reaching Calvary, i.e. Christ’s encounter with Mary, Simon helping to carry the cross, the encounter with Veronica and more. This is often

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represented these days, with consideration for measurements and distances according to the information delivered by those who have travelled to the Holy Land.”60 The book offers a paradigm for such constructions. At the same time, however, it wants to function independently of them. By means of the stations, the sufferings of Christ are to be made accessible “to the eyes, the mouth and the heart through the depiction (figur), its observation and prayer, through the example (exemplar) of this book.” The author of this text, which contains fifteen stations in total, explains at great length why he has not concentrated on the actual “walks” and “falls,” but rather has presented the entire series of events “from Bethany to the cross” and condensed different moments into single stations. He writes that he has also included the deposition from the cross and the entombment in order to show the processual sequence of the events of the Passion as a whole (“to make the passion complete,” fol. [2r]). This should render possible both a corporeal and an imaginary movement, one of exteriorizing measurement as well as one of interiorizing re-​enactment. The indications regarding distances at the sacred locations open up a historical space of events which is on the one hand capable of being made present, and on the other hand able to be internalized. It is, as he writes, not always necessary to proceed as many steps as indicated: “much better is to have journeyed much and far with the heart and prayer /​than with the feet” (fol. [3r]). Once again, meditation on the sufferings of Christ is related to material and historical metonymies. At the same time, it is linked to the imagination, in which what is metonymically individualized becomes a unit of meaning. But the limitations of this model also become apparent. The booklet is already hybrid at the level of its construction. Every chapter consists of five parts:  a woodcut showing the event in the form of a wayside cross, a summarizing introduction (which gives details on the particular “walk” (Gang)), the corresponding text of the Gospels (insofar as it was available), the psalms associated with the scene, and a concluding remark on the nature of the holy locations in Palestine. Die geystlich straß is also hybrid in content. It seeks to offer both a narrative of the Passion and approaches for its interpretation. It wants to be, at the same time, a devotional book, a pilgrim’s guide, and a manual for the construction of ways of the cross. It wants to enable the user to choose and switch between different modes of experience, ranging from reading or prayer to observation or imagination. Here the possibility of immersing oneself in the events of the Passion and making these present is now only one of many. The didactic and reflective gesture dominates. This means that what is missing from the little booklet is precisely that which was decisive for the pilgrims’ travelogues: the promise not only to present the Passion in its metonymic elements, but to metonymically embody its temporal and spatial persistence. In other words, what seems to be repressed here is precisely that medially intense interlacing of time (as both past and present) and space (as both distant and near). 60  Fol. [2r]:  “die außfürung vnter dem creutz/​ mit so vil mitteln/​ artikeln/​ als geschicht sein gewest/​biß er kummen ist zum perg Caluarie/​als da ist die begegnung Marie/​Simonis bezwingung/​begegnung Veronice/​vnd der gleich/​die man yetzund vil auffricht/​mit jren zilen vnd maß oder weyten/​wie dann die maß vom heyligen landt/​von Fürsten vnd herren im heyligen landt gewest/​angezaygt wirt.”

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METONYMY

Figures and Objects In rhetoric, metonymy is understood to be a figure of speech based on contiguity or material affinity: causes stand for effects, materials for the things derived from them, names for works, places and times for the people connected to them. This is the reason for both the similarity between metonyms and metaphors, and the difference between them. Both create transfers and relate different areas to one another. Yet metaphors, rhetorically speaking, do this not on the basis of proximity, but within a spectrum of similarity and dissimilarity.1 From a cultural studies perspective, however, both terms have long since detached themselves from their established place in rhetoric and expanded to much larger contexts:  the structure of texts, the logic of cultures, the idiosyncrasy of cognitive processes. Metonymy is then taken to refer to general forms of sign and action, which are characterized by proximity (in the sense of contact or participation) and representation—​not in contradistinction to metaphors, but rather to substitutions, in which one phenomenon is completely replaced by another. This expansion of the concept can go so far that metonymically influenced cognitive structures are ascribed to a whole epoch such as the Middle Ages.2 It can also, however, be restricted to shedding light on one particular feature of media forms and phenomena, which was touched on in the introduction: in the Middle Ages, such forms were understood not as a neutral “in-​between,” but as substantively connected with what they mediate (and what they mediate between). With reference to this, the category of metonymy can give the option of drawing attention to general dimensions of contiguity, participation, and substitution, but at the same time linking these to the specificity of linguistic structures. The prime example is relics and their relationship to texts. Epistemologically, the two things might initially seem to belong to different orders: on the one hand the order of objects, remains, traces, on the other that of signs, traditions, structures of meaning.3 On closer inspection, however, this categorization becomes questionable. Remains or traces also form a class of signs, that of natural signs, in which signifier and signified are connected by relations of contact, participation, and causality. For the Middle Ages, as seen above, written documents can also belong to this class, provided that they themselves, as material and visual objects, lay claim to aura and presence. Conversely, relics can also be seen as artificial or re-​presentative signs, which are not linked with the signified by contiguity, but by conventionality. In practice, then, there are multiple 1  For an overview from a linguistic perspective see Metapher und Metonymie. 2  Haferland, “Das Mittelalter”; Haferland, “Metonymie.” 3  Cf. Strohschneider, “Textheiligung.”

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intersections: both relics and texts are part of communicative contexts, which use various means of symbolization and materialization. From a historical perspective, relics embody a real presence of the saints, whose validity is linked to conditions of representation.4 According to the medieval understanding, relics produce presence (praesentia) and possess miraculous power (virtus). As bodily relics, they make the “whole” saint present in the remaining part, and as contact relics, they put the saint’s “full” salvific power at the service of the community. They facilitate all kinds of processes of transfer: via water, earth, or air, parts of the body or objects. At the same time, however, they need constant protection—​against decay and loss, competition and devaluation. The virtual ubiquity of salvation and the actual control of its validity go hand in hand. When everything can be a form of manifestation, institutions are needed which manage the different forms—​by examining authenticity, regulating procedures, and formalizing processes of canonization.5 Relics and their use are therefore complex constructs. Embodiments of the story associated with a saint, they are part of a mixture of political and social elements, and practices of piety, and are embedded in both cultic actions and discursive processes.6 They often consist of several parts, and are modified by various additions: containers and imitations, shrines and superstructures, linguistic and pictorial signs. Thus they are not simply magical objects, which relate to other elements of the world in sympathetic ways (contact, similarity, contrast). Rather, they are manifestations of holiness, caught in a constantly renewed tension between the “contact” with the origin which they promise, and the “loss” of the origin, which they both highlight and conceal in the acts of transfer.7 The relationship between the sources of salvation and their supports or coverings is multidimensional. By creating additional frames of meaning, reliquaries intensify the tension inherent in the relics between visibility and invisibility, temporality and supra-​ temporality, phenomenality and symbolicity. They give the often nondescript items precious mountings and splendid viewing cases, enhanced with gold, silver, gemstones, and ivory. They point to the totality of the corpus incorruptum,8 contained in the fragment, and mediate between the specific individual object and the overall context of salvation history.9 4  Cf. Beissel, Verehrung der Heiligen; Henri Leclerq, “Reliques et reliquiaires,” in Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie 14 (1948):  columns 2294–​359; Brown, Cult of the Saints, chap. 5; Dinzelbacher, “Realpräsenz der Heiligen”; Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien; Legner, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult; Canetti, Frammenti di eternità.

5  Schreiner, “Wahrheitsverständnis”; Schreiner, “Discrimen”; Guth, Guibert von Nogent; Herrmann-​ Mascard, Les reliques des saints; Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht. 6  Brown, Cult of the Saints, 86–​105; cf. also Geese, Reliquienverehrung und Herrschaftsvermittlung; Röckelein, Reliquientranslationen. 7  Cf. Didi-​Huberman, Ähnlichkeit und Berührung, 10. 8  Angenendt, “Corpus incorruptum.”

9  Legner, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult; for a fundamental study of reliquaries see Braun, Reliquiare des christlichen Kultes; Geese, Reliquienverehrung und Herrschaftsvermittlung; Reudenbach, “Reliquiare als Heiligkeitsbeweis”; Toussaint, “Heiliges Gebein”; Reliquiare im Mittelalter.

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This leads on the one hand to an oscillation between mimetic and non-​mimetic dimensions. While architectural forms make visible the institutional or spiritual location in which and through which the mediation of salvation occurs, bodily forms (or the forms of body parts) allow a transfer that is linked to the morphological, and paves the way for specific effects. Reliquaries in the form of shoes sheath the body part, and themselves embody that connection through touch, which is central to the participatory notion of the cult of relics.10 On the other hand, tension arises between iconic and non-​iconic aspects: the sculpture shows what the relic cannot show. But the sculpture is in turn supplemented with images, which, like it, share in the potency of the relic, and simultaneously allow it to take effect.11 Relics function as material metonyms, but the thing that they stand for can only be recognized when their metonymic status is highlighted as such. They radiate power wherever they are, but their rays only take effect in places where the faith that they are meant to foster prevails. Thus they are always already part of situations and constellations, and must be identified and classified within these. They need signs and figures, names and histories, in order to fulfil their function. This is the reason why writing is necessary. By turns non-​mimetic (coding) or mimetic (inscriptions), non-​iconic (sequences of letters) or iconic (figures), depending on the aspect, writing mediates between relic, form, and image. It authenticates the relic, and derives its own authenticity from its proximity to the relic. For the Byzantine relics it takes the form of engravings in the decorative metal casings;12 for Western relics we find documents of authentication made of cloth or parchment (cedulae). They provide the objects with the meanings that make their salvific status possible. At the same time they create the conditions that make meaning possible. Here their fundamental facticity is more important than the specific reference:  documents of authentication can fulfil their function even when they do not provide any clear information—​in the case of relics of uncertain provenance or objects of uncertain function, or in cases where the writing is illegible or faded.13 They can lay claim to validity on the basis of their own materiality, their age and origin, while texts such as accounts of elevation and translation, or legends of martyrs and saints, must first produce this validity discursively.14 Conversely, these texts can provide the additional information that the objects themselves cannot 10  Reudenbach, “Reliquiare als Heiligkeitsbeweis,” 21; Toussaint, Kreuz und Knochen. 11  Legner, Reliquien in Kunst und Kult, 220–​31.

12  Toussaint, “Konstantinopel in Halberstadt,” 42.

13  Scheckmann, Der Heilige Rock, 18, writes of the Heiltumsschatz (relic treasure) of Trier: “Ouch zeigt man ein messer yetzundt in silber gefast/​dar bey fandt man den titel. das messer cristi iesu/​ warzu sich aber der her iesus daz messer gebraucht hat/​weis man nit eigentlich. Eß ist aber an zweiffel heilthum. Eß wer sunst nit bey dem Rock funden” (They also display a knife now cased in silver. /​With it was found the title: the knife of Christ Jesus /​But what the Lord Jesus used the knife for /​is not actually known. But it is undoubtedly a relic. Otherwise it would not have been found with the robe); Scheckmann, Der Heilige Rock, 26: “vil ander heilthum da die zedel von verblichen vnd vnleßlich sein” (many other relics whose labels were faded and illegible). 14  Cf. Heinzelmann, Translationsberichte; Strohschneider, “Textheiligung,” 114f.

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provide, and thus make their salvific effect possible in the first place. This is especially important when relics are precarious in nature—​as in the case of the relics supposedly linked with Jesus.

Vera Icon

Because of his resurrection and ascension, there are no actual bodily relics of Christ, or only precarious ones such as the foreskin or blood. This makes contact relics all the more important: relics which seem to make manifest the earthly existence of the Redeemer, and which can be regarded as sanctified by their contact with him.15 These include splinters of the crown of thorns or the cross, and above all garments or cloths that are mentioned in the Gospels: the “seamless robe,” the shroud, or the Veil of Veronica. The controversial nature of these items made the textual tradition extremely important for them; this tradition had to compensate for the (in many cases long) absence or invisibility of the items, and it could eventually, at some point, compel them to reappear. The best known example is probably the Mandylion, a so-​called vera icon. The question of authentic evidence of the Redeemer seems to have been important from early on.16 Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Church History, written in the first quarter of the fourth century, tells of Abgar, the king of the small city of Edessa, who was severely ill. Learning of Jesus’s activities in Palestine, he sent him a messenger, asking him to come to Edessa and heal him. Jesus did not grant his request, but wrote a letter and promised to send one of his disciples after his death. Thaddaeus then did actually come to Edessa after the Ascension, healed the king, and converted him to Christianity. Eusebius states that there is testimony to this, along with Jesus’s letter to Abgar, in the archive of the city of Edessa. These events are in themselves highly controversial. While the Gospels state that Jesus did not leave behind any writings, this story suggests that written testimony from Jesus’s own hand was in fact preserved. This is not all, however. In the period that followed, further details were added to the situation, and Jesus was said to have sent not only a letter and a messenger, but also a pictorial representation. Eusebius was one of those theologians of the Eastern Church who tried to keep images of the saints and especially of Christ out of the churches; he argued in a letter to the Empress Constantia that it was impossible for a picture to have been painted of “such a wondrous and unfathomable figure.”17 This reservation could be overcome, however, if it could be made plausible that the picture had not been painted at all. The Doctrina Addai, a version of the Abgar story probably created in Syria ca. 400, spread the idea that Jesus himself had created an impression of his face on a cloth, and that this had been hidden in the city wall of Edessa. 15  Schwineköper, “Christus-​Reliquien-​Verehrung und Politik”; Angenendt, Heilige und Reliquien, 214–​17; Nickell, Relics of the Christ.

16  For the whole complex Dobschütz, Christusbilder, is still the best source; more recent editions and translations are: Doctrina Addai; Image of Edessa; the latest studies are: Nicolotti, From the Mandylion; Guscin, “Tradition of the Image of Edessa.” 17  Stockhausen, “Einige Anmerkungen.”

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Byzantine historiographers of the sixth century then report the rediscovery of the image, and explicitly describe it as not made by human hand (a-​cheiro-​poietos). The Acts of Thaddaeus (seventh century) recount that Abgar had expected his messenger to bring back not just a written reply but a faithful portrait of Jesus, which the messenger had been unable to paint. Jesus himself then produced the portrait by wetting his face with water and pressing it into a cloth. The messenger brings this to Edessa, where it cures his master of his illness even before the apostle arrives. A miraculously created, authentic-​ original, materially transferred impression, then, through which the divine finds its way into the world of signs, untouched by artistic practices and therefore analogous to Christ himself. In a seventh-​century Byzantine visual poem, George of Pisidia writes that just as Christ once came into the world without seed, he now takes shape without painting.18 This model of authentic representation finds its most elaborate form in the Narratio de imagine Edessena, written ca. 945 by someone close to the Byzantine court. It apparently refers to a historical event. In 944, the imperial army had removed the picture (now materially present) from Edessa, which had by then been Muslim for many years, and brought it to Constantinople, where it was exhibited alongside other high-​ranking relics in the Church of the Virgin of the Pharos in the imperial palace. In the Narratio, this event is taken as the impetus for a reconstruction which, according to the prologue, is based on both written traditions and eyewitness reports. What is striking here is that two alternative versions are offered. At first, the text follows the familiar pattern: the ailing Abgar sends his messenger Ananias to Jesus with a letter, and the task of drawing a portrait of him; he receives the impression made by Jesus himself on the cloth. There is also a return journey: Ananias is arrested in Hierapolis. He hides the cloth, but it is found, and its image has miraculously been transferred to some tiles as the result of a fire. A  copy (the Keramion) therefore remains in Hierapolis, while the original (the Mandylion) can reach Abgar. This is followed by a second version, which is intended to be considered just as true as the first; several authoritative sources are named. According to them, while Christ was praying to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, full of fear and dread, he wiped off his bloody sweat with a cloth, to which his features were instantly transferred. He gave this to his apostle Thomas, asking him to have it brought to Abgar by way of Thaddaeus, in order to fulfil “what he had promised in the letter.”19 Abgar then, having been healed, began to worship the wondrous image instead of the heathen idols. These were, however, reinstated two generations later. The authentic image, hidden behind bricks by the bishop, then fell into oblivion over the centuries, until, hard-​pressed by the Persians, Bishop Eulalius was made aware of it by a dream vision. The figure of a woman appeared to him: larger than life, beautifully dressed, awe inspiring. She advised him to perform a prayer with the “image of Christ that had not been made by human hands,” and told him where it was located. Thus at dawn the bishop “went to the place in solemn procession. He searched and found the sacred image unharmed, and the lamp that had not gone out 18  Belting, Likeness and Presence, 497.

