palazzo art litrugy and the five senses int he early middle ages

Viator 41 No. 1 (2010) 25–56. 10.1484/J.VIATOR.1.100566.

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Eric Palazzo*

Abstract: The role of the senses in medieval Western culture has been relatively well studied by several authors but never in detail in connection with art and liturgy. This article presents a thorough investigation of the natural links between art, liturgy, and the five senses in the early Middle Ages in the West. Initially, it is to highlight the sensory dimension of the medieval liturgy, and, more generally, of all medieval ritual. Based on the historiography of the topic, the article proposes the definition of a methodological and theoretical framework. The article then offers an exploration of the relationship between art, liturgy, and the five senses through the illustration of certain liturgical books of the Middle Ages, such as the Gospel books and sacramentaries. The liturgical book shown is not only considered as a functional object but also as a “sacred space” to be activated by the five senses in the course of the liturgy and intended to give it meaning. Keywords: Liturgy, art, five senses, sacred space, ritual, liturgical books, theology, illuminations, iconogra-phy, Carolingian period. This article explores the essential issues of a renewed approach to the study of the relations between art and liturgy in the Middle Ages and their fundamental links with the five senses.1 I will use a methodological frame in which anthropological, epistemological, and historical considerations are used for a better understanding of medieval ritual. The main object of this investigation will be the liturgical manuscript and its illustrations and their significance for the sensory dimension of the liturgy. Af-ter a brief summary of the historiography of the subject and its methodological implications, I will survey the five senses in the medieval culture and the exposition of the theoretical frame that allows a new analysis of the relations between art and liturgy in the Middle Ages. I then explore this new theoretical frame through the exploration of a specific case, that of the illustrated liturgical book considered as a “sacred space” which is activated in the liturgy by the five senses.

HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE SUBJECT The sensory dimension of medieval liturgy, in which the images and all the artistic creations fully participated,2 was a major component in the anthropology of the rituals of the medieval church. Central to this anthropology of medieval liturgy and its pro-nounced sensory dimension were not only the artistic creations intended for the ritual itself, but also all kinds of liturgical expressions that appealed to the senses. In the past, many distinguished scholars have glimpsed the fundamentally sensory nature of medieval liturgy and the prominent role played by art in this perception, but their ideas have generally not received the attention they deserve. First of all, they have pointed out that the liturgy comprises rituals, the nature of which are fundamentally sensory, and in which art plays an essential role. Second, they developed the idea according to

* Medieval Art History, University of Poitiers-CESCM, 24, rue de la chaîne, F-86000 Poitiers, France, [email protected].

1 The second half of this article develops a talk given at a conference organized by the Center for Medie-val and Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, “Foundations of Medieval Monasti-cism,” 18–19 January 2008. I thank my friend Marie-Pierre Gélin for the translation of this article. I am also very grateful to my friend Herbert L. Kessler for his help and support in preparing this essay.

2 On the relationship between art and liturgy in the Middle Ages, see Eric Palazzo, “Art and Liturgy in the Middle Ages: Survey of Research (1980–2003) and Some Reflections on Method,”Journal of English and Germanic Philology 105 (2006) 170–184; and idem, Liturgie et société au Moyen Age (Paris 2000).

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which the liturgy in general—but more particularly medieval liturgy—constituted the “synthesis of the arts” par excellence, so much so that “sacred art” itself could become “liturgy,” which does not dismiss its historical dimension and the way it addresses political, social, or philosophical ideas. Dom Jean Leclercq presented this innovative point of view in a remarkable way in his now classic book L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu.3 It is also at the heart of the great liturgist Joseph Andreas Jungmann’s inaugural lecture at Innsbruck University in 1953,4 and in the writings of Pavel Floren-sky, whose works seem to be little known by European art historians, in particular.5 In several publications, Florensky very judiciously presented the main lines of what he considers to be the principal points of a theory intended to describe the ritual of the church as the perfect synthesis of the arts. Of Russian origin, Florensky was influ-enced by Orthodox theology, in which, as is well known, the arts are included among the constitutive elements of the liturgy thanks to the “divine” nature of some artistic creations, such as icons. He first of all underlined—very much as Hans Belting tried to do several decades later for religious objects today kept in museums6—that an art ob-ject destined for the liturgy could not be studied solely as a museum artifact and inde-pendently from the ritual setting in which it was used. Florensky then showed that an art object used in the liturgy could not in any way be studied without taking into ac-count the many interactions between this object and the other elements constituting the liturgy, such as words, smells, lights, or other liturgical objects and artistic creations in general. According to Florensky, the liturgy must be considered as a perfect synthesis of the arts, since it is the very nature of the ritual to address simultaneously the senses of sight, hearing, and smell, and to be at the same time defined by the presence of per-formers (the celebrants), by the rhythm of their actions during the celebration or even the “plasticity” of their clothes which interacts with all the other “artistic” dimensions of the liturgy and which all appeal to the senses. Related to the writings of Leclercq, Jungmann, and Florensky, the sweeping aesthetic approach once proposed by Edgar De Bruyne partly tackled art from the point of view of its central place in the liturgy, and used it, in addition to artistic creations, to define medieval aesthetics.7 To summa-rize these ideas of liturgy as “a synthesis of the arts,” where various sensory elements interact, including a wide range of artistic creations present and activated during the celebration of rituals, I quote Paul Zumthor : “Realizing (at the highest level of exis-tence) the link as well as the ceaseless transfers between man and God, between the physical world and eternity, the liturgy illustrated this tendency (the sensory participa-tion) in a exemplary way: spectacular in its most minute parts, it signified the truths of faith through a complex interplay of auditory (music, psalmody, readings) and visual (the splendid buildings; the performers, their clothes, their gestures, their dance; the settings) perceptions, sometimes even tactile ones: one touches the holy wall, kisses

3 Dom Jean Leclercq, L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu (Paris 1957) 219–235. 4 Jospeph-Andreas Jungmann, Liturgie und Kirchenkunst (Innsbruck 1953). French trans. “Liturgie et art

sacré,” Traditions liturgiques et problèmes actuels de pastorale (Lyon 1962) 297–308. 5 See, in particular, Pavel Florensky, “The Church Ritual as a Synthesis of the Arts,” Beyond Vision. Es-

says on the Perception of Art (London 2002) 97–111. 6 Hans Belting, La vraie image (Paris 2007) 59–63. 7 Edgar De Bruyne, Etudes d’esthétique médiévale, 2 vols. (1946; Paris 1998) esp. 1.243–306 and 439–

477, and 2.3–29.

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the statue’s foot, the reliquary or the bishop’s ring; one breathes the smell of frankin-cense and of candle wax.”8 Medieval theologians would have been in favor of Zum-thor’s definition of the liturgy. For them, in addition to its strong theological connota-tions and meanings, the liturgy was by its very nature a “synthesis of the arts,” where all the senses are appealed to, since man, made of a soul and a body, is himself an im-age, a “representation”9 of the church in its theological sense as well as in its material dimension, and represented by the church and all its ornamenta intended, among other things, for the expression of the sensory character of the liturgy. A passage from a homily by Hrabanus Maurus, written for, and without doubt delivered on, the occasion of the celebration of a church consecration, demonstrates this point:

You are well met together today, dear brothers, that we may dedicate a house to God ... But we do this if we ourselves strive to become a temple of God, and do our best to match our-selves to the ritual that we cultivate in our hearts; so that just as with the decorated walls of this very church , with many lighted candles, with voices variously raised through litanies and prayers, through readings and songs we can more earnestly offer praise to God : so we should always decorate the recesses of our hearts with the essential ornaments of good works, always in us the flame of divine and communal charity should grow side by side, al-ways in the interior of our breast the holy sweetness of heavenly sayings and of Gospel praise should resonate in memory. These are the fruits of a good tree, this the treasury of a good heart, these the foundations of a wise master builder, which our reading of the holy Gospel has commended to us today” You are all gathered here, dear brothers, so that we can consecrate this house to God …10

Hrabanus Maurus provides a definition of the liturgy that emphasizes the sensory dimension of the liturgy, including artistic creations. From this text, Mary Carruthers developed the argument that material visual images reflect the mental constructions of medieval thought processes from the point of view of memory. Images functioned as mnemonic devices contributing to the expression of a way of thinking. This idea ex-cludes the strictly functionalist reading of medieval images, and I would add that it also underlines the idea that images were considered as loci of the ritual, of which they constituted the visual dimension, and were not simply functional objects meant to be

8 Paul Zumthor, La lettre et la voix. De la “littérature” médiévale (Paris 1987) 287–288. See Eric Pa-lazzo, “Performing the Liturgy (600–1100),” The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 3, Early Medieval Christianities, ca. 600–1100 (Cambridge 2008) 472–488. See also Visualizing Medieval Performance: Per-spectives, Histories, Contexts, ed. Elina Gertsman (Ashgate 2008); Catherine Gauthier, “L’odeur et la lumière des dédicaces. L’encens et le luminaire dans le rituel de la dédicace de l’église au haut Moyen Age,” Mises en scène et mémoires de la consécration de l’église dans l’Occident médiéval (Turnhout 2008) 75–90; and Eric Palazzo, “La lumière et la liturgie au Moyen Age,” PRIS-MA 27 (2001) 91–104.

9 Carlo Ginzburg, “Représentation. Le mot, l’idée, la chose,” A distance. Neuf essais sur le point de vue en histoire (Paris 2001) 73–88.

10 PL110.73–74: “… bene convenistis hodie, fratres charissimi, ut Deo domum dedicaremus, ipso ju-bente ac dicente: Facite mihi sanctuarium, et habito in medio vestri, dici Dominus Deo. Sed hoc digne facimus si ipsi Dei templum fieri contendimus, si studemus congruere solemnitati quam colimus; ut sicut ornatis studiosus eiusdem ecclesiae parietibus, pluribus accensis luminaribus, diversis per litanias et preces, per lectiones et cantica, excitatis vocibus, Deo laudem parare satagerimus: ita etiam penetralia cordium nostrorum semper necesariis bonorum operum decoremus ornatibus, semper in nobis flamma divinae pariter et fraternae charitatis augescat, semper in secretario pecotirs nostri coeslestium memoria praeceptorum et evangelicae llaudationis dulceddo sancta resonet. Hi sunt enime fructus bonae arboris, hic boni thesaurus cordis, haec fundamenta sapientis architecti, quae nobis hodierna sancti Evangelii lectio commendat.” Trans. Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Memory, Rhetoric and the Making of Images 400–1200 (New York and Cambridge 1998) 275.

