Images ofLate Medieval ‚Daily Life‘:
A History ofMentalities
Axel Bolvig
Most historians are the disciples of Johannes Guthenberg. They only make use of the written source material and they only use the printed book as medium for their exposition of the results of their research. Many historians – as far as they use visual source material at all – usually refer to those images that depict subjects from contemporary life. Traditionally, they cling to images of recognizable objects. Images of shoes, ploughs, swords, etc. are considered as relevant testimony of aspects of daily life contrary to religious, fabulous, movative, artistic and decorative images. The images used by historians most o en refer to existing a ifacts from the past that o er an oppo unity for the traditional methodological control: Is the depicted subject in correspondance with the real thing or not? Shortly, the images used by most of the historians that apply visual source material are images relevant to Sachkultur. 1
As a matter of fact, it is a very narrow attitude relying on traditional methodological ways of ng. To most historians images are equal or parallel to the written word – as they were centuries ago to Gregory the Great and many others 2
From Saint Gregory onwards till today‘ s historians, images are treated in the same way as narrative documents – to the research of which
1 Niels M. Saxtorph, „Kalkmaleriemes kildev rdi“, Fortid og Nutid V, 1970, p. 2 1 1 -229; Morten Bjem and Oie Reiter: „Middelalderens billedbog“, Fortid og Nutid , 1978, p. 497-512; Michael Camille, „Labouring for the Lord: the Ploughman and the Social Orden in the Luttrell Psalter“, Art History Vol. I 0, No. 4, 1 987, p. 423- 426; Jean-Pierre Sosson, „Les images et Ia culture materielle au bas moyen-age, Mensch und Objekt im Millefalter und in derfrühen Neuzeit. Leben – Alltag – Kultur (red. Gerhard Jaritz), 1990, p. 345-364; Rainer Wohlfeil, „Methodischen Reflexionen zur Historische Bildkunde“, Historische Bildkunde – Zeitschr t f r historische Forschung Beihe 12, 1991, p. 15-35; Gerhard Jaritz (ed.), Pictura quasi ctura. Die Rolle des Bildes in der Erforschung von A lltag und Sachkultur des Mille/alters und derfrühenNeuzeit, 1996.
2 Jerome Baschet, „lntroduction: L’image-objet“, L’image. Fonctions et usages des images ns l ‚occident medieva/ (eds. Jerome Baschet & Jean-Claude Schmit), 1996, p. 7 .
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we have developed a re ned methodological research system. But images are not narrative sources, and as such they cannot narrate anything about what people were doing, where, when and why. To do this, we need a discursive communication system, and images are non-discursive con structions. 3
Images are loaded with info ation. But contrary to the text all this info ation is gathered in the one and same syntax. It is the task of the historian to create his or her own n a tion when studying an image. But the na ative is created by the spectator’s ima nation, not by the image itself or for that matter by the artist.
What we do – as a matter of fact – is to make a description, a anslation ofwhat we see depicted. We verbalize the image.
This description may be of a narrative character:
„There was a count side and houses of a kind appropriate to peasant country-people – some !arger some smaller. Near the cottages were straight-standing cypress trees. . . . The trees, I dare say, offered the peasant a resting-place, with the shade of their boughs and the voices of the birds joyfully perched in them. Four men were running out ofthe houses, one of them calling to a lad standing near – for his right hand showed this, as if giving some ni stmctions. Another man was tu ed towards the first one, as if listening to the voice of a chief. A fourth, coming a little forward from the door, holding his right hand out carrying a stick in the other, appeared to shout something to other men toiling about a wagon, for just at that moment a wagon lly loaded, I cannot say whether with straw or some otherburden,hadle thefieldandwasinthemiddleofthelane …‘
This description is a na ative of some daily life. But it is a story told by the fou h-centu Greek Libanius and not by the artist. Our possible use of historical methods by asking, if this scenery is historically true or not, or if it is corresponding to the material reality of daily life, is directed towards Libanius‘ use of words and not tow ds the painter’s use of brush, lines and colour. The eyewitness is Libanius and the account is his. What he witnesses is a picture. To his account we can apply our methods. The image on the other hand contains a Iot of non-linear visual infonnation to which we only can bring meaning by translation to a linear com munication system. It is important to stress that other descriptions of the same picture never will be totally like the one ofLibanius. My description of any image will di er ore or less from your description of the s e
3 Axel Bolvig, „Med passende ndringer“, Selv og safte (eds. Hansen & Lollesgaard), 1990, p. 225-237.
4 Quotation from Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention. On the Historical lanation ofPictures, (1985) 1992, p. 2.
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image. „Images are readings, and the rewritings to which they give rise, through their ideological choices, nction in the same way as sermons: not a re-telling of the text but a use of it; not illustration but, ultimately, a new text. The image does not replace a text; it is one“5.