19  Doctrina Addai, 276f. (no. 17); Image of Edessa, 27.

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after so many years. Another likeness of the first likeness had been formed on the tile that had been placed in front of the lamp for protection, and it is still kept in Edessa even today.”20 Here, too, the auratic element of the divine letter is surpassed by that of the divine image, which, precisely through the failure of the attempt to create a medial representation, produces an all the more effective, lasting presence. Yet the situation is more complicated than that. On the one hand, the political conditions in which the letter and the cloth change their location and owner are foregrounded. On the other hand, a large number of images are involved: imprints that are not made by human hand (from the face onto the cloth, and from the cloth onto a tile), as well as painted pictures. The delegation from the Byzantine emperor, tasked with bringing the authentic Edessa image back to the capital, not only confiscates this, but also the copy on a tile, which has its origins in the Persian conflict, and an older, painted copy. Only when all the images have been assembled does it seem possible to decide which is the original and true one, which is taken to Constantinople, while the copies are returned to the residents of Edessa. Thus a differentiation arises between different forms of transfer by imprinting or copying. Reproduction does allow the archetype to be present in different places, and to be venerated like a relic or a sanctified Host: in Constantinople, as previously in Edessa, it is transported around in solemn processions, exhibited, and then eventually hidden once again. But the archetype and copies are not identical. The idea of the absolute medium, which simultaneously reveals itself and cancels itself out as a form of mediation, once again becomes tangible in the image on the cloth. It proves to be historically bound, inseparably linked with the problems of the real existence of such a medium. Here there is no overlooking the fact that transfers with divine connotations are always exposed to dangers in the world of humans—​for example as the result of competing models for the worship of Gods or images. And they are always precarious, as can be seen from the phrase with which the existence of Jesus’s letter is seemingly confirmed by his own word: he left behind the cloth to “fulfill what he had promised in the letter”! In this way, by exhibiting the risks facing any transfer, the text reveals itself to be a medium of a particular kind, the last link in the chain of mediations of salvation. With the final words addressing the “divine likeness of the likeness of the unchanging father” (cf. Col. 1:15), the “form of the Father’s person” (cf. Hebrew 1:3), the “seal of Christ, our God’s, archetypal goodness,”21 the divine is linked with the human, now in a textual sense, and the original event of Christianity is linked with subsequent history and with a present and future effect.22 While this both adopts and rewrites the Christian origins, the simultaneous recognition and separation of the two versions seems to reflect the question of non-​identical identity in its own way. However different they are in their details, connected as they are to different moments in the story of Christ, and profiled in different contexts of cause and effect, they nonetheless have an overall complementary 20  Doctrina Addai, 286f. (no. 32); Image of Edessa, 37. 21  Image of Edessa, 69.

22  Image of Edessa, 308f. (no. 65).

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effect. They are pillars of a supertext, which comprehensively presents the acheiropoietic image of Christ in its historical, political, and medial dimensions, and concentrates the diverse stories about the Mandylion, which quickly spread throughout Europe.23 In the West, the Byzantine legend of Abgar had already become known in the Carolingian period through a Latin translation of the acts of the Council of Nicaea. Yet the Libri Carolini, concerned with the question of the veneration of images, had rejected Byzantine iconology, concluding that the story of the cloth was found neither in the Gospels nor in Eusebius’s account. It was only when the Crusades brought closer contact with the material of Eastern legends that interest in the acheiropoieta increased. In 1160, in his Historia basalicae Vaticanae antiqua, Petrus Mallius describes a contact relic exhibited in St. Peter’s in Rome as the “indubitably genuine sudarium of Christ […], into which he pressed his most holy face before his Passion, when his sweat ran in drops of blood to the earth.”24 Then in 1210, shortly after the conquest of Constantinople, Gervase of Tilbury mentions an image on the cloth, which he calls “Veronica” (Vera—​Icona), because it was brought to Rome by a woman of that name.25 This means that the story of the cloth is suddenly connected to the Gospels after all: the woman mentioned in Mark (5:25ff.) and Matthew (9:20ff.), who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years and had been healed by touching the back of Jesus’s garment, was named in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus as Berenike/​Bernice, which then became Veronica. Her story now appears as a variant of the Abgar legend, but is related to a different historical context. Veronica is a connecting figure between the circle around Jesus and the Roman empire, embodied by Tiberius, Vespasian, and Pontius Pilate. In the twelfth century it is not unusual for her to be mentioned in the context of the story of Pilate, one of those anti-​legends which use the example of a figure involved in Christ’s Passion to show how Christian salvation history is made possible precisely by those who do not understand its logic. Veronica possesses a miraculous image, in some versions painted by herself, in others given to her by Jesus. It serves as a remedy for the ailing emperor, but also as a source of salvation for Veronica herself. The image on the cloth is able to satisfy her longing for an enduring presence of the Redeemer, continuing after his disappearance from earth. In the version in the Legenda aurea, she says: “ ‘When the Teacher was going about preaching and I, to my regret, could not be with him, I wanted to have his picture painted so that when I was deprived of his presence, I could at least have the solace of his image. So one day I was carrying a piece of linen to the painter when I  met Jesus, […] He asked for the cloth […] pressed it to his venerable face, and left his image on it’.”26 In Arnoul Gréban’s great Passion play we 23  Cf. most recently, for example, Holy Face; Il volto santo; Belting, Das echte Bild. 24  Belting, Likeness and Presence, 541. 25  Belting, Likeness and Presence, 541.

26  Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea, no. 53, pp. 728f. (De passione domini): “ ‘cum praedicando circumiret et ego eius praesentia nimis invite carerem, volui mihi ipsius depingi imaginem, ut, dum eius priuarer praesentia, mihi saltem prestaret solacium imaginis suae figura. Cumque linteum pictori deferrem pingendum, dominus mihi obvivuit et […] a me petiit pannum et ipsum mihi venerabili sua facie reddidit insignitum.’ ” English: Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, 212.

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read: “ ‘But the imprint of the precious holy face remained with me, and thus I feel highly honoured to possess such a healing jewel. My desire to keep it in my power will be great, because of the sweet merciful Lord whose likeness it shows to me’.”27 One of the earliest stand-​alone versions of the legend of Veronica in German was written by a Rhenish author from the second half of the twelfth century, who describes himself as “Wild Man.” Here a life of Christ is interwoven with a story of Veronica and the Emperor Vespasian. It centres on the authentic representation of the divine: Veronica wishes to possess an image of the Saviour. She entrusts the task to Luke—​traditionally associated with painting because of his detailed “depiction” of the childhood of Jesus. Three times, the evangelist fails; each time, the finished picture shows no similarity to the person portrayed. Jesus then takes pity and, after washing his face, presses it into a cloth. The text implies that this acheiropoieton, which is in contact with the archetype, can transport a degree of likeness that earthly media can never attain. It can therefore not be covered by the term the author uses for Luke’s activity, scriven—​a term which, like the Latin verb scribere, can refer to the act of drawing lines, and therefore to both writing and painting.28 The impression on the cloth is radically differentiated from this “writing,” yet the medium in which the difference can be formulated is writing. And this is intensified by the fact that it proves to be both insufficient and promising: insufficient as a means of securing and storing, promising as a means of fulfilment and actual performance. The Wild Man suggests that he could tell more than Luke the evangelist. Making reference to the speeches of Old Testament prophets, and to the first human author, Moses, he accords his own writing the status of a medium of salvation. When he begins it with the announcement: “dit is Veronica dat di wilde mann gedihtet hat” (this is Veronica which the wild man has written), this seems oddly ambiguous: the text aims not only to offer a history of Veronica, but to be, in a sense, a veronica itself—​something more than writing, which is able to present authentic testimony.29 The narrative of the Wild Man emerged at a time when two developments were imminent which would have major consequences for Western European practices of piety. Firstly, a cult dedicated to the Holy Face was becoming established, leading to increasing visual representation of the Mandylion or the Veil of Veronica. And secondly, there was a growing tendency to link the history of this image with the Passion. The first of these developments took place in Rome:  in 1208 Pope Innocent III inaugurated the annual procession, to take place on the second Sunday after Epiphany, of an effigies Jesu Christi 27  Arnould Greban, Le Mystère de la passion, ed. Jodogne, 1:324f. (lines 24221–​28):  “ ‘Or m’est l’emprainte demouree | du saint vïaire precïeulx, | dont je me tien bien honnoree | d’avoir joyau tant vertueux. | Si sera mon corps curïeux | a le garder de ma puissance | pour le doulx patron gracïeux | dont il me monstre la semblance.’ ”

28  Gedichte des Wilden Mannes. For the initially rudimentary differentiation of writing and drawing/​painting see Wenzel, Hören und Sehen, 292; for the nearly synonymous use of scriptor and pictor in the work of Caesarius of Heisterbach see Küsters, “Narbenschriften,” 87n15; for the semiotic relationship between writing and drawing/​painting see Coulmas, “Zwischen Schreiben und Malen.” 29  Cf. Quast, “Vera Icon.”

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which was stored in St. Peter’s and was known as the “Veronica.” In 1216, after the image had supposedly undergone a miraculous 180-​degree rotation, he added an indulgence to this, writing his own prayer to accompany it. The second development can be discerned in the Estoire du Saint Graal by Robert de Boron, written ca. 1200, the first work to use the figure of Joseph of Arimathea to connect the story of the Grail and that of the Passion. Here Veronica encounters Jesus on the road to Calvary, she hands him the cloth to wipe off his sweat, and finds his face imprinted on it when she arrives home—​the model for the countless veronica images, especially in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which not only the face of the suffering Redeemer, but also the crown of thorns, usually stands out from the cloth.30 These ever-​varying representations combine the encounter with Christ’s gaze and the authentic representation in the imprint. Sometimes stressing materiality, sometimes immateriality, they recall the events of the Passion, mediate a contact with the holy body of Christ, and at the same time point to the “archetype” situated in Rome. The vera icon, depicted on altars, now serves as a connecting link between two kinds of salvific events: those that took place once in history, and those that recur in the present. But it also serves, when produced in series, as a miniature bearer of salvation, and, when artistically designed, as a model of the paradox of presence in salvation history: standing out from the cloth as if three-​dimensional, the face embodies the hope of transcending the human copy of the acheiropoieton, and coming closer to the original. Many of the representations were created in the context of lay spirituality, intensifying the tension between inner and outer images, physical and spiritual experiences, individual and collective acts of commemoration.31 The increasing drive, from ca. 1200, to display the relics (which were not “naked,” as in the Byzantine area) was linked with an emphasis on the salvific nature of perception and of the media that made it possible.32 Two tendencies can be observed: the development of visual piety (Schaufrömmigkeit), based on the real, physical presence of relics in public spaces, and private piety, which cultivates the mental, imaginary evocation of presence in private devotions. Although these appear to be opposing tendencies, they do have some common ground: both link the dissemination of media of salvation to liturgical and dogmatic conditions, and their external efficacy to inner effects. The salvific power of vision, repeatedly stressed in the late Middle Ages, turns the experience of distance into an experience of proximity, and body-​bound materiality into body-​transcending intensity. It shifts between externalization and internalization. Relics and reliquaries, for example, are presented in such a way that participation and contemplation complement each other, as do close-​up and distant views: presentations, exhibitions, and processions make the objects visible, cause outer movement, and use them for the system of sin reduction (indulgences). But representations also give 30  Cf. Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary, chap. 7; Kruse, Wozu Menschen malen, chap.  6; Sand, Vision, Devotion, and Self-​Representation, chap. 1.

31  Cf. Schuppisser, “Schauen mit den Augen des Herzens”; Lentes, “Auf der Suche”; Lentes, “Inneres Auge.” 32  Toussaint, “Sichtbarkeit”; cf. also Diedrichs, Vom Glauben zum Sehen.

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Figure 16. Master of Saint Veronica (ca. 1420 or after 1425); Munich, Bavarian State Painting Collections; photo: The Yorck Project. https://​commons.wikimedia.org/​wiki/​ File:Meister_​der_​Heiligen_​Veronika_​-​_​Hl._​Veronika_​mit_​dem_​Schwei%C3% 9Ftuch_​Christi_​-​_A ​ lte_​Pinakothek.jpg (accessed August 5, 2019). Public domain.

permanence to the mediation of salvation, generate inner movement, and serve individual piety. The event is documented by Heiltumsschriften (texts about relics), Weisungsordnungen (rules for their display), and Ausrufungsformulare (liturgical formulae declaimed during the display of relics). At the same time, these provide models for reconstructing or even enhancing the real encounter with the relics through imagination and meditation: only the visual and linguistic reproduction of the event would have

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allowed most visitors—​wedged in among the crowd and far away from the relics—​the proximity that was otherwise withheld from them.33 The Heiltumsschriften are hybrid forms. Caught in the tension between spiritual and worldly institutions, their spread is connected to the building of residences in the late Middle Ages, and the centralization of territorial authority, to which—​through the aura of the relics—​they lend a material and spiritual foundation, rooted in both history and salvation history.34 Combining woodcuts and text, they offer, in abbreviated form, key moments and stations in the exhibition process, and allow outer performativity to be converted into inner performativity. At the same time, at least in the more detailed versions, they integrate various forms of representation with their own distinct logic: reports on the discovery of relics and on the procedure for their display, outlines of the history of individual relics, and inventories of the relics held by a church. Presence-​ creating, discursive, and narrative procedures are mixed together, as are different time stages. The resulting effect is one of a self-​perpetuating chain of events. Potentially open, it begins with the death of the saint and includes the discovery of the relics, their elevation and translation, the arrangement of an exhibition of the relics and the reconstruction of this exhibition in private devotions. Presented non-​chronologically, it has the same purpose as the relic itself: the temporal/​supra-​temporal presence of the origin. The beginning of a Trier Heiltumsschrift from 1512 offers a prime example of this linking of the present and the historical dimension, exposition and recapitulation, public and private: a woodcut shows the displaying of the relic by the clergy. A poem “announces” the relic in a written presentation of evidence, combining narration and enumeration: “Hie findestu du die weiß form vnd gstalt | Wie manß heilthumb im thum erzalt | Auch die war historien da bey | Wie daß selb gen Trier komen sey | So klärlich als werst gewesen dort | Vnd die wort hetst selbs gehort” (Here you find the manner, form and figure of what distinguishes the relic in the cathedral, together with the true story of how it came to Trier, and as vividly as if you yourself had been there and had heard the words).35 The situation to which this text refers is an interesting example in various respects. In Trier, we can see exactly how a spectacular display of relics originated. The multimedial event is documented by an abundance of testimonies, while other texts make the relic the point of reference for a fanciful narration.

The Robe of Christ

The event in Trier centred on another object seen as one of the relics of Christ, one that was scarcely less full of promise, but also no less precarious than the vera icon: the so-​called seamless robe or tunic of Christ.36 According to the Gospel of John, it is the

33  Extensive material on this can be found in Kühne, Ostensio reliquiarum; cf. also Miedema, Rompilgerführer. 34  Kühne, Ostensio reliquiarum, esp. 645–​80. 35  Scheckmann, Der Heilige Rock, 6.

36  Monumental documentation: Der Heilige Rock zu Trier. Bibliography: Tunica Domini. For more details on the following see Kiening, “Hybriden des Heils” (with additional reading).