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the “illiterates’ Bible.”11 In this context, ritual images appear to be loci for the expres-sion of sacredness, just like psalmody, lighting of candles, biblical readings, to para-phrase Hrabanus Maurus’s description of liturgical performance. They were ultimately intended to be used as models by those taking part in the liturgy, to encourage them to become “images” of the temple of God and to cultivate there the ornaments of their hearts, mirrored in the ritual, particularly images. In Hrabanus Maurus’s opinion, therefore, the liturgy should not simply be considered for its sacred texts, but also for its “multidimensional” aspect, its sensory dimension and its “performative” reality, where the various visual and auditory elements become the ritual’s constitutive parts. The ritual can thus become the expression of the construction of the temple, all broth-ers, indeed all Christians, must build deep within so that they can become an “image” of the temple of God and take part in the completion of the divine plan, that is to say the construction of the temple of the church. In this way, whoever builds his or her own innermost temple on the basis of the various sensory elements of the ritual imi-tates or follows in the footsteps of the “wise architect.”

Two parts can be distinguished in Hrabanus Maurus’s text, clearly distinct but also perfectly complementary to one another from the point of view of the theology Hraba-nus developed. First, the learned Carolingian theologian gives a definition of the lit-urgy of the church which I would describe as “anthropological.” Second, he looks more closely at the relation between the temple and the image of the wise architect. At this period, Hrabanus Maurus is of course not the only one thinking about the rituals of the church and their sensory dimension in the widest sense, but he was the first to express so precisely this conception of the liturgical “performance” and to put it in a theological perspective. Other famous medieval theologians and commentators of the liturgy have underlined this sensory dimension of the rituals of the church which, in some ways, fully achieve the “synthesis of the arts” mentioned earlier, while allowing the expression of a very rich theological thought.12 I cannot, within the limits of this article, summarize the opinion of every medieval commentator on the liturgy concern-ing the importance of the senses in the rituals. I mention here, however, as an example the sensory overtones of the writings of from Bruno of Segni and Sicardus of Cre-mona. Bruno’s comments on the liturgical ornamenta echo in many ways the ideas developed by Hrabanus Maurus in his homily of the consecration of a church13 and also Sicardus of Cremona’s long exegetical commentary on the parts of the church dedicated to the celebration of worship 14.

11 See my “Raban Maur et la liturgie,” Actes du colloque “Raban Maur en son temps” (2006), forthcom-

ing. 12 Francesca Mambelli, “Il problema dell’immagine nei commentari allegorici sulla liturgia,” Studi

Medievali 45 (2004) 121–158. 13 Bruno of Segni, Sententiae, PL 165.940-942. See Herbert L. Kessler, “A Gregorian Reform Theory of

Art ?” Roma e la Riforma gregoriana. Tradizioni e innovazioni artistiche (XI–XII secolo) (Rome 2007) 25–48.

14 Sicardi cremonensis episcopi, Mitralis de officii, CCCM 228, ed. Gabor Sarbak, Lorenz Weinrich (Turnhout 2008) 13–23.


THE FIVE SENSES IN MEDIEVAL CULTURE 15 The liturgy appeals to all the senses as a way to allow humankind to meet God. While I assert this, I am fully aware that, on the whole, the sensory dimension of medieval liturgy as well as, more generally, the role played by the senses in the Christian relig-ion have been neglected or suppressed, as early as the medieval period, for reasons concerning the perception and the place of the senses in Christianity.16 As Jean-Marie Fritz convincingly argued, the epistemological perspective for the study of sound and hearing in the Middle Ages involves looking at varied domains of medieval culture, from patristic texts to the history of science, via archaeology, literature and the theol-ogy of the liturgy in order to propose a global view of the “noisy Middle Ages.”17 For now, the role played by the senses in Christianity can be summarized by a passage taken from a sermon by St. Augustine, in which he defines which impressions received from the senses are licit:

Among all the pleasures which affect our senses, some are licit; these are the great spectacles of nature which enchant one’s gaze; the eye, however, also relishes the spectacle of the thea-tre. The ear enjoys the harmonious chant of a sacred psalm; it also likes the song of the min-strels. The flowers and the perfumes which are also God’s creation enchant our sense of smell; but it also partakes joyfully of the incense burnt on the altars of the demons. The sense of taste likes permitted foods; but it also likes the food served at the sacrilegious feasts of idolatrous sacrifices. The same thing can be said of pure and impure embraces. As you can see, dearest brothers, among these material delights, some are licit while others are forbid-den.18

According to Augustine, and many other prominent Christian theologians after him, the senses have positive aspects, but also negative ones, which the church must reject and fight against, as they are the reason human kind succumbed to evil, encouraged and excited by the senses, at the time of the Fall. As Gregory the Great writes: “The senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are like as many conduits through which the soul reaches out to exterior objects … they are like windows through which

15 See Carl Nordenfalk, “Les cinq sens dans l’art du Moyen Age,” Revue de l’art 34 (1976) 17–28; and

idem, “The Five Senses in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 48 (1985) 1–22.

16 For an overview, see Pierre Adnès, “Garde des sens,” Dictionnaire de spiritualité 6 (1967) 117–122; Micrologus 10 (2002), an issue dedicated to the five senses; Rethinking the Medieval Senses: Heritage, Fascinations, Frames, ed. Stephen G. Nichols (Baltimore 2008).

17 Jean-Marie Fritz, Paysages sonores du Moyen Age. Le versant épistémologique (Paris 2000). A less well-known aspect of the auditory dimension of medieval liturgy deals with shouting; see Pascal Collomb, “Vox clamantis in Ecclesia. Contribution des sources liturgiques médiévales occidentales à une histoire du cri,” Haro ! Noël ! Oyë ! Pratiques du cri au Moyen Age (Paris 2003) 117–130. On the importance of taste in medieval exegesis and theology, see Rachel Fulton, “Taste and see that the Lord is sweet (Ps. 33.9): The Flavor of God in the Monastic West,” The Journal of Religion 86.2 (2006) 169–204; and Mary Carruthers, “Sweetness,” Speculum 81.4 (2006) 999–1013.

18 “Et haec omnia, quae nos delectant in sensibus corporis, aliqua licita sunt. Delectant enim, ut dixi, oculos spectacula ista magna naturae: sed delectant, oculos etiam spectacula theatrorum. Haec licita, illa illicita. Psalmus sacer suaviter cantatus delectat auditum: sed delectant auditum etiam cantica histrionum. Hoc licite, illud illicite. Delectant olfactum flores et aromata, et haec Dei creatura: delectant olfactum etiam thura in aris daemoniorum. Hoc licite, illud illicite. Delectat gustum cibus non prohibitus; delectant gustum etiam epulae sacrilegorum sacrificiorum. Hoc licite, illud illicite. Delectant conjugales amplexus: delectant etiam meretricum. Hoc licite, illude illicite. Videtis ergo, charissimi, esse in istis corporis sensibus licitas et illicitas delectationes.” Sermo CLIX, PL. 38.868–869.

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it looks at the material world outside, and by looking at them it desires them.”19 I would add for better or for worse. In a liturgical context, the metaphor associating the five senses with windows enabling the soul to access the material world was used again by Sicardus of Cremona in his Mitrale.20 Father Marie-Dominique Chenu identi-fied perfectly the problems arising from the place of the senses in Christianity, specifi-cally in the liturgy, and more generally in the world as perceived by the senses.21 As he underlined in his summary of Augustinian thought and scholastic theology stemming from the works of Aristotle, the sign reveals and allows access to the ideas which are in things.22 Consequently, humankind must look for God, the creator of all things, through their material (sensory) nature. Medieval liturgy itself is a sign, as it reveals God through all material things. The liturgy thus becomes a signum in the fullest theo-logical sense, because through its sensory and sacramental dimension, it reveals God and the ideas of things, much more than it is a symbol which emphasizes the analogy between two things. The sign allows a thing to be known intrinsically. In this context, the liturgy establishes a link between the visible and the invisible. In other words, the dilemma facing Christianity and the church was to reject and fight against the senses, because of their harmful consequences for the fate of mankind, while keeping alive the idea that it is through the sensory perception of things that mankind can come to know intimately God and the Creation. Here, the liturgy—theological “signum” par excel-lence—becomes the very space where this dilemma can find an expression, as well as a theological “locus” where the senses can fully play their part in assisting the under-standing of the “signs” expressed in the liturgy.

The fundamental idea that emerges from the preceding lines is that the liturgy and, more generally, all the rituals of medieval culture were not only made up of places, performers, and sacred or sacramental words, but also of tactile, visual, and auditory elements, that is to say, of elements belonging to the sensory dimension manifested in all aspects of the ritual, and more particularly in art, by means of liturgical objects, of monumental images embellishing the church, or even of the celebrants’ vestments. From this viewpoint, it is possible to avoid a strictly “utilitarian” and “functionalist” conception of the uses of art in the liturgy and to adopt a more theological and philosophical perception in which the liturgy, in its sensory dimension, is also pre-sented and expressed in the staging of the ritual and its actual performance through all the elements that constitute it, first and foremost through art.

Having reached this stage in our reflection, we find ourselves confronted with a new epistemological approach to the relationship between art and liturgy in the Middle Ages, the crux of which is to be found in the notion of how we perceive the material

19 “Visus quippe, auditus, gustus, odoratus, et tactus, quasi quaedam viae mentis sunt, quibus foras ve-

niat ... Per nos etenim corporis sensus quasi per fenestras quasdam exteriora quaeque anima respicit, respiciens concupiscit.” Mor. In Iob, lib. XXI cap. II, PL 76.189.

20 “Vel per fenestras, quae clausae turbinem excludunt, patulae includunt, intellige quinque sensus cor-poris, qui circumcisi, sunt janua vitae ... vel per fenestras scripturas intellege sacras, que nocua prohibent, et in ecclesiis habitantes illuminant, haec quoque intus sunt latiores; quia mysticus sensus amplior, et litterali praecellit.” Mitralis de officiis (n. 14 above) 15.

