Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem

Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem

This book investigates the concept of the New Jerusalem, the City of God, as an architectural ideal during the Middle Ages, and the way in which it is represented allegorically in patristic writings, liturgy, building, and later literature. The author begins by examining its conceptual foundations in such sources as the Hebrew Bible, Bede’s exegesis, the religious philosophy of Plotinus, and Augustine’s theology. She then explores the influence and the expression of the New Jerusalem in liturgy and architecture, using the twelfth-century remodelling of the Abbey Church of St-Denis and its dedication liturgy to show how the building serves as an eschatological and apocalyptic landscape. The chantry movement in late medieval England is situated in this context, and leads to a demonstration of the movement’s associations with the highlywrought poem Pearl and its companion poems; the book analyses Pearl as medieval architecture, offering fresh perspectives on its elaborate construction and historical context. ANN R. MEYER is an Associate Professor in the Department of Literature, Claremont McKenna College.

The Construction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France, Department of Manuscripts, French 247 fol. 163 (Antiquities, Book VIII) Cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Illumination by Jean Fouquet, c. 1465

Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem

ANN R. MEYER

D. S. BREWER

© Ann R. Meyer 2003 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2003 D. S. Brewer, Cambridge ISBN 0 85991 796 7

D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. PO Box 41026, Rochester, NY 14604–4126, USA website: www.boydell.co.uk A catalogue record of this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data Meyer, Ann R. (Ann Raftery), 1963– Medieval allegory and the building of the new Jerusalem / Ann R. Meyer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–85991–796–7 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Jerusalem in Christianity – History of doctrines – Middle Ages, 600–1500. 2. Architecture, Medieval. 3. Allegory. 4. Eglise abbatiale de Saint-Denis (Saint-Denis, France) 5. Chantries. 6. Pearl (Middle English poem) I. Title. BT93.5.M485 2003 246'.55 – dc21 2003009644

This publication is printed on acid-free paper Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Limited, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Contents List of Illustrations

vi

Acknowledgments

vii

Editorial Note

ix

Abbreviations

x

Introduction

1

I.

Philosophical and Theological Foundations 1 Foundations I: Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty 2 Foundations II: Augustine’s City of God

II.

27 47

Liturgy and Architecture 3 Liturgy at St.-Denis and the Apocalyptic Eschatology of High Gothic 4 The Chantry Movement: An Intimate Art of the Medieval New Jerusalem

69 98

III. Poetry 5 Taking Allegory Seriously: Ornament as Invitation in Pearl 6 “Þe nwe cyté o Jerusalem”: Pearl as Medieval Architecture

137 155

Epilogue

187

Bibliography

189

Index

203

List of Illustrations Frontispiece: The Construction of the Temple in Jerusalem 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Chantry priests, Works Chantry, Lincoln Cathedral Tomb (detail) of Bartholomew Burghersh, Lincoln Cathedral Tomb (detail) of Bartholomew Burghersh Tomb (detail) of Bartholomew Burghersh Shrine of Saint Werburgh, Chester Cathedral Percy Tomb (c. 1340–49), Beverley Minster Percy Tomb (detail) Percy Tomb (detail) Choir, Tewkesbury Abbey Lierne Vault, Tewkesbury Abbey Fitzhamon Chapel (c. 1395–97), Tewkesbury Abbey Warwick Chapel (1422), Tewkesbury Abbey Trinity Chapel (c. 1390–1400), Tewkesbury Abbey Kneeling Effigy of Edward Despenser, Trinity Chapel, Tewkesbury Abbey

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116 118 119 120 121 122 123 125 127 128 129 130 131 132

Acknowledgments I wish to thank the Mellon Foundation and the University of Chicago Division of Humanities for their generous support of this project in its earliest stages. For support of my research in England and France, I am grateful to the University of Chicago’s Office of International Affairs, to the Claremont McKenna College Dean of Faculty’s Office, and the Benjamin J. Gould Center for Humanistic Studies. I especially wish to thank the following individuals at the University of Chicago: Michael Murrin, whose seminar on Medieval Allegory provided the initial motivation and intellectual foundations for this project; David Bevington for discerning criticism and professional acumen; Christina von Nolcken for critical bibliographic advice; Anne Walters Robertson for expert advice on medieval French liturgy; Peter Dembowski for suggestions on translation of Froissart’s poetry; and the late Michael Camille who gave valuable guidance on how best to incorporate the art-historical components of this project with my literary analysis. I also thank the faculty and students who attended my presentation at the University of Chicago Medieval Workshop in December 1996. Edward Foley of the Catholic Theological Union offered advice on liturgical sources of Saint-Denis. Francis-Noël Thomas introduced me to the foundation scholarship of Émile Mâle and Louis Réau, to medieval French architecture sur place, and to the Institut d’Études Augustiniennes in Paris. I am grateful to Jane Vadnal at the University of Pittsburgh for providing me with the image of the Kneeling Knight in his canopy atop Trinity Chantry in Tewkesbury Abbey. I also thank her colleague, Alison Stones, for permission to reproduce that image in this book. Special thanks go my colleagues at Claremont McKenna College: Audrey Bilger, Steve Davis, Robert Faggen, John Farrell, Judith Merkle, Jim Morrison, Jim Nichols, and Nicholas Warner, all of whom read the manuscript in its later stages, offered encouraging comments, and provided helpful suggestions for revision. I am also grateful to Connie Bartling and Sheri McCain for assisting with the xeroxing of the final manuscript. I presented parts of Chapters One and Three at a conference, “Plotinus and His Visions: The Alexandrian Intellectual World in Transition,” 26 February 1999, which was hosted by Nancy van Deusen of the Claremont Graduate University, the Claremont Consortium for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and the Institute for Antiquity and Early Christianity. I read parts of Chapters Four and Six to the Medieval Guild Conference at Columbia University in 1996. Projects such as my own could not be completed without the collections of vii

Acknowledgments specialized libraries and the help of librarians. For my research on this book, I am fortunate to have worked at the Joseph Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, the Newberry Library, the Huntington Library, the Honnold and Denison libraries of the Claremont Colleges, the libraries of York Minster and Lincoln Cathedral, the Institute for Historical Research in London, and the Institut d’Études Augustiniennes in Paris. For help with photographing medieval funerary monuments and for kind permission to reproduce photographs in this book, I am grateful to the Vicar and Churchwardens of Beverley Minster, Tewkesbury Abbey, Lincoln Cathedral, and the Chapter of Chester Cathedral, and the Service reproduction of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Finally, I thank my colleagues at Boydell & Brewer, especially Derek Brewer, Caroline Palmer, Vanda Andrews, Pru Harrison and Michael Webb, who have made the process of publishing this book a smooth and gratifying one for me. The anonymous reader for Boydell & Brewer provided expert suggestions for revision that guided me in unifying the various disciplinary areas of my subject and seeing this book through to its completion.

To my mother and father, my sister Patsy, my brothers Bobby, Godfrey, and Thomas, and Auntie Ann, for the love that builds Heaven on earth

viii

Editorial Note This book relies extensively on quotations from writers of late antiquity and early Christianity. In order to achieve a degree of brevity in this wide-ranging study, I have selectively omitted original Greek and Latin quotations except where a particular emphasis upon interpretation is crucial, such as in my close analysis in Chapter Three of liturgical texts and commentaries. I have provided key Latin terms and phrases, such as those from the Vulgate and from Saint Augustine’s writings, when I thought it especially helpful for clarification. All standard Greek and Latin sources are listed in the Bibliography. Unless otherwise noted, biblical quotations in Latin are taken from the Vulgate (Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1969). English translations of biblical passages are taken from the Douay (Rheims-Douay) Version (Baltimore and New York, John Murphy Co., 1899). Full bibliographical references for Augustine’s De civitate Dei and Confessiones (abbreviations listed below) are provided in the notes and Bibliography (Primary Sources). Bibliographical information on all other works by Augustine that I cite in this book may also be found in the Bibliography (Primary Sources).

ix

Abbreviations ACW ANF ANCL AugStud CCL CSEL civ. Dei

conf.

Enn.

FC LCC NPNF PL RechAug REtAug SCM SPCK VigChr WSA

Ancient Christian Writers, ed. J. Quasten and J. C. Plumpe (Westminster, MD.: Newman, 1946–) Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1951–) Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to AD 325, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark 1967–72) Augustinian Studies (Villanova: Villanova UP, 1970–) Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols, 1953–) Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna: Tempsky, 1865–) Augustine, De civitate Dei (On the City of God), ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, CCL (2 vols). I have used the English translation of this critical edition, which appears in R. W. Dyson, trans. and ed., The City of God against the Pagans. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998). Augustine, Confessiones (Confessions), L. Verheijen, CCL 27. English translations I have consulted include H. Chadwick, The Confessions (Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 1991); and R. S. Pine-Coffin, Confessions (New York: Penguin, 1961). Plotinus, The Enneads, Plotini Opera, ed. P. Henry and H.-R. Schwyzer (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964–1982). I use the facing-page English translation of this edition by A. Hillary Armstrong, Plotinus, in The Loeb Classical Library, 7 vols (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1966–88). The Fathers of the Church, ed. R. J. Deferrari (Washington: Catholic UP, 1947–) Library of Christian Classics, ed. J. Baillie, J. T. McNeill, and H. P. van Dusen (Philadelphia and London: Westminster P, 1953–66) A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (Oxford; repr., Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1994) Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris, 1844–64) Recherches Augustiniennes (Paris: Études Augustiniennes) Revue des Études Augustiniennes (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1955–) Student Christian Movement: SCM/Canterbury Press Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Press Vigiliae Christianae. A Review of Early Christian Life and Language (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1947–) The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. J. E. Rotelle (New York: New City P, 1990) x

Introduction According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. (I Corinthians 3.10) The foundation of the temple is to be understood mystically. (Bede, De templo 4.1)1

Architecture, allegory, and revelation: these three words communicate in a remarkably wide-ranging and complementary way the artistic, intellectual, and religious cultures of medieval Europe. If one wishes to understand medieval beliefs, fears, and aspirations, architecture offers the most commanding visual sources of discovery. It is also an art form that is unsurpassed in its collective powers of expression, including its function as a location for secular and sacred liturgies. Allegory in turn is one of the chief philosophical, religious, and literary modes of medieval expression. From Origen to the sculptors of Chartres Cathedral to Dante, medieval theologians and artists chose allegory as the means of expression most effective and most worthy of communicating the relation between the divine world and human experience. Finally, revelation – and here I use the term to mean an intimate awareness of God’s presence – is the highest spiritual end, the definitive goal of human experience in the medieval world. Revelation is what medieval church architecture aspires to and what medieval religious allegory unveils. This book is an investigation of how these aspects of medieval thought and expression functioned simultaneously as form, method, and meaning – how architecture, allegory, and revelation worked together in an effort to represent the New Jerusalem on earth. As a way of usefully limiting this investigation, I focus my attention on the architectural approach to divine revelation in the medieval west, including its manifestation in liturgy and literature. This focus contributes to the tradition of scholarship, especially in the last decade, that has explored ways in which architecture and architectural motifs in other areas of medieval studies stand out as among the most pervasive and complex significations in medieval culture. There are many ways of studying these medieval accomplishments. Much recent scholarship has focused on technical, sociological, and political questions including, in the last twenty years, a whole range of theoretical perspectives that have stimulated discussion on the contexts and meanings of 1

D. Hurst, ed., CCL 119A (1969); trans. Seán Connolly, Translated Texts for Historians Series, Vol. 21 (Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 1995).

1

Introduction medieval art and culture. My focus is not meant to counter such approaches, to fit the great variety and complexity of medieval architectural expressions into a restrictive or all-encompassing structure, or to impose from without artificial formulations. Such approaches have come to be regarded as inadequate, since they risk underestimating the richness of purpose and meaning these accomplishments from our distant past offer. I do not, in other words, suggest that allegory is the only method or that divine revelation the only purpose relevant for understanding medieval art and architecture. Rather, by examining selected works from the disciplines of philosophy, theology, liturgy, architecture, and literature, my aim is to direct closer attention to the pervasiveness and complexities of an extraordinary intellectual and cultural achievement and to suggest a method of interdisciplinary research that reaches well beyond surface relationships between these disciplines. My use of the term “allegory” also requires qualification. The word itself combines two Greek words: allos (other) and agoreuein (to speak). The fundamental meaning conveyed by the word “allegory” (Gr. allegoria), then, is “to speak otherwise,” “to say other things,” “to say other than that which is meant” (Lat. alia oratio). The single use of the word (as a participle, allêgoroumena) in the New Testament appears in Paul’s letter to the Galatians (4.24) to designate the relation between the Old and New Covenants. Jerome (c. 347–420) translated Paul’s text as quae sunt per allegoriam dicta (“which things are said by an allegory”). Other Latin uses of the word and its related forms appear in writings of major theologians in the medieval west. Augustine (354–430), who identifies Saint Paul as his master in the craft and transformational spirituality of biblical exegesis, cites the passage from Galatians and glosses it with the phrase, quae sunt aliud ex alio significantia (“which things signify one thing by another”).2 Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) used the term alieniloquium, the Latin equivalent of the Greek combination allos + agoreuein (other-speaking), to describe allegory as a grammatical technique. Hugh of St.-Victor (1096–1141) also used alieniloquium to describe allegory, since aliud dicitur et aliud significatur (“one thing is said and another thing is signified”). The ancient and medieval writers used “allegory” and its related verbal and adjectival forms in conjunction with, and often as a substitution for, a whole range of other terms to designate identical or closely related meanings. These terms include hyponoia (“under-sense”), symbolon (“symbol”), figura (“figure”), signum (“sign”), imago (“image”), eikon (“icon”), and aenigma (“enigma”). It is important to emphasize that in the historical periods I treat in this book, these terms were not often clearly distinguished from one another in meaning. To cite one highly influential example in the western medieval tradition, Augustine demonstrates great flexibility in his use of allegoria and figura in his biblical exegesis, not taking care in a consistent way to distin2

De Trinitate XV 9; see also civ. Dei XV 18–19.

2

Introduction guish them from the Pauline terms typos (Lat. figura in I Corinthians 10.6) and typikôs (Lat. figura in I Corinthians 10.11) or from similitudo, umbra, sacramentum, mysteria, and imago.3 Jon Whitman cites examples from Hellenic and Hebraic writers: “The rhetorician Heraclitus uses both hyponoia and allegoria to describe his interpretation of Homer. So does the great Jewish exegete Philo, at about the same period, only with reference to the Bible, not Homer.”4 That these terms were used indiscriminately among major ancient and medieval writers indicates that for them there was great overlap in meaning. It is clear, however, that for these writers all of the terms “involve the intention of conveying or constructing meaning.”5 In this book I follow the example of the ancient and medieval writers, demonstrating an informed Augustinian flexibility, for example, in my use of words like “sign,” “figure,” “image,” and “symbol.” One additional aspect of my own flexibility is that, unlike many of the ancient and medieval writers, I selectively apply the multiple terms of allegorical language across the disciplines, so that these terms become part of my discussion not only of the biblical exegeses of Bede and Augustine, but also in my treatments of medieval liturgy, architecture, and poetry. As is well known, the term “allegory” has often been used to designate a technique or system of interpretation. Medieval theologians conceived a multi-leveled system of biblical exegesis, with terms such as “typological,” “tropological,” and “anagogical” serving as specific designations for different levels of meaning. Dante famously adapted the allegorical system used by the theologians for interpretation of his own great poem, La Divina Commedia. My interest in allegory also emphasizes the technique or system of conveying 3

4

5

Cf. Galatians 4.21ff; De utilitate credendi 3.8. See David Dawson’s article, “Figure, Allegory,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 366–368. Dawson observes, however, that there are instances when Augustine prefers figura to allegoria: “figura . . . preserves the significance of a historical reality.” Allegoria emphasizes “the relationship between biblical words and their spiritual referents,” but “omits the intermediate category of physical or historical reality.” Nonetheless, as Dawson points out, Augustine is inconsistent in his use of the two terms. See, for example, De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber 2.5; Conf. XXIV.37 and XXV.38. Allegory: The Dynamics of an Ancient and Medieval Technique (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1997), 266. My discussion here on the historical background of the term “alllegory” and related terms is based primarily on Whitman’s study; see especially Appendix I: “On the History of the Term ‘Allegory’.” The following sources have also been especially useful: Michael Murrin, The Veil of Allegory: Some Notes toward a Theory of Allegorical Rhetoric in the English Renaissance (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1969); Philip Rollinson, Classical Theories of Allegory and Christian Culture (Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP: 1981; Brighton, UK: Harvester, 1981). Classic studies on ancient and medieval uses of words and concepts designating symbolic meaning, such as metaphor, allegory, integumentum, and figura include Félix Buffière, Les Mythes d’Homère et la pensée grecque (Paris: Les Belles lettres, 1956); M. D. Chenu, Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century, trans. Jerome Taylor and L. K. Little (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1968); Jean Pépin, Mythe et allégorie: les origines grecques et les contestations judéo-chrétiennes (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1976); Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale: les quatre sens de l’Écriture, 4 vols (Paris: Aubier, 1959–64); and Winthrop Wetherbee, Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century: The Literary Influence of the School of Chartres (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1972). Rollinson, Classical Theories, 18.

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Introduction meaning, but it is also more specific: I focus on how the interpretive technique functions as an epistemological process, how specific philosophical and theological traditions define that process, and how it is manifested as a process – as a vehicle of spiritual transformation – in medieval liturgy, architecture, and literature. To clarify my interest even more specifically, I focus on the “screen” or veil of allegory itself in order to explore how it is philosophically and theologically possible to understand medieval architecture – including architectural forms and motifs in liturgy and literature – as eschatological landscapes and images of apocalyptic revelation. Finally, my frequent use in this book of the term “medieval culture,” may also require clarification. Here I follow the example of Richard K. Emmerson, who in his essay, “The Apocalypse in Medieval Culture,” explains that the term “allows for a wide-ranging analysis restricted neither by disciplinary categories nor by such artificial distinctions as religious/secular or elite/ popular.” The influence of the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, Emmerson observes, “is ubiquitous, all pervasive” and its “imagery is limited neither to religious texts nor even to Christian settings.”6

Visio pacis: Allegory and John’s Vision in the Book of Revelation The foundational biblical texts for the medieval building of the New Jerusalem include the description of sacred architecture in the Hebrew Bible – especially the desert Tabernacle (Exodus 25–40) and Solomon’s Temple (I Kings 5–8; cf. Ezekiel 40–42) – Paul’s teachings in the New Testament on allegoresis and, of course, John’s vision of the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation.7 The apocalyptic eschatology of medieval Christianity was driven by a hope to be reborn after divine Judgment into the eternal presence of a loving God, to become a child of Heaven, a worshipper of the Lamb in the New Jerusalem. The last chapters of the New Testament, chapters 21 and 22 of the Revelation to John, include a prophetic vision of the New Jerusalem and the state of being of its inhabitants: et civitatem sanctam Hierusalem novam vidi descendentem de caelo a Deo paratam sicut sponsam ornatam viro suo et audivi vocem magnam de throno dicentem ecce tabernaculum Dei cum hominibus et habitabit cum eis et ipsi populus eius erunt et ipse Deus cum eis erit eorum Deus et absterget Deus omnem lacriman ab oculis eorum et mors ultra non erit neque luctus neque clamor neque dolor erit ultra 6 7

The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed. Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 1992), 294–95. For Paul’s teachings on allegorical interpretation and on Pauline passages especially relevant for this study, see, for example, I Cor. 3.2; 3.10–17; 10; 16; II Cor. 5.1–10; Gal. 4.21ff; Eph. 2.19–22.

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Introduction quae prima abierunt et dixit qui sedebat in throno ecce nova facio omnia et dicit scribe quia haec verba fidelissima sunt et vera. (Revelation 21.2–5) [And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God with men and he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people; and God himself with them shall be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away. And he that sat on the throne, said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me: Write, for these words are most faithful and true.]8

In verse nine of the same chapter an angel speaks to John: veni ostendam tibi sponsam uxorem agni (Come, and I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb). The angel takes John up in spiritu in montem magnum et altum (in spirit to a great and high mountain) and shows him the New Jerusalem habentem claritatem Dei (having the glory of God) and lumen eius simile lapidi pretioso tamquam lapidi iaspidis sicut cristallum (his light like a precious stone, as to the jasper stone, even as crystal) (21.9–11). The verses that follow describe the city’s measurements, its twelve jeweled walls and foundations, its twelve pearl gates, and in chapter 22, its crystalline river and fruit-laden tree of life. The exquisite complexity of John’s apocalyptic vision of the New Jerusalem has encouraged varied interpretations, both symbolic and historical, since it was first compiled and written down sometime in the first century.9 Biblical commentators, drawing on a rich tradition of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, have sought to understand the figurative limits of John’s account. Some of its interpretive difficulties include, for example, the multiple designations of the New Jerusalem, cited variously as the civitatem sanctam (holy city) (21.2), the tabernaculum Dei (tabernacle of God) (21.3), the throno (throne) of God (21.5), and the sponsam uxorem agni (bride, the wife of the lamb) (21.9). Further, the detailed material descriptions of the New Jerusalem and the apparent imminence of the apocalyptic event – tempus enim prope est (for the time is at hand) (1.3), when the New Jerusalem will descend onto a high mountain – have challenged believers in their efforts to distinguish literal from symbolic meanings. Explanations within the text itself – like the angel’s account of the woman sitting upon the scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns (17.7–18) – are, in fact, less than helpful, since these 8 9

See editorial note for source details. For a survey of some of the most influential medieval interpretations of the Book of Revelation, see the collection of essays and accompanying bibliographies in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed. Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn.