In another way, the description of Libanius di ers from most other descriptions of images. He uses the past tense. By this, he is m ng the picture described as a piece of source material in a historical space. Other historians or historians use the present tense, like: „There is a coun yside…the trees are o ering shade to the peasants…Four men are running out of the house“, etc. By tllis, we draw the picture into our own contemporary space, and thus making it a-historical piece of source material .
Fig. 1: Adam ploughing. Elmelunde church. Late 15th centu
A description of, for instance, the iconographic motif of Adam at work after the Expulsion (Fig. I) will typically read: „A man is ploughing with two horses – maybe it is Adam after the Expulsion of Paradise – t11e plouglunan is rather weil dressed wearing a peasant’s coat – do tl1e peasants really use horses when ploughing – it is strange that he is working alone wit11 a plough with plougshare“ etc. What we are confronted with is a mode verbal translation of a late mediaval image.
s Mieke Bai, On Looking and Reading; quotation from Keith Moxey, The Practice of Theo , 1994, p. 29.
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La chambre claire, Roland Ba hes baptised the photo aph 9a a ete(inte it),asifthecontentswereofahistoricalcharacter, buthisuse of the pe ect tense is actually applied to the memory of his late mother and not to the photo of her. As a matter of fact, he also uses the present tense when describing Charles Cli ord’s photo A/hambra, thus making it a contemporary narrative.6
Our involuntary use of the present tense marks one of the fascinating di erences between the discursive text and the non-discursive image. Being a relic of the Middle Ages the image itself is a historical source. But by presenting its contents of visual information in a non-discursive way and by tempting the spectators to perceive the contents in the present tense, its information is of an a-historical character.
And yet we are still convinced that images are invaluable historical source material!
Medieval is in many ways an of the book.7 A Iot of medieval images are loaded with a narrative element. Their icono aphic motifs are o en referring to stories told in the Bible or in saints‘ Jives. That is why Saint Gregory the Great and many other Jea ed scholars from the Middle Ages till today talk about images as the Bible of the Illiterate. Of course, that is nonsense. Medieval images only refer to the stories of the Bible to those people who already are familiar with the contents of it, of the saints‘ lives, etc. This widespread attitude towards images is only a pretext, a con rmation of an already-existing practice. Theologians were satisfied only, when they could „explain“ the images.8
Many representatives of the church were completely aware of these conditions,9 among those John of Genoa in the late thirteenth century:
„Know that there were three reasons for the institution of images in churches. First, for the instruction of simple people, because they are instructed by them as if by books. Second, so that the mystery of the inca ation and the examples of the Saints may be more active in our memo through being presented daily to our eyes. Third, to excite feelings of devotion, these being aroused more effectively by things seen than by things heard.“10
6 Roland Barthes, chambre claire, 1980.
7 Meyer Scapiro, Words, Script, and Pictures, 1 996, p. 1 1 7 .
8 Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence. A History ofthe Image before the Era ofArt, (1990) 1994, p. 1.
9 Michael Camille, „Labouring for the Lord: the Ploughman and the Social Order i n the Luttrell Psalter“, Art History Vol. 10, No. 4, 1987, p. 425.
10 Quotation om Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in F thteenth Cenh1ry ltaly, (1972) 1974, p. 41.
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Thejirst item, that the images were the Bible of the Illiterate, shows the contempt of the literati towards simple people. This clash of interests is weil own in today’s discussion of the function of TV and comic s ips compared to books.
The second item, that images support memory, is a widespread understanding in the pedagogical work in our schools.
The third item, that images excite feelings, is a well-known means in today’s adve ising, posters, political propaganda, press photos and indeed our own private photo collections.
In a way, there is no di erence between the views of Gregory the Great, John of Genoa and other le ed medieval writers, and the widespread attitude towards images in our own society.
Jolm of Genoa and the many others that wrote about images never mentioned afourth item: the documentary force of an image.
This is understandable because medieval people did not think in documentary terms. The word documentation is a relative new invention – o en used by historians. And wrongly used, when historians ask for depictions of daily life in the Middle Ages.
The demands for visual documentation are closely related to the rise and expansion of the photo aph. The special kind of mechanic indexicality of a photo aph provides it with a docwnentary ability un own to other visual means of expression. The passport authorities accept a photo of me but not a drawing even if it is much better.
When teaching, I use slides. When publishing an illustrated essay, I use printed reproductions. Thoughtless, I take it for granted that the recipients accept my slides and reproductions as a representative documentation of the images represented through these media. Without protesting, the audience and the readers accept the change in size, the change of original context, an inaccurate scale of colours, etc. The documentary force of the photo aphic representation is vital.
•
•
To sum up:
Medieval images do not narrate anything including the daily life.