21 Marie-Dominique Chenu, “La mentalité symbolique,” La théologie au XIIe siècle (Paris 1957) 158–190 esp. 181.

22 Ibid. 182.


world and the means it provides for access the essence of a “thing.”23 Father Chenu, once again, pertinently pointed out the importance of the perception of the “sensory” in medieval liturgy. Beyond the fact that it is a part of the intimate understanding of God, the liturgy fully effects the transfer of the meaning of a “thing” into matter, with-out the reality of the thing’s being changed or lost in the process of signification.24 Quite the opposite takes place, because the sensory perception of matter is believed to play an active role in the understanding of a “thing,” revealing it simultaneously with the sensory experience. This philosophical-theological concept, applied by Father Chenu to the “sensory” world of the liturgy, is one of the essential aspects of the definition of the phenomenology of perception as theorized by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in the twentieth century.25 According to Merleau-Ponty’s theoretical postulate for the definition of the phenomenology of perception, the main action of the relation-ship between body and mind is aimed at experiencing the sensory perception of “things,” where their essence resides. Jean-Yves Hameline’s contribution in certain ways bridges the gap between Chenu and Merleau-Ponty. Better, in my opinion, than any other scholar, Hameline rightly emphasized that the Christian liturgy represents the “space of sensitivity” par excellence.26 Within the very specific spatio-temporal frame of the celebration of rituals in the church, Hameline inventoried the main characteristics that define the liturgy’s “space of sensitivity,” the nature of which be-longs as much to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology as to Chenu’s historico-theological argument, or as to Hrabanus Maurus’s ninth century definition of the liturgy.27 This “space of sensitivity” of the liturgy is first and foremost made up of elements, most of which appeal to the senses (including artistic creations), which coexist in close prox-imity during the ritual sequences of any ceremony, and which result in what Hameline calls an “intersensory experience or a convergence of sensory modalities.”28 Thanks to the interaction between the various elements that constitute the liturgy, what I call the “activation” of these elements takes place. It is at the same time common to all and particular to each of these elements, and it creates and enables the in presentia, that is to say (going further from Hameline’s theory) the manifestation of the invisible con-tained in the visible through the activation of the sensory dimension.29 In this “activa-tion,” the phenomenology of perception plays a major and decisive role in providing access to the essence and knowledge of these sensory elements. Here again, I notice that there is a similarity between the multidimensional “functioning” of the liturgy as described by Hrabanus Maurus and the theoretical postulate I am proposing, based on some of the concepts introduced by Hameline. In both, the same predominance of the interactive “activation” of all the sensory elements of the liturgy can be observed, in-

23 On this point, see Roland Recht’s comments on the relations between the physics and the metaphysics of sight, which are redefined in the Gothic period: Le croire et le voir. L’art des cathédrales (XIIe–XVe siècle) (Paris 1999) 134–145.

24 “La mentalité symbolique” (n.21 above) 181. 25 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et l’invisible (Paris 1964), in particular the chapter “L’entrelacs—

le chiasme,” 170-201, is relevant to the present argument. More recently, see Renaud Barbaras, La percep-tion. Essai sur le sensible (Paris 2009).

26 Jean-Yves Hameline, La poétique du rituel (Paris 1997) 27 Ibid. 93–123. 28 Ibid. 108–109. 29 Ibid. 109–112.

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cluding art, an indispensable prerequisite to reach the invisible as well as an intimate knowledge of “things.” In other words, it is possible to assert that what is at stake in the liturgy is the enabling of the phenomenological experience of the material world for provided the efficient performance of the liturgy in its “space of sensitivity”—it motivates the “activation” of material reality—the “ad exercitationem” of all the sym-bols—which will reveal the invisible of the sacramental signum, and allow its in pre-sentia. In his commentary on the consecration of a church, Hrabanus Maurus already mentions this “activation” of all the sensory elements of the liturgy, including art, to enable and generate the in presentia.

This new theoretical framework allows us not only to go beyond the restrictive con-ception of the liturgy, based on its functionality, and its symbolic effectiveness. But it also allows to propose an epistemology of the rituals of the church defined on the basis of its “artistic expressions” of all kinds. The foundations of this framework rest on the Augustinian interpretation of the sign recently analyzed by Irène Rosier-Catach in her study of sacramental words.30 The new concept I am putting forward is related to this Christian theory of the “sign”: the “activation” of the sensory elements of the liturgy (of which art is but one), generating the in presentia which aims to make the mani-festation of the invisible concrete and “real,” following the theological theory of the Sacrament.

Recent historiography on the art of the Western Middle Ages and on Byzantine art reveals a growing interest for the study of the sensory dimension of artistic creations and what this means for our understanding of the liturgy in general and of some rituals in particular. No scholar, however, has yet put forward an exhaustive study of this ave-nue of inquiry that would allow a global theoretical framework. Apart from Hans Belt-ing’s works on the anthropology of images, which are more sociological than phenomenological,31 one must call attention to the importance of Herbert Kessler’s recent book.32 Kessler gives great attention to the sensory dimension of medieval art, in particular through the materiality of objects and artifacts.33 On this topic, he men-tions the importance of matter in the conception of the medieval art object, underlining the reflection of many medieval theologians specifically on anagogy.34 In other words, the materials and the global materiality of the works—in particular those destined to be used in the liturgy—play an essential part in their sensory perception and their underlying theological significance. I have recently attempted to show how the mate-rial aspects of portable altars were imbued with a theological meaning which corre-lated this particular liturgical object with a “representation” of the church both in the

30 Irène Rosier-Catach, La parole efficace. Signe, rituel, sacré (Paris 2004) esp. 481–491. 31 La vraie image (n. 6 above). See also Hans Belting, Bild-Anthropologie. Entwürfe für eine Bildwissen-

schaft (Munich 2001); and Georges Didi-Huberman, L’image ouverte (Paris 2007). 32 Herbert L. Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art (Toronto 2004). 33 Concerning the importance of the materiality of works of art in a liturgical context, see Recht’s com-

ments on the functions of the Gothic sculpted image, the nature of which was essentially devotional, and where the tactile aspect of the sculptures played a central role; Le croire et le voir (n. 23 above) 251–335. For the Gothic period, see Jacques Pycke, Sons, couleurs, odeurs dans la cathédrale de Tournai au 15e siècle (Tournai and Louvain-la-Neuve 2003).

34 Conrad Rudolph, The “Things of Greater Importance.” Bernard of Clarivaux’s Apologia and the Medieval Attitude Toward Art (Philadelphia 1990) 17ff.


ecclesiological and the material sense.35 Jean-Claude Bonne, who also studied the materiality of objects through the materials used to make portable altars, defined the concept of “thing-ness” applied to medieval art.36 At the heart of this concept can be found not only the strong theological significance of matter as defined by medieval theologians, but also some aspects of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. The concept of “thing-ness” allows on to understand how the sacred borrows “some substantiality” from images and works of art in general “in order to make its own sub-stantiality present.”37 In this context, the sensory impression of the “thing-ness” of the art object takes place during the ritual, allowing the theological expression of the “sig-num.” The phenomenology of perception is also at the heart of another inquiry carried out by Jean-Claude Bonne on the impression triggered by the colors of the illumina-tions of the sacramentary from St.-Etienne in Limoges (Paris, BnF lat. 9438, 12th c.) in the celebration of the liturgy.38 Bonne tried, very suggestively, to grasp how the ritual uses of this liturgical book and of its colors allowed access to the invisible from the visible through the senses, in this case the sense of sight, thanks to the colors of the illuminations. Thomas Lentes also studied the interest for the materiality of a specific liturgical object and the ways in which this materiality determines the role played by this object in the ritual. Lentes analyzed how the materiality of the Gospel books used for liturgical readings during the celebration of the Eucharist was enhanced through a ritual staging meant to underline the theological meaning of the object.39 A common interest for the study of the sensory dimension of the liturgy can be noted in all theses studies and of the role played by liturgical objects in the experience of the perception of the divine through the senses. Concerning the auditory dimension of the liturgy, I can mention again Eduardo Henrik Aubert’s interesting analysis, both socio-political and phonic, of the coronation ritual which can be found in an exceptional manuscript, the ordo of St. Louis’s coronation, executed around the middle of the thirteenth cen-tury (Paris, BnF, lat. 1246).40 I note that these studies, although they concentrate on the role of art in the sensory dimension of medieval liturgy, by no means ignore the historical approach of the relations between art and liturgy. In this respect, it is always possible to combine harmoniously the new approach I am proposing to the relations between art and liturgy with an analysis firmly anchored in the historical interpretation of these relations.

35 Eric Palazzo, L’espace rituel et le sacré dans le christianisme. La liturgie de l’autel portatif dans

l’Antiquité et au Moyen Age (Turnhout 2008). 36 Jean-Claude Bonne, “Entre l’image et la matière: la choséité du sacré en Occident,” Bulletin de

l’Institut Historique Belge de Rome 69 (1999), special issue “Les images dans les sociétés médiévales: pour une histoire comparée,” Actes du colloque de Rome, 19–20 juin 1998 (Rome 1999) 77–111.

37 Ibid. 86. 38 Jean-Claude Bonne, “Rituel de la couleur. Fonctionnement et usage des images dans le sacramentaire

de Saint-Etienne de Limoges,” Image et signification. Rencontres de l’Ecole du Louvre (Paris 1983) 129–139.

39 Thomas Lentes, “Textus Evangelii. Materialität und Inszenierung des textus in der Liturgie,” Textus im Mittelalter. Komponenten und Situationen des Wortegebrauchs im schriftsemantischen Feld (Göttingen 2006) 133–148.

40 Eduardo Henrik Aubert, “Le son et ses sens. L’Ordo ad consecrandum et coronandum regem (v. 1250 ),” Annales Histoire, Sciences sociales (2007) 387–411. Jean-Claude Bonne offered a “sensory” ap-proach to the images in this MS, showing the mise en scène of the coronation ritual; J. Le Goff, J.-C. Bonne, M.-N. Colette, E. Palazzo, eds., Le sacre royal à l’époque de saint Louis (Paris 2001 93–226.