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Introduction explanations lead inevitably to still further questions. Of course, this method of literary narrative – in which questions arise that prompt explanations, which in turn lead to more questions – is a common feature of apocalyptic literature.10 As we shall see later in this Introduction, medieval Christian exegetes, like Bede in his commentaries on the Mosaic Tabernacle and on Solomon’s Temple, viewed the multiple significations that John ascribes to the New Jerusalem as a genuine experience of divine truth. The cultural and intellectual achievements of the medieval Christian world give prolific evidence of the pervasiveness of this apocalyptic eschatology. Yet, it was the church buildings and their liturgical programs that most comprehensively and dramatically manifested a hope for eternal union with God. After more than six centuries, the extant buildings – so many of them having survived neglect, corrosion, and various forms of desecration – remain among the world’s most remarkable spectacles of visual and, through their liturgies, aural splendor. One motivation for this focus in medieval architecture and related art forms stemmed in great part from biblical accounts or descriptions – not the least of which was Revelation 21–22 – of God’s elect community, accounts that repeatedly emphasize an inseparable relationship between salvation, sacramental liturgy, and architectural forms. The colors, the textures, the supremely authoritative instructions, the careful designs, the intimate, familiar quality of the vessels for liturgical service, all provided nourishment for the medieval imagination in its impressive drive to make manifest a spiritual world. The architectural expression of this spirituality and the complementary liturgical expression played out within the buildings’ stone surroundings did not, of course, spring ab ovo in the contemporary world of the Middle Ages. In this Introduction I turn briefly and selectively to important sources of influence from ancient Rome and the Hebrew Bible. In addition, one enduring subject of scholarship on the medieval period is the debate on the possible influence of Platonic ideas upon the design and symbolic programs of medieval church architecture.11 Earlier in the last century, art historians working within a scholarly tradition whose representatives included Erwin Panofsky and Otto von Simson argued that the great churches of the medieval period were visual manifestations of Platonic ideas mingled with Christian beliefs.12 Influential 10 The thirteenth-century Queste del Saint Graal demonstrates this technique well. Knights from

Arthur’s court in search of the Holy Grail seek guidance from “helpful” hermits, whose explanations of their mysterious adventures send them (and readers) on their way with only more questions. Albert Pauphilet, ed. (Paris: Librarie Honoré Champion, 1984); trans. P. M. Matarasso (London and New York: Penguin, 1969). 11 Throughout this study I use the terms “Platonism” and “Platonist” in a broad sense to refer comprehensively to the larger tradition that includes figures, like Plotinus, whom many modern scholars refer to as “neoplatonists.” Plotinus himself looked to Plato as the chief philosophic source of his own ideas, and he called himself not a “neoplatonist” but a Platonist. The term “neoplatonism” can be misleading since it does not distinguish any particular development of Plato’s philosophy among many, both pagan and Christian. 12 Erwin Panofsky, ed. and trans., Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and its Art Trea-

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Introduction as this thesis was to a generation of art historians, it was too general in its presentation and lacked sufficient practical or technical evidence to support it. Scholars have continued, however, to study philosophical and theological traditions that can inform us of both the conception and the interpretation of medieval church architecture. Nigel Hiscock, for example, in his recent study offers compelling evidence to support a reconsideration of Platonic philosophical traditions in studies not only of the design and symbolic programs of medieval church architecture, but also of the relations between architecture and other medieval art forms.13 His study of medieval number theory, geometry, and architecture leads persuasively to the conclusion that “the application of geometry to architectural design was an expression of metaphysical beliefs and . . . these [beliefs] were fundamentally Platonic in content.”14 Complementing Hiscock’s work, musicologists provide liturgical evidence for the Platonic influence on the symbolic meanings of medieval churches. Margot Fassler, for example, has studied Augustinian reform and the twelfth-century liturgy at the Abbey of St.-Victor in Paris. Anne Walters Robertson gives evidence for the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius’ writings on medieval liturgy at the Royal Abbey of St.-Denis just outside of Paris.15 These prominent examples of Platonically informed liturgies can only be fully understood, of course, in terms of Christian salvation history. One clear liturgical confirmation of the apocalyptic and eschatological components of that history, and a subject to which I devote a chapter of this book, is the medieval liturgy for the dedication of a Christian church. These examples of scholarly directions in the last decade or so on medieval architectural history and musicology support a premise of my own study: the medieval conception of the church building as a symbol of the New Jerusalem was informed and strengthened by a Christian adaptation of Platonic teachings on the symbol. The most sophisticated tradition of Platonism that is central to this adaptation is, I argue, represented in the writings of Plotinus (204/5–270). It is my contention, as well, that medieval liturgy facilitated the appropriation of Platonic thought by providing both a textual and a visual means for the builders and worshipers to qualify the Platonic symbol in terms of Christian faith. In Part I of this study I provide a philosophical and theological foundation for my analysis of liturgy, architecture, and literature in the later chapters. In Chapter One, the philosophical focus is Plotinus’ masterful reworking of pre-

sures, 2nd edn by Gerda Panofsky-Soergel (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1979). Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order, 2nd edn (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1962). 13 The Wise Master Builder: Platonic Geometry in Plans of Medieval Abbeys and Cathedrals (Aldershot, UK and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 2000), 39. 14 Ibid. 39. 15 Fassler, Gothic Song: Victorine Sequences and Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century Paris (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993); Robertson, The Service Books of the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis: Images of Ritual and Music in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991).

7

Introduction vious Hellenic ideas on art and the sensible world. Plotinus’ teachings, collected and edited by his disciple Porphyry under the title Enneads, have received too little attention in studies of western medieval traditions; yet, they are the most important source for an understanding of Augustine’s Platonism. Augustine (354–430), the chief figure in the transmission of Platonism to the medieval Christian west, learned from Plotinus how cognition of the sensory world moves the soul to recognize and return to its spiritual source. Plotinus’ teachings are, therefore, vital to an understanding of how Platonism was appropriated by medieval Christians in the conception and symbolic interpretation of their church buildings. To further an understanding of medieval efforts to represent the New Jerusalem on earth, I begin this study, therefore, by returning to the main source of Augustine’s Platonism, the writings of Plotinus. Saint Augustine is the vital link between Plotinian metaphysics and western Christianity. In Chapter Two, I focus on Augustine’s transformation of Plotinus’ sacramental view of the cosmos. Augustine’s mature teachings in De civitate Dei receive my primary attention, since it is in this work that Augustine presents the most extensive theological foundation for the medieval representation of the New Jerusalem. As influential as Plotinus’ philosophical system was on Augustine’s understanding of the relations between the invisible, sacred realm and the temporal, visible realm, it was nonetheless inadequate for Augustine the Christian theologian. Central to Augustine’s theology is a clear concept of Church, or a community of the faithful, whose members are full participants in the Christian drama of salvation history. Plotinus’ system, by contrast, does not rely upon a concept of religious community, always on pilgrimage to a desired apocalyptic end. Augustine transforms the elaborate Plotinian journey of the soul to include an identification of the human being as a citizen of either one of two cities: the City of Babylon or the City of God. The Church on earth serves as a sacramental sign, carrying out Christ’s incarnational mission. Plotinian and Augustinian teachings on the symbol provide a philosophical and theological foundation for later medieval liturgical, architectural, and literary achievements that identify ecclesiastical buildings not only as sacred spaces, but more specifically as earthy representations of the New Jerusalem. Part II of this book treats liturgical and architectural contributions to the medieval effort to build Heaven on earth. In Chapter Three, I turn to an important application of this tradition: the thirteenth-century liturgy for the feast of the dedication of the Royal Abbey of St.-Denis near Paris. This liturgy is a carefully crafted work of literary and dramatic art that serves to manifest its chief purpose as a model of applied theology. The prayers, readings, objects, images, ritual gestures, and processions all work together to identify the church building as an eschatological and apocalyptic landscape. The medieval liturgy at St.-Denis is an especially appropriate one to examine in this context. Abbot Suger’s famous writings on the twelfthcentury rebuilding of this church, which include a commentary on its 8

Introduction dedication liturgy, remain important documents for our understanding of St.-Denis’ formative role in the development of the Gothic style.16 In addition, even if Suger’s writings do not reveal, as scholars have argued, a specialized, scholarly application of Dionysian Platonism such as we find in the writings of his monastic colleagues at the Abbey of St.-Victor in Paris, they do demonstrate his familiarity with the liturgy celebrated in his church.17 This familiarity is especially evident in Suger’s comments on the dedication liturgy itself.18 My interest in medieval representations of the New Jerusalem led me to a study of private chapels, which were an especially prevalent architectural genre in the later centuries of western medieval Europe. These miniature churches, most often built within existing churches, took formal – if not equivalent functional – inspiration from the royal chapels built in the Ile-de-France and in London. In England, a whole architectural sub-genre arose – the chantry chapels, where Masses for the souls of the dead were sung or “chanted.” The chapels were the specific locations in which worshipers practiced a distinct form of eschatology. Yet, the chapels and their accompanying spiritual components have been largely neglected in studies of architectural history and the literature of divine revelation. The chantry movement in England, which I treat in Chapter Four, remained a dominant strain of Christian piety until the religious reforms carried out under Henry VIII (1491–1547) and Edward VI (1547–53). With the reforms, the chantry institutions were suppressed, and most of the chapels were dismantled or destroyed. As a result, little visual evidence exists today of the chantry movement’s widespread popularity in late medieval England. This widespread loss of visual evidence of the architectural past partly explains why the chantry movement has received so little scholarly attention.19 What needs to be more widely recognized, however, is that this movement represents a unique stage in the evolving medieval view of how the living and the departed faithful enter into the sacred community of the Celestial City. An outstanding exception to the near disappearance of the chantry movement’s architectural expression survives in the Decorated choir of Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire, England. In Chapter Four I examine Tewkesbury Abbey’s three stunning chantry chapels, two built in the fourteenth century, and one in the fifteenth century. The chapels were the private, miniature churches of the abbey’s medieval patrons, the Despensers, whose tombs are housed in them. Along with other superbly constructed funerary monuments, the chapels are clustered around the high altar, facing a 16 Liber de rebus in administratione sua gestis; Libellus alter de consecratione ecclesiæ sancti

dionysii, Ordinatio A.D. MCXL vel MCXLI confirmata, in Panofsky, Abbot Suger, 40–137.

17 The First Ordinary of the Royal Abbey of St.-Denis in France, Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine 526

(Fribourg, Switzerland: Fribourg UP, 1990).

18 Libellus alter de consecratione ecclesiæ sancti dionysii, in Panofsky, Abbot Suger. 19 A general account of the chantry movement was introduced in 1947 by G. H. Cook, Medieval

Chantries and Chantry Chapels, rev. edn (London: Phoenix House, 1963).

9

Introduction fourteenth-century east window that depicts the Despensers standing alongside biblical figures at the Last Judgment. Directly overhead is a brightly painted liern vault, whose intricate crossings resemble the patterns of a great rose window. These architectural, iconographic, and decorative features identify the church as a late medieval apocalyptic and eschatological landscape. Not only does the Tewkesbury choir depend in part upon the earlier architectural innovations at St.-Denis, it also provides, I argue, an unusually specific link with a late medieval literary tradition. This book concludes where my interest in the relations between medieval architecture, allegory, and revelation began to take shape: the philosophical and liturgical contexts of the late fourteenth-century English poem Pearl and its three companion poems, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Cleanness (or Purity). Since their earliest editions were published in the nineteenth century, these poems, which are written in a north Midlands dialect and exist in a single manuscript (British Museum MS. Cotton Nero A. x), have inspired a large body of scholarship. Most details about their creation, however, remain obscure. Overlooked by literary medievalists as a cultural force associated with the creation of these poems is the all but vanished art and spirituality of the chantry movement. This association is revealed especially in Pearl, the main focus of Part III. A masterfully crafted dream vision, Pearl describes the spiritual progress of a man grieving over the death of a beloved young daughter. Near the end of the poem, just before the dreamer awakens, he is granted a vision of the New Jerusalem that is modeled closely on the vision of John in the Book of Revelation. The poem, I argue, is a uniquely stunning and sophisticated literary example of the architectural approach to divine revelation in the medieval west. Its author attempted to push the boundaries of literature beyond the spoken and the written word, to move literature aggressively into the realm of the visual, the liturgical, and the architectural. Pearl is a work of ecclesiastical architecture in literary form. Specifically, it is a remarkable attempt to give literary expression to the chantry movement, including its specialized architectural component. In Pearl, poetry becomes a reader’s private New Jerusalem. The other three poems of the manuscript provide further evidence of these associations.20 Taken together, this special collection of fourteenth-century alliterative poems reveals the author’s immersion in the spirituality and architectural environment of the chantry movement, drawing yet another area of human endeavor into the medieval world of architecture, allegory, and revelation.21 20 The fourteenth-century alliterative poem St. Erkenwald (British Library MS. Harley 2250 fols

72v–25v) also demonstrates close association with the chantry movement. I include discussion of the poem in Chapter Six. 21 My study of the chantry movement, its manifestation at Tewkesbury Abbey and in the literary art of the Pearl poet, uncovers specific political contexts that helped shape late medieval apocalyptic eschatology in England. In a recent article, I provide evidence that links the author of Pearl with the Despensers of Tewkesbury Abbey and with the court of Richard II, placing this poet and at

10

Introduction

Architecture and Allegory: Vitruvius, Virgil, and Bede The complex relations between medieval architecture, allegory, and revelation may be usefully introduced by the writings of two Romans of classical antiquity and by the exegesis of Bede, the eighth-century Northumbrian monk and scholar, on the sacred architecture of the Hebrew Bible. The Roman authors, both motivated by the leadership of Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), produced texts that have become fundamental to our historical understanding of architecture and allegory: Vitruvius’ De architectura and Virgil’s Aeneid. Bede’s commentaries on the Mosaic Tabernacle (Exodus 25–40) and Solomon’s Temple (I Kings 5–8) initiated a rich medieval tradition of allegorical interpretations of the ancient Hebrew structures. When examined together, these writings of Vitruvius, Virgil, and Bede provide a conceptual way of entry into a vast and complex cultural achievement: the architectural approach to divine revelation in the medieval west.

The Roman Authors After Octavian defeated Marc Antony at Actium in 31 BCE, the victorious princeps, soon to take the sacral title of Augustus, engaged the talents and ambitions of artists and public officials to restore Rome politically and culturally. During the subsequent period of Roman peace, restoration, and creativity – a period historians refer to as the Pax Augusta (or Pax Romana) – Octavian sought to create a new world order. He wished to show the Roman Empire that peace and prosperity were the hallmarks of his reign, not civil wars, which had plagued the Roman world for more than two decades. Among the most powerful means Octavian used to convey these ideas were the public arts of architecture and literature.22 Vitruvius (born c. 80/70 BCE) wrote his treatise De architectura libri decem (Ten Books On Architecture) during the first decade of the Pax Augusta (c. 30–20 BCE).23 He had been a staff architect under Octavian’s adoptive father, Julius Caesar, and under Octavian, Vitruvius received a commoda, or stipend, which allowed him time to study and write. His completion of De architectura, which he dedicated to Octavian, may have helped secure him a position as an architect on the cura aquarum, the system of least one of the alliterative masterpieces of the late English Middle Ages more firmly in a specific social and political context. See Ann R. Meyer, “The Despensers and the Gawain Poet: A Gloucestershire Link to the Alliterative Master of the Northwest Midlands,” Chaucer Review 35 (2001): 413–429. 22 P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans. A. Shapiro (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1988), esp. ch. 3; D. Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996), 110–111. 23 Frank Granger, ed. and trans., Vitruvius On Architecture, 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library 25 (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1970). For the most recent translation, see Ingrid D. Rowland, Vitruvius: Ten Books on Architecture (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999).

11

Introduction Roman aqueducts.24 In his preface to Book IV, Vitruvius takes fond credit for being the first author to set out (producere) in a systematic, coherent way the discipline of architecture “in its full order” (disciplinae corpus ad perfectem ordinationem). It remains the only complete treatise on architecture that survives from classical antiquity. Vitruvius’ work, perhaps conservative in its architectural vision compared with the forms that emerged in the subsequent century, is a foundation text for a scholarly understanding of architectural history in the western world.25 Its influence in classical antiquity and the Middle Ages was limited, but according to one architectural historian, a judgment that reflects scholarly consensus, “the whole literature on architectural theory from the Renaissance onwards has been based on Vitruvius or on a dialogue with his ideas.”26 The vibrant political and cultural environment in which Vitruvius worked also witnessed the great flowering of Augustan poetry, whose chief representative is Virgil (70–19 BCE). According to one familiar tradition of interpretation, Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid, is a literary monument to the glory and promise of Rome’s rebirth under Octavian’s leadership. In Book VI Aeneas, led by the Sybil-prophetess at Cumae and with golden bough in hand, journeys to the underworld, to the world of the dead and yet unborn. He meets the shade of his father, Anchises, who shows him the Elysian fields, a place of peace enveloped with its own light and reserved for souls judged to have lived virtuously on earth. Anchises reveals to Aeneas the spiritual composition of the universe and the progress of human souls from death through purgation to rebirth. These mysteries are disclosed to Aeneas through images specific to his identity and to the nation he is to found. He views a pageant of Roman heroes – his own descendants – and learns of the divinely ordained destiny of Rome to rule the world. In Virgil’s poetry, the golden age of Augustus is one of the most formidable glories of that destiny: Hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis, Augustus Caesar, divi genus, aurea condet Saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arva Saturno quondam, super et Garamantas et Indos Proferet imperium; jacet extra sidera tellus, Extra anni solisque vias, ubi caelifer Atlas Axem umero torrquet stellis ardentibus aptum. (791–97)

24 L. Callebat, ed., Vitruve de l’Architecture (Paris: Les Belles lettres, 1973), ix–x. 25 See, for example, Rowland, 11–13 and Hanno-Walter Kruft, A History of Architectural Theory

From Vitruvius to the Present, trans. Ronald Taylor, Elsie Callander and Antony Wood (New York: Princeton Architectural P, 1994), 20–29. Kruft’s work was originally published under the title Geschichte der Architekturtheorie: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1985). 26 Kruft points out that one plausible example of Vitruvian influence on a medieval building is the Ottonian architecture of St Michael’s, Holdesheim (31).

12

Introduction [This, this is the man, whom often you hear is to be promised to you, Augustus Caesar, the offspring of a god, who again shall build up the golden age in Latium, through lands once ruled by Saturn, and shall extend his empire over the Garamantes and Indians; their land lies beyond the stars, beyond the yearly course of the sun, where heaven-bearing Atlas on his shoulder turns the heavens studded with burning stars.]27

Book VI of the Aeneid, the pivotal center of the poem, is a book of prophecy and revelation where the mysteries of life, death, and rebirth are unveiled to Aeneas. Whereas his time of love with Dido, Queen of Carthage, is a time so heightened by unseen forces that the advance of human civilization is suspended, Aeneas’ journey to the underworld is a moment out of time when a beloved father discloses to his son the meaning of past, present, and future. Coinciding with the Pax Augusta in Rome was another revealed prophecy: the birth of Christ in Judea (7–6 BCE).28 Medieval Christians in the west viewed this historical correlation not as mere coincidence but as a sign of divine Providence. Their allegiance to papal Rome found justification in the view that the princeps of the Christian church was the rightful, corrective successor to the ancient Roman emperors. Further, the extraordinary influence that Virgil’s poetry had on medieval literature was a result, in part, of the historical association between the Pax Augusta and the birth of Christ. In his Fourth Eclogue, Virgil wrote verses that foretell the birth of a male child – a leader and savior. Medieval Christians interpreted these verses as a prophecy of Christ’s birth. Hence, the medieval west embraced the pagan Virgil as a prophet in the Hebrew tradition, setting him in company with David and Isaiah.29 To defend Virgil’s poetry against its own pagan roots, medieval Christians applied to it the same interpretive methods they used to read the Hebrew Bible. Allegory transformed Hebrew scripture into the Christian Old Testament, a preparation for the fulfillment of the Old Law through Christ and his Church. Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue and the Aeneid thus became among the most frequently allegorized works of secular literature in the Middle Ages. While the eclogue was interpreted as a prophecy of Christ’s coming, medieval commentaries interpret Aeneas’ journey from Troy to Italy as an allegory of the soul’s ascent to divine truth.30 In the fourteenth century, Dante bestowed 27 Translation mine. 28 In the sixth century a Roman monk known as “Dennis the Short” calculated the birth of Christ to

have occurred in 754 of the Roman era (ab urbe condita [AUC] “from the founding of the city” of Rome), which is generally fixed in terms of the Christian era at 753 BCE. Dennis’ estimate has been proven to be inaccurate; modern scholars set the birth date of Jesus at about 6 BCE). See, for example, the article, “Reckoning Time,” The New English Bible (New York: Oxford UP, 1976), 35–37. 29 Domenico Comparetti, Vergil in the Middle Ages, trans. E. F. M. Benecke (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1997), I, ch. VII, esp. pp. 102–3. 30 Bernardus Silvestris and Fulgentius produced two of the major medieval commentaries in this tradition. See The Commentary on the First Six Books of the “Aeneid” of Vergil Commonly Attrib-

13

Introduction upon Virgil the high honor of being the chief philosophical and literary guide for his own Christian literary monument: Or va, ch’un sol volere è d’ambedue: Tu duca, tu segnore e tu maestro. [Now on, for a single will is in us both; you are my leader, you my master and my teacher.]31

For Dante the golden age of Augustus prefigured and prepared the world for the golden age of Christianity when Christ lived on earth and revealed to the faithful God’s mercy and His promise of eternal salvation. Virgil walks in the darkness of pre-Christian antiquity, but he carries the lantern that Dante follows. Virgil provides the light of poetry that prepares Dante for his revelation of Christian mysteries. Vitruvius’ De architectura did not achieve the exalted status that Virgil’s poetry did in the medieval west. It was not until the Renaissance that Vitruvius’ treatise was widely read, interpreted, and immortalized in the buildings constructed by humanist architects.32 Yet, while Vitruvius’ medieval influence may not have been greatly distinguished architecturally, his ideas may be recognized in other forms of medieval artistic and intellectual expression, in ways not unlike those that helped validate the pagan origins of Virgil’s poetry. For example, in his treatise Vitruvius endorses architecture as a “liberal art.” He insists that the professional architect be a lifelong student, as Vitruvius himself was, of the encyclos disciplina, the liberal arts, including history, philosophy, music, and above all, letters (I.3.11). If the architect is to construct the ideal monument, the summum templum architecturae (the loftiest sanctuary of architecture), he must be a master both in fabrica (craft or technical skill) and in ratiocinatione (theory or reasoning) (I.1.1).33 It is not only a result, however, of his broad education in the liberal arts that Vitruvius’ ideal architect achieves the summum templum architecturae. In addition, and more fundamentally, such a creation may be achieved because, in Vitruvius’ view, nature’s forms mirror cosmic designs. The architect’s work is, ideally, an image of the architecture of the universe. In Book IX Vitruvius equates the laws that govern the cosmos and the planets with the rules of architecture: uted to Bernardus Silvestris, ed. J. W. and E. F. Jones (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1977), trans. Earl G. Schreiber and Thomas E. Maresca (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1979); Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, Expositio virgilianae continentiae secondum philosophos moralis, Opera, ed. Rudolphos Helm (Leipzig: Teubner, 1898); trans. Leslie George Whitbread, Fulgentius the Mythographer (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1971). For a discussion of the history of allegorical interpretation of the Aeneid from antiquity through the Renaissance, see Michael M. Murrin, The Allegorical Epic: Essays in its Decline and Fall (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980). 31 La Divina Commedia, Inferno II (139–40); The Divine Comedy; Inferno, trans. Charles S. Singleton, Bollingen Series LXXX (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1970). 32 Kruft, 30–40. 33 Trans. Rowland.