Medieval images do not document anything including the daily
The visual infonnation of an image is neither correct nor incorrect.
life.
•
•
The visual information of an image is of an a-historical character presenting itself in the present tense.
• To be historically understandable the visual information of an image must be translated to a discursive system, which is a linguistic system.
• Not two translations of the visual contents of an image will be identical.
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Where and how do we then nd medieval daily life?
As the feudal medieval society did not nction in accordance with an O entlichkeitsmode of the bourgeois socie ,1 1 medieval images did not belong to a speci c private or cultural sphere. They were part of a totality consisting of all sides of life. So, even tl1e most sacred pictures were part of daily life, they were never the a air of religion alone, but also always of society, which expressed itself in and through religion. The real roJe of religious images cannot be1 understood solely in terms of theological or aesthetic or artistic content. 2 Most medieval paintings and sculptures were created by skilled artists betonging to the sphere of production. The images were o en commissioned or bought by people from many parts of secular society. The intentions behind a commission were pa ly religious, pa ly private, pa ly political, and partly economic.
The images were exhibited in the churches that belonged to the religious and cultural, and partially the private spheres. The spectators and users belonged to all pa s of society.
Medieval images are part of the totality called daily life. They re ect a mental conception ofdaily life. Theyform the mental conception ofdaily life. As they were part of the ght for the soul of man, they were also part of ilie ght for the notion of daily life. The act of recognition that painting galvanises is a production, rather than a perception, of meaning. 1 3
My point of departure in this essay is a reproduction in black and white of a colour-slide of a Danish late medieval wall-painting (Fig. 2). 1t is full ofvisual information, but the narration is mine.
The iconographic classi cation reads The Prayer ofthe Rich and the Poor Man. Iconography corresponds to the function of captions. This caption indicates a kind of mental action of the two men depicted. lt does not say for how long, how o en, where and when they pray. But the icono aphic caption functions as a sta ing point for tl1e spectators‘ linguistic translation. lt corresponds to what Roland Barthes calls Ia
foncfion d ‚ancrage. 14
1 1 Jürgen Habermas, Strukturwandel der O entlichkeil, 1968.
12 Hans Belting, Likeness andPresence. A Histo ofthe Image bejore the Era ofArt, (1990) 1994, p. 3.
13NormanB son,VisionandPainting.TheLogicoftheGaze, (1983)1992,p.xiii. 14 Roland Barthes, „Rhetorique de l’image“, Communications 4, 1964, p. 44f.
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Fi 2: The Prayer ofthe Rich and the Poor Man. nefunde church. Late 15th century
A anslation from a non-discursive communication system to a discursive system is a matter of personal choice. image has no indication of where to start and where to end a translation, in which succession the reco izable con gurations should be mentioned, which values should be conferred to the con gurations, etc. All its information is open, betonging to space and not to time.
The religious icono aphy has put precise conventional contents behind the caption. lt was weil known to image-users of that time. The poor man – like Lazarus – is thinking of Christ while the eb man is thinking ofhis worldly goods.
Christ on the Cross has its own caption. lt was the most common icono aphic si full of its own connotations. The cruci ed Christ is the object ofdevotion of all men. In order to ll up the rest of the caption The Prayer of the Rich and the Poor Man, the artist relies on a coded system that is built on analogy to his contemporary society. From the icono aphic caption we know – and medieval man knew – that it is a devotional action performed by respectively a poor and a rich man. They are kneeling with their hands raised in prayer. 8oth positions express a conventional body
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language known to everyone. Praying was a daily life routine which implies speci c gestures.15 By kneeling and raising the hands you indicate that you are praying. But it teils nothing of the contents and direction of your prayer.
We ow and they knew that the poor man is thinking of Jesus Christ and the rich man is thinking of his worldly goods. That is part of the verbal sto . That is what the lines from their mouths are showing us. S ictly speaking, the image does not show what the two men are thinking of, the lines indicate the destination of their verbalised prayer. Consequently the two male gures represent a poor respectively a rich man. But do these con gurations depict a poor and a rich man in late medieval times? My answer is no. And they do not o er documentation of the dress of the two representing di erent social groups.
To de ne the social position of the two praying men it is necessary to expand the synchronic research to other depictions of tl1e poor and the rich. The result of such a visual perspective will show a di erentiation within the di erent social oups.
Saint Martin was one of the rst gures in the world of religious images to show charity. From the beginning of the l 41h century, he is very o en depicted richly dressed on horseback while cutting the half of his cloak to give to some beggars. These poor men were the „beggars in search of their daily bread“. They belonged to the absolute bottom of society. „Tens or even hundreds of paupers followed the funeral corteges of the wealtl1y, waiting for their posthumous handout. The poor waited at the doors of tl1e churches, occasionally entering and disturbing the services within. They ate no meat and drank no wine. They were sick, blind, crippled, maimed, covered with sores. They were dirty and smelled bad. They were ugly and fearsome to Iook at. „They were deemed nasty.“1 6 The poor praying man is depicted in another way than the poor, who receives half of Saint Martin’s cloak. He represents another de nition of a poor man.