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To conclude this rapid overview of recent works that study the sensory dimension of medieval objects or images and the involvement of this dimension in the liturgy and its theological meaning, I point out the fundamental interest of the works of scholars studying Byzantine art. In several contributions dealing with icons, Robert Nelson and Bissera Pentcheva—following many earlier scholars—showed perfectly how these objects peculiar to medieval art and to Byzantine liturgy could be interpreted through the phenomenology of perception.41 In the case of icons, we are dealing with a type of object in the materiality of which theologians have from the beginning argued the di-vine was “naturally” present, a materiality heavily appealed to by the senses during the liturgical performance. This is what can be considered a peculiarity of the Byzantine world with respect to the relations between art and liturgy, for which there is no equivalent in medieval Western art. Acknowledging this peculiarity and the partial difference stemming from it between medieval Byzantine and Western art does not imply that, as Robert Nelson suggested,42 the narrow study of iconography, with its interpretative system of images based on the exploration of the text-image relation, should be reserved to Western art, whereas Byzantine art would favor “naturally” an approach at the same time historical, theological and phenomenological. I am con-vinced that originally—and without denying that differences existed between Western and Byzantine creations, as illustrated by the case of icons—the way Western medie-val art was conceived owed as much as Byzantine art to phenomenology, theology, or history. What Nelson believes was a characteristic of Western medieval art is only a result of the historiographical orientations of research in this particular field. In this article, I will endeavor to show that in the West medieval theologians thought about the art object—and in particular the liturgical object—according to theological conceptions which gave pride of place to the phenomenology of perception and to the sensory dimension of works of art.

THE ILLUSTRATED LITURGICAL BOOK AS A SACRED “LOCUS” AND ITS RITUAL

“ACTIVATION”: CAROLINGIAN SACRAMENTARIES AND GOSPEL BOOKS In several respects, the Carolingian period was a high point in the definition of the Christian sacred space, in particular when it comes to the liturgy and its theological exegesis. The ninth century saw an important restructuring of reflection on the notion of sacred space. The liturgy played a significant role in this context, as much as the theological and exegetical discourses. There is no need here to state again how impor-tant the liturgy was as an instrument of political and cultural unification in the Carolin-gian period. Nor is it necessary to mention the great development undergone by theol-ogy and biblical exegesis at the same period.43 In these last two fields, writers spent much time defining sacred space, using the heritage from antiquity. During the

41 Bissera Pentcheva, “The Performative Icons,” The Art Bulletin 88 (2006) 631–655; eadem, Sensual

Splendor. The Icon in Byzantium (Philadelphia 2009); Holy Image. Hallowed Ground. Icons from Sinai, ed. R. S. Nelson and K. M. Collins (Los Angeles 2006). See also Robert Nelson “Empathetic Vision: Looking at and with a Performative Byzantine Miniature,” Art History 30 (2007) 489–502.

42 Robert S. Nelson, “Byzantine Art vs. Western Medieval Art,” Byzance et le monde extérieur. Contacts, relations, échanges, Byzantina Sorbonensia 21 (Paris 2005) 255–270, esp. 261–262.

43 See The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, ed. Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards (Turnhout 2003).


Carolingian period, there was an increase in the sanctification of spaces of all kinds, in addition to that of the church, the sacred space par excellence which was consecrated through the ritual of the dedication of the church and the consecration of the altar. During antiquity and the early Christian centuries, the sacred space of Christianity was largely associated with the space of the church as building, where most of the rituals took place.44 Antiquity, however, gave substantial importance, both from a liturgical and a theological point of view, to the sacred space outside the consecrated church. I mention here only the example of portable altars,45 which raise essential questions about the sacred space of the church outside its physical structure. This shows that Christian theology understood space as a very rich and complex notion, not limited to the interior space of a church as defined by its walls.

In the Carolingian period, therefore, the notion of sacred space received consider-able thought in many different fields, most of which were related to the liturgy and its theology.46 Such theologians as Amalarius of Metz, Hrabanus Maurus, and Walafrid Strabo developed the idea that sacred space is not defined solely by the space of the building, but can be found anywhere in the world, in the unlimited space that receives Christ’s message. Most of their reflections dealt with the definition of the “locus,” that is, the point, the very place where the sacred is present and concentrated, and from which sacredness can dilate and spread throughout the known world.47 In this context, the sacred “locus” can be the space of the church as well as the portable altar that al-lows the liturgy to be celebrated outdoors and by extension the sanctification of na-ture, or even the inner temple of a person in which each and everyone is called upon to build in the image of the built church. In his homily on the consecration of a church Hrabanus distinguished between the sacred, consecrated space of the church, the space of the inner temple of man, and finally the ultimate sacred space of the Temple of Jerusalem and Heavenly Jerusalem.48

The Carolingian period organized the spaces for celebration in a new fashion, which was mostly the result of the introduction and the evolution of the various spaces created by the canonical legislation of the church and the Carolingian empire. Donald Bullough described the multitude of Carolingian “liturgical spaces” perfectly, from the level of the parish church to the diocesan church or cathedral, also including monaster-ies and their churches or even cemeteries.49 As Michel Lauwers and Cécile Treffort have revealed, this last location—the cemetery—became a new ritual space in the ninth century, although a specific consecration ritual did not appear until the tenth cen-

44 On the history of the space of the church, see Dominique Iogna-Prat, La Maison Dieu. Une histoire

monumentale de l’Eglise au Moyen Age (Paris 2006). The author concentrates on the multiple political and ideological aspects of the understanding of ecclesiology in the early Middle Ages, but gives little attention to the church as building.

45 L’espace rituel (n. 35 above). In chap. 1 I summarized the concept of sacred space in Christianity laid out in recent publications.

46 Dominique Iogna-Prat, “Lieu de culte et exégèse liturgique à l’époque carolingienne,” The study of the Bible (n. 43 above) 215–244.

47 L’espace rituel (n. 35 above) chap. 1. 48 “Raban Maur et la liturgie” (n. 11 above). 49 Donald Bullough, “The Carolingian Liturgical Experience,” Studies in Church History 35 (1999) 29–

64.

ERIC PALAZZO 36

tury.50 Many architectural historians have underlined the richness of the typology of Carolingian architectural forms, due in no small part to the evolution of liturgical prac-tices.51 They have shown that the space of the church and the spatial configuration of the liturgical organization was either a symbolic reflection of the liturgical space of Rome, with its titular churches, or an image of Solomon’s Temple and of Heavenly Jerusalem.52

Returning to Hrabanus Maurus’s exegesis, it is not the interior space of a man re-ferred to earlier in relation to the definition of the space of the temple that it proposes but rather the sacred space is that of a specific object, the liturgical book. The degree to which the production of books, be it of liturgical manuscripts or not, illustrated or not, represents a noteworthy side of Carolingian culture, is well known. Some scholars have studied the production of manuscripts in the great scriptoria of the Carolingian period which were in many cases to be found in monasteries, sometimes associated to some cathedral schools, and even located in the imperial palace. I am thinking here in particular of the work of Bernhard Bischoff, whose interest in the paleography and the production of Carolingian manuscripts was always associated with a very rich reflec-tion on the place of the book in the culture of the period, and on its role as a cultural object in the widest sense.53 Rosamond McKitterick’s research follows lines which are rather similar to those explored by Bischoff. She showed clearly what role the “written word” and manuscript culture played in the construction of Carolingian history.54 In her books and articles on this theme, McKitterick put forward a view of the manu-script that goes beyond its purely material dimension to analyze its symbolical mean-ing for Carolingian history, in particular those texts that were copied and disseminated throughout the empire. According to McKitterick, who never ignores the dual dimen-sion, material and codicological, of these objects the manuscript book was truly a spe-cific “locus” of Carolingian history and of the strategies imagined by the political power. This approach to the production of the “written word” in the Carolingian pe-riod in relation to the creation of specific “loci,” where some of the ideological dis-course of the Carolingians was elaborated, has recently been applied by Cécile Treffort to Carolingian epigraphic material, and more generally to Carolingian funerary inscriptions.55

During the Carolingian period, the book became a privileged “locus” for the expression of rich symbolic meanings, especially with regard to the liturgy and theol-

50 Michel Lauwers, Naissance du cimetière. Lieux sacrés et terre des morts dans l’Occident médiéval (Paris 2005); Cécile Treffort, L’Eglise carolingienne et la mort (Lyon 1996).

51 See in particular Carol Heitz’s grounbreaking works Recherches sur les rapports entre architecture et liturgie à l’époque carolingienne (Paris 1963); and L’architecture religieuse carolingienne. Les formes et leurs fonctions (Paris 1980).

52 The state of the question, with bibliography, is summarized in Anselme Davril and Eric Palazzo, La vie des moines au temps des grandes abbayes (Paris 2000) 195–250.

53 Bernhard Bischoff, Paléographie de l’Antiquité romaine et du Moyen Age occidental (Paris 1985) 221–231.

54 See in particular The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge 1989); and History and Memory in the Carolingian World (Cambridge 2004). Of great interest is Herbert Schutz, The Carolingians in Cen-tral Europe, Their History, Arts and Architecture. A Cultural History of Central Europe, 750–900 (Leiden and Boston 2004) 135ff.

55 Cécile Treffort, Mémoires carolingiennes. L’épitaphe entre célébration mémorielle, genre littéraire et manifeste politique (milieu VIIIe–début XIe siècle) (Rennes 2007).


ogy. As an example taken outside the class of liturgical books, the extraordinary series of manuscripts of Hrabanus Maurus’s commentary on the Cross “In Honorem sanctae crucis” is noteworthy. This exceptional theological treatise, known through several ninth-century manuscripts, is characterized, among other things, by the meeting and the combining of text and image, of the “written word” and illumination; this means that the manuscripts containing it can be described as “loci” where writing and image meet.56 This particular meeting of image and written word in Carolingian, and more generally medieval, manuscripts is undoubtedly one of the major distinctive features of these objects,57 despite Alcuin’s remark on the superiority of the written word over images: “You can venerate the superficial colors, whereas we, who prefer the written word, have access to the hidden meaning. You allow yourself to be charmed by painted surfaces, while we feel moved by the divine word. You can remain with the deceitful image of things, which has no life and no soul, and we will elevate ourselves to the reality of moral and religious values. And if you, who like and adore images, you accuse us, whispering in your heart, to delight in figures and tropes, be assured that we do indeed feel more pleasure in feasting on the sweetness of words than you can experience by looking at images.”58

Within the frame of the subject of this article, I first look at the symbolism of the book in general, and that of the liturgical book in particular, as well as the way in which it was expressed in the ornamentation of some Carolingian manuscripts. Sec-ond, I explore the way in which the “graphic reason”59 of some Carolingian liturgical books gave expression to the idea of sacred space, allowing these books to be per-ceived as “loci” for the definition of sacred space and to create the conditions for their ritual “activation” through their sensory dimension.