14

Introduction Mundus autem est omnium naturae rerum conceptio summa caelumque sideribus conformatum. Id volvitur continenter circum terram atque mare per axis cardines extremos. Namque in his locis naturalis potestas ita architecta est conlocavitque cardines tamquam centra. (2) [Now the cosmos is the all-encompassing system of everything in nature, and also the firmament, which is formed of the constellations and the courses of the stars. This revolves ceaselessly around the earth and sea at the extreme hinges of the axis. For thus the power of nature has acted as architect, and she has placed the hinges as central axes.]34

An architect’s summum templum architecturae is, then, a mirror of the cosmos itself. Vitruvius never explicitly states this analogy; nor does he include its tempting interpretive correlations: the corresponding analogies of God as architect and, in turn, the human architect as imitator of God. Nonetheless, his identification of cosmic laws with the rules of architecture and his designation of nature as architect of the universe prepared later readers to make these extended associations for themselves. Indeed, these mirrored parallels between divine or cosmic creation and human artistry became familiar features of medieval aesthetic theory.35 The aspects of Vitruvius’ thought that endow the architect and his work with absolute or ideal values also contribute to the treatise’s status as a hybrid genre.36 De architectura is, of course, a technical handbook, but it also has literary and philosophical dimensions.37 Indeed, it may be possible to discover Vitruvian influence – if not primarily in medieval architecture – in medieval literature, philosophy, and related disciplines. Stefan Schuler has recently shown, for example, how the physical location of Vitruvius’ work in a medieval library reveals much about the reception of that work’s ideas – how the work, in other words, was thought to be useful. Interestingly, a ninth-century inventory at Reichenau shows that Vitruvius’ treatise was first placed with works by the church fathers; later it appears with related arts such as geometry and astrology.38 The treatise, in its reception and status as a hybrid work, combines elements of literature and rhetoric with philosophy and the mechanical arts, giving scholars fresh insight into one fundamental feature of medieval artistic and intellectual culture: the boundaries between the medieval disciplines of

34 35 36 37 38

Trans. Rowland. Kruft, 24, 453 nn. 67–73. Rowland, 1. Ibid. Vitruv im Mittelalter: Die Reziption von “De architectura” von der Antike bis in die frühe Neuzeit (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 1999), 114. Schuler also argues that Vitruvius’ ideas were transmitted to the Middle Ages and to the Renaissance through Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum maius. It was through Vincent’s encyclopedia that Vitruvius became “a widely diffused source of knowledge for the practice of a mechanical art” (8). Cited in a review of Schuler’s book by Christine Smith, Speculum 76, no. 3 (July 2001): 790–91.

15

Introduction learning and human expression were remarkably fluid and dynamic. Architecture, together with its related arts, gives special credibility to this fluidity.

Sacred Architecture of the Hebrew Bible and the Exegesis of Bede One area of study that reflects this dynamic relationship between architecture and other forms of medieval artistic and intellectual expression is the tradition of medieval biblical commentary. Biblical exegesis is also a hybrid genre, uniting the disciplines of literary criticism and philosophical inquiry with theology. Allegorical expositions of biblical architecture may even provide evidence of Vitruvian influence and of the overall development and transmission of architectural theory during the medieval period. One source of such discovery may be found in the rich tradition of medieval exegesis on the Mosaic Tabernacle (Exodus 25–40) and Solomon’s Temple (I Kings 5–8). Modern scholarship credits the Venerable Bede (673–735) with initiating in a notably ambitious way this exegetical tradition. Nor is it surprising that Bede did so, given the interest he displays in architecture and allegory throughout his writings. Of related interest are intriguing historical links between Bede’s monastic career and the manuscript tradition of Vitruvius’ treatise on architecture. The oldest extant manuscript of De architectura, now in the British Museum Library (Harleian 2767), dates from the eighth century. Its provenance is uncertain, but one familiar line of argument cites evidence that the treatise was carried by Abbot Ceolfrith (or Ceolfrid), a mentor to Bede, from Italy to the joint monastic communities at Wearmouth-Jarrow, England, where Bede spent his life as a monk and scholar.39 Here Vitruvius’ treatise would have been copied, read, and circulated. Although we have no direct evidence that Bede read the treatise, we know that Alcuin (735–804), Bede’s younger monastic neighbor and intellectual colleague, did. Alcuin refers to Vitruvius’ text twice in his writings.40 Like Bede, Alcuin was an Anglo-Saxon monk and brilliant scholar from Northumbia. Born in the year Bede died, Alcuin became the most distinguished student and (later) master at the monastery school in York, which had inherited Bede’s works. Under Alcuin’s direction the school became one of the most celebrated centers of learning in late eighth-century Europe. Its brilliance was recognized by Charlemagne, who commissioned Alcuin as the intellectual leader of what we now refer to as the Carolingian Renaissance. Alcuin may very well have come into contact with De architectura through the close ties that existed between his monastic school at York and Bede’s 39 J. D. A. Ogilvy, Books Known to the English, 597–1066 (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of

America, 1967), 260–261; Ogilvy, Books Known to Anglo-Latin Writers from Aldhelm to Alcuin (670–804) (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1936), 90; L. W. Jones has argued against the Wearmouth-Jarrow attribution of BM. Harleian 2767; see Jones, “The Provenience of the London Vitruvius,” Speculum 7 (1932): 64. 40 See Ogilvy, 1967, 260–61.

16

Introduction scriptorium at Wearmouth-Jarrow. Further investigation is necessary, of course, on the question of Bede’s possible exposure to Vitruvius’ treatise, but an important point here is that the two authors are bound by a shared adherence to a single principle of interpretation, one that Vitruvius also encourages in Book I of his treatise: Cum in omnibus enim rebus, tum maxime etiam in architectura haec duo insunt, quod significatur et quod significat. (I.1.3) [In all things, but especially in architecture, there are two inherent categories: the signified and the signifier.]

Bede’s exegesis of biblical architecture elaborates upon the kinds of analogies Vitruvius makes between cosmic creation and human artistry.41 In his commentaries De tabernaculo (c. 721–25) and De templo (c. 729–31) (on the Exodus Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple respectively) Bede embraces a Christian allegorical method to lead the reader from the ancient Hebrew formulations to contemplation of the New Jerusalem.42 These commentaries are the first in the medieval tradition to provide complete allegorical interpretations of the sacred Hebrew structures, and they exemplify the Northumbrian scholar’s “exceptionally architectural approach to Revelation.”43 As such, these commentaries together with their biblical subjects serve as a fitting transition from this introductory discussion of ancient concepts of architecture and allegory to an examination in the chapters that follow on how Christian buildings in the medieval west were understood as great symbols of the New Jerusalem. The church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was the architectural jewel of medieval Byzantium. Its construction and partial reconstruction were carried out during the reign of Justinian (527–65), who took special pride in its technical and ornamental splendors. At the church’s consecration ceremony in 537, the emperor, reveling in the achievement, attributed to himself

41 Rowland points out that Vitruvius’ use of the terms “signified” and “signifier” is derived from

Epicurean philosophy, referring “to the necessity of beginning all scientific investigations with a clear definition of terms.” Vitruvius used these terms specifically to mark the difference between that which one speaks about (quod significatur), here a building, and the system of rational exposition one employs in interpreting it (quod significat). My suggestion here is that Bede anticipated modern critics by interpreting Vitruvius’ phrase, quod significatur as “the ‘passive’ work of architecture itself” and quod significat as the meaning “it ‘actively’ expresses” (135). See also Arthur G. Holder, trans. Bede: On the Tabernacle, Translated Texts for Historians, vol. 18 (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1994), xv. 42 De tabernaculo, ed. D. Hurst, CCL, 119A (1969), trans. Holder, Bede: On the Tabernacle; De templo, ed. D. Hurst, CCL, 119A (1969), trans. Seán Connolly, Bede: On the Temple, Translated Texts for Historians Series, Vol. 21 (Liverpool, Liverpool UP, 1995). 43 On Bede’s architectural approach to Revelation, see Charles W. Jones, “Some Introductory Remarks on Bede’s Commentary on Genesis,” Sacris Erudi 19 (1969–70): 115–98. Quoted in Holder, xv.

17

Introduction even greater success than that of the earthly architect of Yahweh’s Temple: “Solomon,” he is reputed to have claimed, “I have surpassed thee.”44 Justinian’s sense of material achievement, immodest as it may have been, highlights a fundamental aspect of the medieval view of sacred architecture. Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem and its original model, the Mosaic Tabernacle described in Exodus, are the supreme sacred places of ancient Hebrew worship. Of even greater importance to medieval Christians is the biblical authority that identifies these edifices as earthly sanctuaries constructed by human hands, but whose design, function, and contents were dictated by God. Yahweh is the true architect, the divine genius behind it all. As a result, the Tabernacle and the Temple are works of architecture that necessarily require particular reverence from Christians, who, in accordance with New Testament teachings, view the human body itself as a temple of the Holy Spirit, as the earthly fulfillment of Old Testament sacred architecture. One passage that demonstrates well a Christian reworking of the traditional Hebrew images occurs in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians: secundum gratiam Dei quae data est mihi ut sapiens architectus fundamentum posui alius autem superaedificat unusquisque autem videat quomodo superaedificet fundamentum enim aliud nemo potest ponere praeter id quod positum est qui est Christus Iesus ... si quis autem templum Dei violaverit disperdet illum Deus templum enim Dei sanctum est quod estis vos. (I Corinthians 3.10–17) [According to the grace of God that is given to me, as a wise architect, I have laid the foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid; which is Christ Jesus . . . But if any man violate the temple of God: him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are.]

Of course, the ancient Hebrew buildings are no longer extant and can only be known through their biblical descriptions. For medieval Christians, this apparent limitation posed no difficulties of belief or understanding – quite the contrary; the buildings’ uniquely scriptural existence ascribes to them an even higher sacred status than their earthly survival would have done. The sacred

44 It has been argued recently that “the Justinian building with its first dome corresponded in the

dimensions of its plan and height to the traditional proportions of Solomon’s Temple, in which the ratio of length to width and of width to height was 3:1 and 1:15.” On this subject, see Kruft, 32.

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Introduction architecture of the ancient Hebrews exists in the mind’s eye alone, beyond what is merely visible. It exists in the realm of faith. In Exodus, chapters 25–35, Yahweh instructs Moses on the design, function, and contents of a portable tent, a tabernacle that is to be constructed and carried by the Israelites in their desert wanderings. The structure is to serve as a sanctuary, a place of rest and worship. It will contain objects made from the finest and most precious of earthly materials, such as linen and gold. Its deepest and most sacred chamber, the Holy of Holies, will be separated from other chambers by a veil, behind which will be kept the Ark of the Covenant, the representation of God’s testimony to His people. The Tabernacle in its entirety will establish God’s presence among them: Yahweh says to Moses, “facientque mihi sanctuarium et habitabo in medio eorum” (“And they shall make me a sanctuary, and I will dwell in the midst of them”) (Exodus 25.8). In return, God’s people will obey and worship Him. The Tabernacle will be a site of liturgical ritual and sacrifice, a place where the human longing for peace and communication with God finds fulfillment. This longing is simply and eloquently expressed by the Psalmist: Domine quis habitabit in tabernaculo tuo aut quis requiescet in monte sancto tuo. (Psalm 14.1) [Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? Or who shall rest in thy holy hill?]

This longing for a home with Yahweh is to be partially appeased by the portable nature of the Tabernacle. God’s house will not be static; it moves with the ancient Israelites in their exile. It communicates, therefore, Yahweh’s availability to His people and His choice to make His home with them. The Tabernacle is a place where they can be assured of encountering divinity. Solomon’s Temple, like the Exodus Tabernacle, is a place of mutual contact between God and His people. Here Yahweh descends; here worshippers find refuge. The great theophany upon Mount Sinai was the necessary impetus for Moses’ mission, and that mission included the intent to move on from Sinai and wander in exile with Yahweh. The Temple of Jerusalem, strikingly similar to the Tabernacle in its function, design, and contents, was built on the summit of Mount Sion, a location that also recalls Yahweh’s revelation to Moses on Sinai. Yet the Temple is meant to be a place of actual physical stability, of even more pronounced, concentrated rest and worship after Israel’s exilic wanderings. It is here, in the Jerusalem Temple, that Yahweh makes his permanent home: quoniam elegit Dominus Sion elegit eam in habitationem sibi haec requies mea in saeculum saeculi. (Psalm 131.13–14) [For the Lord hath chosen Sion/ he hath chosen it for his dwelling./ This is my rest for ever and ever.] 19

Introduction Yahweh chooses Solomon – whose name means “man of peace” – as Temple architect. The word for Temple itself becomes synonymous with its specific geographical location, Sion and Jerusalem city: Magnus Dominus et laudabilis nimis in civitatae Dei nostri in monte sancto eius fundatur exultatione universae terrae montes Sion latera aquilonis civitas regis magni ... sicut audivimus sic vidimus in civitate Domini virtutum in civitate Dei nostri Deus fundavit eam in aeternum suscepimus Deus misericordiam tuam in medio templi tui. (Psalm 47.2–3, 9–10) [Great is the Lord, and exceedingly to be praised in the city of our God, in his holy mountain./ With the joy of the whole earth is mount Sion founded, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King/. . ./ As we have heard, so have we seen, in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God: God hath founded it for ever./ We have received thy mercy, O God, in the midst of thy temple.]

Graven images of the deity are forbidden, but Yahweh insists that His presence be represented architecturally. The Tabernacle and the Temple are the designated places built by human hands under God’s guidance so that God’s people can experience His presence physically as well as spiritually. This association between a specific, enclosed space and liturgical worship is not only validated by, but is a requirement of, the covenant between God and His people. Bede, in his commentaries on these works of ancient Hebrew architecture, adheres to a complex system of symbolic interpretation. Paul’s teaching explains in deceptively simple terms a fundamental concept of how this interpretive method works in reference to Old Testament events and images: haec autem omnia in figura contingebant illis. scripta sunt autem ad correptionem nostram in quos fines saeculorum devenerunt. (I Corinthians 10.11) [Now all these things happened to them in figure: and they are written in our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come.]

Bede quotes this passage from I Corinthians at the beginning of De tabernaculo, but his particular working out of a complex interpretive system was also inspired by Christian allegorists such as Origen, Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory the Great. For them, like Bede, the sacred Hebrew structures signify a whole host of New Testament realities: the incarnate Christ, the individual soul, the community of the Church on earth, the Heavenly City. The desert Tabernacle and the Jerusalem Temple, apart from their status as 20

Introduction historical, divinely commissioned works of architecture, are also among the most powerfully symbolic images ever created by human hands, since they are associated with almost the whole of Christian salvation history, from Moses’ theophany on Sinai to the descent of the New Jerusalem at the end of time. All of these meanings Bede attributed simultaneously to the ancient Hebrew structures. This simultaneity is a natural compromise that results from the orthodox understanding that all significations of God are inadequate, and that God’s presence cannot be contained. Here it strikes me that the portable nature of the desert Tabernacle, emphasizing God’s constant availability and communication with His people – despite the geographical instability of the Israelites – and the contrasting material permanence of the Jerusalem Temple, may have been viewed by Bede as two complementary aspects of the divine presence on earth: God is both ubiquitous and eternally present. For Bede it is also true that no actual material building could function as God’s house on earth. In his writings, at least, he never interprets allegorically a non-literary building. He does take the literal sense of the Old Testament architecture seriously, fully exploiting the architectural components and building materials, but always for metaphoric purposes. For Bede, the veil before the Holy of Holies (Exodus 26.31–37) is the veil of allegory, a veil that both reveals and conceals the true signification of the ancient Hebrew structures, which for Bede is the Christian revelation. Even while advancing his most enthusiastic allegorical flourishes, and despite his “remarkably architectural approach to Revelation,”45 Bede had Isaiah’s censoring voice at his ear: haec dicit Dominus caelum sedis mea et terra scabillum pedum meorum quae ista domus quam aedificabitis mihi (Thus saith the Lord: Heaven is my throne, and earth my footstool: what is this house that you will build me?) (Isaiah 66.1).46 Christians themselves are, after all, the living stones and pillars of the Church and, therefore, of any material church – no matter how splendid, including Justinian’s Hagia Sophia. This is where my project departs from Bede’s exegetical convictions. My purpose in this study is to examine a medieval interpretation of ecclesiastical architecture that chose rather to acknowledge the anagogical potential of material objects: the notion that actual churches were understood as earthly representations of the New Jerusalem, and a notion that was encouraged to a significant degree through images, liturgy, and the design of the architectural spaces themselves.

45 Charles W. Jones, “Some Introductory Remarks,” quoted in Holder, xv. 46 New Testament passages that build upon this quotation from Isaiah include Acts 17.24 (“God, who

made the world, and all things therein; he being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands”) and II Cor. 5.1 (“For we know, if our earthly house of habitation be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven”). See also Heb. 9.11–12, 24; Heb. 12.22; and Heb. 13.14.

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Introduction Of course, there was great variety in the ways this concept was expressed, differences that depended, for example, on geography, social and political influences, revenues, and the developments of architectural styles – to mention just a few possibilities. Bernard of Clairvaux’s vehement (and famous) reproach of his Benedictine colleague, Abbot Suger, calls attention to one fundamental source for differences in expression. Bernard accused the abbot of vulgarity and theological irresponsibility in his supervision of the twelfth-century rebuilding of St.-Denis. Whereas Suger seems to have taken literally the descriptions in the Book of Revelation of a lavishly ornamented New Jerusalem, for Bernard of Clairvaux, the unembellished beauty that was typical of twelfth-century Cistercian churches was the appropriate setting for living a spiritual life and representing divine reality.47 The austere spirituality exemplified by the Cistercian architectural tradition, and for which there is strong biblical precedent in such figures as the prophet Isaiah and Stephen the proto-martyr,48 is a spirituality that has always censored the other branch of the human spirit: the love of the beauty of the physical world. Suger’s interpretation of his new church is a famous medieval expression of this spirit: it reflects the abbot’s passion for rich ornamentation, yet it is a passion that was qualified, as well, by a theological consciousness. Vitruvius’ “intellectual apprehension of architecture,”49 Virgil’s philosophical allegory, and Bede’s biblical exegesis of sacred Hebrew architecture all contributed to the interpretation of medieval churches as complex symbols of the New Jerusalem. In the chapters that follow, I discuss other contributions to and versions of this concept, some as formative influences, others as late developments, but I present them in a more historical and generically wide-ranging, detailed way. While each chapter focuses on a different domain of medieval culture, an especially vital point of convergence among them is the prayer and ritual of medieval liturgy, for it is through liturgical worship that theology, architecture, and poetry unite in the Christian expression of hope for eternal salvation. As Jean Leclercq eloquently expressed it, the medieval liturgy was “the synthesis of all the artes”: it is in the atmosphere of the liturgy and amid the poems composed for it, in hymnis et canticis, that the synthesis of all the artes was effected, of the literary techniques, religious reflection, and all sources of information whether biblical, patristic, or classical. . . . In the liturgy, love of learning and desire for God find perfect reconciliation. (250–51)50 47 For recent studies of medieval Cistercian architecture, see Terryl N. Kinder, Architecture of

Silence: Cistercian Abbeys of France, photographs by David Heald (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000); Megan Cassidy-Welch, Monastic Spaces and their Meanings: Thirteenth-Century English Cistercian Monasteries (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001). 48 See, for example, Stephen’s speech of disapproval before his martyrdom (Acts 7.47–50). Here he rebukes the council for their misunderstanding of the Christian revelation, especially as it applies to interpretation of the Old Testament. 49 Kruft, 24. 50 The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, trans. Catherine

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Introduction Leclercq’s wonderfully penetrating observation lacks only the articulated awareness of how liturgy and medieval church architecture were conceived as reciprocal expressions of one another. To see that the medieval church was the most comprehensive of the artes of technique and religious reflection is to see it as a supremely sacred place that served primarily as the stage for liturgical drama.