L s is also to be classi ed among these nasty beggars. Saint Luke gives the linguistic „ancrage“ to the pictures ofLazarus.Lying at the ch man’s door „was a poor man namedLazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his ll of the scrapes that fell from the rich man’s
a contrast to the rich man the dogs feel pity forLazarus. This is part of tile moral of the verbal story. In medieval real life the dogs behaved
Js Jean-Claude Schmitt, raison des gestes dans I’Occident med !val, 1990, p. 289
16 Michel Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages, 1986, p. 232 f
17Luke , 20-21.
table. Dogs even used to come and Iiek his sores.“17
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another way. Dante wrote, „With that fury and with that stonn, which dogs out upon the poor wretch, who where he stops suddenly asks alms.“18
L s belongs to the wretched poor. A er his death, his soul went directly to heaven. But it is not the L s-type we see depicted praying to the cruci ed Jesus Christ.
Moving a step up the social ladder, we nd pictures of the shepherds.
They are o en enclosed in the depictions of The Nativity. An angel is proclaiming the happy news to the shepherds in the elds or we nd them at the stable admiring the child. According to the text they are positively connoted.
And yet they detach themselves from the other participants by tbeir clotbes and appearance. With the stockings banging down below their buttocks they are declassi ed. Tbey are more miserably dressed than our poor praying man. They represented poverty in the countryside.
„The shepherd was sancti ed in the icono aphy ofthe Annunciation and Adoration. But in reality the shepherd was hardly a sacred gure. Like the forest workers, his presence was troubling. Working alone, he communicated only with animals, whose bestiality he shared. He was thought to possess evil powers. Many shepberds were odd or mentally retarded and therefore despised. No one would marry bis daughter to a sbepherd. People looked upon shepherds as lazy, because their work required little physical e ort. They were badly paid. Thus shepherds were poor mentally, socially, and economically – and their lthy appearance only co ed this generat perception.“19
Certainly it is not a shepherd we nd depicted in The Prayer of the Rieb and the Poor Man.
The poor praying man resembles more the local peasants as they are representing Adam a er tl1e Expulsion. Digging or ploughing, Adam „the peasant“ is not an underdog. He is nicely dressed. His work is not too hard. He has the disposal of expensive tools such as a plough and draught animals .
Tbe poor praying man also finds his equals among the peasants depicted the visualisation of the legend of the Fast Growing Grain. Here we see weil dressed peasants harvesting normally with a sickte.
In a way the typical image of The Prayer ofthe Rich and the Poor Man shows us a representative of the peasants and not of tl1e poor population thinking of Jesus Christ when praying. The sole di erence is found in the holes on the elbows of the praying man. That is the only
18 Quotation om Michel Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages, 1986, p. 233. 19MichelMollat,ThePoorintheMi eAges,(1978) 1986,p.239
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iconographic means used to connote „Poor man“, the rest is a visualisation of a middle-class peasant thinking of the su erings of Jesus Ch st. That is the ideology of that pa of the image.
What about the rich man then? As a matter of fact he is rather modestly dressed. He reminds me of the typical Dane a er his meeting with our taxation system. Again it is use l to Iook at other images of the very rich people. They are represented in images of Vanitas.
Three men on horseback are meeting the Death in the shape of three skeletons.20 The men are very richly dressed like kings or princes. So are their horses. With gerfalcons on their gloved hands they are accompanied by their hounds. Of course, the image shall tell the spectator that even the mightiest person is nothing confronted with Death. But it also teils us that wealth causes death without blessing. The three men are too occupied by their worldly mortal prosperity. They have hunting and not God on their minds.
Exactly as our praying rich man has lus earthly goods on his mind.
But he is not dressed like the three horsemen. As a matter of fact, he is but modestly dressed. He is neither the nobleman nor the great landowner. He is a well-to-do man thinking of his worldly goods. And he has not much to boast o some ordinary clothes, a ehest probably ll of nice things, some beer ba els, maybe a horse and sometimes his house. lt is a modest prosperity that diverts his thoughts. What he is thinking of are obtainable goods.
Many f s brewed their own beer and had their own beer barrels. In the village church of Tuse we see the peasant’s wife with a beer barret – being helped and/or attacked by some devils 21 But the motif indicates a wide decentralisation of beer brewing. When ploughing a er the Expulsion, Adam „tbe peasant“ in the images uses even two horses, whereas the rich man only has one horse in his thoughts. The plough was an expensive means of production to which elevated symbolic associations were attached. The plough served as a symbol of the productivity of the peasant in an ordered „good society“.22 „A plough team, no matter whether made up of oxen or horses, was an extremely expensive investment, and as a rufe it was only the peasant with a medium or large size holding who was able to a ord one.“23 In the diocese of Chartres in
20 http://www.kalkmalerier.dk/english/search.htm search the picture: SHI 775.