THE SYMBOLISM OF THE CAROLINGIAN LITURGICAL MANUSCRIPT BOOK

During antiquity and the Middle Ages, liturgical books were considered as “sacred loci” and “sacred spaces” because they were taken, first and foremost, to be containers and transmitters of the sacred Word and the sacred texts of the liturgy.60 The symbol-

56 Rabani Mauri, In honorem sanctae crucis, ed. Michel Perrin, CCCM 100 (Turnhout 1997). On this

question, see David Ganz, “Pando quod ignoro. In Search of Carolingian Artistic Experience,” Intellectual Life in the Middle Ages. Essays Presented to Margaret Gibson, (London 1992) 25–32.

57 See Meyer Schapiro, “L’Ecrit dans l’image,” Les mots et les images (Paris 2000) 127–204. 58 Quoted by A. Erlande-Brandenbourg, De pierre, d’or et de feu. La création artistique au Moyen Age,

IVe–XIIIe siècle (Paris 1999) 92, from De Bruyne’s trans., Etudes d’esthétique médiévale (n. 7 above) 279: “Tu fucatorum venerator esto colorum, nos veneratores et capaces simus sensum arcanorum. Tu depictis demulcere tabulis, nos divinis mulceamur eloquiis. Tu figuris rerum insta, in quibus nec visus nec auditus nec gustus nec odoratus nec tactus est, nos instemus divinae legi ... et si tu amator vel potius adorator imagi-num, interiore pectoris rancore submurmures dicens: ‘Quid necesse est tantum per schemata evagari ?’ cognosces ea nobis amabiliora imaginibus sive pictis tabulis tuis esse.” Concerning the production of illumi-nated manuscripts in the Carolingian period, see Jean-Pierre Caillet, L’art carolingien (Paris 2005) 164–232.

59 This expression is taken from the anthropological theory of writing developed by Jack Goody; see Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge 1977).

60 For Christian antiquity, see Armando Petrucci, “The Christian Conception of the Book in the Sixth and Seventh Century,” Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy. Studies in the History of Written Culture (New Haven and London) 1995 19–42. See also Claudia Rapp, “Holy Texts, Holy Men and Holy Scribes. Aspects of Scriptural Holiness in Late Antiquity,” The Early Christian Book (Washington DC 2007) 194–222. For the Carolingian period, see Peter Dinzelbacher, “Die Bedeutung des Buches in der karolingerzeit,” Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 24 (1983) 258–287.

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ism of “sacred space” associated with the liturgical book is related to the more general symbolism of books in Western medieval culture. Michel Pastoureau underlined the symbolic importance of the word “liber,” the etymology of which refers to the part of the tree located between the centre of the tree, that is to say, the heartwood, and the part of the bark known as sapwood.61 Many Christian authors from antiquity and the Middle Ages insisted on this meaning. Isidore of Seville, for instance, wrote: “The book is like the inside shirt of the bark, which contains the wood. From there we call book what we write on, because before papyrus and parchment were used, books were made from sapwood.”62 Pastoureau noted that Isidore inflected the symbolism of the book toward the vegetable kingdom in general, and particularly toward wood. This recalled the wood of the cross on which Christ was crucified. It is thus easy to estab-lish a powerful symbolic link between the book, “liber,” and the wood of Christ’s cross, both considered as sacred objects and as “loci,” “spaces” for the expression of the sacred dimension of Christianity. The idea of the book also conjured up the idea of “foliation,” the layering of the annual rings of a tree and the layering of the folios of a manuscript. In the Middle Ages, the world was thought of as a being layered, with successive levels piled up on top of one another, and the book mirrors perfectly this symbolic dimension of the medieval conception of the world and of time.63 In the an-tique and medieval tradition, the book was also seen as an image of Christ himself, whose text was written by the Holy Spirit at the moment of the Incarnation.64 Some medieval authors developed the metaphor even further, likening Christ to the book by proposing that every Christian was an epistle from Christ, leading them to see them-selves, individually, as “the book of the heart.” To understand this metaphor, recall St. Paul’s words: “You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: forasmuch as you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Cor. 3.2–3). This theme of the “book of the heart,” the image of every Christian par excellence, arose from the interpretation theologians gave to this passage. It also underwent later developments, in particular by Peter Co-mestor in the twelfth century, who focused on the symbolism of the making of the book as applied to the faithful. In this case, the parchment was presented as an image of the heart of the faithful, which must be purified and cleansed as the animal’s skin is prepared with a scraper.65

This symbolism of the book in the Middle Ages becomes more specific in the case of the Bible or a liturgical book. In his identification of the various sacred places of the Bible, Hrabanus Maurus emphasized the idea that these places are “present” in the

61 Michel Pastoureau, “La symbolique médiévale du livre,” La symbolique du livre dans l’art occidental

du haut Moyen Age à Rembrandt, (Paris 1995) 17–36 62 Quoted by Pastoureau, ibid. 21. 63 Ibid. 23. 64 Dom Jean Leclercq, “Aspects spirituels de la symbolique du livre au XIIe siècle,” L’homme devant

Dieu. Mélanges offerts au Père Henri De Lubac, tome 2 (Paris 1964) 63–72. 65 Ibid. 66–69. Peter Comestor’s text can be found in PL 171.814–818 (“Huius libri pergamenum erit cor

vestrum, quod ex verbis Domini habetis, si sequentia prospiciatis ... Rasorium cordis est penitentia, per quam renoventur crimina...” 171.815), where it is attributed to Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans. On the change of attribution of this text, see Leclercq, ibid. 69.


sacred books.66 His idea can be formulated as follows: the book is a sacred space, and it describes the sacred places where God is expressed. It is therefore possible to pro-pose that when sacred books where opened during their “activation” in the liturgy, a kind of unveiling, simultaneously symbolic and real, of the sacred Word, was effected, providing access to a “sacred space”—the space of revelation. This revelation could then be disseminated during the celebration of the ritual performance through the in presentia of the invisible. This was mostly made possible by appealing to the senses for the reception of the sacred text through the material dimension of the text and the materials used both in its fabrication and in its graphic and iconographic layout. It must also be remembered that in the Carolingian period, the liturgical book was seen both as a sacred space and as a sacred object used in the celebration of the liturgy. This connotation of the objects used in the ritual performance was not unique to the book, but also, to varying degrees, pertained to all the liturgical instruments, which were both the theological symbols and the liturgical insignia of those in charge of this as-pect of the ceremonies.67 Foregrounding the ceremonial function of the book and tak-ing it as an insignia of the cantor, Amalarius of Metz summarized the concept when writing about the cantatorium, the liturgical book for the psalmody of the soloist, which contained the chants intercalated between the lections of the beginning of the Mass (responsory-gradual and alleluia) also sometimes used with the offertory verses: 68 the cantor (at the ambo), even when he does not need to read his text, holds in his hand the (cantatorium) with (ivory) tablets.69 The presence of this book, however, was necessary for the celebration of the ritual, even if the subdeacon did not read the texts of the chants, which he knew by heart. I would go so far as to say that the book was necessary for the sacramental validity of the ritual, for the liturgical book is not only a practical, utilitarian, object, or an insignia of the liturgical function of the celebrant, but it is above all a “sacred space,” the symbolical meaning of which added to the sacramental validity of the ritual and to the sacred dimension of the liturgy.70

The symbolical dimension of the liturgical book, seen as a space of revelation, whose material aspects are activated by appeal to the senses, is particularly remarkable in the case of Gospel books, as Lentes has recently written.71 In the Ordines Romani transmitted from antiquity to the Middle Ages, the role of the Gospel book used during the Eucharistic liturgy to recite the pericope before the consecration of the bread and wine underlines the sacredness of the object. This shows the sacred perception of the

66 Hrabanus Maurus, De locis, in De universo, PL 111.367–370. 67 Roger E. Reynolds, “The Portrait of Ecclesiastical Officers in the Raganaldus Sacramentary and its

Liturgico-canonical Significance,” Speculum 46 (1971) 432–442 (repr. Clerics in the Early Middle Ages (London 1998) chap. 7).

68 Eric Palazzo, Histoire des livres liturgiques. Le Moyen Age, des origines au XIIIe siècle (Paris 1993) 95.

69 “Eorum vice cantor, sine aliqua necessitate legendi, tenet tabulas in manibus”; Amalarius of Metz, Liber officialis III, Opera liturgica omnia, ed. Iohannes M. Hanssens, Studi e Testi 139 (Vatican City 1950) 303.

70 What has just been said about the cantatorium can also be applied to the famous 10th–12th c. Exultet rolls from Benevento; cf. Thomas F. Kelly, The Exultet of Southern Italy (New York and Oxford 1996). See also the catalogue Exultet. Rotoli liturgici del medioevo meridionale (Rome 1994).

71 “Textus evangelii”(n. 39 above) 133–148. See also Petrucci, “The Conception of the Book”(n. 60 above) 23–25. More generally, see Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art (n. 32 above) 87–105.

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book and its contents:72 in the sequence of the Mass, the Gospel book prefigures and announces the real presence of Christ in the host effected at the moment of consecra-tion. Through the sacred texts contained in the Gospel manuscript, it is truly Christ’s presence that is made real: the Gospel book can be considered as the “real presence” of Christ in the liturgy of the Mass, for the sacred book is Christ. The book containing the Gospels embodies Christ more than any other sacred book, as Christ’s “real pres-ence” is made manifest by the fact that this book contains the story of Christ’s life as well as his word, which will spread throughout the world, and which is “activated” to this effect when the Gospel is ceremoniously read aloud during the ritual performance. At that very point in the liturgy of the Mass, the reader of the Gospel passage—very often the deacon—is symbolically associated with Christ delivering his Word to the faithful Christians gathered in the nave of the church. Laurence Aventin recently pointed out the symbolic connection between the elevated location of the ambo inside of the church, where the Gospel was read, and the mount that rose above the plains from which Christ preached.73 The deacon only mediates the Word of Christ, who pro-nounces it himself during the liturgy, through its auditory “activation” when the text is read, and, calling upon all the senses, through the “activation” of the manuscript accomplished by its materiality and its “graphic reason.” The “activated use” of the Gospel book represents a total sensory experience, which effects the presence of the invisible through the declamation of the sacred Word ensuring Christ’s presence. Christ’s sacred “presentation” in the liturgy is achieved through the declamation of the Word during the reading of the Gospel, which, when it is read out, spreads into the space of the church building and, more important, into the infinite space of the Church. But this “presentation” is also achieved by the manuscript itself, and all its material components which appeal to the senses and to their ritual activation. Christ’s presence is accomplished through the figure of the reader ordained specifically for this liturgical action. In this case, the deacon is Christ himself proclaiming his word, though this is not strictly comparable to the sacred status of the priest who consecrates the host, and who from the twelfth century on, theologians will gradually consider to be an “incarnation” of Christ himself celebrating the Eucharist.74 This association, even assimilation, of the reader to Christ at the moment the Gospel is read out during the Mass is in part justified by the idea that at this moment, the Word is not only read out, but is “activated,” so that Christ’s presence is made “real” in his words which “come out” at this moment from the Gospel book, itself a type of incarnation of Christ. It is also justified by Christ being considered as one of the ritual’s celebrants, who can sometimes himself undertake to read the sacred Word in the liturgy, as described in this pericope from the gospel of Luke (4.16–22):

72 Joseph-Andreas Jungmann, “Théologie 20,” Missarum sollemnia. Explication génétique de la messe

romaine (French trans.) (Paris 1952) 2.212–226. Jungmann noted (222) that the care and luxury lavished on gospel manuscripts in the Middle Ages mirrored the regard in which they, and the text they contained, were held.