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seamless, woven undergarment of Christ which the soldiers did not want to divide up after the Crucifixion, and for which they therefore cast lots (John 19:23)—​thus fulfilling the statement of the psalmist: “They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment” (Ps. 22).37 From the fourth century onwards, the oneness of the robe, which was thought to have been woven by Mary, was taken to refer to the unity of the church or the incarnation of the Son of God.38 Chroniclers reported how the garment, like a divine written document, had come down from heaven and had accompanied the Holy Family in adventurous circumstances. Several places claimed to possess the relic.39 The seamless robe has similarly paradoxical features to the Abgar image:  created and not-​created, artwork and imprint, it is simultaneously a garment of Christ and a piece of his existence, believed to have grown with the Redeemer. With its traces of blood, it is seen as a manifestation of the Passion, which is repeatedly redefined and replayed in it, and therefore as the expression of an abundance whose counterpoint is the actual absence of the Redeemer. This absence in turn generates the longing that also characterizes the (story of the) vera icon. Here, however, the metonymic dimension of similarity and contact is not related to the transparent materiality of the facial expression. It derives from the manifest materiality of the bodily covering, which, instead of fuelling a desire for face-​to-​face visual contact, encourages a yearning to enter into the “second skin” of the Messiah. From the early twelfth century, the story of the seamless robe was linked with the alleged discovery of the True Cross by Helena, and with the translation of relics to Trier, where a systematic upgrading of sacral-​political traditions was underway. This served to emphasize the claims of the archbishopric of Trier to primacy over Gaul and Germania.40 Yet despite being moved to a new storage place in 1196 (as mentioned in the sequel to the Gesta Treverorum), the tunic remained hidden in Trier Cathedral for three centuries—​ not forgotten, but not on display. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, proposals by the provost of St. Paulin, Friedrich Schavard, to exhibit the robe, found no favour with the cathedral chapter and the archbishop; it was well known that there were numerous claims to the possession of the true tunic of Christ, and it might have become necessary to provide additional evidence. It seems that it was only the generally increasing need for the presence of relics over the course of the century, and the growing relic-​related rivalry between individual places that created the preconditions for exposing the precious item to the public gaze in the spring of 1512.41 On April 14, on the archbishop’s orders, the high altar of Trier Cathedral was opened. Three chests containing relics were found, in one of them the seamless robe. On May 3, the feast commemorating the discovery of 37  Cf. Eckert, “Die johanneische Erzählung.”

38  Cf. Sauser, “Die Tunika Christi”; Ronig, “Die Tunika Christi.”

39  Gildemeister and Sybel, Der Heilige Rock zu Trier; Plontke-​Lüning, “Ost und West”; Schmitt “ ‘Heilige Röcke’ anderswo.” 40  Beissel, Geschichte der Trierer Kirchen; Pohlsander, “Der Trierer Heilige Rock”; Meves, Studien, 227–​43. 41  Cf. Schmid, “Wallfahrtslandschaft,” 68; for the following see Seibrich, “Trierer Heiltumsfahrt,” 61–​91.

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the cross, the relics were displayed in silver boxes on a separate altar. On May 30, a further exhibition of the seamless robe and other relics took place in the context of the Pentecost pilgrimage. This was said to have attracted up to 100,000 people and lasted up to fourteen days. This sequence of events seems to have had various causal elements. In an unstable political constellation, the cathedral chapter, manoeuvring between the city authorities and the archbishop, expected to gain something from exhibiting the relic. At the same time, because Maximilian I was interested in the relic, the exhibition enabled them to borrow some of the emperor’s authority. Maximilian, who was staying in Trier in spring 1512 because of the Imperial Diet, may even have been the driving force behind both the elevation of the relics and the initial exhibition. The reports link the elevation with his scholarly knowledge about the place where the relics were stored, while the first showing took place in connection with the service in which Maximilian commemorated his second wife, Maria Bianca Sforza, who had died in 1510.42 His autobiographical works also make reference to the event: in Ehrenpforte, a woodcut by Albrecht Altdorfer links the discovery of the robe with the canonization of Leopold.43 In Weißkunig, Hans Burgkmair the Elder captures the situation in which the robe is simultaneously shown to Maximilian and the viewer by two mitre-​wearing church dignitaries. The elevation of 1512 was one of the most sensational religious events of the era. It transformed what had originally been a word of fulfilment into a show of salvation. Numerous Heiltumsschriften told of the events and the relics.44 A brotherhood of the seamless robe sought to attract members. An office of the seamless robe created a liturgical framework for its veneration.45 Metal “Tunica Domini” badges could be bought as souvenirs, painted ones could be contemplated in books of hours.46 A song reproduced as a broadsheet extols the discovery as a grand collaboration between the emperor and the pope, in which the emperor mediates both the divine will and the pope’s indulgence.47 The song puts its own slant on other aspects as well: against the background of an allegedly non-​legitimated earlier elevation of the robe, it attempts to ensure the legitimation of the present situation, and to transfer this to its own imaginative adaptation of the historical events. In this version, Maximilian goes from the Netherlands to the Rhineland instead of the other way around. He finds the robe in the Liebfrauenkirche rather than the cathedral. His desire to see the relics of the Magi in Cologne leads him into the crypt, where an angel gives him the task of elevating the robe: “Den rock den Maria gespunnen hat, | jrem kindt Jesu christ dem höchsten hort, | den muste zu Trier 42  Cf. Embach, “Die Rolle Kaiser Maximilians I.”; Embach, “Im Spannungsfeld,” here esp. 777–​81. 43  Schauerte, Ehrenpforte, 329, 394 (illustration), 403.

44  Seibrich “Heiltumsbücher”; Schmid, “Wallfahrtslandschaft Rheinland,” see esp.  28–​114; Embach, “Trierer Heiltumsschriften.” 45  Heinz, “Die älteste Messe.”

46  Köster, “Wallfahrtsmedaillen”; von Bredow-​Klaus, “Verbreitung des Tunica-​Christi-​Pilgerzeichens.” 47  Cf. Embach, “Im Spannungsfeld,” 781–​84; text quoted from Hennen, “Eine bibliographische Zusammenstellung,” this section 510–​14.

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erheben, | der ligt bey unser lieben frawen | in jrem altar wirst jn anschawen, | Keyser es muss geschehen” (8.1–​6; “The robe that Mary spun for her child Jesus Christ, the highest treasure, you must elevate it in Trier, it lies in the church of Our Dear Lady, in her altar you will see it, Emperor, this must happen”). This distances the elevation of the robe from contingent earthly interests. Furthermore, miraculous apparitions create a celestial aura: at the altar of Mary, fifteen burning candles, not placed there by human hand, point toward the location of the relic. During the Mass, the garment of Mary herself, who made the robe, emerges from it: “Da man das Sanctus thet heben an, | ein gross mirackel solt jr verstan, | Maria hemmet zu dem rock auss brach, | ein guldene zettel daran ware, | darinn Jesu christ entpfangen warde, | geborn an der weynacht nacht” (21.1–​6; “Just as the Sanctus was beginning, you must imagine a great miracle: out of the robe emerged Mary’s garment, with a golden note attached to it, saying that Jesus Christ was conceived in this garment, and born in it on Christmas night”). The robe turns out to be a medium that allows the story of Christ to appear not only in the Passion, but in the Incarnation. It is a relic that brings forth other relics: Mary’s garment, which is also accompanied by the appropriate document of authentication and is sent to Aachen. The song thus highlights the position of the Trier relic in the competition with other important relics of the region: on the one hand, the relics of the Magi in Cologne—​it is they that point the emperor toward Trier, where the archbishop of Cologne himself finds “the better relic” (16.5); on the other hand, the relic of Mary’s robe, which in turn appears to have come from Trier.48 These controversial claims are underpinned by auratizations of a distinct kind: the proximity to the emperor, the wondrous circumstances of the elevation and exhibition, and above all, the forms of authoritative textuality—​(1) a letter to the pope written in the emperor’s own hand, (2) a written text on the chest containing the relics, (3) a mysterious book which only the emperor can read, and from which he can extract götliche ding, and lastly, (4) the guldene zettel, which authenticates a bold form of relic-​related genealogy. The Heiltumsschriften also mention the cedulae of the relics on various occasions. These form a link between the sacral objects and the texts representing sacrality. They provide that primary and elementary contextualization that is essential for the authenticity of the relics, and to which other contextualizations are added: the robe turns out to be directly connected with the soldiers’ dice and the rusty knife of Christ. The latter, not a familiar part of the tradition, is said to have been accompanied by “etlichen unleslichen schrifften” (“a number of illegible writings”).49 The robe is also connected, but more loosely, to the fragments of the wood of the cross, and to the 48  Cf. the liturgical formula used for the showing of the relic in Aachen: “Man sal uch zounen das heyinde, das helige cleit, das Maria, de moder Gotz an hatte uf die heilge Cristnacht, doe unse lieve her Jesus Christus god unde mynsche van ere geboren wart” (One should also show the heyinde, the holy dress, which Mary, the mother of God had on in the Holy Christmas Night, when our dear Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, was born of her), Kühne, Ostensio reliquiarum, 175. In other churches in Trier “Marian” garments were also produced as the cult of the seamless robe developed, cf. Seibrich, “Trierer Heiltumsfahrt,” 85–​91. 49  Scheckmann, Der Heilige Rock, 21.

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Figure 17. Woodcut by Hans Burgkmair for Emperor Maximilian, Weisskunig, ca. 1515; Der Weiß-​Kunig: eine Erzählung von den Thaten Kaiser Maximilian des Ersten (Wien 1775), Heidelberg University Library. https://​digi.ub.uni-​heidelberg.de/​diglit/​ ­maximilian1775/​0379/​image (accessed August 5, 2019). Public domain.

Kinderhose (here probably diaper) of Jesus, also made by Mary, which were supposedly found in another relic chest.50 Thus downgraded in their proximity to Christ and 50  Scheckmann, Der Heilige Rock, 26: “Item in obgemeltem kasten ist funden ein seiden secklein von mancherley farben /​in welchem ist gewesen ein gebund dar an in einem zedel klärlich geschriben stond /​hie in ist von den hosen vnsers hern iesu die gemacht hat die heilge gots gebererin vnd

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their salvific potency, but nonetheless effective as an ensemble, the relics intensify the impression that a piece of Christ’s original lifeworld is encapsulated here. This is premised on circular relationships: the texts create validity by claiming to connect to a prior validity, and they therefore need documents of authentication to eliminate the impression that they are mere assertions. In any given case this can happen through institutionalized patterns of configuration, or spatial and temporal deictics linking the texts to the exhibition event. Or through transcendent phenomena (apparitions, visions, miracles), which subordinate authenticity to the power of the imaginary—​and thus expose themselves to its risky nature.51

Hybridity

The complexity of the situation can be gauged from a vernacular literary text whose position in relation to the Trier Heiltumsschriften is even more peripheral than that of the song, a text known as Der graue Rock. Already circulating in the second half of the fifteenth century, it seems to have initially referred, in imaginative fashion, to something that otherwise had (as yet) no institutional location, and remained (as yet) invisible as an object. It worked on the imaginary aspect of the relic, which acquires a new specificity when the relic comes to light—​a specificity that then inserts the text into the emerging Trier discourse on relics. Two editions printed in Augsburg in 1512, one in verse, the other in prose, refer to the elevation of the robe; it is probably no coincidence that these were produced at some distance from the centre of the cult.52 Both contain a woodcut of the robe being held up by angels, thus referencing the tradition of the Heiltumsschriften.53 And both mention that the discovery took place in the presence of the emperor—​though this is much more explicit in the prose version. The verse edition, published by Hans Froschauer and containing thirty-​two woodcuts, largely follows the manuscript tradition. The prose version presented by Hans Othmar, who had published Fortunatus in 1509, is stylistically neater: it has only a few illustrations, but provides more detailed information on the events occurring in the framework of the Imperial Diet, beginning on the title page; an extract from a Heiltumsschrift inserted at the end emphasizes the proximity to the situation in Trier.54 iungfraw maria/​ vnd von dem holtz des heiligen creutz/​ vnd die zwey obgerürten stůck worden auch in dem secklein bey einander funden/​vnd nit mer darin.” (Also found in the above-​mentioned box was a small silk bag of many colours, which contained a bundle on which was clearly written on a label: herein is [part] of the Kinderhose of our Lord Jesus, made by the holy virgin Mary who gave birth to God, and [part] of the wood of the holy cross, and the two above-​mentioned items were found in the little bag next to each other, and nothing else was in there.) 51  Cf. Strohschneider, “Textheiligung,” 121–​28.

52  For the situation ca. 1512 see Plate, “Orendel—​König von Jerusalem”; Gantert, “Durch got.” 53  Kühne, Ostensio reliquiarum, 869–​72. 54  Copy in Orendel, 183–​86.

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We will begin with the verse edition, which is interesting because it cultivates the imaginary aspect of the relic. Here we encounter a text that clearly surpasses the above-​ noted hybridity of the Heiltumsschriften: just as the term Grauer Rock refers to both the relic and the protagonist, so too are different narrative patterns and religious traditions fused together (bridal quest, crusade, fighting against giants; the life of Christ, the translation of relics by Helena).55 New narrative approaches and recycled textual components underline the distinctive logic of the poem. The beginning is presented in the style of vernacular supplements to the Bible: with a reference to the redemptive role of Jesus and Mary, and with a report on the fate of the robe since the Crucifixion, borrowing from the legend of the wood of the cross. In both legends water plays a part; in both it is the Jews who want to keep the item in question, or to withhold it from the Christians, and in both it is through them that the power of Jesus’s identity as the son of God is revealed, and the robe begins its journey and becomes a relic. Thrown into the sea, found by a water sprite, transported a certain distance by sea, hidden under a beach, rediscovered by a pilgrim, once again surrendered to the sea, and then swallowed by a whale, the robe is, from the start, subject and object in one. Its movements in the Mediterranean region evoke exotic and adventurous dimensions of meaning as well as hagiographic and edifying ones, but these are only hinted it. The story of the robe breaks off after only about a hundred lines. And when the sacred object reappears it is in the world of the Crusades rather than that of early Christianity. This is the actual world of the narrative, whose principles become the focus of attention at this very point. When the robe disappears again, the end of the “first book” is announced, but this is not followed by the beginning of a “second book.” Instead, there seems to be only one of them: “Es spricht an dem bůch also” (The book says). The reference to the “first book” evidently has less to do with the structure of the text than with its origins. The story’s first beginning is introduced with a reference to a German “Book of Judas”: “Nun hörent an disen stunden | Es ward an ainem Teutschen bůch gefunden | Wie das der arme elende Judas | Vnsers herren verräter was” (D 4; “Now hear in these hours: it was found in a German book how the poor wretched Judas was the betrayer of our Lord”). From here the focus shifts to a Jew who demands the robe from Herod as a reward, but must give it up again because he cannot wash out the blood—​giving the impetus for the robe’s travels. The lack of clarity about whether this text itself presents the story of the “Book of Judas” suggests that this is integrated as a kind of spolium: on the one hand it is identified as a distinct entity, on the other hand it is merged into the present work. The numerous other book references are in the same vein: they invoke the authority which the present account lacks, and at the same time produce this authority—​ from existing or allegedly existing materials, the combination of which determines the texture of Der graue Rock.

55  Quoted with page numbers, verse text (D) and prose text (P) from Orendel (Der Graue Rock); most recent interpretations by Bowden, Bridal-​Quest Epics, 137–​62, and Kohnen, Braut des Königs.

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Figure 18. Title page of the verse edition of Der graue Rock (Augsburg: Froschauer 1512); Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibl. Used with permission.

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Figure 19. Title page of the prose edition of Der graue Rock (Augsburg: Othmar 1512); Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibl. Used with permission.