21 http:// . kalkmalerier.dk/english/search.htm search the picture: 30-3/ 74.
22 Michael Camille, „“When Adam Delved“: Labouring on the Land in English Medieval „, Agriculture in the Ages. Technolo , Practice, and Representation (ed. Dei Sweeney), 1995, p. 257. 23We erRösener,PeasantsintheMiddleAges, (1985) 1996, p. 138f
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the twel h century, the change from the oxe to horse for ploughing took place. At a stained glass in the nave clerestory at Chartres a peasant is depicted guiding a wheeled plough with two handles, while another whips the horses. As the Chapter’s peasants remained serfs, it seems as if the plough belongs to the Chapter or to its rural mayor.24
Adam and Eve at work a er the Expulsion are in Danish wall paintings of the Late Middle Ages nicely dressed forming af nuclear family.25 The clothes that the rich man is thinking of di er not much from the dress ofthe rst couple.
What w e see is the peasant kneeling indicating a prayer. He is depicted just a bit more sumptuous than his counterpa which is iconographically necessary to create the connotation of a rich man. As a well-to-do man he is eeling before Jesus Christ. As an industrious man he is t g of worldly goods that he might be able to obtain. Contrary to the poor man he has something to be grateful of.
I have tried to prove that the late medieval Danish wall-paintings, contrary to those of the 12 and 13 centuries, mostly were the ex pression of the local peasants, nonnally initiated by the church wardens who were elected amongst the peasants themselves, and nanced through the fabric paid by the peasants. The visual language of the walls and vaults in the Danish parish churches of the late Middle Ages belongs to the peasants who have risen to fairly good living conditions caused by the Iack of Iabour and the dissolution of the manorial system.26 Rodney Hilton has shown that the peasant cannot be understood except in relation to the Lord who ruJed him. This is the case in Denmark too. In his article „Labouring for the Lord: The Ploughman and the Social Order in the Luttrell Psalter“, Michael Camille takes the same approach in examining a book which was made for the Lord, not the Iabourer27. Contra to the manuscript illuminations, the late medieval Danish wall-paintings first of all represent the local peasants.28
14 Jane Welch Williams, „The New Image of Peasants in the Thirtheenth-Century French Stained Glass“, Agri /ture in the e Ages. Technolo , Practice, and Representation (ed. Dei Sweeney), 1995, p. 282 .
21 el Bolvig, Bondens billeder. Om kirker og kunst i dansk senmidde/a/der, 1994, p. 1 14f
u el Bolvig, Kirkekunstens storhe tid. Om kirker og kunst i Danmark i romansk tid, 1992; el Bolvig, Bondens bi/leder. Om kirker og kunsl i dansk senmi elalder ‚ 1994.
27 Michael Camille, „Labouring for the Lord: The Ploughman and the Social Order in the Luttrell Psalter“, Art Histo Yol. 10 No. 4 , 1987, p. 126.
28 Some Danish scholars consider the late medieval wall-paintings as a popular visual language used by the Iords and bishops in order to restore ecclesiastical decline, Seren
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thirteenth-centu France, for the rst time, peasants appeared as if they were donors in the botta margin of some stained glass windows, where you traditionally nd upper-class donor imagery. This is the rst public appearance of medieval peasants a new social position in . Schalars have claimed that the windows were donated by the depicted ploughmen. Jane Welch Williams has convincingly argued that this is not the case but for the decoration of a Jarge window in the choir of St. Julian at Le Mans. Here it is documented that vineyard workers donated a decoration. It is recorded in the late thirteenth century. The nishing of the cons uction of the new choir was celebrated in 1254. The vineyard workers arrived very late: „It is pleasing to add, conceming the head vineyard keepers and the cultivators of vines, who, upon seeing the candles ofthe others, on whose model they had done nothing, said to each other, talking amongst themselves: Others have made light for the moment; Jet us make windows to illuminate the church in the ture. They gamished it with an entire window composed of ve lancets in which they are represented attending to the work of their trade. It is important to say in praise of the other inhabitants, that besides sumptuous lights, they also gave windows where they appear with the si s of their profession“.29 Jane Welch Williams concludes that plouglunen and p ners except for St. Julian at Le Mans in the early thirtheenth century were not donors, but rather si i ers of property Jo There is a long way from stained glass in the cathedrals of thi eenth-century France to wall-paintings in local churches of fteenth-century Denmark. But even in France, the inclusion of peasants artistic contexts in cathedral windows reveals that ecclesiastical Iords were beginning to value the labour of peasants.31 Two centuries later, the peasants valued themselves as an influential force in feudal society. The peasants were not free and independent, but their conditions had improved caused by the Iack of labour. The ploughman appears power lly in the Jate Middle Ages as himself or as a symbol. He rather than the knigl1t
Kaspersen, „Om folkelighed og ufolkelighed i senmiddelalderligt v gmaleri“, Kunst, Samfund, Kunst – En hilsen til Broby, 1987, p. 9-33.