73 Laurence Aventin, “L’ambon, lieu liturgique de la proclamation de la Parole dans l’Italie du XIIe et XIIIe siècle,” Prédication et liturgie au Moyen Age (Turnhout 2008) 127–161 esp. 139–142.

74 François Avril, “Une curieuse illustration de la Fête-Dieu. L’iconographie du Christ-prêtre élevant l’hostie et sa diffusion,” Rituels. Mélanges offerts au Père Gy (Paris 1990) 39–54.


And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliver-ance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”

Surprisingly, this pericope did not give rise to an iconographical tradition generated by an episode of the life of Christ that emphasizes the liturgy. Nothing exists in Western art, but there are images illustrating this pericope in Byzantine Gospel books created for the readings during Mass. Of particular interest is one in an eleventh-century lectionary now in Florence (Bibl. Laur. Med. Palat. MS 244, fol. 30v). Nelson noted that this illustration of Luke’s pericope shows a liturgical scene where Christ is de-picted as one of the celebrants, standing at a lectern on which a book—rather than a roll, a deviation from the Gospel text—is laid. Christ is thus represented as one of the celebrants in charge of this reading during the feast of September 1, marked, in the Byzantine religious calendar, as the beginning of the cycle of the main Christian festi-vals, as well as the beginning of the administrative year.75 In the image of the Florence lectionary, Christ is at once the officiator of the ritual in the synagogue, the incarnation of the Word, and the reader delivering the pericope for the Mass during the feast. The iconography of this illumination emphasizes visually the “re-actualization” of the di-vine miracle at the very instant it is being read out, at the moment of the ritual “activa-tion” of the Word contained in the manuscript.76

At several points in the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy, the staging of the Gospel book put a strong emphasis on the sacred character of the book and on its material aspect. For instance, the book was carried in a procession and acclaimed as Christ’s word. Once it had been laid on the altar or the lectern the Gospel book was kissed by the celebrant and by the deacon who was about to read out the pericope for the day. As I shall show with a famous Carolingian evangeliary, the material aspect of these manuscripts of the Gospels, in particular their ornamentation, mirrors the strongly symbolical importance given to this book, to its text, and to its sacred charac-ter. This contributes to making it a true “sacred space,” the ritual “activation” of which calls upon the senses to achieve the effective “presentation” of the divine. First, how-ever, I emphasize the sacred character of medieval liturgical books, in particular Gos-pel books, specifically in the Carolingian period, by mentioning that the inventories of the treasures of churches and cathedrals were frequently transcribed and copied in the

75 “Empathetic Vision” (n. 41 above). 76 Similarly, the utterance of the sacred word by Christ in the image from the Byzantine lectionary can

be compared with the depictions of the evangelists in the illuminations of some early medieval Gospel books, where they are shown standing, holding a book and a stole. See Marianne Besseyre, “Une icono-graphie sacerdotale du Christ et des évangélistes dans les manuscrits bretons des IXe et Xe siècles,” Pecia 12 (2008) 7–26.

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pages of these books. In a study dedicated to books in early medieval treasuries, I developed the idea that in the Carolingian period the transcription of inventories in Gospel books was intentional, and that it bore witness to the sacred value bestowed on these books and objects, a value which means they can be regarded as “sacred spaces” in the true sense.77 Indeed, which book, other than the collection of the words and ac-tions of Christ, could imbue the list of the most precious possessions of a abbey or a cathedral church with the necessary sacredness to develop the spiritual patrimony of a church? In a certain way, it could be said that transcribing the list of the treasures owned by a church in this specific “sacred space” of the Gospel book sanctification of the inventory itself and the objects listed in it. In addition, books kept in the treasury were thought of as material, tangible, concrete expressions, not only of the wealth of a church and of its temporal power, but also of its spiritual authority. Some of these books—including liturgical books—were seen as instruments of memory and even sometimes as relics. Among the objects kept in the treasure, they appear as the most representative of the founding memoria of a monastery or a church, to the same degree that cartularies played a crucial role in perpetuating its temporal memory, as by Patrick Geary has shown.78

The Godescalc Evangeliary (Paris, BnF MS n.a.l. 1203) exemplified the several as-pects of the Carolingian book. Executed between 781 and 783 for Charlemagne and Hildegard, it is a deluxe manuscript that was probably used for the celebration of the royal, and later the imperial liturgy.79 It is, without doubt, one of the masterpieces of Carolingian illumination and of medieval art in general. It is an exceptional manu-script in many regards, and the many studies and publications dedicated to it have on the whole correctly approached its ornamentation from the point of view of the history of illumination and that of Carolingian political history.80 To my knowledge, no author has yet paid attention to the performative dimension strongly expressed in its material-ity and illustrations. Intended to be used for the reading of the gospel pericopes during the celebration of the Eucharist,81 the manuscript’s formal layout, material ornament, and iconography display better than any other “monument” of Carolingian illumina-tion the idea of the liturgical book seen as a “sacred space,” the sensory activation of which during the ritual puts one in the presence of the divine. The manuscript was copied and probably decorated by a scribe named Godescalc, who signed his work with long dedicatory verse copied at the end of the manuscript. The text of the evange-liary is written entirely in gold letters on a purple background. The symbolism of this

77 Eric Palazzo, “Le livre dans les trésors du Moyen Age. Contribution à l’histoire de la memoria

médiévale,” Annales Histoire, Sciences sociales (1997) 93–118 esp. 105ff. 78 Patrick Geary, “Entre gestion et Gesta,” Les cartulaires. Actes de la table ronde (Paris, 5–7 décembre

1991), Mémoires et documents de l’Ecole des chartes 39 (Paris 1993) 13–26. 79 See Florentine Mütherich, “Manuscrits enluminés autour d’Hildegarde,” Autour d’Hildegarde, Centre

de recherche sur l’Antiquité tardive et le haut Moyen Age, Cahier V, Université de Paris-X Nanterre (1987) 49–62; Jean Vezin, “Les livres dans l’entourage de Charlemagne et d’Hildegarde,” ibid. 63–71; and Bruno Reudenbach, Das Godescalc-Evangelistar. Ein Buch für die Reformpolitik Karls des Grossen (Frankfurt-am-Main 1998). See also Lawrence Nees, “Godescalc’s Career and the Problems of Influence,” The Con-cept of Influence and the Study of Illuminated Manuscrits (Turnhout 2007) 21–43.

80 Concerning the relation between the “graphic reason”of luxurious Carolingian manuscripts and the ex-pression of the emperors’ political ideology, cf. Petrucci (n. 60 above).

81 On evangeliaries, see Histoire des livres liturgiques (n. 68 above) 100–115.


choice recalls both the Roman imperial colors, which were particularly favored by the Carolingian sovereigns, and, as we shall see, the dual Christological and Eucharistic dimension of Carolingian political theology. As an evangeliary, this manuscript was in no way intended to remain “inactive” in the royal library or in the treasure of Charle-magne’s chapel. It is a liturgical manuscript whose ritual “activation” could take place on several occasions during the year on the main liturgical feasts during the lavish celebrations in which the king or emperor took part. Generally speaking, its decora-tion—its iconography both ornamental and historiated— gives expression first to its political meaning in relation to the glorification of the Carolingian emperor. Second, the illustration of the Godescalc Evangeliary emphasizes the glory of Christ, whose life is recounted in the Gospels pericopes contained in the book. In a certain way, it can be said that the decoration of this Evangeliary aims in the first instance at paying homage to the two sovereigns par excellence, whose association in Carolingian politi-cal theology was so close that they were sometimes confused. The manuscript presents six full-page paintings representing the four Evangelists (see fig. 1), Christ in majesty (fig. 2), and the paleochristian theme of the fountain of life (fig. 3). The iconography of these paintings was probably copied from a late antique Gospel book. As this manu-script is an evangeliary and not a Gospel book, it is easy to understand why the painter—or painters—chose to group the portraits of the evangelists together at the beginning of the codex: in a Gospel book, the portrait of each evangelist is normally located at the beginning of his text and the Maiestas Domini, the presence of which is justified by the contents of the evangeliary.82 The theme of the Fountain of Life is rela-tively rare in iconography in general and in the illustration of early medieval Gospel books and evangeliaries. Located on folio 3v, after the “traditional” program found in this sort of book, the Fountain of Life can be said to function as a title page or frontis-piece to the evangeliary as a whole, and to the Feast of the Nativity in particular, since the liturgical year begins with this celebration. Its iconography is quite complex; the painter deliberately mixed motifs referring to baptism on and to the idea of Paradise. This emphasizes the importance of the theological connection between the birth of the Savior—and here it is noteworthy that the rubric for the feast of the day was inscribed in the upper half of the painting, much like a titulus within the image—and the Faith-full’s rebirth at the moment of his or her baptism, token of the Resurrection to come.83 More important for my argument, however, is the fact that the text of Godescalc’s Evangeliary is written entirely, as mentioned above, in gold letters on a purple back-ground (fig. 4). This signifies first and foremost the royal patronage of the codex, pro-duced for Charlemagne and his wife Hildegard. It is interesting to “listen” to how Godescalc explained the dual symbolic meaning of the choice of gold and purple for this luxurious evangeliary.84 These two colors are among the symbolic attributes of the

82 About the Maiestas Domini of the Godescalc Evangeliary, see Anne-Orange Poilpré, Maiestas

Domini. Une image de l’Eglise en Occident, Ve–IXe siècle (Paris 2005) 184–192. 83 Poilpré (ibid. 184–192) also mentions that the baptismal image of the Fountain of Life was related to

the baptism of Charlemagne’s son Pippin, performed in Rome by Pope Hadrian in 781. A passage from Godescalc’s poem in the manuscript proves this link between the iconography of fol. 3v and the historical event. See also Herbert L. Kessler, “The Book as Icon,” The Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000, ed. Michelle P. Brown (Washington DC 2006) 76–103.