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At the centre of this texture, after the second start described above, is the pattern of the bridal quest. In Trier, the youngest son of King Eigel, Orendel, has just been knighted and wishes to marry. In thirteen kingdoms, his father knows no suitable bride except for the noble queen Bride, “gesessen vil ferre | Vber den wilden sees flůt” (D 13; “seated far away over the wild sea’s flood”). Other components of this pattern are added in the course of the text: the protagonist, who sets off as a rich king, arrives as a poor pilgrim in Jerusalem, where Bride is in charge of the Knights Templar and the Holy Sepulchre; he must prove himself with knightly deeds; he does not reveal his identity until after a decisive victory against the heathens; after returning to Trier in the interim, he sets off for Jerusalem again to win back the sepulchre, which has again been lost to the heathens. This doubling underlines the hero’s untiring willingness to serve his cause, which, in contrast to most other bridal quest narratives, proves to be primarily religious. In comparison, traditional components of the bridal quest plot are less significant: there is neither a problem with continuity of governance nor a hostile father of the bride. The undertaking is placed under the protection of the Virgin Mary from the start, and is focused on the Holy Sepulchre. The consummation of the marriage is repeatedly postponed, on the orders of an angel (allowing acts of Christianization to take place), and is finally abandoned altogether (allowing a rapid passage into the kingdom of heaven). A feudal-​genealogical model of transfer thus transforms into a transcendental-​ spiritual one, which repeatedly blocks the “horizontal” movements in order to make the “vertical” ones visible. Even the departure seems more appropriate to a crusade than a bridal quest. The crusade, however, has its own peculiar features: those preparing to set out do not take the cross, but precious golden spurs, made by goldsmiths, intended as offerings for the Holy Sepulchre. And though God initially rescues them, they all subsequently perish at sea; only Orendel escapes with his life—​a separation and highlighting of the hero which is typical of legends. Here, however, it does not underline the opposition between saint and non-​saint, but the unfathomable nature of God’s acts of salvation: the archangel Gabriel later explains to Orendel that God had been in a hurry to have all the Christian knights with him in heaven (D 32f.). The dangerous journey across the sea brings further patterns into play: the Klebermeer (glutinous sea) in which the heroes are stuck for three years evokes the tradition of the Herzog Ernst adventures, while the shipwreck, after which the hero finds himself naked on a beach, and becomes the servant of a fisherman, recalls that of the Apollonius romance.56 These motifs also serve primarily to highlight divergence: instead of being royally dressed and received at court, Orendel remains naked or inadequately clothed for weeks. Thanks to heavenly assistance, he is eventually able to acquire the Grey Robe, but scarcely has he set off again for the Holy Sepulchre, wearing the robe, than he is taken prisoner by a giant. This is the start of an endless series of adventurous fights and battles, rescues and baptisms, encounters with giants and dwarfs, heathens and Templars. This series does include the union of the hero with the chosen bride, the 56  For a summary see Ebenbauer, “ ‘Orendel,’ ” here 54–​58; cf. also Biesterfeldt, Moniage, 67–​69.

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conquest of the Holy Sepulchre, and the transporting of the robe to Trier. Overall, however, the narrative is dominated by repetitions, which only come to an end because the heavenly powers finally summon Orendel and his closest companions.57 In general the predominant feature is the replacement of worldly elements with spiritual ones—​without the complete suppression of the former. Whether as a traveller to the east, a shipwreck survivor, a suitor, a crusader, or a pilgrim, it is never purely his strength and cunning that save Orendel from the difficult situations he gets into, but mainly prayer and the aid of heavenly beings (Mary, Jesus, angels). While he himself follows the principles of “poverty, chastity, obedience,”58 the world in which he operates is one in which immanence is constantly “pushing” toward transcendence, but on the other hand transcendence exerts a constant influence on immanence. This is more obvious here than is the norm for legends: the angel of the Annunciation personally hands Orendel the thirty gold pennies he needs to buy the robe, and the golden shoes for the tournament; the archangels Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael stand by Orendel in his battles; Mary writes a letter which, placed on the altar by a turtledove during the Mass, causes the priest to deviate from the usual order of service; in the following battle this is carried before the fighters as a relic (D 135f.). Thus the events give salvation history an unusually vivid and tangible presence: the salvific powers are imagined with the same degree of concreteness as the salvific object that embodies them, and the story of this object is closely intertwined with that of the protagonist. Precise indications of time create a “historical” continuity between Orendel’s story and that of the robe, even in the opening section: after Christ’s death, and after Herod hands over the robe to the Jew, eight years pass in which the robe is in the water; in the ninth year it is found by a pilgrim, who, however, throws it back into the water, where it spends a further eight years in the stomach of a whale, until the fisherman Ise finds the robe and reluctantly cedes it to Orendel. While Jacobus de Voragine, with regard to the discovery of the cross, had stressed that it was improbable that the father of the Judas mentioned in the tradition had lived in Christ’s time,59 the author of Der graue Rock makes precisely this connection: the robe came “dem künig Orendel zů troste” (D 4). At the same time, there is a paradigmatic relationship woven into this continuity: Orendel is knighted at the age of thirteen; the building of the ships lasts into the third year; for three years the warriors are stuck in the Klebermeer; thus the lifespan of the protagonist roughly parallels that of the robe. Temporal sequence and supratemporal meaning are intertwined: Orendel wins Bride, the daughter of King David, and thus shares in the aura of the great Old Testament ruler; a relic of Saint Brandan is enclosed in the sword of David, so the virtus of the early medieval Irish travelling saint also comes into play. In Orendel, the lines of salvation converge: the price he pays for the robe (money that comes from God himself) corresponds to Judas’s thirty pieces of silver (D 34). And the beginning of the narrative also connects to Judas. Thus the present act of salvation is 57  Cf. Kofler, Held im Heidenkrieg. 58  Biesterfeldt, Moniage, 72.

59  Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea, p. 952, lines 1–​4 (cap. 68).

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seen against the background of the earlier act of destruction. A universal history of salvation emerges, based on paradigmatic relationships: the story is supposedly already contained in the origin; the later “deposition” in the initial “sinking.” As the source and bearer of salvation, the robe is an overdetermined symbol. It is everything that can possibly be—​matter and principle, principle and manifestation, manifestation and symbol, symbol and history: Er ward gewürcket zware Von aines schönen lemleins hare Den hat gespunnen die edel vnd frey Die edele küniginne sandt Marey Mein fraw sandt Maria in selber span Sandt Helena in selber würcken began Er ward gewürcket vnd nit genat Das selbige edelminnigkliche wat Vnd ward auch gewürcket mit fleissen Der grawe rock sol nit brechen noch schleissen Er ward gewürcket auff dem berg Oliueti Cristus der herr schloff selber darein Do der grawe rock ward beraydt Vnser herr in selber an seinen leyb leyt Darjnnen vastet er die hayligen.xxxx. tag                   (D 4).

(It was made from the wool of a beautiful little lamb. The noble and free /​The noble queen Saint Mary spun it /​My lady Saint Mary spun it herself /​Saint Helena herself began to make it /​It was woven and not sewn /​The same noble and lovely garment/​And was made with diligence /​The grey robe shall not break or wear out/​It was made on the Mount of Olives /​ Christ the Lord put it on himself /​ When the grey robe was finished /​ Our Lord put it on his body himself /​In it he fasts for the holy.xxxx. days).

The robe is made from the wool of a lamb—​for the one who is himself the “lamb” of God. It is made by weaving and not sewing, reflecting a unity that is not destroyed by the Passion, but outlasts the ages. It is made on the Mount of Olives—​the whole process of the Passion is vestigially preserved in it. It is made for Jesus’s period of fasting—​and is thus regarded as the origin of the Lenten vestment. It is made by Mary and Helena—​both the incarnation that precedes it and the rediscovery and translation that follow are implied in its genesis. Thus the text forces together elements that otherwise appear to be separate. It participates in the translation by Helena, a widespread element of the historiographic tradition which was also adopted by the Heiltumsschriften. At the same time, it paves the way for an idiosyncratic recasting of the transition, by introducing a second redeemer figure, for whom the robe is destined: Orendel. He, however, does not undergo martyrdom in the fight against the heathens. The robe, which initially appeared to be bloodstained or decayed, and only becomes as good as new in the hands of Orendel,60 60  D 6: “In allen den geperden | Als er aller erst gemartert were” (to all appearances /​as if he had only just been martyred); D 34: “In allen den geperden | Als ob er erst von dem tůch kommen were” (to all appearances /​as if it had only just come from the cloth).

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does not acquire any new stains. It remains a supernatural object, which embodies the Passion even when this event is not repeated, and even when its marks seem to have disappeared. The robe is embodiment and re-​embodiment in one. It stands for both a real presence and a real absence: as a metonym for the Passion (visible blood) and the resurrection (absent body), it represents a unique event, but one that needs repetition as time goes on. It represents a hope of transcendence, which is meant to be materialized in immanence, and which can illustrate the paradoxical nature of this relationship with an item that is both unique and reusable. The “emptiness” of the robe predestines it to be “filled” in different ways, in which, in turn, the text realizes its specific way of “filling” the gaps in the tradition. The linking of hero and garment reveals itself structurally as a chiasmus in the sequence of action: at the beginning the robe is in Jerusalem, at the end in Trier, at the beginning Orendel is in Trier, at the end in Jerusalem. Between these poles the story goes through three phases:  (1) at first the robe and the hero are separate and the Holy Sepulchre is in heathen hands, (2) then the two are united, the Holy Sepulchre is conquered for Christianity, and Orendel takes the robe with him to Trier, (3) in the end the two are separated again, the robe deposited in Trier, the hero in the Orient, busy defending the Holy Sepulchre. Thus two elements of central importance for the Christian West are combined: the claim to possess the real places of salvation, and the expectation of a real transfer of salvific powers. The story also combines two types of presence of Christ in history: on the one hand the loca sancta, on the other hand the sacrae reliquiae, both characterized by the fact that they can be viewed, and perhaps touched, but must primarily be considered as sources of salvation, which in turn inspire representations. Moreover, in the course of this sequence Orendel does not merely become the wearer of the robe and its means of transport. In a sense he becomes the robe itself. In Jerusalem, not knowing his real name, people address him as “Grey Robe”: “ ‘Got grůß euch herr grawer rock | Ich kan euch nit anders genennen wayß got | Ob ich euch herr nun erkante | Wie gern ich euch anders nante’ ” (D 38; “Greetings, Sir Grey Robe /​ I  cannot name you otherwise, God knows /​If I recognized you now sir /​How happy I would be to call you by a different name”). This first act of naming, frequently repeated in the verses that follow, creates an identity between wearer and garment, which both sets in motion and transfers the potency of the sacred object, without leading to complete fusion: after Orendel has received new clothing appropriate to his station, he continues to put on the robe for each of his battles, and despite its power to make him invulnerable he needs the support of the angels—​who, like Mary and Jesus, never address him as “Grey Robe.” Thus the identity between hero and robe is not so much personal and magical as real-​ symbolic, related to the conditions of an earthly world in which the celestial world can only appear as a preview of itself. Thus Orendel is the grey robe. At the same time he signifies the salvation history context embodied in it. He is also given the task of bringing the robe to its intended destination: not Jerusalem, but Trier, held to be the oldest German city by medieval

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historiographers.61 Trier stands at the centre of the three phases, whose symmetry is coded partly in terms of the semantics of space. The city is reached and left again via roughly the same set of stopping points (Bari, Apulia, Tiber, Rome, France, Metz—​ France, Rome, Tiber, Apulia, Bari, Acre). It is protected against heathens, like Jerusalem, and is revealed as the location of the Last Judgment by an angel who appears to Orendel (D 119). Like the robe, and thanks to it, Trier becomes a place of salvation, in which the central relic of salvation history also makes present the central location of salvation itself, Jerusalem. The text operates with a homology between Trier and the seamless robe on the one hand, Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre on the other. This homology, however, is characterized by the fact that the Holy Sepulchre, the object of all yearnings, keeps slipping away: at the beginning it is already in view when the ships all sink. Then Orendel, after his period of servitude under Ise, is finally on his way there again, and is captured by a giant. When he has reached the Sepulchre, he must continually defend it against new adversaries, and win it back from the heathens after his interim stay in Trier. The Holy Sepulchre, that abstract phantasm which defined Emperor Maximilian’s dream of a crusade, is under the protection of a queen, Bride. At the end it is up to her to refurnish the Sepulchre with sacred objects. By analogy with Orendel, who had offered himself up to the Holy Sepulchre upon his first arrival in Jerusalem, Bride, once she has reached the Sepulchre again, offers a number of relics to it: “Sy opffert auff die drey nagel | Die got durch sein hend vnd fůß wurden geschlagen | Sy opffert auff das sper vnd die kron | Die got trůg zů seiner marter fron” (D 140; “She offers up the three nails /​ That were driven through God’s hands and feet /​She offers up the lance and the crown /​That God wore to his martyrdom”). These are central relics of Christ, which often appear as an ensemble in late medieval images and broadsheets (for example in the context of the Mass of Saint Gregory or the arma Christi). In the consciousness of the time, some of them were located not in Jerusalem, but in Germany: the Holy Lance, for example, was at the centre of exhibitions of relics in Nuremberg.62 The donation of these Christ-​related relics to Jerusalem is the counterpart to the handing over of the robe to the priests in Trier. It ensures that the Holy Sepulchre remains a place of metonymic presence of the Saviour, and a focus for Western yearning for the objects of the presence. At the same time, this fulfils the vision described at the beginning, on Orendel’s departure for Jerusalem, when the golden spurs were transformed into symbols of sacrifice and a radiant image of the martyrdom of Christ. Thus for all its heterogeneity, the narrative does have meaning-​giving principles. For example, various elements seem to be connected, in terms of final logic and the logic of salvation, by repetitions: the pilgrim Tragemunt is reflected in the later pilgrims Orendel and Bride, the fisherman Orendel in the fisherman Ise, the danger facing Jerusalem in the danger facing Trier. The battles against heathens and giants are repeated, as are the imprisonments and rescues, the prayers and the granting of help, the attacks on Bride’s 61  Cf. Thomas, Studien zur Trierer Geschichtsschreibung; Haari-​Oberg, Wirkungsgeschichte der Trierer Gründungssage. 62  Kühne, Ostensio reliquiarum, 149 and illustration.

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chastity, and the journeys to the Holy Sepulchre. The narrative situation also acquires a superficial appearance of unity from repetitions. Individual words, formulaic couplets, and even blocks up to twelve lines long are reused. The opening lines cited above about the making of the robe are typical: in eleven lines, there are five mentions of the “wirken” of the robe, three of these in lines that begin identically (“Er ward gewürcket”); the mention of Mary, twice in succession, seems tautological, but at the same time it creates a connection between transcendence and participation, and extends the construction to include Helena: “Die edele küniginne sandt Marey | Mein fraw sandt Maria in selber span | Sandt Helena in selber würcken began” (“The noble queen Saint Mary /​My lady Saint Mary spun it herself /​Saint Helena herself began to make it”).

Questionable Elements

Words as threads, constantly intertwining, bringing forth a paradoxical unity in multiplicity? A textile text as the representation of a textile that was, for many years, only available in textual form? The idea of acquiring spiritual “clothing” by praising God, or of “weaving” garments for the saints by praying, was a common motif in late medieval spirituality.63 It is also likely to have been familiar to the readers of Der graue Rock. It is plain, in any case, that the work creates a presence of the surface, which does not derive from the wealth of rhetorical devices, but from the promise of a tissue-​like structure. The object fuses with the protagonist, an auratic textuality emerges, correspondences are ostentatiously displayed—​all this creates a counterpart to the relic, a backstory to its story. If the sacral object has metonymic character with regard to salvation history, then metonymic procedures in the sacralized text imply that a salvific event is emerging here too. Contiguities (points of contact and adjacency) rather than causalities (conclusions and deductions), strategies focusing on presence rather than mimesis, circulations rather than motivations: all these things suggest that there is something monstrous about the text, something that will prove to contain transcendence—​just as, in general, a Christian aesthetics often seeks to make the inaccessible accessible by means of the dissimilar, the non-​mimetic, the deformed. The relic, both historical and supra-​historical, like the protagonist, is the reference point and the vanishing point of the text: both absent and present in Trier, just like the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The title points to the “now” of the elevation of the relic, but in the text the robe is what it was until 1512: a simultaneously real and imaginary object. Exhibiting it and at the same time concealing it is the basis for the text’s aura. This is exactly the point where Hans Othmar’s prose version diverges from the verse edition. While neither text was produced in close proximity to the events in Trier, the title of the prose edition gives a number of signals of presence.64 Furthermore, a passage 63  Cf. Mechthild von Magdeburg, Das fließende Licht der Gottheit, 86, lines 28f. (2, 4); Lentes, “Gewänder der Heiligen,” 120f.; Röckelein, “Vom webenden Hagiographen.”