Misrahi (New York: Fordham UP, 1982), 236. Originally published as L’Amour des lettres et le désire de Dieu: Initiation aux auteurs monastiques du moyen âge (Paris: Cerf, 1957).

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Part I Philosophical and Theological Foundations

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Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty

1 Foundations I: Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty [T]o those who object . . . [to the idea that] Hellenic philosophy is human wisdom, that it is incapable of teaching the truth . . . have not read what is said by Solomon; for, treating of the construction of the temple, he says expressly, “And it was Wisdom as artificer that framed it; and Thy providence, Father, governs throughout.” And how irrational to regard philosophy as inferior to architecture and shipbuilding. (Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis VI.11)1

Early Christian-Platonism: Introductory Remarks

T

HE influence of Platonism on the artistic culture of the medieval west remains a subject to which scholars return with renewed interest.2 Studies by musicologists within the last decade, for example, examine relationships between medieval liturgy and architecture and have opened up new lines of inquiry on how Christian-Platonism was displayed aurally and visually.3 Nigel Hiscock’s recent scholarship intends to “re-open the enquiry and engage once more in the debate about the symbolic content of medieval geometry and its possible role in medieval plan design.”4 Hiscock’s study uncovers new evidence for how medieval architects used Platonic teachings in the planning and design of church buildings. Although the “presence and influence” of Platonism are “well enough attested,” Hiscock argues, “insufficient weight seems to be given to it in much of the literature that challenges a Platonic connection with architectural design.”5 1 2 3 4 5

W. Wilson, trans. Stromata, in ANCL 12 (1869). For my use of the terms “Platonism” and “Platonist” see the Introduction, 6 n. 11. See, for example, Anne Walters Robertson, Service Books; and Margot Fassler, Gothic Song. The Wise Master Builder, 17. Chalcidius’ Latin translation of and commentary on Plato’s Timaeus was available to early medieval scholars. Parts of the Timaeus were translated by Cicero, to reappear in Macrobius’ Commentarii in Ciceronis Somnium Scipionis. The Summarium librorum Platonis is a thirteenth-century (Latin) partial synopsis of Plato’s works. It is also thought to be a copy of an early Carolingian codex from Corbie Abbey in France, based on a Latin translation of a second-century Greek text. On the subject of the availability of Plato’s texts in the Middle Ages, see Ramond

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem With few exceptions, studies of Platonism in the medieval west have concentrated primarily on prominent Christian representatives of this tradition, including Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215), Origen (c. 185–254), Gregory of Nyssa (c. 332–95), Augustine (354–430), Pseudo-Dionysius (c. 500), John Scotus Eriugena (c. 810–77), and the twelfth-century theologians of the Abbey of St.-Victor in Paris, especially Hugh (1096–1141) and Richard (d. 1173). Among these figures, scholars have recognized the chief role of Augustine in the transmission of Platonism to the Christian west. Through his great literary output and extensive readership in western Christendom, Augustine became the primary channel of Platonism to the medieval west; he is also the main figure responsible for securing the acceptance of Christian-Platonism by the medieval Latin Church. Crucial to Augustine’s education and to his formulation of a Christian theology were quosdam platonicorum libros (“certain books of the Platonists”) that he read in Milan in the late 380s.6 The Platonici with which Augustine was familiar included the Latin translations by Marius Victorinus of writings by Porphyry (234?–301?) and Plotinus (204/5–270), and probably Cicero’s Latin translation of Plato’s Timaeus. The names of Plato, Porphyry, and Plotinus all figure prominently in Augustine’s great work, De civitate Dei, but among the chief Greek Platonists, Augustine judged Plotinus’ philosophy as superior to the rest.7 In 1962 David Knowles remarked upon the general scholarly neglect of Plotinus’ influence upon later medieval philosophy in western Europe. Plotinus’ “greatness and his importance as a thinker,” wrote Knowles, “are even now not widely understood.” The “legacy of what is loosely called Neoplatonism, has been widely recognized,” but “what has not been so fully grasped is the influence of . . . Plotinus himself upon those who were to be the sources of Western philosophy.”8 Knowles hoped to counter what he saw as an avoidance of Plotinus among scholars of the western tradition by empha-

6 7

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Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition During the Middle Ages, Supplement, Plato’s Parmenides in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: A Chapter in the History of Platonic Studies (Munich: Kraus International Publications, 1981), esp. 6–7, 51–2. Conf. VII–X, XVI; VIII.2.3. De consensu Evangelistarum 1.22.35; civ. Dei I.22; VIII–XII; Augustine probably knew Plato’s Phaedo, Phaedrus, and the Republic through encyclopedias and doxographies. The questions surrounding Augustine’s familiarity with and use of Platonic sources continue to fascinate scholars. For an introduction to the subject, see A. H. Armstrong, Plotinian and Christian Studies (London: Variorum Reprints, 1979); P. F. Beatrice, “Quosdam Platonicorum Libros: the Platonic Readings of Augustine in Milan,” Vigiliae Christianae 43 (1998): 248–81; Stephen Menn, “Augustinian Wisdom,” Part One of Descartes and Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998), 77; R. H. Nash, “Some Philosophic Sources of Augustine’s Illumination Theory,” AugStud 2 (1971): 47–66; R. O’Connell, Saint Augustine’s Platonism (Philadelphia: Villanova UP, 1984); F. Van Fleteren, “The Ascent of the Soul in the Augustinian Tradition,” in Paradigms in Medieval Thought Applications in Medieval Disciplines: A Symposium, ed. N. Van Deusen, Medieval Studies, vol. 3 (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991), 93–110; Van Fleteren, “Plato, Platonism,” Augustine through the Ages, 651–54. The Evolution of Medieval Thought, 2nd edn. Ed. D. E. Luscombe and C. N. L. Brooke (London and New York: Longman, 1988), 27–8.

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Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty sizing Augustine’s enormous debt to him: “if a reader of Augustine is in doubt as to the origin of a particular philosophical idea, he will usually find the answer in Plotinus.”9 Reasons for the neglect of Plotinus’ influence by scholars of western medieval traditions have included the presumption that his writings are too early to be relevant for studies of later medieval philosophic, theological, or artistic formulations. Further, although Plotinus’ metaphysics represents a careful synthesis and refinement of the Greek philosophic traditions that he inherited, the literary style of the writings seems more suited – according to some readers – to lyric poetry than to philosophic discourse. The “charismatic obscurity” of Plotinus’ expression stems in part from his favored use of complex paradoxes, highly concentrated metaphors, and enjambment.10 In addition, Plotinus’ writings do not give clear evidence that he was familiar with Christianity, and so scholars have been careful not to rely too heavily upon them for an understanding of early Christian-Platonism, especially in the west.11 Although Knowles made his comments over forty years ago, it is only recently that a scholarly consensus has emerged that identifies Plotinus as the chief influence upon Augustine’s Platonism.12 It was primarily in Plotinus that Augustine found a sophisticated and richly nuanced metaphysical world view, one that deeply appealed to his ever-questioning intellect. In its coherence as a philosophical system that synthesized and refined earlier traditions, Plotinus’ metaphysics also suited Augustine’s inclination to apply intellectual pursuits to practical matters, including those required by his pastoral vocation. Perhaps most importantly, however, Augustine recognized in Plotinus a superb analytical mind whose whole purpose in intellectual engagement was to find rest in spiritual contemplation, and in the summum bonum, or highest good. In his own writings, we observe Augustine responding to Plotinus as a fellow philosopher-mystic, a thinker who yearns for divine revelation and whose entire philosophic aim was directed toward spiritual conversion. 9 Ibid. 32. 10 John P. Kenny, Mystical Monotheism: A Study in Ancient Platonic Theology (Hanover and

London: Brown UP, 1991), 151.

11 Plotinus’ writings have gained the attention of scholars interested in the relationship between

Platonic thought and medieval Byzantine aesthetics. See, for example, André Grabar, Les origines de l’esthétique médiévale (Paris: Macula, 1992), 29–88. 12 See especially, Robert J. O’Connell, St. Augustine’s Early Theory of Man (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 1968); O’Connell, St. Augustine’s Confessions: The Odyssey of Soul (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 1969); O’Connell, 1984 ; O’Connell, The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine’s Later Works (New York: Fordham UP, 1987); J. O’Meara, “Plotinus and Augustine: Exegesis of Contra Academicos II.5,” Review of International Philosophy 24 (1970): 321–37; John Rist, “Plotinus and Christian Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. Lloyd P. Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996), 386–413; Menn (1998) discusses the major scholarship on the subject. He notes that “the crucial work in this project” was Paul Henry’s Plotin et l’Occident (Louvain: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 1934). Peter Brown also cites studies that have treated the influence of Plotinus upon Augustine’s thought: Augustine of Hippo; a Biography (Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California P, 1967), 95–98.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem Augustine’s exposure to Plotinus’ religious philosophy allowed him to understand how it was possible for human beings to communicate with and hence participate in an invisible, ineffable divine realm. This is one important reason why Augustine found it possible to assimilate key features of Plotinian metaphysics with Christian doctrine. The effort to assimilate Hellenic philosophical traditions with Christianity began much earlier, of course, with the earliest followers of Christ’s teachings. The Gospel of John and Paul’s letters are two prominent examples of foundational Christian texts that also give evidence of having been influenced by Platonism. Although Augustine became the figure primarily responsible for the transmission of ChristianPlatonism to the medieval west, he was a relative latecomer to the tradition of early Christian writers who embraced and defended Platonism. It will be useful, therefore, to introduce one major branch in the development of Christian-Platonism prior to Augustine’s reading of the Platonists.13 The quotation that begins this chapter reflects Clement of Alexandria’s (c. 150–c. 215) efforts to continue the ambitious process of synthesis and reconciliation that Philo Judaeus (c. 13–c. 45/50) had begun with Hellenism and Judaism. As both a philosopher committed to ancient Greek thought and a convert to Christianity, Clement sought to reconcile Platonism with Christian theology. In doing so he was especially attentive to what he viewed as elements of Hellenic philosophy in the New Testament teachings of John’s Gospel and the letters of Paul. In his writings, Clement defends Hellenic philosophy as a vehicle of truth within the Judeo-Christian tradition. As he argues in the opening quotation, for example, philosophy cannot be inferior to architecture or shipbuilding, since Wisdom is the artificer of one of the great architectural monuments of the Old Testament: Solomon’s Temple (I Kings 5–6; Ezekiel 40–42). As we have seen in our discussion of Bede’s exegesis, the sacred Hebrew Temple atop Mount Sion was for the early Christians a prophetic symbol of the Church triumphant and the New Jerusalem.14 In addition to Solomon’s Temple and Moses’ Tabernacle, Noah’s Ark and the Ark of the Covenant also became prominent complex symbols for the early Christians. Indeed, these biblical structures received enthusiastic attention from exegetes and artists throughout the Middle Ages. Textual and visual sources from late antiquity through the late medieval period provide evidence that these Hebrew structures were understood as symbols of a specifically Christian revelation, since they derive, like creation itself, from Wisdom, or Logos, which is Christ (John 1.1–17).15 13 A standard survey of the development of Christian-Platonism from late antiquity through the early

medieval period is The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1967). 14 See the Introduction, 16–22. 15 On the conceptual and etymological relations between reason, number, logos, and analogia, Nigel Hiscock observes, “the Latin for both reason and ratio is ratio. Numerical ratios then are by definition rational. This transmitted to the Roman world and to the Latin middle ages the Greek concept

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Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty One of Clement of Alexandria’s students was Origen (c. 185–254), who was also – it is likely – a student of Ammonius Saccus, the Platonist teacher of Plotinus. Origen followed Clement’s efforts at synthesis between Platonic philosophy and Christian thought. Though his mutual commitment to philosophy and theology resulted in condemnations of his views, Origen nevertheless influenced considerably the acceptance of Christian-Platonism by the Latin Church.16 Perhaps the most vital historical connection between Origen and the transmission of Christian-Platonism in the west took place in Milan in the fourth century. Ambrose (c. 339–97), bishop of Milan, read Origen’s writings in their original Greek and assimilated Origen’s Platonism with his own ideas on the development of Christian thought. In addition, Ambrose used Origen’s allegorical methods of interpretation as a basis for his own exegesis of the Hebrew Bible. Ambrose shared his enthusiasm for Christian-Platonism with Augustine, whom he baptized in Milan at Easter 387. In the Confessions Augustine explains that it was Ambrose who introduced him to the books of the Platonists. In De civitate Dei and Contra academicos, Augustine provides more information on his Platonist education and identifies Plotinus as his greatest influence. According to Peter Brown, Plotinus’ concept of beauty “swept Augustine into the heart of the Platonic system.”17 Brown’s statement is a good point of entry into our analysis of Plotinus’ teachings; but it needs some qualification, however. Plotinus’ concept of beauty is not just one idea; it is an inseparable part of a complex metaphysical system, a system that Augustine embraced and transformed according to his commitment to a specifically Christian revelation. Augustine’s discovery in Plotinus of a religious philosophy that suited his intellectual rigor, his pastoral vocation, and his mysticism is essential to an understanding of the western medieval effort to represent, through liturgical, architectural, and literary expressions, the New Jerusalem on earth. But what further unifies these expressions of the New Jerusalem is Augustine’s transformation of Plotinian metaphysics using his great eschatological framework of the two cities, a framework that emphasizes his fundamental commitment to the sacramental role of the Church in the salvation of humankind. The Platonism of late antiquity had an extraordinary influence on Augustine’s formulation of a Christian theology. But it is Plotinus’ fifty-four philosophical treatises, arranged and edited in 301 by his disciple Porphyry of logos, or ‘the Word’, which also means both reason and ratio.” Analogia means “proportion, by the Greeks. And proportion is also [to Augustine] by definition rational, the product of reason. . . . To Boethius, proportion and ratio were interchangeable terms” (104). See Augustine, De musica I.12.24; VI.17.57; Boethius, De arithmetica 11–12. 16 As Rowan A. Greer has observed, “The charges against Origen boil down to the accusation that his theology was adulterated by his [Platonic] philosophy,” “Introduction,” in Origen: An Exhortation to Martyrdom, Prayer and Selected Works, trans. Rowan A. Greer (New York, Ramsey, Toronto: Paulist Press, 1979), 28–31. 17 Augustine of Hippo; a Biography, 95–98.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem (233–305) under the general title Enneads, that are the vital links between a developed and complex Hellenic tradition and the tradition of Christian-Platonism formulated by Augustine.18 It is to Plotinus, then, that we turn to introduce the philosophical foundations for the symbolic representation of the New Jerusalem in poetry, prayer, and stone. The aspects of Plotinus’ thought that are most relevant for an understanding of the relations between medieval religious architecture, allegory and revelation include his articulation of the symbolism of light, his aesthetic of spiritual transformation through images, and his unique conception of a spiritually dynamic cosmos. An examination of Plotinus’ teachings on these subjects prepares us for a fuller treatment in the next chapter of how Augustine adopted and transformed these teachings to serve his Christian theology of Church and salvation history.

“Light above light”: Emanation and Image in Plotinus’ Religious Philosophy Part of Plotinus’ genius rests in his efforts to assimilate opposing elements of an immensely complex philosophical tradition.19 His achievement is an original philosophy inspired by an intense religious experience, and one that is both more elaborate and more coherent than the philosophical systems he inherited. One key feature of his philosophy is the attempt to reconcile the Platonic conception of a hierarchy of reality with an Aristotelian concept of an organic universe. Plotinus’ theory of emanation makes this reconciliation possible. It is through the mediation of partly-spiritual, partly-sensible realms of light that an infinite, unknowable One is brought into the created cosmos, the means by which the levels of being continuously interact, and, therefore, the means by which human beings may perceive, ascend, and return to the One, the “light above light” (V.3.12,15).20 18 The authoritative critical edition of the Enneads was published in three volumes by P. Henry and

H.-R. Schwyzer, Plotini opera (Paris and Brussels: Desclée de Brouwer, 1951–73). Henry and Schwyzer also published a study version of the edition in three volumes: Plotini opera (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964–82). This edition is printed with a facing page English translation, in seven volumes (The Loeb Classical Library, Harvard UP), by A. Hillary Armstrong, Plotinus (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1966–88). My citations from Plotinus’ writings are taken from Armstrong’s Loeb translation, which supersedes that by Stephen MacKenna, Enneads of Plotinus (Boston: Charles T. Branford Co., 1916), which was reprinted in abridgment by Penguin Books, with an introduction by J. Dillon, 1991. E. O’Brien in The Essential Plotinus (New York: New American Library, 1964) translates Enneads I.2, 3, 6; III.8; IV.3, 8; V.1, 2, 9; VI.9. 19 Little is known about the early life of Plotinus, but it is generally assumed that he was born in Lycopolis, Egypt in 204 or 205 and died in 270. In 244, after studying Platonism for eleven years in Alexandria under Ammonius Saccus, Plotinus came to Rome to teach. In about the year 253, Plotinus began to write down his ideas. Our only reliable source of information about the life of Plotinus is the biography that Porphyry, his disciple and editor, wrote in 301. See Porphyry: On the Life of Plotinus and the Order of His Books, in Plotinus, ed. and trans. A. H. Armstrong, vol. 1, 1–87. 20 I use the phrases “levels of being,” “levels of perception,” and “levels of reality” or hypostases,

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Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty Plotinus’ writings are an extraordinary attempt to articulate precisely how the spiritual and sensible worlds are united organically, but within a hierarchy of being, and how spiritual passage between these realms is possible. His writings provide not merely a description, but a method – a system of thought – designed to aid humans in their effort to perceive and participate in an invisible, sacred reality. Plotinus describes in detail ascending levels of perception and sanctification; he offers an analysis of how each stage functions in the soul’s ascent and a model of how one moves progressively from the visible world to contemplation of immaterial beauty. It is this method – this system of spiritual progression – that inspired Augustine in his own thinking about cognition of the sense world and the life of the soul. Indeed, Plotinus’ systematic description of “progressive planes of spiritual existence”21 is a key feature of his teachings that allowed Augustine to embrace and adapt Platonism within a Christian theological framework. Stephen Menn observes rightly, I believe, that Augustine’s intellectual struggle, which he famously describes in the Confessions, “is primarily a struggle to conceive God as something real yet incorporeal.” For Augustine, this way of conceiving God is a “necessary and almost a sufficient condition for coming to understand how the Catholic doctrine of creation could be true.”22 Plotinus describes three hypostases, or levels of reality, beyond the visible world: the One or the Good, Intellect or Nous, and Soul. One ought not to take literally, of course, Plotinus’ spatial metaphors in his analysis of the levels; for him they are “only metaphors: the intelligible world is not above the stars; it is not in space at all.”23 Plotinus adopted these levels from the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition that he inherited and modified them according to his own vision of the cosmos. Plato, whom Plotinus cites as his beloved authority on most matters, is the main source for his understanding of the spiritual life and his conception of reality as a hierarchy, consisting of the sensible and intelligible realms of perception.24 One way Plotinus departs from his predecessors, including Plato, is his formulation of the One as infinite and beyond being – beyond the intelligible

21 22 23 24

throughout this discussion since Plotinus’ conception of the cosmos includes levels that are both “beyond” and “below” being. All levels, on the other hand, may be said to be levels of perception through which the aspiring and governing soul moves. It is through the soul's contemplation of the spiritual and material realms that the soul perceives. A fuller treatment of Plotinus’ teachings on the soul will be taken up later in this chapter. On the problem of using the phrase “levels of being” to describe Plotinus’ ontology, see Kenny, 131. Hiscock, 56. Conf. VII, ix, 13; xx, 26; Menn, 75–77. Armstrong makes this point as well in “Plotinus,” Cambridge History, 223. Plotinus draws most frequently on the dialogues of Plato, especially the Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium, and Timaeus. When he makes reference to the Republic, Plotinus ignores Plato’s politics, selecting passages mainly from Books IV, V and VII to provide authority, or to serve as points of departure for his own views. See, for example, Armstrong, “Plotinus,” Cambridge History, 213–14; and Kenny, 111.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem world of finite forms.25 He is the first Greek philosopher to articulate clearly the ways in which the primary principle is thought to be both infinite and beyond the nature of Intellect. In Ennead VI, Plotinus describes the effects of the One as something outside of, or extra to, the nature of Intellect. Here, the radiation from the One is spoken of as a “bloom” upon Intellect (VI.7.22; VI.7.21, 31).26 The historical origins of this conception of the One can be traced to the mention of Plato’s “Idea of the Good” and the transcendent, self-thinking God of Aristotle.27 But Plotinus’ One is at once more elevated (metaphysically) and more accessible (spiritually) than either Plato’s “Idea of the Good” or Aristotle’s self-thinking deity. Plotinus presents the first clearly articulated concept of the One as not only the radiating source of the whole cosmos, but also as a primary principle different in kind – not merely in degree – from that cosmos.28 Plotinus’ One is beyond all classification of being, beyond all predication, beyond space and time. This “negative” conception of the One derives in part from the Pythagorean philosophy of numbers in which the first principle is unpredictable unity, the origin of number. In this system the One transcends all that it measures or limits.29 Plotinus also believes that there is no human expression that can adequately express the reality of the One; yet, he chooses terms and phrases that emphasize its positive quality.30 Armstrong has referred to this paradox of religious mystery as Plotinus’ “negative theology of positive transcendence.”31 John Kenny offers further insight on how to understand Plotinus’ paradoxical conception of the primary principle: the One can be conceived in negative terms “not because it is deficient in any respect but because it exceeds the capacity of finite description . . . the negations stated are made to emphasize that the One positively transcends these descriptions.”32 Plotinus’ positive terms for the One include “pure will” (VI.8.13, 21), “love” (V.6.6), and the “Good” (VI.7.22). The “Good” is an especially effective designation, since it literally conveys Plotinus’ belief in the goodness of 25 Enn. I.6; III.8.1; V.1.6, 7; V.4.1; VI.8. This departure from tradition is the subject of John Kenny’s

chapter, “The Mystical Monotheism of Plotinus,” in Mystical Monotheism, 91–149.