84 Fols. 126v–127r, fig. 5–6, MGH Poet. Lat. 1.94; see Beat Brenk, “Schiftlichkeit und Bildlichkeit in

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king, and express symbolically the royal destination of the codex.85 But for Godescalc, gold and purple have another meaning, which emphasizes the eminently sacred character of the object and makes it a true “sacred space” intended to be activated dur-ing the liturgical performance. Gold and purple also symbolize the magnificence of the heavenly kingdom, opened by the red blood shed by Christ on the cross, and the glory of the gold in which God’s words shine forth for eternity. The materials, gold and pur-ple, used to produce the evangeliary clearly express the symbolical idea that the manu-script containing the sacred texts read during the celebration of the Eucharist is itself a holy place, through its material dimension which in two ways makes Christ present during the ritual. I mentioned how frequently this object was assimilated with Christ in the global symbolism attributed to the sacred book in Christianity. On the other hand, because of their contents, Gospel books and evangeliaries are more than any other type of book “representations” of Christ, which make him “truly” present at the mo-ment of when the Eucharist is celebrated. St. Jerome’s assertion that “per totas orientis ecclesias quando legendum est evangelium accenduntur luminaria iam sole rutilante”86 confirms the hypothesis that the manuscript is the locus of the sacred Word, ready to move out into the world when the pericopes are read during the Mass. In addition to this notion of “sacred space” applied to the Godescalc Evangeliary and expressed in its material aspect, its ornamental iconography emphasizes the interest in precious materi-als which play a crucial role in the object’s “activation” in the liturgical performance. In Charlemagne’s book, all the senses are appealed to in the activation process, ena-bling access to the essence of things and showing the invisible through the visible. It is almost possible to assert that the Godescalc Evangeliary is a total sensory experience, and that its ritual “activation” is an essential moment of the liturgy. In the interplay of colors and their various symbolic meanings, the visual dimension of the ritual is ex-pressed. In the manuscript, the text of the Gospels copied in gold on a purple back-ground represents the visual dimension of the liturgy, while at the same time enabling the expression of the auditory dimension of the ritual, for, effectively, these words are read during the celebration, thus giving concrete expression to the auditory dimension

der Hofschule Karls der Grosse,” Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo, Settimane di studio del centro itali-ano di studi sull’alto medioevo 41, 1993 (Spoleto 1994) 631–691. On 8 June 1606, a German traveler named Hans Georg Ernstinger visited the treasure of the church of Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, where the Godescalc Evangeliary was then kept. He noticed the very precious aspect of the MS and its binding (which has now disappeared), in particular the use of gold letters: “ain altes evangelienbuech von pergame mit gulden und silberen buechstaeben geschriben”; quoted by Vezin (n. 79 above) 64, who recounts the turbu-lent history of the MS. Concerning the originality of the decoration of the Godescalc Evangeliary, see Eric Palazzo, “L’illustration de l’évangéliaire au haut Moyen Age,” La Maison-Dieu 176 (1989) 67–80. See also, Petrucci (n. 92 above) 118–121; and Herbert L. Kessler, Neither God nor Man. Words, Images and the Medieval Anxiety about Art (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Wien, and Berlin 2007) 106. See also Michelle Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels. Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (Toronto 2003). Concerning the perception of the preciousness of the decoration of some early medieval Gospel books, Giraldus of Cambrai’s comments sound like what a modern art historian would write, though written in the 13th c., as pointed out by Erwin Panofsky, “The Ideological antecedents of the Rolls-Royce radiator”Three Essays on Style, ed. by I. Lavin (Cambridge, MA and London 1995) 156–157.

85 Concerning the symbolism of colors in medieval liturgy, see Michel Pastoureau, “L’Eglise et la couleur. Des origines à la Réforme,” Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 147 (1989) 203–230 esp. 217–222; and Roger E. Reynolds, “Clerical Liturgical Vestments and Liturgical Colors in the Middle Ages,” Clerics in the Early Middle Ages (London 1999) VI.

86 PL 23.361.


of the performance. In addition, the tactile and olfactory dimensions are also appealed to by the Godescalc Evangeliary, since the reader can feel under his fingers the texture of the parchment and of the colors painted in it, as well as breathe in the smell coming from the object, which was incensed before reading took place.87 The decoration of the Godescalc Evangeliary, its iconography both ornamental and historiated—I would say the “graphic reason” of the object—is not only meant to express the theological, liturgical, and political meanings of the codex, but also to stimulate the senses and the “activation” both of the book in the ritual and the sacred Word it contains, in order to achieve the in presentia of the divine. What we see here is the sensory dimension of the ritual experience and its dominant role in the theology of the liturgy. In the case of the Godescalc Evangeliary, the “presentation” of the divine through the appeal to all the senses stimulated by the ritual use of the object is singularly strong because of the significance of the book as a specific “sacred space” and because of its ability to make Christ “truly” present in the liturgy, in anticipation of the moment when the Savior’s body will be really present in the consecrated host. The ritual “activation” of the Godescalc Evangeliary through its sensory materiality helped make the Word of Christ “truly” present during the liturgy and to spread it to the entire church and, beyond, to the world, while achieving the in presentia of the sacred. This is why the liturgical book can be understood as a “signum” in the fullest sense of the term, which, both in its visibility and in its sensory dimension set in motion by its ritual “activation,” al-lows access to the essence of things and reveals the invisible of the divinity. The materiality of the book is crucial for the “activation” of the “sign” that is stands for, and to generate the in presentia of the divine during the ritual. And it is the stimulation of the senses, heavily appealed to by the manuscript through its materiality and its “graphic reason,” which provokes the “activation.” In several respects, the exploration of the multisensory dimension of the “graphic reason” and, more generally, of the materiality of the Godescalc Evangeliary, as well as the analysis of its role in the sen-sory experience of the ritual, are quite similar to Jean-Claude Bonne’s observations concerning the “thing-ness” of portable altars or the “color ritual” stimulated by the illuminations present in the sacramentary from St.-Etienne in Limoges.88 The strong phenomenological meaning of the Godescalc Evangeliary combines harmoniously the expression of political and theological ideas which make it a first-hand witness of a specific historical context.

Beside Gospel books and Evangeliaries, other Carolingian liturgical manuscripts express the symbolism of the sacred space they create by showing, among other things, representations of the sacred space of the liturgy, of the celebration of the rit-ual, in which they are being used. In addition to this, and using forms different from those in the Godescalc Evangeliary, the phenomenological experience of the book in the liturgy is the Drogo Sacramentary (Paris, BnF MS lat. 9428), produced in the mid-dle of the ninth century in the scriptorium of Metz cathedral and intended for the liturgical use of the bishop Drogo.89 Its outside ornamentation features a series of nine

87 See Missarum sollemnia (n. 72 above) 2.221–223. 88 See the bibliographical references listed in nn. 36 and 38. 89 See Eric Palazzo, “L’enluminure à Metz au haut Moyen Age (VIIIe-XIe siècles,” Metz enluminée. Aut-

our de la Bible de Charles le Chauve. Trésors manuscrits des églises messines (Metz 1989) 23–44 esp. 23–

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ivory tablets located on the lower half of the binding, and which represent nine distinct moments of the celebration in Metz cathedral at the time.90 As Roger Reynolds has shown, the iconography of these nine ivory tablets follows faithfully the text of Ordo romanus I, which describes the papal mass in Rome ca. 700, as well as Ordines ro-mani II, III, IV, V, and VI, which are all Gallican revisions of the Roman ordo.91 The exceptional precision of the depictions can be explained by the carver’s wish and un-doubtedly that of Drogo himself, to give a most faithful visual representation of the text of the ordines romani. In the eight and ninth centuries, the bishopric of Metz was one of the main Carolingian centers for the diffusion of Roman liturgical texts. The hypothesis can be put forward that the Drogo’s ivories were intended to be part of the “publicity drive” in favor of the Roman Mass ritual and of the promotion of the text of the ordines, while showing that the bishop of Metz had adopted this ritual and these texts for the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy in his own cathedral. This reveals the variety of means deployed to allow the diffusion and the adoption of Roman liturgical uses within the Carolingian empire. In addition to this political and historical meaning, the tablets of the Drogo Sacramentary also display the liturgical “sacred space” where the scenes take place, Metz cathedral. Several specific archaeological features are depicted on the ivories,92 such as the bishop’s cathedra fashioned from a marble column which was supposed to have belonged to the see’s first bishop, St. Cle-ment. It is very significant to note that the “representations” of the sacred space of Metz cathedral appear on the “sacred space” of the manuscript, the episcopal liturgical book used by the bishop for the celebration of the Mass. In this case, it is a special kind of “sacred space,” for it allows the representation of the liturgy to be sanctified thanks to the presence, in the book, of such strongly symbolic images, from a triple historical, liturgical, and theological perspective. The Drogo Sacramentary shows that the liturgical book is a “sacred space” in itself, for it displays the liturgy and at the same time the sacred space of the ritual performance.

As Bishop Drogo’s personal liturgical book, the festive episcopal sacramentary pro-duced by the scriptorium of Metz cathedral was used to celebrate the Eucharistic lit-urgy on the main feast days of the liturgical calendar. The internal decoration of the manuscript shows a very rich iconographic cycle, where the emphasis is put on scenes taken from the life of Christ, the lives of the main saints of the calendar, and the most important moment of the major liturgical celebrations in which the bishop took part, such as the consecration of a church. In addition to these themes, which were frequent in the iconography of Carolingian, and even early medieval sacramentaries, can be seen elements of ornamental decoration that emphasize such architectural features as columns and arches adorned with vegetable motifs. These can be found at the begin-ning of the manuscript and before the Mass formularies for certain important feasts,

27.

90 Eric Palazzo, “La liturgie et ses textes: autour de la messe. Les Ordines romani et les ivoires du sacra-mentaire de Drogon (IXe siècle),” Le christianisme en Occident du début du VIIe siècle au milieu du XIe siècle. Textes et documents (Paris 1997) 109–116.

91 Roger E. Reynolds, “Image and Text: A Carolingian Illustration of Modifications in the Early Roman Eucharistic Ordines,” Viator 14 (1983) 59–75.