64  P 1: “yetzo bei vnnsern zeitten /​von der gepurt Christi in dem Fünfftzehenhundert vnd zwelfften jare /​auff dem grossen Reichstag zu Trier /​in gegenwertigkait Römischer Kaiserlicher majestat vnsers allergnädigsten herren. auch Churfürsten /​Fürsten /​herren vnd anderer Stende

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inserted at the exact point where the deposition of the robe in Trier is reported suggests that God himself organized continuous surveillance of the robe (P  60.29–​34):  thus knowledge about it is handed down and controlled, and the present is integrated into that permanence which is ascribed to the robe at the beginning. At the end a publisher’s colophon segues into a list of the relics—​and princes—​present at the exhibition. In the framework of such additions, the status of auratic textuality also changes. Instead of multiple non-​specific references to books, continuously emphasizing the text’s proximity to an authoritative model, there is a reference at the end to a “gar alte[s]‌ büchlin /​ das fast maisterlich vnd mitt grossem fleiss geschriben ist” (P 73.5f.; a very old little book /​that is written in a most masterly fashion and with great diligence)—​in other words a manuscript which makes authenticity materially possible. A texture that draws attention to itself with formulaic repetitions is replaced by the pragmatic Exempel of the unification of worldly and spiritual knighthood.65 A transcendent, providential rationality is permeated by an immanent, narrative one, which asserts itself by referring to the real. The robe has allegedly been found in present times, “wie dann die Hystori in disem büchlin anzaigt. so ist leichtlich zů glauben vnd zů halten /​ das diser Rock sey der hailig rock /​in dem vnser erlöser vnd säligmacher vnser hayl gewürckt” (P 73.12–​15; “as the history in this little book shows. Thus it is easy to believe /​that this robe is the holy robe /​in which our Redeemer and Saviour brought about our salvation”). The casual tone is scarcely able to hide the fact that not only the text’s authenticity is fragile, but also that of the relic. The text can “show” (anzeigen) the elevation of the robe, but it can only tell its story; the relic can be made present by being displayed, but it can only be proven to be a relic of Christ by additional evidence. Der graue Rock, by providing the spectacular relic with a no less spectacular (back)story, does make equivalence possible. And yet it also reveals the uncertainty on which this is based. If a story can be believed, it can also be disbelieved. Thus while prose is able to rationalize the salvific texture of the verse text, even it cannot escape the risks of profane models of salvation. A more or less contemporary user of one copy of the work wrote the following note in the margin of the above-​quoted passage:  “ficticium est, et non verum.” If he actually meant the identity of the robe displayed in Trier with the true tunic of Christ, he would have been expressing the same doubt that also troubled others. Even on the first occasions when the robe was exhibited, there was vigorous criticism, and the suspicion was expressed that the relic was an invention of the Trier clergy.66 Nor should the high number of visitors conceal how precarious the introduction of such an ambitious display of relics was. In historiographic terms, the efforts made to reconstruct the authentic history of the relic are at least an indirect des hailigen Reichs erfunden” (Found now in our times /​ in the fifteen-​hundred and twelfth year from Christ’s birth /​at the great Imperial Diet of Trier /​in the presence of his majesty the Roman Emperor, our most merciful lord. Also electors /​princes /​lords and other estates of the holy empire). 65  P 72:13–​30; cf. Plate, “Orendel—​König von Jerusalem,” 205–​8. For the differences between the verse and the prose texts see Orendel, xii–​xxxiii. 66  Schmid, “Wallfahrtslandschaft Rheinland,” 75.

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indication of the fear that this might not be possible. They are an attempt to bring light into the historical testimonies, and, in the process, eradicate a few dangerous versions of history. In 1513, in his Declaration vnnd erclerung der warheit des Rocks Jesu christi, the doctor and humanist Johann Adelphus Muling criticized and promised to refute a fabulous “gedicht mit Rymen harfür kommen von künig Orendel” (poem with rhymes about King Orendel) whose characters had neither lived nor reigned, “vnd in keiner hystorien funden werden” (and are not found in any history).67 In 1514, in his Medulla Gestorum Treverensium, the university professor and cathedral preacher Johannes Enen polemicized against “ein tractatel oder bůchelin von einem könig genant Arendel welches doch gar falsch erdicht vnd (alls ich glaub) vmb eigents nutz wille angefangen sey So es gar in keinem berümbten angenommenden historiographen schrifften fonden würt” (“a tract or little book about a king named Arendel, which is falsely written and (I believe) begun out of self-​interest, since it is not found in any famous, accepted historiographic writings”).68 Whatever is contrary to established historiography is excluded, including those idiosyncratic stories of the Grey Robe which move elusively between the discourses. Relating to traditions of the profane epic, they exaggerate in ways that are intended to increase their validity, but do not actually ensure them a place in the discourse on relics. They remain on the margins, because they permeate the adventure with elements of salvation history, and at the same time tinge salvation history with elements of adventure. They remain suspect because they are able to utilize the imaginary just enough to make them the most proximate and the most dangerous of strangers—​since structurally the historiographic process differs little from the poetic process. Muling’s story of the robe’s journey from Jerusalem to Trier (via Pontius Pilate, Constantine, Athanasius, Pope Pelagius II, Mauritius of Trier, and a bischoff zu Trier) is itself adventurous and not without contradictions—​the difference between this and Der graue Rock lies mainly in the historicity of the protagonists.69 Enen’s version, in contrast, focuses on the perspective of the church: concentrating on the exhibition of the relic, he follows the tradition that it was brought to Trier by Bishop Agritius, sent by Helena. He does not, however, provide any new historiographic evidence. His most important point is: “Diszer rock betzeugt sich selbs” (“This robe is its own testimony”)—through its mysterious, not easily identifiable materiality.70 This evokes the understanding of Christ as the primary and most sublime witness to the Christian work of salvation, and transfers it to the metonymy of the Redeemer—​by means of a circular relationship between relic and text, in which each one serves to authorize the other. This also shows that practices of exhibition and pilgrimage, and secular-​poetic, ecclesiastical-​affirmative, and historiographic-​critical forms of writing all operate with 67  Plate, “Orendel—​König von Jerusalem,” 195.

68  Plate, “Orendel—​König von Jerusalem,” 201. For Enen’s Medulla see Schmid, “Wallfahrtslandschaft Rheinland,” 55–​103; edition: Schmid and Embach. 69  Plate, “Orendel—​König von Jerusalem,” 198–​200.

70  Plate, “Orendel—​König von Jerusalem,” 204. For the actual material composition of the robe see Flury-​Lemberg, “Reliquiar für die Reliquie.”

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hybrid components, heterogeneous patterns of argument, and tautological strategies of validation, which always have to presuppose what they wish to prove or exhibit. Textual, iconic, and material or relic-​like elements enter into multilayered relations of exchange. Representations and explanations, graftings and transferences appear side by side, distinguished mainly by the nature and conspicuousness of their combinatory acts. While the pragmatically oriented texts try to curb semantic excesses, the literary texts leave more room for caprice. They multiply the references, creating reversible figures between salvific potency and literary form. By transferring the metonymic dimension of the relics to their own metonymic operations, they allow distinctive forms of auratization and presentification. Thus it seems that the intensity of the signs relating to salvation history increases precisely where the distance from religious ritual, simultaneously precarious and rich in opportunities, is greatest. It is probably no coincidence that the textual “excesses” of Der graue Rock are attached to an object whose hidden state initially fires the imagination, and whose reappearance then not only satisfies the longing for the exhibition of salvific objects, but also makes visible the problems in the economy of salvation on which it is based. The cultic “excesses,” on the other hand, were quickly brought under control, subjected to reformatory criticism, or simply trivialized:  “Yetzund ist Christy rock alt worden, man muß in flicken, das kostet auch vil tausent guldin” (Now Christ’s robe is old, it must be mended, that also costs many thousands of guilders).71 Where the epic transcends the monetary aspect in favour of a salvific logic of gift-​giving, contemporary history brings this logic back into the system of calculability—​but without being able to efface the auratic effect of the sacral object. Just as the vera icon did not simply disappear in the course of the Reformation, but managed to become the prime example of the paradox of tangible intangibility,72 so the seamless robe was elevated again and again: exhibitions took place annually between 1513 and 1517, then every seven years, harmonized with the Aachen cycle, until 1545, then occasionally and irregularly between the seventeenth and the twentieth centuries, and most recently in 1996—​for the eight hundredth anniversary of the consecration of the high altar in the eastern choir of Trier Cathedral, in which the relic was sealed until 1512.

71  As stated by the preacher Heinrich von Kettelbach from Ulm, in a pamphlet from 1522; Seibrich, “Trierer Heiltumsfahrt,” 114. 72  Cf. Stoichita, Visionary Experience.

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CONCLUSION

Mediated Immediacy Does the tension between abundance and lack—​a ubiquitous component of medieval mediality, if we accept the arguments presented here—​become less acute at a certain point in history? Does it dissipate as theological figures of thought lose their dominance? Or does it live on, in a modified, radically altered, perhaps secularized form? At the end of each of the preceding chapters there has been a brief preview of the shifts, upheavals, or new approaches that we can expect to find in the early modern period. In one case the focus was on inner representation, in another on the effort to gain control of salvific presences, in the third on experimentation with semiotic and textual models which do not simply dismiss the existing models, but give greater weight to immanence than to transcendence. Elsewhere the emphasis was on the new attitude of reflection toward material and immaterial phenomena, or on a subjectivism which, for example, offers new ways to talk about the body. The different aspects can hardly be reduced to a single common denominator. Even if we were to remain within the framework of historical self-​description (the dominant perspective in this book) it would be impossible to observe anything more than an increase in pluralization and opacity, diversification and complexity. Nor would the construction of a metanarrative offer any great advantage over the familiar technological and sociological narratives, or those based on the history of ideas. A more interesting approach is to look further into the future. When did the Western media household come to be perceived as so greatly altered that people began to refer back to earlier times—​operating with categories such as abundance and lack? The answer to this question leads us to the period ca. 1800. The Enlightenment was accompanied by a widespread literacy program. The aim was to make reading and writing an established element of everyday life, across all social strata. Writing was now no longer purely a means of making the absent present, as it had been since antiquity. It was also seen as an ideal way to transport information over long distances.1 The downside, though, was an awareness that communication was losing its sensory element.2 This then led to counter-​efforts to emotionalize written communication, and to invest it with oral, physical elements—​resulting in paradoxical interconnections between mediality and non-​mediality, presence and absence.3 1  Cf. for example Campe, Neues Abeze-​und Lesebuch, 184f. 2  Schön, Verlust der Sinnlichkeit.

3  Koschorke, “Alphabetisation und Empfindsamkeit”; Koschorke, Körperströme und Schriftverkehr; Reinlein, Brief als Medium der Empfindsamkeit.

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In abstract terms, the relationship between mediation and immediacy also became more contentious in this period. The early Romantics did not conceive it as a radical opposition, but as an inextricable intertwining. Religious mediation in particular was seen as interlinked with elements of immediacy. Novalis reflects on this in the seventy-​ fourth fragment of his Blüthenstaub collection (1798). Intermediary links between man and God are necessary, he argues, but there is freedom in the choice of the link. The conventions that emerge in the process allow us to discern how something can develop into a “true” religion: “Fetische, Gestirne, Thiere, Helden, Götzen, Götter, Ein Gottmensch. Man sieht bald, wie relativ diese Wahlen sind, und wird unvermerkt auf die Idee getrieben, daß das Wesen der Religion wohl nicht von der Beschaffenheit des Mittlers abhange, sondern lediglich in der Ansicht desselben, in den Verhältnissen zu ihm bestehe” (“fetishes, stars, animals, heroes, idols, gods, one God-​man. One soon sees how relative these choices are and one is driven imperceptibly to the idea that the essence of religion does not in fact depend on the nature of the mediator, but consists purely in the way he is regarded, in the relations that exist with him”).4 Novalis defines the essence of religion in terms of the radical opposition between pantheism and monotheism, which he sees as sublated in the aspect of mediation. That is, “wenn man den monotheistischen Mittler zum Mittler der Mittelwelt des Pantheism macht, und diese gleichsam durch ihn centrirt, so daß beyde einander jedoch auf verschiedene Weise nothwendig machen” (“if one makes the [monotheistic] mediator the mediator of the intermediate world of the pantheist—​and as it were centres this by means of him—​so that each makes the other necessary, but in different ways”).5 The middle position itself can be occupied by different entities, but the Christological idea remains the perfect expression of mediation: “Jeder Gegenstand kann dem Religiösen ein Tempel im Sinn der Auguren seyn. Der Geist dieses Tempels ist der allgegenwärtige Hohepriester, der monotheistische Mittler, welcher allein im unmittelbaren Verhältnisse mit der Gottheit steht” (“Every object can be a temple for the religious person in the sense of the augurs. The spirit of this temple is the omnipresent high priest—​the [monotheistic] mediator—​who alone stands in an immediate relation to the All-​father”).6 However, the abstract paradox of a mediated immediacy, embodied by the monotheistic form of the mediator, is hardly sufficient to satisfy concrete and present longings for immediacy. When the young Friedrich Schleiermacher, coming from the same pietistic tradition as Novalis, and animated by the same longing for a rediscovery of religion, takes up the idea of paradoxical mediation, he too relates it to Christ.7 The fifth and last of the anonymously published speeches on religion (Über die Religion, 1799) offers an apotheosis of the originator of the Christian religion, drawing on a notion familiar to 4  Novalis, Werke, Tagebücher und Briefe, 2:257. English: Novalis, Philosophical Writings, 35. 5  Novalis, Werke, Tagebücher und Briefe, 259; Novalis, Philosophical Writings, 36. 6  Novalis, Werke, Tagebücher und Briefe, 259; Novalis, Philosophical Writings, 36.

7  For the connection between Schleiermacher and Novalis see for example Auerochs, Entstehung der Kunstreligion, 238–​82; for the relationship between mediation and immediacy see Nassar, “Immediacy and Mediation.”