Jane Welch Williams, „The New Image of Peasants in the Thirtheenth-Century French Stained Glass“, Agriculture in the Middle Ages. Technolo , Practice, and Representation (ed. Dei Sweeney), 1995, p. 291.
30 Jane Welch Williams, „The New Image of Peasants i n the Thi heenth-Century French Stained Glass“, Agricu/ture in the Middle Ages. Technolo , Practice, and Representation (ed. Dei Sweeney), 1995, p. 300.
31 Jane Welch Williams, „The New Image of Peasants in the Thi heenth-Century French Stained Glass“, Agricullllre in the Midd/e Ages. Technolo . Practice, Representation (ed. Dei Sweeney), 1995, p. 299.
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appears as mankind‘ s guide to salvation. The plouglunan became synonymous with the good Christian.32
Ifwe to fmd another example ofthe peasants‘ notion ofwealth we to the icono aphic moti The Feast ofthe Rich Man created by the same workshop which had made most ofthe scenes of The Prayer ofthe Rich and the Poor Man. It is a very modest banquet. A man and his wife pay the rich man a visit. All the three are sitting at a table without cloth. There is no indication ofroom and space, no indication ofsurroundings.33
Compared with the version of the same icono aphic motif in a
monastery in the most prosperous late medieval town in Denmark,
Elsinore, one is struck by the di erence in attitude to the notion of wealth.
At Elsinore the rich man is surrounded by two mistresses who are
caressing him, four servants who take care of food and drink, four other
smaller servants who ente ain and play music. They are sitting in a nice
room. They are weil dressed: „Wein, Weib und Gesang“, and a Iot ofit.
Michael Camille writes about the image ofa high Iord’s table where he sits
surrounded by his family in The Luttrell Psalter, as if he was referring to
the painting in Elsinore. „There is a clear demarcation between those who
serve and those who sup. l11ese scenes of cooking and dining are also …
indices of wealth and status. It has been estimated that for the upper
classes in fourtheenth-century England, expenditure on provisions cost
about a third of the total income of an estate. This was so higl1 not only
because of the luxury foods and spices conswned but the )arge nwnber of
household retainers and domestic servants who prepared and served them
„The Feast ofthe Rich Man“ is situated in the dining hall of the monastery. We don’t know how during Lent and sexual abstention the monks perceived the decoration. Taboos o en intensi the very desires they seek to prohibit. „Would not such images of flesh sucking and grasping flesh arouse the very feelings that they were meant to negate?“35 Sometimes one even wonders, if the images were meant to anything eise than joyous pleasure wrapped in moral pretexts.
It is understandable that the rich man depicted in the monaste of the prosperous town of Elsinore on his death bed is at the mercy of the
32 Michael Camille, „Labouring for the Lord: The Ploughman and the Social Order in the Luttrell Psalter“, Art History Vol. 10, No. 4, 1987, p. 430.
33 http:// .kalkmalerier.dk/english/search.htm search the pictures: 121 37 & 1 71 61.
34 Michael Camille, „Labouring for the Lord: The Ploughman and the Social Order in the Luttrell Psalter“, Art History Vol. 10, No. 4 , 1987, p. 439.
3s Michael Camille, „Mouths and Meanings“, !conography a1 the Cross (ed. Brendon Cassidy), 1 993, p. 5 I .
n34
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devils.36 tbe village church, on the contrary, there is no testimony of the rieb man’s death. He was not rieb, and consequently bis death without visual drama. Why sbould the devil devote his time to that anonymous, innocent man?
the same parochial church you nd visualised what will happen to the man who obtains money in an indecent way. Judas hung himself, and two devils are dragging his soul out of his body. The nouveau rich, the man who did not deserve his money, is doomed to Hell. In spite of the narrative of the story told by Saint Luke, the rich man at the table is not leaving his modest comfo in order to go to Hell. He has done nothing wrong. He is just a well-to-do peasant.
So is my 1998-reading of the late medieval wall-paintings in De ark. They were mainly ordered and paid by the Iocal peasantry, they were executed by a ists or cra smen with the same roots. They were meant to be seen and experienced by the same people. They cannot but express the mental world of the inhabitants in an accidental parisb. They re ect and they fo this ral world.