26 The Infinity of the Plotinian One is not to be confused with indefinite multiplicity or formlessness

27

28 29 30 31 32

in the material world. The One generates multiplicity, but is not itself multiple (VI.8.8, 9, 11, 17). For Plotinus, “only the One or Good is infinite and in the absolute sense in which we speak of the infinity of God” (Armstrong, “Plotinus’s Doctrine of the Infinite and its Significance for Christian Thought,” Downside Review 73 [1954–55]: 49–51, 53). Also, see Kenny, 99, 101–2. Plato, Republic VI.508d; VII.517b; Aristotle, Metaphysics, VII.1072b; and De Anima III. 4. 429a, III. 5. 430a; A. H. Armstrong, The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy of Plotinus (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1940), 6, 12; Armstrong, “Plotinus’ Doctrine of the Infinite,” 47; Kenny, 99. Plotinus’ conception of a first principle as the ground of existence higher than Intellect comes at the end of a tradition which attempted to assimilate the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. On this unique distinction, see Armstrong, Architecture, 5, 56, 115 and Kenny, esp. 132. See Armstrong, Architecture, 14, 29. Armstrong, “Plotinus,” 238. Armstrong, Architecture, 29–30, 56. Kenny, 143, 148–49.

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Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty the cosmos. While Plotinus is clearly identifying himself as a student of Plato in his use of such terms for the One, it is essential to recall, within this context, Plato’s famous allegory in Book VII of the Republic (514a–518b). Here Plato describes the visible world as a cave and its inhabitants as prisoners; the things one sees in this world are dim shadows or illusions of intelligible truth. Plato’s cave metaphor emphasizes, in other words, not only the difference but also the distance – and hence the rupture – between the visible world and the transcendent world of forms. Plotinus’ treatment of Plato on this fundamental point is less characteristic of his treatment of Platonic thought in general. Typically, he does not overtly disagree with Plato; instead, Plotinus modifies and refines an idea that is understated or receives less emphasis in Plato’s writings. In this case, however, Plotinus’ divergence from Plato is striking, and it is a divergence which, by proving to be central to the medieval understanding of the symbol, provided a philosophical grounding for the treatment of medieval ecclesiastical buildings as images of the New Jerusalem. While Plato views the visible world as a shadow or illusion of intelligible truth, what is illusory for Plotinus is the concept of a drastic rupture or rigid boundaries separating the sensible realm from the intelligible. A distinction between these realms exists, but the boundaries are extraordinarily blurred, “[f]or nothing is a long way off or far from anything else,” he writes (IV.3.11).33 Plotinus’ whole project is, to a remarkable extent, a profoundly optimistic effort to demonstrate how the visible, sensible realm is a receptacle and reflection of the light and goodness of the One – how it too is good.34 Humans cannot know the Good in itself, but they can know of it through its radiation of light and a proper knowledge of its images. A key feature of Plotinus’ system is his emphasis on the eternally dynamic nature of the sensible and the spiritual realms. The fundamental communication between realms is described in terms of movement, a movement that is a corollary of the cosmos – that is, it makes possible the continued existence of the cosmos itself. Plotinus’ theory of emanation is central to this concept of cosmic dynamism, just as it is an expression of the positive aspect of the One. The cosmos is good because goodness proceeds from the One, without the One being changed or depleted in any way. This procession, which Plotinus likens to an outward flow of light, sets in motion the constant and necessary movement of the cosmos. The continued existence of the cosmos depends, in

33 On the effacement of the contours of the hypostases see Emile Bréhier, La Philosophie de Plotin,

Librairie Philosophique (Paris: J. Vrin, 1961), xi.

34 Scholars have long recognized that Plotinus’ account of the goodness of the cosmos is, in part, a

response to the extreme Gnostic view that identifies the physical world with evil. See, for example, Pierre Hadot, Plotinus, or the Simplicity of Vision, trans. Michael Chase (Chicago: UP, 1993), 24, 25, 31; Denis O’Brien, “Plotinus and the Gnostics in the Generation of Matter,” Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought; Essays in Honor of A. H. Armstrong, ed. H. J. Blumenthal and R. A. Markus (London: Variorum, 1981), 108–123; E. Bréhier, La Philosophie de Plotin, 193ff.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem turn, upon a reciprocal movement, a movement of return or “conversion” to the One. It is this concept of a blurred distinction between the visible and invisible realms – the concept of a metaphysical separation that is actually a passage – that medieval churches displayed in the multiple uses of those spaces that were designated not only as sacred but also as sacramental. The many features of the symbolic programs of medieval edifices called attention to the concept of a dynamic cosmos. The Gothic designs, for example, allowed the interior spaces to be flooded with light. The imagery, often encyclopedic in its variety, served to keep alive in the minds of the living the memories of the dead, and to look ahead to the events of the Eschaton. Liturgy was especially important in manifesting the dynamic communication between the visible and invisible realms. The processions, the re-enactments of Christian salvation history, the chanting, and the liturgical gestures reinforced and encouraged belief in a reciprocal communication between human beings and God. A fundamental difference between the Christian and the Plotinian systems, of course, was the ontological nature of God, or the One. Traditional Christianity in western medieval Europe recognized a God who entered history through the gift of Christ’s incarnation. While Plotinus’ visible, material world has been described by scholars as “sacramental,” without being pantheistic, Plotinus never goes so far as to recognize such a direct and profoundly intimate presence of the One in the sensible world. Nonetheless, a closer look at the inner dynamism of Plotinus’ cosmos will aid in furthering our understanding of these medieval presentations in poetry, prayer, and stone.

The Soul’s Recognition of Beauty and the Cyclical Procession of the Cosmos Plotinus’ theory of emanation allowed him to assimilate the Platonic conception of a hierarchy of reality with an Aristotelian organicism model. Light is the means by which the transcendent, unknowable One is brought into the cosmos and unifies that cosmos. The theory allowed Plotinus to reconcile apparently incompatible theologies of the first principle (negative and positive) and to make the paradox the central tenet of his religious philosophy: “[the divine] is by itself, and is with the world while remaining separate” (IV.3.11). The first level of being to receive the One’s radiation is the intelligible realm of ideas, or Nous; Plotinus most often likens the relation between the One and Nous to the sun and its light.35 For Plotinus, light is the manifestation 35 The word “radiation” is, perhaps, the English term that best conveys Plotinus’ conception of divine

emanation. Although, as Armstrong has pointed out, this English word is an approximation of the descriptions we find in the Enneads. The radiative effects of fire, snow, and perfume are less frequently used as similes (Enn. I.7.1; V.3, 12, 5.8, 6.4; VI.8.18, 9.9). Plotinus’ rendering derives

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Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty of the spiritual realm, but it is not merely physical; it is the principle of form in the sensible world. Fire is the most incorporeal of the physical elements and thus is also the most simple and the most beautiful: fire itself is more beautiful than all other bodies, because it has the rank of form in relation to the other elements; it is above them in place and is the finest and subtlest of all bodies, being close to the incorporeal. It alone does not admit the others; but the others admit it: for it warms them but is not cooled itself; it has colour primarily and all other things take the form of colour from it. So it shines and glitters as if it was a form. (I.6.3)

The sun receives special status in Plotinus’ theory of emanation, since it is the most appropriate physical receptacle for the incorporeal “light above light” (V.3.12, 15).36 The light of the sun is the intermediary between material and immaterial realms of reality. The One is known, in so far as it can be known at all, by its outward flow of radiance, and all that proceeds from the One is good. Even the lowest level of perception, the level of the senses, is not without value in Plotinus’ system. The realm of sense perception, although limited, is nonetheless the world into which humans are born and, according to Plotinus, it is also a world rich with spiritual opportunity if perceived as a reflection of divinity. Indeed, Plotinus’ articulation of the soul’s movement toward divine radiance begins with his valorization of images. “Natural things are imitations” (V.8.1), he argues, and “as long as that higher reality gives its light, the rest of things can never fail: they are there as long as it is there; but it always was and will be” (V.8.12). Plotinus’ affirmation of the sensible world’s spiritual potential gives an extraordinary optimism and vitality to his religious philosophy. There is virtue in sense perception; there is virtue in bodies, in shapes, since these serve as stepping stones to higher vision. The universe is, for Plotinus, “a sort of great sacrament in the wide sense, a sign and collection of signs which makes the spiritual world effectively present as far as it can be here below.”37 It is Plotinus’ conception of divine emanation that makes possible the spiritual potential of the sensible world. The One is the source of spiritual motion in the cosmos; it is the standard of truth by which humans see images and desire to in part from the account of color in Plato’s Timaeus (67D) and from the late Stoic theory of a unified cosmos: at the center of the cosmos is the visible sun from which flows its “fiery breath.” But the materialism of Stoic thought, as well the Aristotelian concept of light as primarily a physical entity, is unacceptable to Plotinus, who emphasizes the incorporeality of light (Enn. II.1.7; IV.5.6, 7; I.6.3; IV.5.6–7). In Enn. II.4.1 Plotinus criticizes the materialism of the Stoics and in IV.5.6–7, the Aristotelian doctrine (De Anima 518A). For further discussion of this subject, see Armstrong, Architecture, 52–54. 36 Plotinus follows the teaching about the sun in Republic VI–VII and the description of the divinity of the heavenly bodies in Timaeus 40B and in Laws 821B, 898D.f. Plotinus’ formulation, however, goes beyond what we find in Plato. He might also have been influenced by a passage in the Hermetica, which is roughly contemporary with Plotinus. On this point, see Armstrong, Architecture, 56. 37 Armstrong, “Salvation, Plotinian and Christian,” Downside Review 75 (1975): 137.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem see more than merely image. The image without that standard is powerless in its capacity to reflect divinity. The image is not, therefore, something to be contemplated in itself; instead, it is instrumental in passing from this world to that other. It acts as a dynamic, often emotional force, an impulse for movement between the visible and invisible realms. The adequacy of images rests in the observer’s capacity and willingness to receive divinity emanating from the spiritual realm. The observer perceives this divinity through forms, or presentations of ideas, not naturalistic representations of things seen in the visible world. Form is “beauty everywhere,” emanating from the “first immaterial one” (V.8.2): all the Forms we speak about are beautiful images in that [other] world, of the kind which someone imagined to exist in the soul of the wise man, images not painted but real. (V.8.5)

“Sense-perception,” writes Plotinus, sees the form in bodies binding and mastering the nature opposed to it, which is shapeless, and [it sees] shape riding gloriously upon other shapes. (I.6.3)

This submission of body to formative power is a coming into being (I.6.2), a submission to freedom, since to yield to this power is to be released into a vision of primary beauty. The job of the senses is to gather the multiple and dispersed parts of the visible object and present them as one – as form – to the soul: we do not yet see a thing while it is outside us, but when it comes within, it influences us. But it comes in through the eyes as form alone. (V.8.2)

Plotinus arrives here at the second level of perception, the level at which the soul is influenced by form and begins its ascent. Since matter is not a “true substance,” because it does not, in itself, possess wisdom and beauty (V.8.5), this world requires a beauty “brought in from outside in order to appear and in any way to be beautiful” (V.8.9). The unity and beauty of the visible realm is, therefore, not measurable. Here Plotinus departs from the widely accepted identification of beauty with good proportion, a conviction held by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics. Plotinus held, instead, that “Beauty is what illuminates good proportions rather than the good proportions themselves, and this is what is lovable” (VI.7.22). The faces of living people, colors, lightning, stars, sounds, and virtue all derive their beauty not from excellent symmetry of parts, but because they have been “coloured by the light of the Good” (I.6.1; VI.7.22).38 An aesthetic of beauty based upon the concept of good proportion is inadequate for Plotinus, since

38 For a discussion of this distinctive feature of Plotinus’ conception of beauty, see Bréhier, xvi.

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Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty the beauty of the Good belongs ultimately to the realm of faith, not logic or physical measurement: “All that is here below comes from there, and exists in greater beauty there: for here it is adulterated, but there it is pure” (V.8.7). Every soul, according to Plotinus, desires an ascent to the beauty of the Good, since this beauty is the archetype and source of beauty in the visible world. Plotinus describes this ascent as one of divestiture and purification (I.6.7): as a soul rises it will “strip off” the “clothes” that were acquired in its descent to the material realm. But these “external additions” return each time the soul descends, that is, each time one is separated from divine light by “wanting to perceive too much” through the senses (I.6.7; V.8.11). Plotinus describes the soul’s ascent and its transformation of the sensible world with vivid expressions taken from sense experience. The soul, recognizing form as “something in tune with it and fitting it and dear to it” is moved by the recognition (I.6.3). It is “delighted and thrilled,” he says, for it “returns to itself and remembers itself and its own possessions” (I.6.2).39 The soul’s recognition of its likeness to the image is a recognition of form. The thing outside the soul, the image in nature, participates in the higher reality through form just like the soul does; as a result, the soul “knows” it. In other words, the soul recognizes as its own possession the thing that the image imitates. This recognition incites the soul to return to itself; it is a movement of remembrance, a re-identification of itself with Intellect and a recollection of its own beauty. The soul’s return to self after having recognized the beauty of form is simultaneously an ascent to Intellect, the third stage of perception: First the soul will come in its ascent to intellect and there will know the Forms, all beautiful, and will affirm that these, the Ideas, are beauty; for all things are beautiful by these, by the products of intellect and essence. (I.6.9)

In as much as the soul divides its attention between two realms, Plotinus suggests that the soul has two parts, each part operating continuously and simultaneously on different levels of perception (II.1.5; VI.7.5). One part, the lower, perceives the visible world, and its job is to shape or govern that world.40 The material world without beauty of form – without the soul’s governance – is absolute shapelessness – a non-reality. The lower soul governs and creates the material world by contemplating its other part, the higher soul, which belongs entirely to the immaterial realm. The term “govern” in this context, however, needs some clarification: the soul does not act upon the sensible world “from the outside” as if it were painting a picture. Instead, all action of the soul depends upon contemplation of Intellect, just as

39 For a discussion of Plotinus’ description of the sensuality of the intelligible world, see Bréhier,

xi–xii.

40 Hadot offers a somewhat different account of the soul’s divided attention in Plotinus’ system, one

that describes Plotinus’ formulation in terms of human psychology (29).

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem the action of Intellect upon the soul depends, in turn, upon its contemplation of the One. As Armstrong has observed, the soul springs from Intellect as the spontaneous result of Intellect’s contemplation of the One, and its own production of and action upon body is the spontaneous result of its return in contemplation to Intellect. . . . This applies at all levels.41

The job of the higher soul, then, is to receive light from Intellect and to shed this light upon its lower half. The result, it should be emphasized, is a crucial feature of Plotinus’ system: the movement or procession that makes possible the continued existence of the cosmos. In Plotinus’ system, the procession of beauty from the radiating One is a carefully conceived elaboration of the Platonic hierarchy of being. In Plato’s view, this hierarchy of being unfolds from Intelligible truth to dim shadows or illusions of that truth. The Plotinian One is also the source of the Intelligible world of the forms, but it is without form itself, since it is beyond all limitation. The form that is put into (or upon) the visible image by its maker, the “first immaterial One,” or by the mortal craftsman, is presented to the soul through the senses not as a natural representation, but as an idea. This presentation triggers a recognition of Intelligible beauty. What results is a cyclical transference from one realm to the other, extraordinary in its possibilities for vision. The spiritual experience of the individual soul is initiated by the presence and recognition of form, so that this recollection of beauty – this remembering – links the visible world of sense perception with eternity. For Plotinus, then, to experience the beauty of form in the visible world is to return to form and, therefore, to ascend.

The “Screen of Intellect” and the Artist’s Canvas Plotinus makes clear in his writings that beauty of form present in the visible, natural world is not as great as beauty of form in the mind of the maker which the soul possesses in itself. It is for this reason that Plotinus places the beauty of the image wrought by the human artist on a higher level of beauty than the natural object. It may be said that for Plotinus, the artist improves upon nature. Here is another instance of Plotinus’ departure from Plato’s teachings in the Republic. In Book X Plato describes the artist as a maker of copies twice removed from truth. It is important to understand, however, that Plotinus’ departure from Plato on this point is a sophisticated modification and refinement of Platonic thought, and it is not a distinction isolated from the other innovations of his philosophy. There is a coherence to Plotinus’ system that 41 “Plotinus,” Cambridge History, 253–54. Armstrong also stresses the intellectual preparation of the

soul: “The supreme achievement of the intellect is to leave itself behind. But for Plotinus there is no way of passing beyond intellect other than through intellect ” (239).

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Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty makes the valorization of images inevitable, especially those wrought by the artist. The departure from Plato arises naturally from his conception of the One, for the One is negative only in its supreme positiveness; this leads to the generation of its Goodness, and all of created reality is instilled with desire to return to it. Plotinus’ concept of the “rational forming principle” allows him to distinguish beauty of form in nature from beauty of form in the human mind. In nature, the rational principle is present as the “archetype” of beauty, whereas in the “nobly good” soul it is a more intensively active beauty, “already advanced” and “more beautiful than that in nature” (V.8.3). The rational principle is a qualifying feature of Intellect; it acts as an intermediary between the soul and the Good which is primary beauty: That which is beyond this [Intellect] we call the nature of the Good, which holds beauty as a screen before it . . . but if one distinguishes the intelligibles [from the Good] one will say that the place of the Forms is the intelligible beauty, but the Good is That which is beyond, the “spring and origin” of beauty. (I.6.9)

The Good is beyond the realm of finite ideas and is, therefore, unknowable, but it holds beauty before it as a screen. This screen is the rational principle that “adorns” the soul, “giving it light from a greater light” (V.8.3). The light of the Good passes through the screen of Intellect and graces the soul, allowing the soul to see a likeness of the Good. The screen of Intellect “makes us deduce,” by its very presence in the soul what that before it [the Good] is like, which is no longer in anything else but in itself.

“For this reason,” Plotinus continues, it [the Good] is not an expressed forming principle at all, but is the maker of the first forming principle [the Intellect] which is the beauty present in the matter which is soul. (V.8.3)

In Plotinus’ teachings on the screen of Intellect, we find an articulation of how the soul perceives beauty and light from two directions. The sensible world and the rational principle serve as screens through which divine light passes. At one end is the sensible image, the visible object; at the other is the Good. Beauty in the object is presented to the soul in a form that the soul recognizes. This presentation of form is perceived initially through the senses, but it is recognized as form, because the soul receives divine light through the rational principle. In other words, the rational principle presents the light of the Good to the soul in a form of beauty that the soul can recognize in itself as well as in the object. This conception of Intellect as a qualifying principle that adorns the soul like a “screen” of beauty is the foundation for the medieval understanding of 41

Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem philosophical or apocalyptic allegory. Theology serves as the Christian “rational principle,” qualifying the image (i.e., the edifice, the painting, the poem) so that it may in turn be understood as an anagogical symbol. An effort to arrive at an understanding of the symbolic programs of medieval churches leads us back to Plotinus’ reworking of the complex philosophic tradition that he inherited. His valorization of images follows naturally from his unique conception of the radiating One: the colliding reflections upon the soul result in an anagogical ascent and, thus, make possible not only the communication between the material and the immaterial realms, but also the continued existence of the cosmos itself. This communication or transference takes place at the level of the image: something like an imprint and image of that other [immaterial world] suddenly appears [to the soul], either by its direct action [the action of the rational principle] or through the assistance of the soul. (V.8.7)

When the observer succeeds in transporting “what one sees into oneself” the colliding reflections upon the soul become one, so that the soul dismisses the image and sees “the whole”: there is no longer one thing outside [primary beauty] and another outside [the archetype of beauty in nature] which is looking at it [the soul], but the keen sighted has what is seen within. (V.8.10)

The colliding reflections give a unity to the cosmos that is different from the concept of unity found in the Aristotelian organicism model that Plotinus inherited. It is a unity achieved by the procession of light from the One and the return of the lower levels of being to the One through contemplation. This unity is always maintained within Plotinus’ revised Platonic hierarchy. Plotinus also makes clear, however, that these collisions, these “blooms” of color, are not equal in their powers of reflection. The primary beauty of the One “blooms on the surface,” or screen, of the intelligible world, where “all is colour and beauty to its innermost part; for its beauty is not something different from itself like a surface bloom (V.8.10).” In so far as the material image does not possess beauty “to its innermost part,” it cannot be said to act as an intermediary between the sensible and invisible realms. Instead, the adequacy of the image rests, on the one hand, in the soul’s capacity and willingness to receive light from above and, on the other, to be moved spiritually by the presentation of form by the senses. Plotinus’ analysis of the soul’s ascent, concerned as it is with definitions, instructions, and designated levels of perception, demonstrates not only an extraordinary effort to assimilate a complex Platonic-Aristotelian tradition, but also an intense religious desire to express what he clearly believes is ultimately inexpressible. The apophatic or negative aspect of the One is never canceled by its positive radiance, since the One “exists before research and before reasoning” (V.8.6). It is indeed remarkable that the philosopher who 42

Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty broke from his tradition by placing the One beyond the realm of being is compelled, nonetheless, to “signify our meaning.” What drives this compulsion is an intense spiritual devotion.42 Plotinus articulates the movement toward spiritual vision in emotionally charged language intended not only to stimulate the observer’s desire for spiritual ascent, but to mimic that ascent as well. He seeks to inspire in his listeners a “piercing longing” (I.6.7) to become one of the “exceedingly blessed spectators” (V.8.5) and to share in a vision of “true light, not measured by dimensions, or bounded by shape into littleness” (I.6.9). According to Plotinus, it is this compulsion, this desire for vision that defines one’s humanity. The gods, in contrast, do “not even want to be beautiful” since there is no lack of beauty in heaven. The soul’s yearning to be united with “[t]hat alone” (I.6.7) is the most powerful manifestation of divinity within the human world, placed within the soul by the One even though that One is beyond human understanding: “the soul also loves that Good, moved by it to love from the beginning” (VI.7.31). It is also this yearning of the human soul that compels the artist to attempt to express the ineffable, futile as that project ultimately is. But the artist must always wrestle with the paradox: “what image could the primary principle of beauty take?” How does one “manifest the non-discursiveness of the intelligible world” (V.8.6)? What image created by the artist would be worthy even of the beauty of intellect in the mind? Even in his valorization of images, Plotinus never dismisses their intrinsic inadequacy to represent the divine: “every image,” he says, “will be drawn from something worse,” worse, that is, than primary beauty (V.8.3). Nonetheless, they remain necessary images. Plotinus’ philosophical solution provides a powerful justification for visual representation. He believed that the artist improves upon nature by transferring the beauty of intellect to the object, thereby bringing the object one step nearer to primary beauty. For “the arts,” says Plotinus, “do not simply imitate what they see, but they run back up to the forming principles from which nature derives.” It is the form or the idea that the artist transfers from his mind to the shapeless stone, mastering it, refining it, and bringing the stone “to beauty of form by art” (V.8.1). “It is utterly unlawful,” Plotinus asserts, that there should be no beautiful image of [intelligible] beauty and reality . . . for it [the image] has life and . . . it has [as] its being beauty since it comes from that higher beauty; (V.8.12)

Plotinus provides, however, an even more specific response to the artist’s dilemma: if one signifies wisely, like the Egyptians, “every image” will be “a 42 Armstrong views this tone of intense religious devotion as “the most clearly un-Hellenic thing”

about Plotinus, and attributes it, in part, to the influence of the religious passion of the Stoics. Nonetheless, “the exaltation of the remoteness and transcendence of the Supreme with the passionate devotion to the ruling principle of the universe seems to be,” according to Armstrong, “an original achievement of Plotinus” (Architecture, 33).