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the older tradition: the inner connectedness of the medium and the mediatized. What mediates “kann unmöglich bloß Endlich sein; es muß Beiden angehören; es muß der göttlichen Natur teilhaftig sein ebenso und in eben dem Sinne, in dem es der endlichen teilhaftig ist” (“cannot possibly be something merely finite that, in turn, itself requires mediation. It must belong to both; it must be a part of the divine nature just as much as and in the same sense in which it is part of the finite”).8 In the earlier speeches, however, another perspective dominates. Here Schleiermacher on the one hand suggests that the exceptional individual has the potential to become a seer, prophet, and medium. On the other hand, he laments the necessity for mediation in general. Immediate understanding and an immediate transfer of knowledge are, he argues, only conceivable in utopian or eschatological terms. Even if religion develops on an internal and personal level, the way it is communicated is marked by a “necessary reflection,” which separates religious feeling and religious expression from one another: “wer kann über irgend etwas, das zum Bewußtsein gehört, reden, ohne erst durch dieses Medium hindurchzugehen” (“who can speak about something that belongs to consciousness without first going through this medium?”).9 In keeping with this, the privileged mediator “[muss] nach jedem Ausflug seines Geistes ins Unendliche den Eindruck, den es ihm gegeben hat, hinstellen außer sich als einen mitteilbaren Gegenstand in Bildern oder Worten, um ihn selbst aufs neue in eine andere Gestalt und in eine endliche Größe verwandelt zu genießen” (“after every flight of their spirit to the infinite [such mediators] must set down in pictures or words the impression it made on them as an object so as to enjoy it themselves afresh, transformed into another form on a finite scale”), and must mediate it to others “als Dichter oder Seher, als Redner oder als Künstler” (“as poets and seers, as orators and artists”).10 The dream is that this separation may be eliminated sometime, somehow: “Möchte es doch je geschehen, daß dieses Mittleramte aufhörte und das Priestertum der Menschheit eine schönere Bestimmung bekäme! […] Jeder leuchtete dann in der Stille sich und den Anderen, und die Mitteilung heiliger Gedanken und Gefühle bestünde nur in dem leichten Spiele, die verschiedenen Strahlen dieses Lichts jetzt zu vereinigen, dann wieder zu brechen, jetzt es zu zerstreuen, dann wieder hie und da auf einzelne Gegenstände zu konzentrieren” (“May it yet happen that this office of mediator should cease and the priesthood of humanity receive lovelier definition! […] Individuals would then silently light the way for themselves and for others, and the communication of holy thoughts and feelings would consist only in the easy game of now unifying the different beams of this light and then again breaking them up, now scattering it and then again concentrating here and there on individual objects”).11 The inextricable linking of mediacy and immediacy, later explored dialectically by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,12 is encapsulated in the work of Friedrich Hölderlin. 8  Schleiermacher, Über die Religion, 201 (fifth speech). English: Schleiermacher, On Religion, 120. 9  Schleiermacher, Über die Religion, 49 (second speech); Schleiermacher, On Religion, 31. 10  Schleiermacher, Über die Religion, 9 (first speech); Schleiermacher, On Religion, 7. 11  Schleiermacher, Über die Religion, 10; Schleiermacher, On Religion, 8.

12  Cf. Hrachovec, “Unmittelbarkeit und Vermittlung”; Arndt, Unmittelbarkeit.

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Between 1800 and 1805 he makes the following comment on a fragment by the Greek lyricist Pindar: “Das Unmittelbare, streng genommen, ist für die Sterblichen unmöglich, wie für die Unsterblichen; der Gott muß verschiedene Welten unterscheiden, seiner Natur gemäß, weil himmlische Güte, ihret selber wegen, heilig syn muß, unvermischet. Der Mensch, als Erkennendes, muß auch verschiedene Welten unterscheiden, weil Erkentniß nur durch Entgegensezung möglich ist. Deswegen ist das Unmittelbare, streng genommen, für die Sterblichen unmöglich, wie für die Unsterblichen.—​Die strenge Mittelbarkeit aber ist das Gesez” (“The immediate […] strictly speaking, is impossible for mortals, as for immortals; the god has to differentiate several worlds, according to his nature, for heavenly goodness, for its own sake, must be holy, unalloyed. Human beings, as cognisant ones, must also differentiate between several worlds, because cognition is only possible by contrast. This is why the immediate, strictly speaking, is impossible for mortals and immortals.—​But the strictly mediate is the law”).13 The insight expressed here is that cognition is differentiation, and at the same time, mediation between the things differentiated. Mediation, however, is not only the principle of the flawed world of humans. It also predominates in the perspective of the divine, because even the immediate and unalloyed only becomes this in relation to something that is mediate and alloyed. So in epistemological terms there is more than just the mediate, and in ontological terms there is more than just the immediate. Rather, the one is implied in the other. With reference to the forms of mediation, this means that every mediation is both separate from the immediate and only conceivable in relation to it. Everything we understand as medial presupposes something in relation to which the medial proves itself to be medial in the first place—​the possibility of something other, non-​medial, real, which can be mediated and can be present in the here and now. This is the basis for the not insubstantial promise inherent in all mediations: that, for all their mediacy, they carry within themselves something of what they mediate. For Hölderlin, this promise is linked to the return to antiquity. For the Romantics, this lay in a revival of that earlier period that they did not yet generally refer to as the Middle Ages, but instead circumscribed in various ways, as “schöne glänzende Zeiten,” “alte Zeiten,” “Ritterzeit,” the time of “altdeutsche” or “romantische Poesie.” This was associated with the idea of a united and uniform culture, and above all of a synesthetic experience of the divine, and a self-​evident presence of the sacred: “Mit welcher Heiterkeit verließ man die schönen Versammlungen in den geheimnißvollen Kirchen, die mit ermunternden Bildern geschmückt, mit süßen Düften erfüllt, und von heiliger erhebender Musik belebt waren. In ihnen wurden die geweihten Reste ehemaliger gottesfürchtiger Menschen dankbar, in köstlichen Behältnissen aufbewahrt” (“With what serenity one left beautiful gatherings in mysterious churches decorated with inspiring pictures, filled with sweet scents, and enlivened by uplifting sacred music. There the sanctified remains of once God-​fearing people were gratefully preserved in precious vessels”).14 Media could become manifestations of transcendence, a reciprocal 13  Hölderlin, Sämtliche Werke und Briefe, 2:381. English: Hölderin, Poems and Fragments, 639.

14  Novalis, “Die Christenheit oder Europa” (1799), in Werke, Tagebücher und Briefe, 2:753. English: Novalis, Philosophical Writings, 138.

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logic of gift-​giving was still intact: “Hin und wieder schien sich die himmlische Gnade vorzüglich auf ein seltsames Bild, oder einen Grabhügel niedergelassen zu haben.—​ Dorthin strömten aus allen Gegenden Menschen mit schönen Gaben und brachten himmlische Gegengeschenke: Frieden der Seele und Gesundheit des Leibes, zurück” (“Now and then heavenly grace seemed to have been specially bestowed on a strange picture or a grave-​mound. People streamed to that place from all regions with beautiful offerings and brought back heavenly gifts in return: peace of mind and health of body”).15 The idea is that turning back to this time will make it possible to change, enrich, enliven one’s own present. Or at least to look at it differently—​as through a field glass, a telescope, but one that does not simply bring distant things closer, but causes interaction between the distant and the near, in line with the earlier theories of vision: “Alles, was zwischen unserm Auge und einem entfernten zu Sehenden als Mittler steht, uns den entfernten Gegenstand nähert, ihm aber zugleich etwas von dem seinigen mitgiebt, ist romantisch” (All that stands as a mediator between our eye and something distant that is to be seen, which brings the distant object nearer to us, but at the same time gives it something of itself, is romantic). This is the definition given by Maria, the fictitious author in Brentano’s novel Godwi (pt. 2, 1802, 289). This novel is set in the present, but its world has numerous residues of an earlier age: Godwi writes from the Old Frankish chamber of a castle, which looks “als sey ein Stück des funfzehnten Jahrhunderts […] eingemauert worden” (“as though a piece of the fifteenth century had been walled in”).16 The definition quoted is at the heart of an authentic discussion on media theory. It is concerned with the possibility or impossibility of translation, and with enchantment by means of artful forms. From the Romantic perspective, translation is not based on the idea of the greatest possible transparency. Instead it is assumed that the object is shaped by the medium through which it is viewed—​leading to the most delightful effects. But these effects cannot deny their dependence on the real: a basin of water made of green glass and multiple mirrors brings light and sound, colour and shape into a “wunderliche Verwirrung” (wondrous confusion); for a moment the boundaries between nature and art, life and death seem to be suspended (pt. 2, 297). But only for a moment. The basin, created in the late Middle Ages by an unknown Strasbourg artist, whose works are all “in einem solchen phantastischen romantischen Stiel” (pt.2, 297; in such a fantastic romantic style), is dependent on the sun that illuminates it. It thus represents something beautiful, which “mit dem himmlischen Lichte in Verbindung steht” (pt. 2, 295; is connected with the heavenly light).17 For the Romantics, the enchantment inspired by the earlier era is strongly linked with artificial objects, both miraculous and natural, full of presence and permeated with transcendence. Even if the subject is writing, then it is writing that is more than a mere means of transmission. In Novalis’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802), the eponymous hero 15  Novalis, “Die Christenheit oder Europa” (1799), in Werke, Tagebücher und Briefe, 2:753. English: Novalis, Philosophical Writings, 138. 16  Brentano, Godwi, 17 (first part); cf. Hoffmann, “Brentano mit McLuhan.”

17  For the contemporary discussion on the medium diaphanum between transcendence and immanence see Hoffmann, Geschichte des Medienbegriffs, 73–​94.

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encounters a medieval manuscript in the hermit’s cave. What enchants him about it is that he recognizes something, feels an inkling of a personal connection. He cannot read the Old Provençal language of the manuscript, but it reminds him of Latin and Italian. It conceals a mystery, intensified by the illustrations, in which Heinrich discovers himself and his surroundings, as in a wondrous mirror. Thus the old manuscript is a relic of the past, which simultaneously inspires hope of its return. Located in the subterranean, hidden realm, where the alchemistic fusion of writing of life, human writing, and writing of nature has its place, the manuscript enters into a shifting, elusive relationship with the book in the reader’s hands.18 An expression of the absolute, infinitely mirrored writing in which the divine, coded writing of nature is realized,19 it is full of promise, like those other elusive entities in which past, present, and future are prismatically reflected in one another: the blue flower, or the red gemstone found by the boy in the Atlantis tale. This stone shows, on one side, “eingegrabene unverständliche Chiffern” (“an incised inscription he could not understand”) and awakens an “unwiderstehliches Verlangen” (“an irresistible longing”) to surround the enigmatic token with words.20 Similarly, in the anonymously published Herzensergießungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders (1796), written by Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder and edited and added to by Ludwig Tieck, the past does not primarily become present through normal written transmission. True, some of the pages (Blätter) reproduce older pages, written by such famous artists as Leonardo da Vinci or Bramante. But in general the old manuscripts the monk deals with are regarded as outmoded and worthless compared to the material evidence of the past in the form of images and buildings. What can make them interesting is that they offer descriptions of supernatural phenomena, and allow the reader to participate in the creative process of the great geniuses. For example, the reader witnesses how Raphael, the “divine” Raphael, sees an incomplete image of the Madonna become, one night, “ein ganz vollkommenes und wirklich lebendiges [Bild]” (“[it] was now completed and had come to life”), permeated by the divine.21 In most cases, however, the manuscripts have to wait until someone “den Geist [ihrer Urheber], der darin verzaubert schläft, daraus erwecken und aus den lange getragenen Banden erlösen soll” (“will awaken the spirit of the old painter sleeping his magic sleep there and release him from the bonds that have long constrained him”).22 The past must first be brought back to life. The old texts must be translated into new, living, powerful, divinely permeated images, images that directly correspond to the imaginative power of later generations.23 18  Cf. Böhme, Natur und Subjekt, 97–​115. 19  Cf. “Wunderliche Figuren.”

20  Novalis, “Heinrich von Ofterdingen,” in Werke, Tagebücher und Briefe, 1:264–​65. English: Novalis, Henry von Ofterdingen, 41.

21  Wackenroder and Tieck, Herzensergießungen, 10, 26f. (“Raffaels Erscheinung”). English: Wackenroder and Tieck, Outpourings, 8.

22  Wackenroder and Tieck, Herzensergießungen, 35, 29–​32 (“Das Muster eines kunstreichen und dabei tiefgelehrten Malers”); Outpourings, 36. 23  Cf. Voßkamp, “ ‘Alles Sichtbare haftet am Unsichtbaren.’ ”

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These generations can then have an inkling of what inspired art and spiritually gifted artists are capable of. Or, expressed in medial categories, the light of artistic beauty “zerspaltet sich […] in tausend Strahlen, deren Wiederschein auf mannigfache Weise von den großen Künstlern, die der Himmel auf die Welt gesetzt hat, in unser entzücktes Auge zurückgeworfen wird” (“split[s]‌ […] into a thousand rays, whose glories are deflected into our enraptured eyes in countless ways by the great artists whom heaven has sent down to us”).24 The Kunstreligion propagated here aims at mediations that are sublated in immediacy. It functions in a similar way to early modern signatures: “Sie redet durch Bilder der Menschen und bedienet sich also einer Hieroglyphenschrift, deren Zeichen wir dem Äußern nach kennen und verstehen” (“Art speaks through pictorial representations of men; that is, it employs a hieroglyphic language whose signs we recognize and understand on sight”).25 Sound and music are paradigmatic for the functioning of this writing: a letter describes the emphatic experience of a Catholic Mass, intensified by music, the elevation of the Host, and images. The collection ends with a detailed account of the life of the composer Joseph Berglinger: barely has he composed a masterly Passion when he succumbs to typhoid fever.

Writing Systems

The Romantic reawakening of the past is based on the notion of “as if.” The bygone age provides the best examples of a presence in which the experience of God and the experience of art were united, and the inner being of the artist could become the place where nature, the world, and heaven manifested themselves. Yet this era is irrevocably past, just as the condition of being an artist is fundamentally precarious, endangered by both soulless imitation and artistic depression or melancholy. Thus the desire to return to the past is ambivalent. It is juxtaposed with another desire: to bring the past to life—​for example in the tonal or vocal dimension of older poetry. Ludwig Tieck, in the preface to his translation of Minnelieder from the Codex Manesse (1803), emphasizes the importance of rhyme: “Es ist nichts weniger als Trieb zur Künstlichkeit, oder zu Schwierigkeiten, welche den Reim zuerst in die Poesie eingeführt hat, sondern die Liebe zum Ton und Klang, das Gefühl, daß die ähnlichlautenden Worte in deutliche oder geheimnißvollere Verwandschaft stehn müssen, das Bestreben die Poesie in Musik, in etwas Bestimmt-​ Unbestimmtes zu verwandeln” (“It is not the drive to artificiality, or to difficulties, that first introduced the rhyme into poetry, but the love of tone and sound, the feeling that the similar-​sounding words must have a clear or mysterious connection to each other, the aspiration to transform poetry into music, into something definite-​indefinite”). The poet’s mind is shaped by the “Sehnsucht, die Laute, die in der Sprache einzeln und unverbunden stehn, näher zu bringen, damit sie ihre Verwandschaft erkennen, und sich gleichsam in Liebe vermählen” (“longing to bring the sounds which, in language, are 24  Wackenroder and Tieck, Herzensergießungen, 15, 17–​21 (“Der merkwürdige Tod des zu seiner Zeit weitberühmten alten Malers Francesco Francia”); Outpourings, 14. 25  Wackenroder and Tieck, Herzensergießungen, 59, 8–​10 (“Von zwei wunderbaren Sprachen und deren geheimnisvoller Kraft”); Outpourings, 61.

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isolated and unconnected, closer together, so that they recognize their affinity, and are united in love, as it were”).26 Seventy years later, this has changed. When Gottfried Keller imagines the circumstances of Minnesang in his historical novella Hadlaub (Züricher Novellen, 1878), he is mainly thinking of its written tradition. He spins a tale about the crucial role of Johannes Hadlaub of Zurich in the genesis of the Codex Manesse: Hadlaub is placed in a monastery and learns to read and write from Konrad von Mure; Bishop Heinrich von Klingenberg gives him the task of collecting the Minnelieder which were often sung in earlier times, and bringing them together in a beautiful codex. He succeeds in doing so with admirable skill. Yet he is also confronted with the limitations of transmission/​tradition. On a long journey through Austria, he becomes acquainted with the anonymous popular poetry which is dying out at the time—​in the form of an old singer who can still read but can no longer write; Hadlaub does not use his “ledernes Ränzchen voll verblichener und abgegriffener Liederbüchlein” (“leather satchel full of faded and worn-​out song booklets”) (121) for his own collection. With reference to the novella, this means that however much space Keller gives to the collecting of the songs available on sheets or scrolls, and to the production of the manuscript, he does not gloss over the fact that there are things that are not captured by writing. Their potential only seems to be fulfilled where the dead letters are transformed anew into living spirit. The two examples are not just two generations apart. Between them lies the development of an increasingly scientific and academic approach to early German culture. It runs parallel to the development of historicism, and thus to an appreciation of the individuality of historical objects. Together with the relics of the past, the monuments and traditions (in the terminology of Droysen) now attract greater attention. And this includes writing. As a “source,” it shares their ambivalence: just as the source on the one hand embodies the origin itself, but on the other hand only promises to lead to that real, invisible origin lying behind the visible once it has been critically clarified, so too is writing both the basis of historical knowledge and something that has to be checked against the real facts. It is this ambivalence that allows writing to become the paradigm for relating different forms of mediation to each other, and distinguishing them in terms of epoch. In media history terms, the primal scene for this was created by Victor Hugo. In Notre-​Dame de Paris (1831), he shows the archdeacon of the cathedral, Claude Frollo, in conversation with someone who will turn out to be the French king (Louis XI). Frollo is considering the significance of a recent development (the year is 1482), namely that a printed book has appeared among his manuscripts. What does this mean in relation to the church, the universal Christian institution, embodied by the cathedral, which he sees from his window? His hypothesis is that the one will destroy the other—​“ceci tuera cela.” This is the starting point for a reflection—​linked to the philosophy of media and of history—​on the relationship between the stone cathedral and the printed book, in 26  Minnelieder, xiiif.; cf. Hölter, “Reim und Assonanz.”