The Prayer of the Rich and the Poor Man is not showing two representatives from opposite Ievels of the social s atum; rather a slight di erentiation witbin the oup of peasants that dominate the local society. The lm director Michelangelo Antonioni has through his 85 years Iong life tried to demonstrate that behind a picture there is another picture more true, etc. Behind the religious iconographic caption we nd a picture of the late medieval Danish peasants; not a docwnentary but an image of their self-understanding; an image of their ideology. And this is more true than the contents of their prayer. „What is important is that such images provided ideological models for men and women in the audience.“37
Another example will underline this hypothesis of the self-conceit of the peasants. an example I chose the representation of the motifAdam and Eve a er the Expulsion in the village church Hjemb k (Fig. 3).
A er The Fall God said to Eve:
„I will eatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.“ To Adam he said, „cursed is the ound because of you; through pain l toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will
36 http://www.kalkmalerier.dk/english/search.htm search the picture: 19/ 151.
37 Michael Camille, ‚“‚When Adam Delved“: Labouring on the Land in English Medieval „, Agricu1ture in the Middle Ages. Technolo , Practice, and Representation (ed. Dei Sweeney), 1 995, p. 260.
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produce thoms and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the eld. By the sweat ofyour brow you will eat your food“ (Genesis 3, 1 6-19).
Fig. 3: Adam and Eve a er the Expu ion. Hjemb k church. Late 15th centu
God set up some severe conditions for the rst couple. She should bear under pain and submit to the man. He should work hard on a soil full of stones and weed.
But they did not obey orders in the visual world of their wall paintings. Eve is sitting in a comfortable chair spinning. She is wearing a nice dress. Adam is digging with a spade. lt is not hard labour. He is not depicted as a wom-down labourer. On the contrary, he also is weil dressed.
Between tl1e two is a small child in a cradle. With her foot, the mother is rocking tbe baby. They form a small family: father, mother and child: no female submission to the man, no painful birth, no hard work; but a care l life and a sheltered existence. Production and reproduction form a synthesis.
The unity and togethemess of the family is underlined by the man using a spade and not a plough. „The most important among the gardening implements was the spade, which helped to loosen the topsoil so as to
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prepare it for the sowing or planting of the more delicate garden plants.“38 The garden represented the family’s own property contrary to the elds of the com i ty where the work depended on a system of common and compulsory uses. Referring to manuscripts produced for and used by the landowning upper class Michael Camille states that the spade as a „low“ tool of the poorest peasants indicates not just low but unfree status of the peasant in the manorial hierarchy39. It is worth mentioning that there is a eat functional difference between these images and the Danish wall paintings of delving peasants, between the donors and the spectators. The medievals understood very weil how visual interpretation is dependent upon the various expectations ofbeholders40.
In a way this representation of the verbal contents of the icono aphical caption is a clear-cut protest against God. It is the expression of the peasants‘ ideal conception of their daily life. And if not – the image is part of the fonning of such ideal conceptions. Peasants‘ rebellions are not always violent.
The mothers did not give up the care for their children in the pictures of e Massacre ofthe Jnnocents (Fig. 4). King Herod ordered his soldiers to kill all babies in Bethlehem. But the women Started a counter-attack. With their spinning tools they hit the soldiers trying to save the children. Of course they did that. Mothers will always protect their children.
a way this exegis contains a rebellion against law and order. The ruler ordered the massacre. The soldiers obeyed the order. But the women challenged bis authority. One will never nd such a de ance in images of the 1 2 and 1 3 centuries. It demands a certain kind of self-consciousness and social security to de the king’s orders.
The motif depicts violence towards children. How o en have not the inhabitants of small villages witnessed ag essive gangs, violent brawls, rapes etc.
The Massacre of the lnnocents is the image of violence. It is not more stereotyped than our press photos of ghts between police and troublemakers or demonstrators, between Israeli armed forces and Palestinian youths.
38 WemerRösener,PeasantsintheMidd/eAges, (1985) 1996, p. 129.
39 Michael Camille, „“When Adam Delved“: Labouring on the Land in English Medieval Art“, Agriculture in the Mi e Ages. Technolo , Practice, and Representation (ed. Dei Sweeney), 1995, p. 262.
Michael Camille, ‚“‚When Adam Delved“: Labouring on the Land in English Medieval „, Agricu/ture in the Midd/e Ages. Technolo , Practice, and Representation (ed. Dei Sweeney), 1995, p. 247.
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Fi 4. The Massacre ofthe lnnocents. M rkov church. Late 15th centu .
I do not hope that The Massacre ofthe lnnocents is an image of daily life in a late medieval village, but it is an image of violence, of executioners and victims who existed in the daily life.