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem kind of knowledge and wisdom . . . a subject of statements, all together in one” (V.8.6).43 The artist will make icons, and these icons will be taken from Intellect, “so that one is not really apprehending it [primary beauty] through an image.” Plotinus explains that the action is, instead, like taking a piece of gold as a sample of all gold, and, if the piece taken is not pure, purifying it in act or word by showing that not all this sample is gold, but only this particular portion of the whole mass; (V.8.3)

This passage should be understood within the larger context of three closely related tenets of Plotinus’ religious philosophy: first, if humans wish to see what primary beauty is like, they must become “godlike” by purifying their souls. The purification of the soul begins with the individual’s self-conception; that is, it depends upon the viewer’s ability to see his or her own inner beauty. If one looks within and does not see the beauty of a good soul, then the “statue” of ourselves must be brought to “self-mastery enthroned upon its holy seat.” Through virtuous acts and words, one is able to “cut away excess and straighten the crooked and clear the dark and make it bright . . . till the divine glory of virtue shines out on you” (I.6.9). In other words, Plotinus’ religious philosophy is inseparable from his ethics.44 Secondly, to purify the soul is to purify what one sees in the visible world, since the formative power of Intellect can then shine its incorporeal light upon (or through) the object. Finally, we have seen how this purification is actually a “coming into being” and a movement toward divinity through contemplation. Intellect acts as a qualifier of the Plotinian image. Words and actions must be extensions of Intellect so that the piece of gold can be purified and can function as a reflection of light from the Good. “[H]ere it is,” Plotinus continues, from the intellect in ourselves when it has been purified, or, if you like, from the gods, that we apprehend what the intellect in them is like. For the gods are majestic and beautiful and their beauty is overwhelming: but what is it which makes them like this? It is Intellect, and it is because Intellect is more intensely active in them, so as to be visible. (V.8.3)

Plotinus is suggesting, perhaps, that the Intellect of the gods, because of its intense activity, is itself visible – visible, that is, to the mind’s eye. But human intellect, since it is not so intensely active, is not readily available to the mind’s eye. Humans, therefore, must take something that is materially visible,

43 Hadot has observed that Plotinus’ forms are like Egyptian hieroglyphics (40). 44 Armstrong observes, “the critical purification of the mind is inseparably linked with the moral and

religious purification; you cannot have one without the other. Plotinian purification cannot be effectively thought through without being lived through: though it is also true that, in distinction from other less intellectualist mystics, Plotinus does not believe that you can live through it without thinking through it” (“Plotinus,” Cambridge History, 239).

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Plotinus’ Screen of Beauty like the piece of gold, and qualify it in such a way that it can stand as an image of divine reality. According to Plotinus, human beings are naturally compelled to represent ideas through images, because they naturally desire to perceive more than what is visible to the human eye alone. The visible world – removed, yet not separate from the divine realm – is a world radiant with possibilities for revelation. For Plotinus, the world itself is an icon. If it is seen as such, the observer becomes a “fellow-lover,” filled with the color and the light that penetrates “through the whole of the soul” and shines “bright upon all” (V.8.10). Instead of one who sees, the observer becomes “an object of vision to another . . . shining out with thoughts of the kind which come from that world” (V.8.11). It is at this state of spiritual perception that the “exceedingly blessed” spectator becomes sight itself (I.6.9; V.8.5). In the Confessions, Augustine describes with joy his discovery that the Platonist articulation of a spiritually dynamic cosmos allowed him to perceive the light of divinity, even though this was a light unavailable to the human eye:45 These books [of the Platonists] served to remind me to return to my own self. . . . In I entered, and with the eye of my soul, such as it was, I saw the Light that never changes casting its rays over the same eye of my soul, over my mind. . . . It was above me because it was itself the Light that made me. . . . All who know the truth know this Light, and all who know this Light know eternity.46

Augustine remains committed to his belief that his own conversion to the “light above light” was a gift from the Christian God, but he also acknowledges that the Platonists provided an essential intellectual environment for his conversion to that Christian faith.47 Plotinus’ writings in particular made it possible for him to “take the first step of returning into himself” – of looking into his own soul and thus begin his journey to God.48 They provided Augustine with a sophisticated metaphysical plan that served his great formulation of a specifically Christian philosophy. The Plotinian metaphysical process that Augustine adapted to serve his own spiritual vision is also the intellectual basis for the medieval understanding of the symbol. We are one step closer, then, to laying the foundation for the building of the New Jerusalem in the medieval west. The medieval churches served, like the religious philosophy of Plotinus, as powerful invitations to share in the best of visions. Their construction, iconography, decoration, and liturgy offered programs of anagogical transformation in which 45 Enn. V.3.12, 15; Conf. VII.9–16, 20; see also civ. Dei, X.1–2. 46 Conf. VII.10, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin, Saint Augustine: Confessions (New York: Viking Penguin,

1961), 146–47.

47 Conf. V.14. 48 Menn, 82.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem human desire for intimacy with an eternal goodness found direction and focus. It was this effort to perceive and experience the divine realm through architecture and its accompanying arts that recalls the Plotinian desire to penetrate the screen of beauty that separates the observer from full revelation.

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Augustine’s City of God

2 Foundations II: Augustine’s City of God We find, therefore, that the earthly city has two aspects. Under the one, it displays its own presence; under the other it serves by its presence to point towards the Heavenly City. (De civitate Dei XV.2)

Ad imaginem Dei:1 Christ and the Elevation of the Human Body

A

UGUSTINE’S transformation of Platonism according to Christian tconcepts of Church and salvation history is a necessary bridge between Plotinus’ screen of beauty and the medieval representations of the New Jerusalem in poetry, prayer, and stone. Augustine’s treatment of Platonism in general and his indebtedness to Plotinus in particular are, of course, highly complex subjects. A thorough treatment of them requires full discussion of early Christian responses to Greco-Roman philosophical traditions.2 My intention here is to concentrate primarily on Augustine’s mature and most ambitious theological work, De civitate Dei (On the City of God), turning to key features of his thought that assist in our larger focus on the architectural approach to divine revelation in the medieval west.3 These features include his views on the relation between the sensible and invisible realms, his specifically Christian response to Platonist teachings on the soul, his sacramental theology, and his great eschatological theme of the two cities or “orders,” into which he divides the human race: the civitas terrena (earthly city), symbol-

1 2

3

Gen. 1.27. In addition to the bibliographical suggestions listed in Chapter One, nn. 7 and 12, the following sources are especially helpful: E. L. Fortin, The Birth of Philosophic Christianity: Studies in Early Christian and Medieval Thought, ed. Brian Benestad (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996); H. J. Blumenthal and R. A. Markus, eds., Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought (London: Variorum, 1981). Unless otherwise noted, my English translations are taken from Augustine: the City of God against the Pagans, ed. and trans. R. W. Dyson, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998). For Latin editions of Augustine’s works cited in this book, see the Bibliography entries under Augustinus.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem ized by Babylon, and its antithesis, the civitas Dei (City of God), symbolized by Jerusalem. Compared with Augustine’s treatment of these subjects in some other of his major works, they do not all receive Augustine’s fullest attention in De civitate Dei. Nor are his teachings in this work always representative of his views in his other, especially earlier, works. De civitate Dei, however, is Augustine’s most comprehensive work, written between 413 and 427. It is one of the foundational texts of patristic literature and was one of the most widely read of Augustine’s works throughout western medieval Europe. Furthermore, with the exception of the Bible itself, it provides the most important theological foundation for the architecture of the New Jerusalem in the medieval west: Augustine grounds his encyclopedic presentation of theology in De civitate Dei in his interpretation of Jerusalem, the earthly city, as a figura that points toward Heaven. To examine Augustine’s treatment of Platonism is to encounter his personal engagement with an age and place that experienced tremendous political, intellectual, and religious changes. His life coincided with what historians identify as an age of great transition, when the early years of medieval Christianity were emerging from late pagan antiquity. Augustine’s theological writings reflect, and in many cases were motivated by, this collision of cultures and systems of belief. In his admiration and respect for certain aspects of Platonist thinking on the one hand and his steadfast commitment to a Christian revelation on the other, including the essential role of the Church in making that revelation accessible, we recognize Augustine as a transition figure in the best sense, as one who belonged to a world that was crumbling, but which for him had served as a preparation for the true religious philosophy, the Christian faith.4 Augustine’s response to the “books of the Platonists,”5 that he read in Milan in the late 380s was one of joy and gratitude. From Plotinus, the chief source of his Platonism, he gained intellectual insights that prepared him to accept the authority of the Christian faith, an authority he recognized in scripture and in the early Christian tradition whose roots extend to Christ’s apostles. The theology of love, wisdom, conversion, and transcendence that he found in the New Testament, especially in the Gospel of John and in the letters of Paul, had been anticipated, Augustine believed, in Plotinus’ intellectually informed religious devotion and in his carefully articulated metaphysics 4

5

R. A. Markus observes that the modern distinction between philosophy and theology is inappropriate for an understanding of Augustine’s intellectual and religious environment: Augustine “included under [the heading of philosophy] everything that was of ultimate concern to man, everything relevant to the question: how is a man to attain his ultimate fulfillment, that is ‘blessedness’ (beatitudo)?” “Augustine. Biographical Introduction: Christianity and Philosophy,” in Cambridge History, 334; cf. 353. On Augustine as a central figure for our understanding of this great age of transition, see Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine (1970; repr., Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970); J. Pelikan, The Excellent Empire: The Fall of Rome and the Triumph of the Church (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987). Conf. VII.9–13.

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Augustine’s City of God of light. In his own intellectual journey from Manicheism, Platonism, and finally to Christianity, Augustine discovered a special kinship with Plotinus as one whose entire philosophical enterprise was directed toward the summum bonum. While he valued certain achievements of the pagan Platonists, especially the philosophical mysticism of Plotinus, Augustine worked to correct, refine, and transform this tradition so that it served what he believed was the true philosophy. For Augustine, the inadequacy of pagan Platonism rested not in its philosophical aim, which is blessedness, but in its teachings on how to achieve that aim. In De civitate Dei, we find extended discussions of what Augustine identifies as profound differences between the systems of belief, despite what he sees as striking parallels between those systems. In one passage addressed to the Platonists, for example, Augustine explains, [T]hough your use of words is incorrect, you do to some extent see as it were a kind of shadowy image of what we should strive towards. You do not, however, wish to acknowledge the incarnation of the immutable Son of God, by which we are saved and through which we are able to come to the things we believe or in some small way understand. You see after a fashion, although at a distance, and with clouded vision, the country in which we should abide; but you do not hold fast to the way that leads to it. (X.29)

For Augustine, spiritual transformation can be achieved only through belief in the historical reality of the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Augustine’s belief in the scriptural account of Jesus’ earthly history, and his equally committed acceptance of early Christian teachings that identify the Church as the mystical body of Christ, are the key points of reference which he repeatedly invokes in his response to the Platonici. Plotinus’ philosophical affirmation of the essential goodness of the visible, sensible realm, an affirmation that was a natural corollary of his belief in the positive aspect of the One, was clearly, for Augustine, a powerful message that motivated his desire to achieve some harmonious understanding of Platonism and Christianity. In one passage that demonstrates well how he often moves with ease between Plotinian and Christian thought, Augustine uses Jesus’ teachings on divine Providence to gloss Plotinus’ religion of the cosmos: The Platonist philosopher Plotinus indeed discusses providence. He infers from the beauty of flowers and leaves that providence extends downward even to these earthly things from the supreme God, to Whom belong the intelligible and ineffable beauty; and he holds that all these lowly things which fade away so quickly could not exhibit such an utter perfection of form were they not formed by Him Whose intelligible and immutable form endures in all things together. The Lord Jesus Himself shows this, where he says, “Consider the lilies, how they grow. . . .” (X.14)6 6

Matt. 6.28ff.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem With a remarkable lack of hesitation or awkwardness, Augustine invokes Jesus’ authority to support what he understands as a Plotinian theory of divine Providence. What is also striking about this passage is Augustine’s special emphasis on the “downward” extension of the Plotinian One, even though Plotinus’ elaborate metaphysical apparatus places the One beyond the realm of being, beyond Intellect. When Plotinus uses language that might suggest a radical intimacy between the One and the created cosmos, he provides sufficient qualification to counter this possibility, lest his audience misunderstand his ontology and assign too direct a communication between the One and the sensible world. Yet this passage is just one example of many in De civitate Dei and in other works of how Augustine often stresses fundamental agreements between the two great traditions. In order to do so, as we have seen, he turns to passages in the New Testament to gloss Plotinus’ teachings. To a certain degree, Augustine’s acceptance of traditional Christian teaching gave him proper justification for his attraction to Plotinus’ thought. The goodness that proceeds from the Plotinian One, which Plotinus likens to an outward flow of light, sets in motion the spiritual dynamism of the cosmos; indeed, this radiation of goodness is the source of life itself and upon which the cosmos is wholly dependent. For Augustine, the specific source and fully accurate expression of this teaching is the incarnation and resurrection of Christ. In other words, we find Augustine accepting a fundamental feature of a Platonic model, but in order to do so, he transforms that model with Trinitarian theology.7 What is most important for Augustine are not the parallels between the two traditions, but the complete dependence of the sophisticated pagan model upon the Christian revelation – a dependence that is necessary if that model is to have any significance at all. The Word (verbum) proceeds from the Father through the Holy Spirit and entered history with the birth of Christ. Through the loving sacrifice of the Cross, the saving grace of the Resurrection, and the sacramental role of the Church, spiritual conversion and eternal salvation for humankind is made possible.8 The doctrines of the resurrection of Christ and of the resurrection of bodies at the end of time made it necessary for Augustine to emphasize further a fundamental departure from Platonist teachings on the sensible world, even while acknowledging the value of those teachings:

7 8

civ. Dei X.29; XIV. Spiritual conversion and eternal salvation is made possible, but it is not, for Augustine, guaranteed. In Augustine’s writings on predestination, most of which are specific responses to the Pelagian controversy, he stresses the inability of human beings to ever fully grasp the mysteries of God’s Providence, especially on matters of election and damnation. Nonetheless, human beings are always responsible for choosing to live according to the scriptural teachings on the redemptive love of Christ and as members of the City of God on earth (De dono perseverantiae, 22–60). I do not take up further discussion in this book of Augustine’s views on predestination. For some of his most important works on this subject, see De dono perseverantiae, De gratia et libero arbitrio, and De praedestinatione sanctorum.

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Augustine’s City of God The Platonists are not, indeed, so foolish as the Manichaeans; for they do not detest earthly bodies as the natural substance of evil. On the contrary, they attribute all the elements of which this visible and tangible world is composed, and their properties, to God the Creator. Nonetheless, they [the Platonists] hold that souls are so influenced by earthly limbs and dying members that they [the souls] derive from them [their bodies] their unwholesome desires and fears and joys and sorrows. (XIV.5)

Augustine insists that Platonist optimism toward the visible, sensible world does not give adequate attention to the human body. Indeed, it is the human body that must be the primary focus of such optimism, since human beings are made ad imaginem Dei (in God’s image). The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and scripture teaches that we will be reunited with our bodies on Judgment Day.9 When human beings sin, it is not the fault of the body, but of the will, or soul, whose job it is to subject the body to proper governance. “[T]hose who suppose that the ills of the soul derive from the body are in error,” Augustine states. “We are pressed down by the corruptible body . . . yet we know that the cause of our being pressed down is not the nature and substance of the body, but its corruption.”10 Augustine’s discussion in De civitate Dei on the necessary elevation of the human body also demonstrates how his apocalyptic eschatology is a key feature of his transformation of the Platonist view: “we do not wish . . . to be divested of the body, but to be clothed with its immortality.” At the end of time, “there will still be a body . . . but, because it will not be corruptible, it will not be a burden.” To be clothed with a body is to be given the gift of spiritual opportunity; it is God’s visible invitation to his children to imitate Christ. To have a body, then, is to be a living sacrament in the Pauline sense: “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service.”11 Augustine’s commentary on the biblical passage, which he quotes, is strikingly Plotinian: If, then, the body, which, being inferior, the soul uses as a servant or instrument, is a sacrifice when it is used rightly, and with reference to God, how much more does the soul itself become a sacrifice when it offers itself to God, in order that, being inflamed by the fire of His love, it may receive of His beauty and become pleasing to Him, losing the shape of earthly desire, and being remoulded in the image of permanent loveliness? (X.6)

The body, like Plotinus’ piece of gold, can be reshaped or remolded to serve as a sacrifice, as a living sacrament.12 To be “clothed with a body,” is to be 9

I Cor. 3.10–17; I Cor. 15.35–54; II Cor. 4.16; 5.1–10. For Augustine’s theology on the resurrection of bodies, see civ. Dei XXII.20–26; XIII.16–end. 10 civ. Dei XIV.3 11 Rom. 12.1. 12 Enn. V.8.3. See Chapter One, 44–5.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem colored, or adorned, with the light that radiates from heaven and which illuminates the body as an “earthly tabernacle.” In expressing his eschatology, Augustine mixes Paul’s architectural metaphors with the exuberance of Plotinus’ mysticism. The body is, of course, susceptible to corruption through a misdirected will, and it is this corruption that is mere nakedness – the nakedness that is our mortality and hence our burden. We desire Heaven, therefore, to shed its bloom upon the body: we “earnestly desire to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.”13 This process of being “clothed upon” with immortality, this building up of our bodies as “houses” from, belonging to, and turning towards Heaven is, ethically speaking, a training or education of the mind (exercitatio animae), a process in which the merely naked – or mortal – body is purified and subjugated to the soul. Once again, Plotinian terms are remarkably useful, as Augustine himself realized. The process of being “clothed” in this sense is actually a lifting off, an unveiling, a process whereby communication with the divine is made possible, not hindered or prevented. It is to be clothed with Heaven’s light, with a veil that is neither burdensome nor a source of resistance; it is instead a screen of intellect or beauty in the Plotinian sense – a “location” and opportunity for higher vision.14 In other words, it is a sacramentum, especially in the Augustinian sense. It is to live the earthly life as an opportunity for revelation, since the body adorned with heaven is “sight itself.”15 Perhaps the finest medieval expressions of this spiritual “adding on,” or adornment, are not found in Augustine’s theology but in a pervasive application of Christian-Platonist apocalyptic eschatology: the building of the New Jerusalem in poetry, prayer, and stone. The Pauline teaching that Augustine quotes, that “we earnestly desire to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven” recalls John’s apocalyptic visio pacis: “And he took me up in spirit to a great and huge mountain: and he showed me the holy City of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.”16 One wonders how Augustine would have responded to the remarkable building projects of western medieval Europe, churches like Notre Dame of Chartres and St.-Étienne in Bourges, or the Sainte Chapelle in Paris and its now-lost English counterpart, St. Stephen’s Chapel in London’s Westminster Palace.17 Augustine knew intimately the liturgies that designated the buildings in which they were 13 civ. Dei XIV.3. Augustine quotes II Cor. 5.1ff: “For we know, if our earthly house of this habita-

14 15 16 17

tion be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven. For in this also we groan, desiring to be clothed upon with our habitation that is from heaven. Yet so that we be found being clothed not be naked. For we also, who are in this tabernacle, do groan, being burthened; because we would not be unclothed, but clothed upon, that that which is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” civ. Dei XIII.21 Plotinus, Enn., I.6.9; V.8.5. Rev. 21.10: et sustulit me in spiritu in montem magnum et altum et ostendit mihi civitatem sanctam Hierusalem descendentem de caelo a Deo. See my discussion in Chapter Four, 113–16, 117, 118, 119.