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a metanarrative chapter added in the “édition définitive” (1832).27 On the one hand, according to Hugo, this relationship has to do with the question of power: the printed book endangers an institution. On a deeper level, however, this is about the historical replacement of one medium—​in Hugo’s terminology an art, a mode of expression, and a means of transfer or self-​perpetuation—​with another. The two become comparable because they are both viewed in relation to the same paradigm, writing. Like some of his predecessors in the history of architecture, Hugo sees architecture as the main form of communication of the old world: its “écriture principale” or “universelle.”28 This universal writing developed gradually: first letters, then the words, phrases, and sentences formed from them, then finally books, which are able to encompass all other forms or arts. This analogy makes it possible to conceive of architecture as a hypermedium, whose development reached a pinnacle in the high medieval cathedral, and a turning point in the fifteenth century, with the invention of printing, “le plus grand événement de l’histoire.” From now on, he argues, the printing press takes over the functions of the building, which it simultaneously optimizes: it makes communication simpler, cheaper, and faster; it separates transmission from the cumbersome material, allows new long-​distance transfers, and a new, rapid, simultaneous thinking, which reaches “à la fois tous les points de l’air et de l’espace” (205). This goes hand in hand with the idea of a new durability, based on the inversion of the traditional opposition between stable stone architecture and the unstable, short-​lived book. When it comes to the survival of ideas, suggests Hugo, the printing press transforms durability into immortality (205). Hugo emphasizes the period of change in the fifteenth century, but he embeds it in longer-​term processes, most notably in the transition from theocracy to democracy, which he takes to be a universal movement. This transition is already evident, he argues, in the extent to which non-​religious, popular, playful elements find their way into architecture. It becomes still more obvious in the gradual decline of architectural quality in the early modern period. He sees the rise of the printed book as a parallel development; the chapter culminates in his description of this rise in architectural categories. A structure with “a thousand storeys” has arisen, diverse in its details and yet harmonious in its overall appearance, organic and yet fundamentally unfinished: “From the cathedral of Shakespeare to the mosque of Byron, a myriad spires are heaped pell-​ mell upon this metropolis of universal thought. At its basis are inscribed some antique titles of humanity which architecture failed to register. At the left of the entrance is fastened the old white marble bas-​relief of Homer; at the right the polyglot Bible rears its seven heads. The hydra of the Romancero bristles up beyond, with certain other hybrid forms, like the Vedas and the Nibelungen” (French edn. 210).29 The gigantic but 27  Hugo, Notre-​Dame de Paris, 198–​211 (V, 2).

28  For Hugo’s sources see Mallion, Victor Hugo et l’art architectural, 545–​52.

29  “Depuis la cathédrale de Shakespear jusqu’à la mosquée de Byron, mille clochetons s’encombrent pêle-​mêle sur cette métropole de la pensée universelle. À sa base, on a récrit quelques anciens titres de l’humanité que l’architecture n’avait pas enregistrés. À gauche de l’entrée, on a scellé le vieux bas-​relief en marbre blanc d’Homère, à droite la Bible polyglotte dresse ses sept têtes. L’hydre du

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extremely confused project of humanity, supported by incessant activity and indefatigable industry, a refuge for the intellect against another deluge, “C’est la seconde tour de Babel du genre humain” (211). Hugo is not aiming at a simple process of transition or replacement. Just as the metaphor of the Tower of Babel introduces a problematizing aspect, the image of the decline of real architecture, conversely, does not imply any disrespect for its earlier monumental creations. Or in other words: Hugo’s praise of printing does not mean contempt for the cathedral. Indeed the whole book is designed to sing its praises, to conserve the multiple facets of the structure, to imagine the life that plays out in and around it. The cathedral, the most striking manifestation of the Gothic, represents a high point in art per se; the novel dedicated to it represents the endeavour to preserve the increasingly dilapidated structure—​if not in reality, then in the imagination. The preface states that the book is nothing other than a reconstruction or an attempt to imagine the circumstances that led to the engraving of some Greek letters in the dark corner of one of the cathedral’s spires—​letters which the author remembers, but which have since disappeared. He contrasts this writing, which has vanished despite its apparently durable material, with his own text, produced on much more short-​lived material, and yet allowing a far greater durability—​this is what the novel promises. Its vanishing point lies in the present of the early 1830s: the late Romantics lamented the soullessness of contemporary neoclassical architecture, though they did not yet have a clear vision of a new, forward-​looking architecture. Just a few years later the architect Henri Labrouste, with whom Hugo had corresponded during the work on Notre-​Dame de Paris, was awarded the contract to build the Sainte-​Geneviève library. He translated Hugo’s ideas into architectural form: the building is filled with references to the wealth of written culture which is preserved in it, and in its centre stands the glorified figure of the inventor of the printing press.30 This has little to do with simplistic nostalgia for the Middle Ages. This era does extend into the present with its monuments, which can be seen as the expression of a particular abundance, but the historical distance is unmistakable, and only a few escapists dream of a return to earlier times. For others, the reference to the Middle Ages is an opportunity to uncover deeper, more complex layers in the relationship between past and present. This can then feed into a perspective on media history based on a double concept of writing: understood on the one hand as a concrete manifestation, on the other hand as a general principle of communication, it is able to relate phenomenologically diverse forms to each other, and, at the same time, to transform the deficiency of the individual medium into a promise.31 Similar figures of thought appear repeatedly in the period that follows. Paleography, for example, which evolved through the study of ancient and medieval manuscripts, is viewed by Ludwig Traube as dealing with dead, mute, lifeless letters, but letters that can hold such an abundance that they appear to be the “most delicately organized beings Romancero se hérisse plus loin, et quelques autres formes hybrides, les Védas et les Niebelungen.” (Hugo, Notre-​Dame de Paris, 210). English: Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 153. 30  Levine, “The Book and the Building.”

31  For the return of writing see Wetzel, Die Enden des Buches.

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in creation after death.”32 The aim of paleography is to use its own methods to reanimate these beings, to recover the past life enclosed inside them. This can be attempted by means of language, signs, and names. In his last work (1907), Traube explores the nomina sacra, and the question of how reverence for the name of God can be present even in conventionalized abbreviations. In a brief text based on the ideas of Friedrich Schlegel, Walter Benjamin characterizes the Middle Ages as the connection between a focus on transcendence and an ornamental subordination to form. Shortly after this, in 1916, he describes language as a “pure medium,” which communicates itself in itself, and by means of which man “participates most intimately in the divine infinity of the pure word.”33 In keeping with the biblical myth, this completely understood language is seen as distorted by the Fall of Man and the linguistic confusion of Babel. It continues to have an effect, however: in the language of nature and of objects, and in that of sculpture, painting, and poetry. This can awaken hopes of making this language more plainly visible with (new) technical tools. Traube puts his faith in lithography and photography, two of the new systems of recording and transmission which were developing in the nineteenth century—​alongside telegraphy, phonography, stenography, tachography, and cinetography or cinematography. All of these attempt, in their own way, to register the inner dynamics of nature without refraction through alphabetic scripts, human codes, and symbols.34 Yet they derive legitimacy by using the imagery of writing, and referring to a traditional medium. They link their own methods to the idea that nature is fundamentally readable, implying that the new media somehow fulfil the old ones—​not only by capturing what is visible, immovable, and movable with unprecedented precision, but also by penetrating into the invisible in a way that could never have been imagined before.35 The “graphic” process seems to be able to compensate for the deficiency of the human senses and the insufficiency of language. It seems to offer a universal language that is both old and new. The French physiologist Étienne-​Jules Marey develops various instruments for recording kinetic processes of the body. He dreams of extending his method to ultimately all measurable phenomena, and devising a universal schema which would, for example, make it possible to rediscover the whole culture associated with the Egyptian stelae from the objects themselves.36 Marey must concede, however, that graphic representation is always, in part, an abstraction. It reduces complex structures to lines, curves, and figures. It translates nature into a form of notation that may not be symbolic and alphabetical, but is nonetheless discrete and partial. This is 32  Traube, Zur Paläographie und Handschriftenkunde, 8; Traube, Karolingische Dichtungen, 3.

33  Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften 2.1, 132f. (“Über das Mittelalter”), 140–​57 (“Über Sprache überhaupt und über die Sprache des Menschen”), this quote 149. English:  Benjamin, Selected Writings, 1:69.

34  For an overview see Buddemeier, Panorama, Diorama, Photographie; see also Kittler, Aufschreibesysteme; Kittler, Grammophon Film Typewriter. 35  Cf. Böhme, “Das Unsichtbare.”

36  Marey, La méthode graphique, iv.

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why photography seems more attractive. It allows nature to be directly imprinted on the light-​sensitive medium, with an unprecedented wealth of detail, an apparently magical three-​dimensionality and vitality, comparable to the acheiropoietic images or imprints encountered in the vera icon.37 The first book of photography, published by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1844–​1846, is entitled The Pencil of Nature. Writers imagine that the sun has now “become an artist itself […] it uses the light to write and draw pictures that are more perfect than human hand can produce.”38 Or that “the sun will […] become the historiographer of the future, and in the fidelity of his pencil and the accuracy of his chronicle, truth itself will be embalmed.”39

Once Again: Abundance and  Lack

Many of the promises hinted at are concentrated in what would soon become the most spectacular of the new media: film. To cast light on film and its historical status, critics once again turn to the Middle Ages. Béla Balázs, in his text Visible Man (original title Der sichtbare Mensch, 1924), refers to Victor Hugo, who “once wrote that the printed book has taken over the role of medieval cathedrals” (9). The reference mainly serves to extend Hugo’s media history, adding a further transition to the one he had envisaged. This new change affects the printed book, which had supposedly brought a loss in conceptual unity, a division of the culture into overwhelming diversity. Just as other contemporary authors, architects, or critics added their own new emphases to Hugo’s model (Émile Zola with regard to the connection between iron and stone, Frank Lloyd Wright in terms of the relationship between hand-​made and machine-​made art, Lewis Mumford with respect to the dependence of architecture on literature),40 so too does Balázs focus on possible means of transfer, but now those that are genuinely medial in nature. While printing is associated with the atrophy of man’s mental and physical wholeness, the new medium is seen as restoring this wholeness. Film fulfils the “painful need felt by human beings belonging to an over-​intellectualized and over-​abstract culture to experience an immediate, concrete reality” (83). It re-​establishes the authenticity of the visual, which was present in the Middle Ages, but was then blocked by the Gutenberg era: “It was a golden age for the visual arts […] The soul that became body without mediation could be painted and sculpted in its primary manifestation. But since the advent of printing the word has become the principal bridge joining human beings to one another. The soul has migrated into the word and become crystallized there. The body, however, has been stripped of soul and emptied” (9–​10). What film promises is a reversal of this change, thanks in particular to its capacity to lend a new significance to the human face and facial expression, as a surface on which emotion and intensity can be projected. 37  Stiegler, Philologie des Auges.

38  Stiegler, Bilder der Photographie, 131.

39  Stiegler, Bilder der Photographie, 132 (quote from the Scottish physicist David Brewster, inventor of the kaleidoscope and the dioptric stereoscope, 1856). 40  Levine, “The Book and the Building,” 140–​42.

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The perspective on Hugo has shifted in two ways: in the objects that are juxtaposed and their evaluation. It is no longer architecture and printing that are contrasted, but printing and film, and printing has changed sides in this temporally structured relationship; it has gone from a medium with a promising future to one that blocks the future. This shift shows how flexible comparisons in media history generally are, but also how variable the assessment of medieval mediality can be. Some identify it with the hypermedium of architecture, viewing it as still present but irrevocably obsolete. Others associate it with the paradigm of the body and the senses, regarding it as a past promise, which finds its belated fulfilment in the current medium. Different though the perspectives are, they share an understanding of the Middle Ages as a time of holistic-​ integrative communication, represented by either the man-​made monument or the human body. In the work of the Canadian literary scholar Marshall McLuhan, the Middle Ages—​merely a sidelight in Béla Balázs’s analysis of media history—​becomes the general theme, or at least the common thread, of an anthropologically oriented history of media.41 This interest is already apparent in his dissertation (1942/​2006), where he attempts to embed the English Renaissance author Thomas Nashe in a history of the classic trivium. It is a history with highs and lows: in McLuhan’s version, the glorious founding of the unity of grammar, rhetoric, and logic by the pre-​Socratic philosophers, which initially found no successors because of the predominance of Aristotelianism, was followed by the development of the trivium in the Middle Ages, inspired by Cicero and Augustine, and finally its decline in the Renaissance. McLuhan maintained his high regard for the Middle Ages throughout his life. It forms the basis for an early essay (1951) linking James Joyce and Thomas Aquinas via the idea of the nous poetikos as an active intellect. And it underlies his 1960s studies on media history and media anthropology, which revolve around the fundamental changes resulting from printing technology.42 McLuhan explores these changes in their social and political, cognitive and mental dimensions—​considering both what precedes them and what follows. In The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), the age of printing appears as an era of the eye and of the visual, of central perspective and measurement, progress, change and demystification, individualism and nationalism. The backdrop for this is medieval culture as a medially diverse culture of reading aloud and collaborative performance, one in which oral practices are consistently upheld and retain a high status even in scholastic academia. Although McLuhan seldom expresses emphatic judgments, it is clear that he associates the Middle Ages with a notion of perceptual, cognitive, and medial abundance, which was lost in the modern era but is enjoying a revival in the electric and electronic media of the twentieth century. He argues that the auditory is acquiring a new importance, the world is becoming a village once again (but a global one), and the Gutenberg universe is breaking up—​both theoretically (thanks to the model of curved space) and practically (through technical inventions such as the telegraph). This is further developed in Understanding 41  For a representative overview of discussions of McLuhan’s work see Genosko, Marshall McLuhan. 42  Peters, “McLuhan’s Grammatical Theology.”