92 François Héber-Suffrin, “La cathédrale de Metz vue par Paul Diacre et les témoignages archéologiques,” Autour d’Hildegarde (n.79 above) 73–88 esp. 74.


but mostly on the folios containing the prayers for the Canon of the Mass (figs. 7 and 8). Robert Calkins suggested that these architectural backgrounds accompanying and framing the main prayers for the Canon of the Mass—which were used only for the consecration of the host and the wine—and certain prayers for the celebration of Easter, could be read and understood in relation to the symbolical interpretation that Amalarius of Metz gave to the altar and the Holy Sepulcher.93 For Amalarius, one as-pect of the exegetical symbolism of the altar is linked to the comparison that can be drawn between this object and Christ’s tomb, the Holy Sepulcher. This is why the Christian altar should be “read” and understood as an image of the “locus,” of the sa-cred space of the Holy Sepulcher. Calkins put forward the idea that Amalarius’s sym-bolic and exegetic reading was mirrored in the sacramentary’s “graphic reason,” that is to say in the architectural iconography meant to frame and enhance the sacred texts of the canon of the Mass and of the prayers for the Easter Mass. The presence of these ornamental motifs in the manuscript, that is, in the sacred space of the liturgical text, and in relation to the prayers for the consecration, would increase the sacred character of the reading of these texts in addition to their sacramental value. And it would also contribute to the creation of a “locus,” within the manuscript itself, which would then become symbolically associated with other sacred places and spaces: the choir of the church, the altar for the celebration of the mass and the consecration of the host, as well as the Holy Sepulcher, where Christ overcame death for eternity and was crowned with the glory of his Resurrection. This example shows how the “graphic reason”—the iconography and the layout of the liturgical manuscript—gives expres-sion to the theological idea of the liturgical book as “sacred space.” The ornamental architectural features of the Drogo Sacramentary, the liturgical space, the sacred space, is present within the manuscript itself. The illustrations for the Canon of the Mass in the Drogo Sacramentary constitute the sensory elements, mostly visual, this time not of the liturgical “activation” of the text and of the book that contains it, but of the “activation” of the exegesis of the liturgy at the very moment of the ritual perform-ance. In other words, during the consecration of the Eucharist, in which the prayers of the Canon of the Mass play a central role alongside ritual gestures and other sensory signs, the visual activation by the celebrant of the exegetical images contained in the manuscript makes the liturgical commentary of the Mass present, and enables the rela-tion between the Eucharistic liturgy and some aspects of the its exegetical interpreta-tion. This “activation” of the exegetical images in the Drogo Sacramentary results in the activation by the senses—in this case, sight—of the exegesis of the liturgy at the very moment where the liturgy takes place, making both the sacramental invisible and its theological exegesis “present” in the ritual performance 94. At the moment of the consecration of the Eucharist, the celebrant using this sacramentary—Drogo, the bishop of Metz, in the middle of the ninth century and some of his successors after

93 Robert G. Calkins, “Liturgical Sequence and Decorative Crescendo in the Drogo Sacramentary,”

Gesta 25 (1986) 17–23. See also Celia Chazelle, “An Exemplum of Humility: The Crucifixion Image of the Drogo Sacramentary,” Reading Medieval Images. The Art Historian and the Object (Ann Arbor 2002) 27–35.

94 To this can be added a mnemonic function of the representations found in the manuscript at the “place”which corresponds to the canon of the mass and its exegesis: see Carruthers (n. 10 above).

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him—and its “graphic reason,” activated with his sight the exegetical commentary included in the iconographic language of the illuminations, while he himself activated the memory of the exegesis of the Mass.95

CONCLUSION

In several of his books, Zumthor showed the links that exist between the contents of the texts of manuscripts, their materiality (in particular their layout and any other codi-cological aspect, for which Zumthor coined the new term “manuscripture”), and the conditions of the performance that activate and stage these objects and their texts.96 Like other authors before him, Zumthor insisted on the way the materiality of the medieval manuscript book translated in “material,” “physical,” graphic terms the sym-bolic meaning of the book, in particular through its layout. In this way, provided one accepts Zumthor’s conclusions, it is possible to say that there is a balance between the materiality of the book, specifically its layout, its “graphic reason” and its symbolic meaning. With regard to the early medieval liturgical book, I have attempted to show that its “graphic reason” mirrored and expressed the fundamental ideas of its theologi-cal and liturgical symbolism, leading to an understanding of the manuscript as a “sa-cred space,” while at the same time creating the conditions for its ritual “activation” through the senses, an activation intended to achieve divine in presentia. Goody ex-plored the various ways a society of the written word can “domesticate the savage mind” through the “graphic reason,” the mastery of the writing space.97 To this end, he studied how legendary tales or even cooking recipes are written down in societies which do not generally use writing. According to Goody, the process by which thought or data are transcribed, as well as the graphic choices made on this occasion (to use a list or a table, etc.) represent the deep and sometimes symbolic meaning of the thought contained in the data and in the tales put into writing. In other words, for Goody the “layout” chosen to reproduce graphically a thought coincides with its contents, its message, and the symbolic meaning of the thought. For Zumthor, medieval manu-scripts manifested a very similar process to what Goody described about societies different from Western medieval society and other means of “writing down” texts. The

95 Such an exegetical and mnemonic process suggests the activation when the Eucharistic liturgy was

celebrated on the altar of the church of St-Guilhem-le-Désert, probably from the 12th c., on the front of which can be seen a Maiestas Domini and a representation of the crucifixion. This recalls how these two themes were very frequently combined in examples of double composition integrated in the canon of the mass in contemporary sacramentaries. This similarity between the decoration of the St-Guilhem-le-Désert altar and the illustration of the canon of the mass in sacramentaries and missals is so pronounced that it is difficult not to see it as a conscious choice on the part of those who created and used the altar images to “reproduce,” on the front of the altar, the celebrant’s liturgical book open at the page of the double composi-tion of the Maiestas Domini and the crucifixion. The aim would have been to create a mnemonic reminder associating the iconography contained in the liturgical book and “activated”during the canon of the mass, on the one hand, and the consecration taking place on the altar, on the other. See Eric Palazzo, “L’autel de Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert et l’iconographie des autels portatifs du haut Moyen Age,” Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert. La fondation de l’abbaye de Gellone. L’autel médiéval 4, Actes de la table ronde d’août 2002 (Montpellier 2004) 115–123 esp. 123; and Emmanuel Garland, “L’autel dit de “Saint Guilhem” à Gellone: l’analyse iconographique au service de sa datation,” ibid. 125–136.

96 Zumthor (n. 8 above); and idem, La mesure du monde. Représentation de l’espace au Moyen Age (Paris 1993) esp. 363–393.

97 Goody (n. 59 above). See also Goody, The Logic of the Writing and the Organization of Society (Cam-bridge 1986) 1–44.


main idea emerging from these theoretical observations is that there does seem to be a close connection between the contents of a text, its symbolic meaning, and its graphic transcription in a specific “locus,” such as a medieval manuscript. The search for the closest possible match between form and content, between the material dimension and the layout of a medieval manuscript on the one hand, and on the other its textual con-tents and their symbolic meaning, does not stop with its dual physical and graphical aspect, but also includes the accuracy of the text.

I have shown the relevance of the notions of “manuscripture” and “graphic reason” to the understanding of the symbolic function of medieval liturgical books, in particu-lar Gospel books and evangeliaries, as well as sacramentaries. More important, I have shown the intrinsic nature of liturgical objects—such as liturgical books—that has deeply to do with sensoriality and its activation during the ritual performance. This very nature of liturgical objects makes it possible for the invisible to become visible and for the divine to be made present. The power of the medieval liturgy derives as much from the sensory dimension and its active expression at the moment of the ritual performance, as from the sacramental aspect of the sacred words and their theological meaning. From a methodological point of view, I need to insist on the necessity for an approach embracing medieval theological texts and what they tell us about the liturgy and the senses in Christianity, liturgical texts, and their exegeses, the phenomenology of perception, and, above all, the objects themselves and their formal and iconographi-cal analysis, emphasizing their dual material and sensory dimension as much as their historical significance, in the widest sense of the term, based most of the time on their political impact.98

Not only evangeliaries and sacramentaries reveal these theoretical concepts, but also other liturgical books and others kind of precious objects (ivories,99 chalices, pat-ens, etc.), and architectural monuments or monumental images (paintings, sculptures, tapestries, stained glass windows, etc). These need to be studied as objects themselves but also in terms of the relations between art and liturgy and based on the sensory dimension of the ritual. The scope of this program is vast, as it will be necessary to analyze the sensory dimension of the liturgy through the study of the links between art and the senses within a vast geographical and chronological framework which in-cludes both the Byzantine world and the medieval West. All the elements which constitute the liturgy and their sensory expression will be explored according to their “activation” during the ritual performance, where they participate fully in the defini-tion and significance of the liturgy.

98 The approach I am proposing, must take into account the fundamental contribution that monographs

dealing with specific manuscripts can make to the study of the decoration of medieval liturgical books. These monographs, where the painted programme is taken as a discourse, show how this programme inter-acts with the text of the manuscript and its materiality and makes sense from the point of view both of his-tory and of theology. See in particular Robert Deshman, The Benedictional of Aethelwold, Studies in Manu-script Illumination 9 (Princeton 1995); and Adam Cohen, The Uta Codex. Art, Philosophy and Reform in Eleventh Century Germany (Philadelphia 2000).

99 In particular, those affixed to the bindings of liturgical books; cf. Frauke Steenbock, Der kirchliche Prachteinband (Berlin 1965).

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FIG. 1. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 1v, Godescalc Evangeliary, Saint Mark. Reproduced with permission.


FIG. 2. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 3r, Godescalc Evangeliary, Maiestas Domini. Reproduced with permission.

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FIG. 3. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 3v, Godescalc Evangeliary, Fountain of Life. Reproduced with permission.


FIG. 4. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 30r, Godescalc Evangeliary. Reproduced with permission.

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FIG. 5. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 126v, Godescalc Evangeliary. Reproduced with per-mission.


FIG. 6. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 127r, Godescalc Evangeliary. Reproduced with permission.

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FIG. 7. Paris, BnF, lat. 9428, fol. 10r, Drogo Sacramentary. Reproduced with permis-sion.

FIG. 8. Paris, BnF, lat. 9428, fol. 14r, Drogo Sacramentary. Reproduced with permis-sion.

palazzo art litrugy and the five senses int he early middle ages

Documents

medieval art history

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