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Augustine’s City of God performed as sacred spaces, and he demonstrates in his frequent citations of ancient authors, especially Virgil, a great fondness and sensitivity towards poetry. Could he have imagined, however, a great sacramental poem like Dante’s La Divina Commedia or a great liturgical painting like The Seven Sacraments by Rogier van der Weyden? In his writings, Augustine does not consciously advocate these kinds of achievements, but he did transform the Plotinian screen of beauty according to Trinitarian theology and a specifically Christian apocalyptic eschatology. He provided, therefore, a fully articulated theological foundation for the architecture of revelation in poetry, prayer, and stone. The architectural expressions were reciprocal responses to John’s visio pacis in the Book of Revelation – earthly elevations designed to meet, at the level of the qualified image, the Second Coming of Christ.

Christiana libertas: Christian Freedom and the Soul’s Journey to God Augustine used the hierarchical model that he inherited from the Platonists in ways that supported his Christian faith, despite that model’s theological deficiencies. Augustine’s Christology made it essential that he adjust the status of the Platonist body by rejecting the idea that a human body is in itself the source of human corruption. “There is no need,” Augustine writes, “in the matter of our sins and vices, to do injustice to our Creator by accusing the nature of the flesh, which, of its own kind and in its due place, is good.” Since human beings consist “of both soul and flesh” the “whole” human being “can be signified by either ‘soul’ or ‘flesh’ alone.”18 In this passage we see Augustine struggling with the linguistic constraints of the hierarchical model he adopted, but this struggle is also one that arises from his efforts to express a religious mystery. Human beings, Genesis teaches, are made in God’s image. For Augustine, however, Genesis also teaches that the human will, or soul, is responsible for the turning away from the source of our likeness. It is only through Christ that bodies become endowed with new opportunity for sanctification; it is Christ who restores the possibility for the soul’s ascent (acies mentis) to God. Plotinus’ efforts to synthesize a Platonist hierarchy of being with an Aristotelian organicism model would have been appreciated by Augustine, who wrestled with the linguistic difficulties of formulating a coherent theology that fully accepts the mystery of the incarnation and yet insists upon a subordination of the body to an otherworldly spirituality.19 The body is a created good, yet a strictly otherworldly perspective must be maintained: “it is not good for anyone to forsake the good Creator and to live according to a created

18 civ. Dei XIV.5. 19 civ. Dei XI.26; De Trinitate XIV.8.11.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem good.”20 To a degree, Augustine also recognized a special affinity between Platonic and Christian teachings on the soul. Plotinus, as we have seen, offers a meticulous account of the soul’s central role in maintaining an otherworldly perspective. The soul’s position in the hierarchy of being is the pivotal one, directing its attention “upwards” in recognition of its participation in the invisible light of the One and “downwards” in its governance of the sensible world. We have seen that Augustine corrects the Platonist emphasis on the body as a source of spiritual corruption. It is the soul that is the source of corruption, since its job is to govern the lower self. Those occasions of inadequate governance are occasions of sin. The Christian belief in the inherent corruptibility of the soul is a fundamental divergence from Plotinus’ teachings.21 For Plotinus, the soul neither sins nor suffers; it is in itself divine, although fully dependent on the One for its continued, immutable, and impeccable existence. For the Christian, by contrast, souls are created and are not in themselves divine; indeed, they bear the heavy burden of sin. Adam’s sin, which is the archetype of all subsequent human sin, was a turning away from the light. In his disobedience, he acted “as if he were himself light.” Had he followed that light instead of turning from it, “he would himself have become light.”22 Human beings have been given the gift of Christ as the redeemer. The journey of the Christian soul, then, is one of restoration, or divinization, achieved only through the intervention and saving grace of the Trinitarian God. Nor is it a journey that can be completed in this world; the end of the pilgrimage, whether infernal or paradisal, will come at the Last Judgment.23 Augustine rejects Plotinian teachings on the natural divinity of the soul, but he refines Plotinus’ validation of the sensible world to serve his views on the possibility of the soul’s sanctification. It is the job of the Plotinian soul to qualify the sensible world through the rational principle so that the world can become a screen of beauty, a location for spiritual transformation, an icon, “a sort of great sacrament in the wide sense.”24 Augustine’s teachings on the sensible world, including his sacramental theology, owe much to this Plotinian formulation. But for Augustine, Christianity profoundly transforms that sacramental world view: the redemptive love of Christ restores the human being to its elevated condition as an image of God and makes the ascent possible.

20 civ. Dei XIV .5. 21 Conf. XII.11; De Trinitate XII. 22 civ. Dei XIV.13. Trans. Marcus Dods, Saint Augustine: The City of God, Introduction by Thomas

Merton (New York: Random House, 2000).

23 For Augustine’s distinction between the first Judgment, after death, and the Last Judgment, see civ.

Dei XX. 6.

24 Armstrong, “Salvation, Plotinian and Christian,” 137.

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Augustine’s City of God

Ecclesia et sacramenta: Augustine’s Church and the Sacramental Signa Whereas in Plotinus the transformation of the soul takes place at the level of the image, with the rational principle qualifying that image as the screen of beauty, in Augustine the transformation of the soul must also take place through the great sacramental signum, or sign, that is Ecclesia, the Church. For Augustine, the Church assists in preparing the faithful for elevation to a state of sanctification, offering forgiveness of sins and the hope of resurrection to eternal life.25 The Augustinian Church is, as one scholar has correctly expressed it, “simultaneously historical and eschatological, institutional and spiritual, visible and invisible.”26 The Church is the eucharistic community, the mystical body of Christ (corpus mysticum), and its members are bound in a community of love: God’s love for humankind and the two great commandments to love God and neighbor.27 Augustine defines the sacrifice of the Eucharist as “the visible sacrament (sacramentum) or sacred sign (signum) of an invisible sacrifice.”28 It is a sign of the divine presence, but it is unlike other signs in that it is also that very presence. It is the most profound likeness of all, since it is itself the reality it signifies.29 The boundaries – even those as fluid as Plotinus’ colliding reflections of light – between the visible and invisible, the temporal and eternal, are erased in the miracle at the altar. For Augustine, the Eucharist is the radically intimate communication between God and human beings. It is the sacrifice of the crucifixion, simply and profoundly expressed in Christ’s foretelling of his own death: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all people to myself.”30 Augustine understood the sacraments of the Church as sacrificial ways of furthering the journey toward the summum bonum, a journey that human sin hinders or prevents.31 The sacraments reopen paths toward sanctification, 25 civ. Dei XX.9. Augustine does not exclude virtuous people, unaware of the Christian revelation, 26 27 28

29 30 31

from the City of God. Nor does the Church guarantee salvation to all its professed members. In civ. Dei, see I.35; XI.1; XVIII.49; XX.9.1. Heikki Kotila, “Memoria Mortuorum: Commemoration of the departed in Augustine,” Studia Ephemeridis Augustinianum 38 (Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1992), 151. Matt. 22.37–40; Jn. 13.34–35; civ. Dei X.3. civ. Dei X.5. For an extended analysis of Augustine’s sacramental theology, see H.-M. Féret, “Sacramentum. Res. dans la langue théologique de Saint Augustin,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques vol. 29 (1940): 218–43. Epistulae 98.9; Enarrationes in Psalmos 33.1; Sermones 228B.2; 229.2; civ. Dei 17.20; Conf. 10.43.70. Jn. 12.32. The translation is from The New Jerusalem Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1990). Augustine’s Ad inquisitiones Januarii (Epistolae 54–55) (Responses to Januarius, letters 54–55), especially letter 55, is an important work for our understanding of Augustine’s views on the ecclesiastical sacraments, especially the Eucharist and baptism, and other church observances during the Easter liturgies. Also of importance for Augustine’s sacramental view of reality is Enarrationes in Psalmos 105; and Sermones 4.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem providing avenues of blessedness. The greatest sacrament is the Eucharist; indeed, for Augustine, it is the religious mystery through which human beings must perceive all visible reality. Without the Eucharist, the Plotinian religion of the cosmos is ultimately, and at best, devoid of meaning; at worst it is idolatrous.32 For this reason, as Augustine concedes, it must be corrected or else rejected. Sacramental signs (signa) are a sub-category within Augustine’s theory of signs, which receives its most sustained and formal treatments in De doctrina Christiana (396; 426–27) and De magistro (398).33 In these works, Augustine presents his theory of signs as a theory of the acquisition and conveyance of knowledge through language. Specifically, it is presented as a theory of language applied to scripture. The divine pedagogy of scripture, Augustine explains, includes two kinds of word-signs: first, the literal signs whose meaning is clear, since signification refers to itself as a literal reality. Hence, Jacob’s stone in Genesis (28.10–19) is signified literally by the Hebrew word for “stone.” In the second category, signs are figurative; that is, they signify something beyond (other than) the literal meaning. The figurative meaning (or meanings) may not, therefore, be readily apparent. According to Augustine’s theory, Jacob’s stone has multiple significations. It is to be understood literally as a detail in Genesis, and it is also to be understood as a complex figura with simultaneous significations, including Beth’el (an “abode of God”), Solomon’s Temple, the City of God on earth, Ecclesia, and the visio pacis, or Heavenly Jerusalem. Jacob himself marks the place as a sacred sign when he anoints the stone with oil. In doing so, he formally identifies the place as a location for communication between God and his people. It is, literally, a stone on the ground where he lays his head, but figuratively, as his dream teaches, it is a stairway to Heaven.34 The essential interpretive principle in the divine pedagogy of scriptural signa is caritas: love of God and neighbor.35 Scripture teaches nothing other than caritas and condemns nothing other than cupiditas, which is love of anything other than God for its own sake. Sin is a perversion of caritas, since

32 Conf. VII.12. For a discussion on the early Christian opposition to the sacramental cosmology, or

“cosmic religion” of the pagans, see A. H. Armstrong and R. A. Markus, Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy, esp. ch. 4 (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964). 33 A full critique of Augustine’s theory of signs is beyond the scope of this study. My discussion here is meant to provide fundamental tenets of the theory that are necessary for my larger discussion of sacramentum and Ecclesia. Among the many, more thorough scholarly treatments of Augustine’s theory of signs, especially useful are Giovanni Manetti, ed., Knowledge through Signs: Ancient Semiotic Theories and Practices (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996); Markus, “St. Augustine on Signs,” and B. D. Jackson, “The Theory of Signs in St. Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana,” in Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. R. A. Markus (New York: Doubleday, 1972), 61–91; 92–147; Brian Stock, Augustine the Reader (Cambridge: Belknap, Harvard UP, 1996). 34 Cf. Ex. 23.24; I Kings 8.27. 35 Augustine treats the Latin words caritas, amor, and dilectio as synonyms. In civ. Dei XIV.7 he rejects the idea “that dilectio is to be taken in a good sense and amor in a bad.” Augustine turns to his Latin translation of the New Testament for his authority on this treatment of the terms.

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Augustine’s City of God sinners substitute their own objects of love for love of God. To sign properly is to be motivated by caritas, to understand that a mere thing (res), like Jacob’s stone, for example, is not to be deified as a thing (res) sacred in and of itself. Its sacral status depends upon its communicative function as a sign of a sacred reality beyond itself. One must also be aware of the inverse abuse of signs: one must not mistake a sacred sign for a mere thing. The perverse deification of the res on the one hand and the demystification of the sacred sign on the other, are both examples, according to Augustine, of a carnal engagement with God’s means of communication.36 Interpretation of scripture is, therefore, an opportunity for moral choices, an opportunity to engage in acts of love, and all readings must be worthy of God’s love for human beings. Although Augustine formally presents his theory of signs as a theory of language applied to scripture, we see that he applies it as well, in an analogous way, to God’s creation as a whole. Indeed, scholars have observed his “very indefinite” use of the word sacramentum; he applies the term “to all things” that have “some spiritual meaning” and that are “externally visible.”37 Augustine’s broad application of the term is not, however, evidence of a lack of precision in his thought or of sympathy with a pantheistic religion of creation. The freedom with which he uses the term certainly demonstrates his special affinity for Plotinus’ philosophical mysticism, but more importantly, it is Augustine’s faith in the Church as the eucharistic community that allows him to exercise that freedom.38 Sacramental signa assist in the recovery from the fall into cupiditas. Augustine understood the ecclesiastical sacraments as powerful signa of sacred reality. Since the sacramental process is inherently reciprocal, Augustine often refers to sacraments as visible words (verba visibilia). The sacrament of the altar, however, is unique: it is not merely a sign that hints at, suggests, or points to a reality beyond itself; it is a miracle of the Word’s actual presence. The Eucharist, as the greatest of the sacramental signa, is the way of our affections motivated by caritas. It is the sacrament that allows Augustine to apply his theory of signs, with Plotinian-like inclusiveness, not only to scriptural interpretation, but also to liturgical rites and gestures, to miracles and theological mysteries, such as the Trinity and the resurrection of Christ – indeed, to any feature of God’s creation that, if perceived properly, may be understood as one understands the Hebrew term pasch, meaning “passage” from bondage to freedom, from death to life.39 Sacraments are

36 De doctrina Christiana III.5.9. 37 Kotila, 118. 38 For important studies of Augustine’s sacramental theology, see C. C. Courtier, “Sacramentum et

mysterium dans l’oeuvre de Saint Augustin,” Études Augustiniennes, ed. H. Rondet et al. (Paris: Aubier, 1953); Markus, 1972; B. Studer, “Sacramentum et exemplum chez Saint Augustin,” RechAug 10 (1975): 87–141. 39 Ex. 12.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem vehicles for communication with God. They are invitations to participate in the redemptive sacrifice, to be anointed, like Jacob’s stone, as a living temple of God.40

Oratio et laus: Prayer and Liturgy as Sacramental Actions Augustine’s theory of signs, especially as it relates to scriptural interpretation, teaches how words may serve as signa of holy realities. God uses signs to communicate with human beings; sacramental signs are occasions of divine eloquence, whose purpose is to elevate the human soul. This is how Augustine understands Christ’s own words that he spoke on earth and which scripture records. Jesus spoke “in words of human speech, syllable by syllable, giving to each its brief moment of passing time; but in His own nature He speaks not in a bodily but in a spiritual way.”41 Scripture is a unique textual fulfillment of the Word. And so, Augustine argues, to further our sacramental journeys, we must learn to read the words of scripture properly as a sacramental activity. Augustine insists, as well, that although it is impossible for human beings to articulate anything truly worthy of God – since God is beyond any merely human predication – God has, nonetheless, given of Himself through the human voice in Christ. Since God gave us scripture to reflect upon and taught us to pray through Christ, we are to understand that God gave us language so that we may experience the joy of praising Him (laus) and be comforted in our prayers of petition (oratio). Prayer, therefore, is also a sacramental activity that gives special emphasis to an articulated love in all communication between God and human beings. Prayer is at once a human assertion of faith – often through linguistic formulations – and a receptivity to the Word, which is the sacrificial love of Christ. Successful communication with God through prayer or through reflection upon the inspired Word in scripture depends upon this mutual love. Without the sacrificial love that joins Christ with the Church, there is mere nakedness of body and stagnation of soul. Liturgical prayer is an especially appropriate way of acknowledging both God’s gift of creating humankind in His likeness – the now tarnished gift of Genesis – and the gift of restoration through Christ. Liturgical worship is a public act of sacred recognition and, therefore, an edification of the soul. Liturgy is a service of the faithful offered to the Master Builder, so that the faithful themselves may be restored as temples of God. In one of the most

40 The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) present the Last Supper as a Passover meal

(Mt. 26.17; Mk. 14.12; Lk. 22.7–8). Both meals are, therefore, commemorated in the eucharistic liturgy. See Jn. 19.36 and I Cor. 5.7, where the death of Jesus is described as the Passover sacrifice. 41 civ. Dei X.15. cf. “For the immutable Truth either speaks by itself, ineffably, to the minds of rational creatures, or it speaks through a mutable creature: either to our spirit by spiritual images, or to our corporeal sense by corporeal voices” (civ. Dei XVI.6).

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Augustine’s City of God extended discussions of liturgical worship in De civitate Dei, Augustine describes this service in architectural terms: To Him, we owe the service which in Greek is called latreia, whether this be expressed through certain sacraments or performed within our own selves. For we are His temple, each of us and every one of us together, since He deigns to dwell both in the whole harmonious body and in each of us singly. (De civitate Dei X.3)

The worshipers become “His altar” when their hearts are lifted “up to Him.” Christ is at once the mediator, “the priest who offers,” and “the sacrifice which is offered.”42 The love that joins Christ with His Church is symbolized visually in the liturgical burning of incense, “when we devote and render to Him ourselves and His gifts in us.”43 The Church, with its central role in administering the ecclesiastical sacraments to the eucharistic community, is called in service to present scriptural signs in ways that are nourishing to that community, of carrying out in visible form Christ’s saving grace. One of the most important ways the Church carries out this service is through its great formulation of liturgies. The liturgical organization of the life of the Church supported Augustine’s commitment to tradition and his faith in the Church as an authority of revealed truth. “By solemn feasts on appointed days,” Augustine writes, “we consecrate to Him the memory of His benefits, lest, as time rolls by, ungrateful forgetfulness should steal upon us.” But liturgy is more than a reminder of God’s gifts. It is a willingness to reciprocate, to return, to be part of a community that publicly asserts a desire to participate fully in God’s love. Indeed, Augustine writes, Christ “intended that there should be a daily sign [of his offering] in the sacrament of the Church’s sacrifice. For the Church, being the body of which He is the Head, is taught to offer herself through Him.”44 Worshipers, therefore, imitate Christ in their offering “upon the altar of [their] hearts.” What they offer is “the sacrifice of humility and praise, kindled by the fire of love.” It is a dramatization in a public setting of the Plotinian journey of the soul, with the profound difference that Christ is the mystical priest that makes that journey possible. Liturgy is a communal sacramental activity that invites worshipers to “see Him, insofar as He can be seen . . . so that we may cling to Him . . . and are consecrated in His name. For he is the fount of our blessedness, and He is the goal of all our desires.”45 Christianity, as Augustine conceived it, is more than a belief; it is a pilgrimage to the City of God. The pilgrim’s journey is formally recognized and celebrated in the sacred drama, or sacramental mystery, of the Mass, the celebration and commemoration of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. 42 43 44 45

civ. Dei X.20; Heb. 10.11ff. civ. Dei X.3. civ. Dei X.20. Ibid. X.3.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem In his writings, Augustine provides no systematic discussion of liturgy. Liturgical subjects are, instead, dispersed throughout his works. What is most important, however, is the extent to which his views on liturgical worship are fully integrated into his concept of human life itself as a sacred drama. The liturgy of the Mass is a formalized expression of the sacramental – and therefore sacrificial – experience of human life lived in and through Christ: “This is the sacrifice of Christians: we, being many, are one body in Christ.”46 The sanctification of the eucharistic community is, for Augustine, a process, a pilgrimage not to be completed in this world. Sacramental signs are fundamentally eschatological, since the ultimate aim of perception through signs is union with God (facies ad faciem), only to be hoped for in its completion at the Last Judgment. In the daily celebration of the eucharistic liturgy, the Church affirms its role as the conveyor of that expectation and hope. The liturgical settings themselves, typically church buildings, are, therefore, eschatological landscapes, not to be equated with the New Jerusalem, but to be understood as figura that rise, like the liturgical burning of incense, in expectation of completion in God at the end of time.47 Chapter Three of this book will look more closely at how medieval liturgy defines the church buildings as eschatological landscapes and how they are understood as sacramental signa in the Augustinian sense. But first, to conclude this examination of Augustine’s transformation of pagan Platonism in the service of the Christian faith, we turn to his apocalyptic eschatology as he presents it in his great theme of the two cities.

Ecclesia et Hierusalem: Allegories of Church and City Augustine wrote De civitate Dei in response to pagan adversaries of Christianity who blamed the new religion for the collapse of Rome in 410. Augustine responded to the crisis with two major arguments. First, he presented the Christian faith as the true philosophy, whose religious aims are not in conflict with respectable political aims of any earthly state. Secondly, he rejected millenarist ideas that identified the collapse of Rome as an apocalyptic sign. Rome, “the most excellent empire,” Augustine argued, is not a signum of the City of God, and so its collapse contributes nothing to our knowledge of the Eschaton.48 One does not gain knowledge of this event by interpreting historical events as if they were apocalyptic signa. The end will remain a mystery 46 Ibid. X.6 47 This point is beautifully expressed in the Lucernaire sung at vespers by the Fratérnités de

Jérusalem, the monastic community of St.-Gervais–St.-Protais in Paris: “Que ma prière s’élève comme l’encense devant Toi,/ l’élevation de [mes] mains soit un sacrifice du soir./ Exauce-moi, Seigneur!” (As my prayer rises like incense before You,/ let the elevation of [my] hands be an evening sacrifice. Hear me, Lord), Psaumes: Hymns et Cantiques de Jérusalem (Paris: Fratérnités de Jérusalem, 1993), 316, verses 5–6. 48 civ. Dei V.15.