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Media (1964), starting from the universal expansion of the senses, which is traced back through evolutionary history. An understanding of the (printed) letters of the alphabet “as engraved icons has returned in our own day in the graphic arts and in advertising display” (171). The theory of relativity has replaced Newton’s notion of unified space, thus bringing closer the world shown by medieval woodcuts, where “each object created its own space” (175). McLuhan observes that the young people of his time have rediscovered the Middle Ages, and indeed identify with it: “the kids have gone completely medieval.”43 The Middle Ages, understood as a time of collectivity and multi-​sensoriality, of diversity, difference and corporeality, provides, as in the work of Balázs, a backdrop for the changes of the modern period—​though it seems that some of these are not to be attributed to printing technology, but are already implied in the triumph of the alphabet. In this sense, McLuhan can at one point present uniformity and repeatability as principles introduced in antiquity and the Middle Ages, and at another point as specific concomitants of printing.44 This is a manifestation of his specific, often discussed approach to historicity. Although there seems to be a dominant narrative of the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era (one which is associated with losses), this narrative is disrupted by the focus on current media culture. Not only do old forms appear in this as revitalized and reconfigured. It becomes necessary to find methods of description that diverge from those of the age of printing: multi-​sensory, non-​linear, alogical, mosaic-​like, fragmentary, paradoxical. In McLuhan’s work, conservatism and avant-​gardism prove to be as inextricably intertwined as skepticism and messianism. What connects them is the following question:  does the implosion of the underlying structures of Western societies allow new, unprecedented possibilities? Does it bring a re-​emergence of older elements, which combine with later and current ones to create new spatiotemporal structures? In the same period, other writers also started to see the Middle Ages as more than just an era dominated by the textuality of the book. Scholars of medieval history and literature began to take an interest in the orality and corporeality of medieval society, its performative and theatrical dimension. They discovered a world that was sometimes almost invisible behind the learned culture, a world most vividly depicted by Paul Zumthor. In La lettre et la voix (1987), he shows how diverse the role of vocalité is for medieval culture and literature: as a theory of divine-​trinitarian agency within self-​ externalizing Logos, as the practical mediation of the word of God in the developing artes praedicandi, as an oral form of mnemonics and of philosophical-​theological disputatio, as a principle of the handing down of knowledge and of the preservation and revision of salvific truths. The voice (voix)—​an omnipresent human universal; existential, establishing tradition, shaping community and creating unity, dialogical and theatrical, a basis for life and movement, dynamism and diversity, prime medium of experience, transfer, and transmission. Its medial status arises, as Zumthor sees it, from its location 43  Letter to Brian Stock, February 26, 1970, McLuhan, Letters, 400; see also letter to J. M. Davey, March 2, 1970, McLuhan, Letters, 401. 44  McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, 58, 77, 111f., 146, 164, 184, 208 et passim.

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between institutions and entities: between text and context, listeners and readers, oral and written dimensions.45 Even if there is always an awareness of how much the spheres intersect, how the focus on the oral can include a playful approach to erudition, book learning, and textuality, and how the courtly romance presupposes the possibilities of writing and at the same time utilizes the forms of orality—​there is still a danger of dichotomous thinking. Despite all differentiation, the voice then appears as an expression of the otherness of medieval culture: open, playful, nomadic, collective, dynamic, active, and popular, compared to the closed, archival, fixed, passive, elitist, and restricted nature of writing. This contrast reflects the problem of both identifying the vocal or tonal dimension of medieval literature as such, and showing how it interconnects with the written dimension. In other words, making visible the mediality of medieval culture in both its alterity and its complexity. In methodological terms, the otherness of the voice is not so much historically real as perspectival. It concerns the status of scholarly description in relation to its object, and thus the question of how we are to deal with continuities and discontinuities, analogies and differences between past and present. The return of what was thought to be old, vanished, or obsolete—​frequently observable in the course of history—​can warn us against judging the cultural practices of historical societies as radically different. Conversely, ignoring fundamental differences, for example between different cultural sign systems, can lead to problematic assumptions of continuity. This also, not unimportantly, has implications for the analysis of medieval mediality in the categories of abundance and lack. It should have become clear that these categories are neither wholly modern nor wholly medieval. They represent a figure of thought that is already found in antiquity, and then once again plays an important role in the medial discourses that begin to emerge in the nineteenth century. This figure expresses on the one hand a dialectical approach to oppositions, on the other hand a specific interest in the productivity, possibilities, and limitations of media forms. It is not simply a universal figure then—​or only in certain Western discourses, which, however, display considerable nuances. Nor is it a figure that should be transferred, without hesitation, from the observation level to the object level. There is no mistaking the fact that many media forms refer (partly) to what they themselves are able to record, represent, or transfer. Yet the nature of this reference, the methods and strategies it involves, the types of ostentation or reflection that accompany it—​this cannot be deduced from the “sources” themselves. It must be the object of analysis, an analysis that can use abundance and lack heuristically as framing categories in order to assess the semantics, logics, and pragmatics of historical structures. These structures always have a purpose; they are intended to have an impact and exert an influence—​as was already apparent in our opening example of the “Medieval Helpdesk.” We can conclude with another example that relates (supposedly) old and new media to one another in a scarcely less trenchant manner: in the fall of 2014, IKEA

45  For a comprehensive overview of the oral dimensions of medieval literature see, most recently, Medieval Oral Literature.

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Singapore released a clip parodying the advertising strategies of Apple. Once again, something all too familiar is put in a new light—​using the rhetoric of media change. His eyes shining with enthusiasm, IKEA’s chief designer Jörgen Eghammer (played by an actor) presents an apparently magical object. In its closed state, it recalls the iPhone. Fingers swipe to turn the pages. A commentary extols its virtues: Once in a while, something comes along that changes the way we live, a device so simple and intuitive, using it feels almost familiar. Introducing the 2015 IKEA catalog. It’s not a digital book, or an e-​book, it’s a bookbook.™ The first thing to note is: no cables. [It] comes fully charged, and the battery life is eternal. The interface is 7.5 by 8 inches, but can expand to 15 by 8 inches. The navigation is based on tactile touch technology. […] Notice something else? That’s right: no lag. Each crystal-​clear page loads instantaneously, no matter how fast you scroll. If you want to get a quick overview, just hold it in the palm of your hand and using just your thumb, speed-​browse the content. If you find something you want to save for later, you can simply bookmark it, and even if you close the application, you can easily find the bookmark again. Amazing.

Medial reflexivity in the service of marketing: the Bookbook™ promises to surpass the medium that called itself “book,” the medium that promised to definitively supersede the book of the Gutenberg age. IKEA’s Bookbook™ repeats and doubles up Apple’s book, and simultaneously transforms the relationship between content and covering that comes with it: in Apple terminology, “BookBook” refers to the book-​shaped cover for the MacBook. This then becomes the actual thing, which can only be described in the language of the digital age, but at the same time claims to be changing this age: by transforming the book, or rather, re-​transforming it into its origin. For the Bookbook™ does not contain continuous texts. It is a list. It lists what is present and available, and displays pictures of these things—​functions associated with writing since the earliest times.

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317

INDEX (AUTHORS AND ANONYMOUS WORKS, WITHOUT BIBLICAL BOOKS)

Acts of Pilate, 39 Acts of the Apostles, 39 Acts of Thadddaeus, 235 Alanus ab Insulis, 195 Albrecht (Jüngerer Titurel), 198–​204 Alexander IV (pope), 162 Alexander of Hales, 41 Altdorfer, Albrecht, 243 Alvaro of Cordoba, 227 Ambrose of Milano, 35, 110, 204 Anselm of Canterbury, 41 Aristotle, 6, 11, 13, 38, 56, 115 Arius, 36–​37 Athanasius of Alexandria, 37 Augustine, 7–​8, 10, 17, 37–​40, 58, 87–​88, 90, 110, 123, 135, 137, 193, 204, 271 Bacon, Roger, 203 Bálasz, Béla, 270–​71 Baldric of Bourgueil, 195 Barad, Karen, 24–​25 Baudrillard, Jean, 4 Baumgartner, Stefan, 223 Beatus Rhenanus, 180 Benjamin, Walter, 269 Bernard of Clairvaux, 41, 77, 204, 214, 218 Bernward of Hildesheim, 191 Bible of Charles the Bald, 132 Blumenberg, Hans, 56 Böhme, Jacob, 112–​14 Bonaventure, 8, 42–​43, 163–​70 Boniface, 125, 128 Book of Enoch, 123 Borges, Jorge Luis, 31–​35, 51, 142, 198 Brentano, Clemens, 263 Bry, Johann Theodor de, 152 Burchard of Mount Sion, 217 Burgkmair, Hans the Elder, 243, 245

Caesarius of Heisterbach, 65, 137, 160–​61 Carroll, Lewis, 32, 34 Casares, Adolfo Bioy, 31 Cassian, John, 89 Cassirer, Ernst, 34 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 187, 205–​8 Christi Leiden in einer Vision geschaut, 74–​75, 78 Christina of Stommeln, 160 Cicero, 6, 10, 16, 56–​57, 59, 271 Croll, Oswald, 112

Dagulf Psalter, 132 Debray, Régis, 27 Derrida, Jacques, 89 Descartes, René, 33, 52, 184 Dewey, John, 23, 25 Dies irae, 134 Doctrina Addai, 234–​35 Donaueschinger Passionsspiel, 46–​48 The Dream of the Rood, 45 Droysen, Johann Gustav, 266 Dürer, Albrecht, 154, 209 Durandus, Guilhelmus, 9, 73 Ebner, Margaretha, 79 Ebstorf world map, 35 Eckhart, Meister, 71–​72, 79, 170 Eco, Umberto, 32, 34 Eike of Repgow, 145, 147 Elias of Cortona, 162 Elsbeth von Oye, 79, 160 Enen, Johannes, 257–​58 Erasmus of Rotterdam, Desiderius, 175, 180–​84 Eriugena, Johannes Scotus, 188 Estoire del Saint Graal, 141–​43 Eusebius of Caesarea, 36, 234, 237 Exeter Book, 125

318

318

Index

Fabri, Felix, 214, 218, 220–​21 Fichet, Guillaume, 149 Flavius Josephus, 154, 207 Flusser, Vilém, 2, 4 Fortunatus, 210, 246 Francesco di Alessandro da Modena, 221 Francis of Assisi, 133, 162–​74, 214 Franck, Sebastian, 150 François, Jean, 33 Frowin-​Bible, 12 Gebete und Benediktionen von Muri, 91–​100 Gehlen, Arnold, 16 Geiler von Kaysersberg, Johannes, 84 Geoffey of Vinsauf, 207 George of Pisidia, 235 Gervase of Tilbury, 237 Gesta Treverorum, 242 Die geystlich straß, 228–​30 Girnand of Schwalbach, 219 Godescalc Evangelistary, 132 Gospel of Nicodemus, 39, 138, 199 Gottfried von Straßburg, 102–​5, 108, 195 Der graue Rock (Orendel), 246–​58 Greban, Arnould, 237–​38 Grimmelshausen, Hans Jacob Christoffel von, 210–​11 Groote, Gert, 79 Guido of Colonna, 207 Guigo the Carthusian, 89 Guilhelmus Durandus, 9, 73 Gutenberg, Johannes, 1, 149, 270–​71

Hartmann von Aue, 139–​40 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 52, 261–​62 Heider, Fritz, 18–​19 Heiltumsschriften, 240–​58 Heinrich von St. Gallen, 74–​78, 215 Heraclitus, 9, 139 Hermann von Sachsenheim, 204–​5 Herodot, 115 Hippolytus of Rome, 9 Hölderlin, Friedrich, 262 Hohenfurter Liederbuch, 216 Homer, 155, 207, 267 Hrabanus Maurus, 90, 130–​31

Hugh of Fouilloy, 196 Hugh of St. Victor, 5, 8, 64, 133, 166, 196–​98 Hugo, Victor, 266–​68, 270

Iamblichus, 124 Ignatius de Loyola, 89 Illich, Ivan, 5–​6 Infancy Gospel of Thomas, 124 Innozent III (pope), 238 Innsbruck Corpus Christi play, 66–​69 Isidore of Seville, 40, 90, 115, 135–​36

Jacobus de Voragine, 237, 251 Jacques de Vitry, 161 Jerome, 40, 110 John Chrysostom, 123–​24 John of Caulibus, 73 John of Fécamp, 89 John of Genua, 149 John Scot Eriugena, 188 Joyce, James, 271

Keller, Gottfried, 266 Kittler, Friedrich, 4 Kleist, Heinrich von, 16 Konrad von Heimesfurt, 138–​39, 149 Konrad von Würzburg, 105–​9 Krafft, Hans, 227 Kunrath, Heinrich, 112 Labrouste, Henri, 268 La Mettrie, Julien Offray de, 184 Lancelot, 141 Latour, Bruno, 24–​25 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 33 Leonardo da Vinci, 184, 264 Libri Carolini, 237 London Psalter map, 35 Lucan, Marcus Annaeus, 154, 207 Lucian of Samosata, 176 Lucretius, 6, 16, 123 Luhmann, Niklas, 4–​6, 24–​25, 60–​61 Luther, Martin, 89, 150, 209

Marcellus of Ancyra, 37 Marey, Étienne-​Jules, 269–​70 Margarethe of Magdeburg, 160

319



Marner, 109–​10 Matthew of Vendôme, 100–​101 Maximilian I (emperor), 151, 243, 245, 254 McLuhan, Herbert Marshall, 2, 4, 22–​24, 271–​72 Mechthild of Magdeburg, 144–​45 Medieval Helpdesk, 1, 273 Meditatio passionis Christi, 214–​15 Mersch, Dieter, 25 Michael de Massa, 75–​78 Montaigne, Michel de, 184–​85 Münchner Eigengerichtsspiel, 84–​85 Muling, Johann Adelphus, 257 Mumford, Lewis, 270 Muri Prayer Book, 91–​100

Narratio de imagine Edessena, 235–​37 Nashe, Thomas, 271 Nicholas of Cusa, 10, 35, 48–​51 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 4, 16–​17 Nonnos, 115 Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), 260, 262–​64 On the Sublime, 57, 59 Orderic Vitalis, 135 Origen, 36 Otfrid of Weissenburg, 132 Ovid, 102, 188, 205–​7

Paracelsus, Theophrastus, 112 Parsons, Talcott, 4 Paschasius Radpertus, 63–​64 Passio S. Margarethae, 99 Paul, 36–​37, 39, 92, 118–​19, 121, 125, 130, 143, 149, 165, 169, 174, 194 Peregrinationes totius terrae sanctae, 218 Peters, John Durham, 4 Petrarch, Francesco, 14 Petrus Berchorius, 134 Petrus Mallius, 237 Petrus Martyr, 209 Pfinzing, Jörg, 221 Philip the Chancellor, 23 Pirckheimer, Willibald, 175–​79, 183 Plato, 6, 10, 13, 16, 54–​57, 59, 103, 115–​17, 119, 137, 150, 154

Index

Pliny the Older, 6, 115 Plotinus, 123–​24 Porete, Marguerite, 144 Porfirius, 128 Priest of Bethlehem, 228 Priscian, 121 Proclus, 10 Pseudo-​Dionysius the Areopagite, 10, 188 Quintilian, 59, 87

Richard de Bury, 145 Rieger, Stefan, 4 Rieter, Sebald, 223 Robert de Boron, 239 Royce, Josiah, 32

Schedel, Hartmann, 224 Schlegel, Friedrich, 269 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 260–​61 Schwenkfeldt, Caspar, 114 Sedulius Scotus, 40 Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation), 117 Seneca, 16 Speculum humane salvationis, 69–​73, 78, 215 Spinoza, Baruch de, 34 Stuttgart Psalter, 128 Suárez, Francisco, 33 Suger of St. Denis, 190–​95, 202 Suso, Henry, 15, 79–​81, 170–​75, 215–​16

Talbot, William Henry Fox, 270 Theodericus, 35 Thomas Aquinas, 11–​12, 44, 88, 271 Thomas of Celano, 162–​63, 167 Tieck, Ludwig, 265–​66 Tory, Geoffrey, 154–​55 Traube, Ludwig, 268–​69 Trithemius, Johannes, 16, 149–​50 Tucher, Endres, 225–​27 Tucher, Hans, 218, 223–​27 Turgot, 125 Ulrich von Hutten, 175, 178–​80, 182–​83

319

320

320

Index

Vermeer, Jan, 52 Virgil, 206–​7 Virilio, Paul, 4 Vita of Juliana of Liège, 66 Vitas patrum, 171 Vitrier, Jean, 89

Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich, 264–​65 Weber, Max, 160 Westgotisches Rechtsbuch, 126 Wienhäuser Messallegorese, 69 Wild Man, 238

William of St. Thierry, 89 Wittenwiler, Heinrich, 147–​48 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 21 Wolfdietrich, 148 Wolfram von Eschenbach, 140–​41, 199 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 270 Zimmern, Wilhelm Werner von, 151 Zola, Émil, 270 Zumthor, Paul, 272–​73