The men are missing in the defence of the babies. It does not mean that men did not care. The image of The Massacre ofthe lnnocents is not a documentation. Rather it reveals that the small children were under female Supervision and care. Some years later the small ones were not children any Ionger but small grown-ups working on the fanns and in the elds with a much closer relation to the male world.
Today, we try to make ourselves believe that we are visually infonned of the things going on throughout the world. But whether it is C or our local TV station, we see the same kind of images. So-called documentary photos and TV have established a kind of news-icono aphy as conventional as the religious images of The Middle Ages.
Sitting in front of our TV screens many of us think that we get infonnation of politics, economics, daily life etc. Luckily we forget most of the contents as soon as we switch o or go on zapping. It doesn’t matter for tomorrow; we will see the same images, and so on, and on again.
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These thousands and thousands of images fo our daily life: They are seen all over the world. They create a confonn conception of life surrounding us.
the Middle Ages people did not need the daily input of so-called new pictures. They accomodated to the paintings xed on the walls. These images betonging to the Christian world were in contents more varied than our news coverage. The Massacre ofthe lnnocents, The First Labour, The P er of the Rich and the Poor Man vary dependant of their surroundings.
Images constitute some of the best source material to our understanding or our identi ing ourselves with the mental world of medieval people.
In the Jate medieval Danish village church the mental world of the parishioners, ofthe local peasants, is to be seen overall.
III
MEDIUM AEVUM QUOTIDIANUM
39
KREMS 1998
HE USGEGEBEN VON GERHARD JARITZ
GEDRUCKT MIT UNTERSTÜTZUNG DER KULTURABTEILUNG DES AMTES DER NIEDERÖSTERREICHISCHEN LANDESREGIERUNG
Titelgraphik: Stephan J. Tramer
Herausgeber: Mediwn Aevwn Quotidianum. Gesellscha zur Erforschung der materiellen Kultur des Mittelalters, Kö ermarkt 13, A-3500 Krems, Österreich. Für den Inhalt verantwortlich zeichnen die Autoren, olme deren ausdrückliche Zustimmung jeglicher Nachdmck, auch in Auszügen, nicht gestattet ist. – Dmck: KOPITU Ges. m. b. H., Wiedner Hauptstraße 8-10, A-l050 Wien.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Vorwort…………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
elBolvig,DanishWall-paintings-anIntroduction………………………… 7
elBolvig,Ars/onga-vitabrevis………………………………………………. 9
Jesper Jerre Borrild, Medieval Danish Wall-paintings-
anInte etDatabase………………………………………………………….. 21
AnnedorteVad,Devilshere,thereandeverywhere…………………………. 37
Steen Schj0dt Christensen, Mysterious Images –
Grimacing, Grotesques, Obscene, Popular:
Anti-orConunentaryImages?…………………………………………….. 55 Martin Bo N0rregärd, The Concept ofLabour
intheDanishMedievalWall-paintings…………………………………. 76 el Bolvig, Images ofLate Medieval ‚DailyLife‘:
AHistoryofMentalities…………………………………………………….. 94
Annamäria Kovacs, Costumes as Symbols.
The Pictorial Representations of the Legend of
KingLadislas of Hungary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Anca Golg tan, Family, Patronage, and istic Production:
The Apa s and Mäläncrav (Almakerek, Malmkrog),
Sibiu District, in Transylvania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
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Vorwort
Medium Aevum Quotidianum legt mit He 39 einen Band vor, welcher sich schwerpunktartig mit der Analyse von Bildquellen, vor allem Wandmalerei, auseinandersetzt Die Autoren der Beiträge stammen aus zwei Institutionen, in denen Bilddokumentation und Analyse konzentriert betrieben werden: dem Department of Histo an der Universität Kopenhagen und dem Department of Medieval Studies an der Central European University, Budapest. Das erstgenannte Institut ist besonders durch seine Digitalisierung des Gesamtbestandes dänischer Wandmalerei bekannt geworden, der über das Inte et allgemein zugänglich geworden ist und als Basis für umfassende qualitative und quantitative Bilduntersuchungen herangezogen werden kann. Das Depa ment of Medieval Studies der CEU konzentriert sich in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenscha en auf die Sammlung, Katalogisierung, Dokumentation und Analyse zentraleuropäischen Bildmaterials. Die VerfLigbarkeit des aufgearbeiteten Bestandes via Inte et ist in Vorbereitung.
Medium Aevum Quotidianum ist nun auch mittels Inte et erreichbar (http:// .imareal.oeaw.ac.at/maq/). Im Augenblick bieten wir das Inhaltsverzeichnis aller seit unserer Gründung im Jahre 1982 erschienenen Bände. Aktuelle Informationen, Links zu anderen, uns wichtig erscheinenden Websites sowie Berichte werden in Zukun das Service ngebot erweite .
Gerhard Jaritz, Herausgeber
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