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Augustine’s City of God until Christ comes down from heaven to judge the living and the dead (Matthew 20.34–41). Here Augustine expresses his eschatology in specifically apocalyptic terms. To see in the fall of Rome the immanent event of the New Jerusalem coming down from the heavens, as did Eusebius, Orosius, and other proponents of the “imperial theology,” is to be blind to the great signum that God has given in his love for humankind: the Church.49 This misinterpretation of a historical event is nothing less than a perversion of caritas, since a mere res (Rome) is mistaken as a sacramental signum. It is the Church that is the sacramental sign of the New Jerusalem, not Rome or any other secular body politic. Just as Augustine’s Ecclesia replaces even the best of the Greco-Roman pagan philosophies, it also replaces the “most excellent” of earthly empires.50 Rome has no significance in salvation history; rather, it is Ecclesia that journeys forward in pilgrimage until the completion of history at the end of time. Augustine did not reject millenarist interpretations of Rome’s collapse in order to turn readers’ attention away from the recent historical catastrophe and to have them focus, instead, wholly on the unknowable future – at least not directly. In rejecting an apocalyptic view of Rome’s collapse, he emphasized instead the role of the Church as a sacramental sign, as the eucharistic community made up of human beings who remain incomplete in their spiritual journeys: “it is in hope that the City of God lives while it is a pilgrim here, begotten of faith in the resurrection of Christ.”51 Augustine’s De civitate Dei, his most ambitious theological work, is also, therefore, his most ambitious pastoral project. His aim is to identify what the Church is here and now: who its members are, how it serves, and what it signifies. As the mystical body of Christ, the Church serves its faithful by offering channels for salvation. The Church cannot guarantee salvation, but it offers preparation and hope in the expectation of the Last Judgment. Its members are incomplete, always on pilgrimage: “the Church is not a congregation of the holy here and now, but a

49 On Augustine’s rejection of imperial eschatology, see B. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church: A

Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991); Markus 1970/1979; J. Pelikan, The Mystery of Continuity: Time and History, Meaning and Eternity in the Thought of Saint Augustine (Charlottesville: U Press of Virginia, 1986); J. Daniélou, “La typologie millénariste de la semaine dans la christianisme primitif,” Vigiliae Christianae 2 (1948): 1–16; Paula Fredriksen, “Apocalypse and Redemption: From John of Patmos to Augustine of Hippo,” Vigiliae Christianae 45 (1991): 151–83; W. Verbeke, D. Verhelst, A. Welkhuysen, The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 15 (Leuven: Leuven UP, 1988). 50 For specific identification of the Church with the City of God, see for example, civ. Dei VIII.24; XIII.16; and XVI.2. It is important to remember, however, that Augustine’s Church on earth neither guarantees eternal membership in the Celestial City nor is it fully representative of God’s chosen on earth. The Church has a special role to play for the Christian pilgrim, but matters of Divine election and damnation are ultimately beyond human understanding (civ. Dei I.35; XI.1; XVIII.49; XX.9). 51 Ibid. XV.18.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem corpus permixtum. The holiness of the Church is due to its essential relationship to the heavenly city, a matter of hope rather than of possession.”52 Augustine’s theology of Church, then, is fully informed by his apocalyptic eschatology, and it is, as well, fundamentally pastoral. As a pastoral work, Augustine presents his moral theology as an inseparable feature of his teachings on the Church. As a corpus permixtum, the Church exists in the same precarious present as the human soul: it is a mixture of otherworldly yearning (caritas) and carnal misdirection (cupiditas). He identifies these competing directions as the opposing activities of two societies or cities, or of two Churches within one Church. The activity itself – as Augustine defines all activity, human and divine – is love: Two cities . . . have been created by two loves: that is, the earthly by love of self extending even to contempt of God, and the heavenly by love of God extending even to contempt of self . . . The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, “Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. (civ. Dei XIV.28)53

Augustine refers to the city that lives for God as Jerusalem (Ierusalem or Hierusalem). Its antithesis, the city that lives for self, Augustine calls Babylon. Citizens of Jerusalem look forward in hope and humility for eternal freedom with God; citizens of Babylon, in their lust for power and selfsufficiency (libido dominandi) live in bondage. In Plotinian terms, one city perceives the visible world as a screen of divine beauty; the other makes shadows where there should be light. In Augustinian terms, one enjoys the goodness of creation as a sacramental sign through which one experiences the true, uncreated, and immutable goodness that is God alone; the other (ab)uses creation as a good in itself. The term civitas is not, for Augustine, a designation for a defined or isolated group of edifices built for the various needs of a society. Civitas refers to the society itself. It designates a group of people, a community, whose individual members share in common the object of their devotion.54 Augustine’s civitas engages in a common pilgrimage toward a common destination – the visio pacis – only to be achieved at the end of time.55 The term civitas, then, may be applied to the place, or building, where the community gathers; and the place, in turn, may be understood as a signum of the eucharistic community, or Ecclesia. A church building is a setting in which the community gathers to reaffirm and manifest its beliefs through worship. It is where the members of the community hope to become worthy of citizenship in the Celestial City, where they may shape themselves as temples of God. 52 53 54 55

De doctrina Christiana I.35; Kotila, 127. Augustine quotes Psalm 3.3; civ. Dei XIV. 7, 9; cf. civ. Dei XV.1. civ. Dei XIX.24. Augustine translates “Jerusalem” from the Hebrew, meaning “vision of peace” (De Genesi adversus Manicheos II.10.13).

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Augustine’s City of God The terms and their applications are interchangeable, because they all participate in the common bond of caritas: the bond of sign and reality is so close that the signifying thing takes the name of the thing signified, and that which contains [houses] is named by that which is contained.56

The application of the term civitas to designate a single architectural structure is adopted by Augustine, as we shall see, in his figurative interpretation of Solomon’s Temple. Augustine’s division of the human race into two “orders” or cities is based upon his figurative understanding of Jerusalem, the biblical city. “Jerusalem” is, indeed, the controlling signum for his theology of the two cities.57 The ancient city is “a kind of shadow and prophetic image of” the City of God. The Jerusalem of the Hebrew Bible is “also called the Holy City, not as being the exact likeness of the truth which is yet to come, but by reason of its pointing towards that other City.”58 Augustine cites Paul as his teacher in the craft and transformative spirituality of allegorical interpretation: [t]his mode of interpretation, which comes down to us by the authority of the apostle, indicates to us how we are to understand the Scriptures of the two covenants, the Old and the New. (XV.2)

Abraham’s two sons, Cain and Seth, are to be understood as allegories of the two covenants, the old one “from Mount Sinai” that “answereth” to the historical Jerusalem, and the new one, which is Jerusalem “above,” “free,” and mother of us all.”59 According to Augustine, God’s covenant to Israel is “without doubt . . . a prophecy concerning Jerusalem on high, whose reward is God Himself.”60 56 Quaestiones Evangeliorum 573, quoted from Michael Cameron, “Sign,” Augustine through the

Ages, 795.

57 For important studies on Augustine’s treatment of Jerusalem in De civitate Dei, see C. N.

Cochrane, Christianity and Classical Culture: A Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine (New York: Oxford UP, 1944); Émilien Lamirande, L’Église céleste selon Saint Augustin (Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1963); J. van Oort, Jerusalem and Babylon: A Study into Augustine’s “City of God,” and the Sources of His Doctrine of the Two Cities (Leiden and New York: E. J. Brill, 1991). 58 civ. Dei XV.2; cf. In Johannis evangelium tractatus 11.8; Enarrationes in Psalmos 119, 121, 124. 59 civ. Dei XV.18–19. cf. Gal. 4.21ff. In his exegetical use of the terms allegoria and figura, Augustine “appeals to Pauline precedent: allêgoroumena (Lat. per allegoriam dicta) in Galatians 4:24, typos (Lat. figura) in I Corinthians 10:6, and typikôs (Lat. figura) in I Corinthians 10:11 (De utilitate credendi 3.8).” Augustine demonstrates great flexibility in his use of these terms, not taking care, in a consistent way, to distinguish them from one another or from other related terms such as “similitudo, umbra, sacramentum, mysteria, and imago.” There are instances, however, when he prefers figura to allegoria: “figura . . . preserves the significance of a historical reality.” Allegoria emphasizes “the relationship between biblical words and their spiritual referents,” but “omits the intermediate category of physical or historical reality.” See, for example, De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber 2.5; Conf. 24.37 and 25.38. David Dawson, “Figure, Allegory,” Augustine through the Ages, 366–68. See also Dawson’s extended bibliography on this subject. 60 Cf. Heb. 8.8–10.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem This affirmation of prophecy leads Augustine to identify Solomon’s Temple as an architectural fulfillment of God’s promise to the Hebrews. The Temple itself, as a house of God that is “a part” of the earthly city,61 is, by extension, to be understood as a figura of the New Jerusalem: But when Jerusalem is called City of God and it is said that the House of God is to be built there, a twofold reference is intended. For, on the one hand, this prophecy is seen to have been fulfilled when King Solomon built his most noble temple there. But this was not only an event in the history of earthly Jerusalem: it was also a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem. (XVII.3)

Augustine’s elaboration upon the Pauline allegory completes the theological foundation for the architecture of revelation in medieval poetry, prayer, and stone. The earthly image “displays its own presence,” a presence that is to be taken seriously as prophecy and as an invitation for higher vision. Solomon’s Temple, as an architectural symbol of the historical Jerusalem – as a city within a city – serves “to point toward the Heavenly City” and so serves, as well, as an archetype for the medieval projects.62 Is it possible for Augustine’s City of God to exist on earth? If Plato’s ideal republic had been Augustine’s model, then the answer would be no, since Plato’s city exists only in thought and in speech.63 As a good Plotinian, however, Augustine’s answer must be an emphatic yes: Augustine sees this world as a dramatic opportunity for spiritual growth, as a profound invitation for human beings to become living sacraments, and hence living temples of God. The earthly extension of the heavenly realm is, of course, not in perfect form; our vision of God is obscured, and spiritual growth must also be accompanied by suffering and labor. The church buildings themselves are houses of God where “the broadness of the nations dwell,”64 and so they are “full of those who will be separated by winnowing, as on the threshing floor.” Hence, they are eschatological landscapes: “the glory of this house does not yet appear as fully as it will in time to come, when everyone who is there will be there forever.”65 The medieval façades of France’s great churches illustrate Augustine’s emphasis on the Eschaton: “the whole Church of the true God, then, holds and professes the belief that Christ will come down from heaven to judge the living and the dead. This is what we call the last day, the day of divine judgment.”66 But

61 civ. Dei XV.2. 62 Ibid. XV.2. The Ark of the Covenant, Noah’s Ark, the desert Tabernacle, and Jacob’s dream are all

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signa at work in Augustine’s allegory of Jerusalem (civ. Dei XV.26; XVI.38). See my discussions of these biblical images as models of the New Jerusalem in the Introduction, 4, 6, 11, 16, 18 and in Chapters Three, 84–6, 89 and Six, 168, 169, 170. Earnst L. Fortin makes this point in his article, “Civitate Dei, De,” Augustine through the Ages, 199. civ. Dei XVI.2. Ibid. XVIII. 48. Ibid. XX.1; Matt. 20.34–41.

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Augustine’s City of God heaven begins on earth. As figura of pilgrimage, as settings for liturgy, and as the gathering places of the eucharistic community, the medieval edifices may be understood as visual affirmations of Augustine’s belief, expressed eloquently by Thomas Merton, that, “since the ascension of Jesus in heaven,” all of human history “is concerned with one work only: the building and perfecting of this City of God.”67

67 “Introduction,” Saint Augustine: The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: Random

House, 2000), xviii.

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Part II Liturgy and Architecture

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology

3 Liturgy at St.-Denis and the Apocalyptic Eschatology of High Gothic For instance, the apostle says, “That Rock was Christ”, because the rock of which he spoke certainly symbolised Christ. Thus, the glory of this house, the new covenant, is greater than the glory of the former house, the old covenant, and it will appear even greater when it is dedicated. (De civitate Dei XVIII.48)1

Abbot Suger and the Dionysian Tradition: An Overview

A

UGUSTINE is the bridge between Plotinus’ metaphysics and a properly tChristian foundation for the architecture of revelation in poetry, prayer and stone in the medieval west. As a transitional figure, Augustine drew upon the pagan Platonists of late antiquity, especially Plotinus’ sacramental philosophy of the cosmos, to formulate a theology that makes the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ the means by which the cosmos is sanctified. Augustine did not find in the pagan Platonists a formal theory of the relationship between religious philosophy and historical events. In response, Augustine provided what Thomas Merton has called a “monumental theology of history . . . built on revelation, developed above all from the inspired pages of St. Paul’s epistles and St. John’s Apocalypse.”2 Through Augustine, the religious philosophy of Plotinus had evolved, by the early Middle Ages, into a Christian-Platonism that embraced the conception of a spiritually dynamic cosmos based upon a theology of light. The importance in Christianity of the historical event of Christ separates the Christian from the Hellenic philosophic tradition; with the incarnation, God entered history. Augustine, having read and transformed Plotinus’ metaphysical system, secured the acceptance of Christian-Platonism by the Latin Church, but the Christian concept of history includes, as well, an apocalyptic vision of the end of time, a communal finality when all salvation history will be 1 2

Augustine cites I Cor. 10.4. Merton, xv.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem revealed and fulfilled through Christ. This concept of history has no place in the mysticism of Plotinus; nor do his writings include an articulated concept of Church or an insistence on a system of rites or sacraments. Furthermore, Plotinus never emphasizes a particular building or locus as an appropriate setting for communicating with the divine realm. The great Gothic churches of the Middle Ages are, perhaps, the most conspicuous examples of how Platonic concepts of light, image, and cosmos had evolved and were fused with the Christian concepts of history and Church. What distinguishes these edifices from other forms of medieval sacred art is that all their components – architectural design, iconographic programs, use of light and liturgies – functioned together to an extraordinary degree to create, in so far as it was possible, an earthly representation of the New Jerusalem. The twelfth-century rebuilding of the Royal Abbey of St.-Denis (now a cathedral), just outside of Paris, and the writings of Abbot Suger (c. 1081– 1155) which record that building campaign, continue to hold a central place in our understanding of the development of Gothic architecture.3 The architectural innovations at St.-Denis that were carried out during Suger’s abbacy (1121–55) – and which Suger claims in his writings to have supervised – helped to inaugurate the Gothic style. The abbey church of St.-Denis has been described as a work of theology expressed in material things: stone, glass, jewels, and precious metals. But the church is not merely a passive theology, a description, or a creed; it is also an anagogical program giving expression to the possibility of progression for the faithful to a state of sanctity. The famous verses that Suger had inscribed on the bronze doors at the church’s central west portals identified Christ as the “true door” to the “True Light”: Bright is the noble work; but, being nobly bright, the work Should brighten the minds, so that they may travel through the true lights, To the True Light where Christ is the true door. In what manner it be inherent in this world the golden door defines: The dull mind rises to truth through that which is material And, in seeing this light, is resurrected from its former submission.4

The architectural innovation that best describes this aesthetic of radiance is “that elegant and praiseworthy extension,” the “circular string of chapels, by virtue of which the whole [church] would shine with the wonderful and unin-

3

4

On Suger’s twelfth-century building campaign at St.-Denis, see Panofsky, Abbot Suger. For a study of work completed on the abbey under Suger’s direction, see Sumner McKnight Crosby, The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis from its Beginnings to the Death of Suger, 475–1151, ed. and completed by Pamela Z. Blum (New Haven: Yale, 1987); The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis in the Time of Abbot Suger (1122–1151), exhibition catalog, edited by Sumner McKnight Crosby et al. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981). Trans. Panofsky, 46–49.

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology terrupted light of most luminous windows, pervading the interior beauty.”5 Suger removed the walls that obstructed light filtering through the colored glass. Light from the eastern sky passed through the colored windows and penetrated the church’s interior, falling upon the abundance of jewels used to adorn the liturgical fixtures and panels of the main altar. The colored reflections within the building must have given the impression of a pervasive, visible energy and movement, mimicking the intended spiritual transformation of the observer. As is well known, the mystical writings of Pseudo-Dionysius (c. 500) had been a treasured possession of the abbey since the ninth century.6 As a result, St.-Denis remains an important focus for scholars interested in possible relations between Platonic traditions and the innovations of Gothic architecture. Indeed, a formidable body of scholarship exists that investigates the question of whether Abbot Suger, in his architectural and decorative planning of the church, was consciously (and responsibly) motivated by some formal representation of Christian-Platonism.7 My contribution to this question differs from studies that have sought to identify or refute a specific Dionysian influence in Suger’s writings, although, as we shall see, my work supports Bernard McGinn’s emphasis on the strong Augustinian background of the celebrated “Dionysians” of the twelfth century.8 My particular focus, however, is on the medieval liturgy at St.-Denis and on Suger’s familiarity with that liturgy.9 5 6

7

8 9

Trans. Panofsky, 101. Corpus Dionysiacum, ed. Beate Suchla, Gunter Heil, and A. M. Ritter. 2 vols. Patristische Texte und Studien, vols 33 and 36 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1990–91). Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid; forward, notes, and translation collaboration by Paul Rorem, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1987). For discussions of the Dionysian influence expressed in Suger’s writings (especially through John Scotus Eriugena or Hugh of St.-Victor), see Werner Beierwaltes, “Negati Affirmatio or the World as Metaphor. A Foundation for Medieval Aesthetics from the Writings of John Scotus Eriugena,” Dionysius 1 (1977): 127–59; Crosby, The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis from its Beginnings, 108–11, 117–18; Panofsky, Abbot Suger, 1–37; D. Moran, The Philosophy of John Scottus Eriugena: A Study of Idealism in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1989); Conrad Rudolph, Artistic Change at St.-Denis; Abbot Suger’s Program and the Early Twelfth-Century Controversy Over Art (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990); Paul Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols Within the Pseudo-Dionysian Synthesis (Toronto and Ontario: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984), 144–46; Otto von Simson, Gothic Cathedral, 62–64; Grover Zinn, “Suger, Theology, and the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition,” in Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis, ed. Paula Lieber Gerson (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986), 33–40. See also the collection of essays in Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings, ed. Virginia Chieffo Raguin, Kathryn Brush, and Peter Draper (Toronto, Buffalo and London: U of Toronto P, 1995), esp. Bernard McGinn’s essay, “From Admirable Tabernacle to the House of God: Some Theological Reflections on Medieval Architectural Integration,” 41–56. McGinn, “From Admirable Tabernacle,” 47–8. Suger’s political motivations, which I do not discuss here, have also been the subject of much scholarship. Otto von Simson discusses Suger’s relationship with the French Crown and how his mingling of the theological drama with the political found expression in the church’s artistry: “Gothic . . . is so closely tied to the destinies of the Capetian monarchy . . . that we must assume that Gothic was considered the expression of the ideas with which the crown wished to be associated” (The Gothic Cathedral 64; see also 62, 73–74, 140). Conrad Rudolph has argued that Suger’s primary goal was to “maintain claims of contemporaneity amid the controversy over monastic life.” Conrad continues, “It seems that it was largely the pressure of opposition Suger faced [from

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem Specifically, I treat the liturgy for the feast of the dedication of St.-Denis as a literary art informed by Christian-Platonism and put to use as a drama of revelation. I supplement this focus by examining twelfth-century commentaries by Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of St.-Victor on church dedication liturgies. My purpose is to demonstrate how the liturgy for the feast of St.-Denis’ dedication, when examined together with associated commentaries, provides an especially rich and important body of evidence for the eschatological and apocalyptic symbolism of the medieval edifices.10 The tradition of scholarship that argues for specific connections between medieval Christian-Platonism and great church architecture has long recognized the importance of Pseudo-Dionysius’ mystical writings, especially their possible influence upon Abbot Suger and the twelfth-century rebuilding of St.-Denis. The Dionysian corpus was, as Panofsky described it, a revered possession of the Abbey, “no less than were the ‘Oriflame’ and the relics of the Holy Martyrs.”11 In the year 827 the Byzantine emperor presented Louis the Pious with a codex containing Pseudo-Dionysius’ works.12 The book was transferred to the Abbey of St.-Denis on 8 October 827, the eve of the feast of Saint Denis. Between 835 and 840 Abbot Hilduin translated these texts into Latin, incorrectly identifying Pseudo-Dionysius with Saint Denis. In addition, the author of the mystical writings had been identified incorrectly with the biblical Dionysius, the Areopagite who was converted to Christianity by Saint Paul (Acts 17.34). This confusion of identities persisted well into the Middle Ages, so that when Suger became abbot of St.-Denis in 1122 and began rebuilding the church, he believed, along with most of his contemporaries, that Denis the martyr was both the author of the mystical treatises and a disciple of Saint Paul.13 As Anne Walters Robertson has shown, the medieval liturgy at St.-Denis attests to the central role of this legendary Denis in the daily life of the abbey throughout the Middle Ages.14 Apart from the works of Augustine, the mystical writings of PseudoDionysius were the most influential early Christian adaptations of Platonic thought. The Dionysian formulation of the presence and unveiling in this world of God’s absolute light has been eloquently described by historian Georges Duby as “contient la clé de l’art nouveau, de l’art de France, dont

10

11 12 13 14

Bernard of Clairvaux] . . . rather than Pseudo-Dionysian light mysticism – that provided the major stimulus toward the meaning and means of Suger’s program” (33, 74–75). See also Lindy Grant, Abbot Suger of St-Denis: Church and State in Early Twelfth-Century France (London and New York: Longman, 1998). The medieval liturgy for the dedication of a church has been mentioned in studies on church symbolism, and Laurence Hull Stookey offers a general examination of the liturgical and theological sources for the concept of the church as the Heavenly Jerusalem: “The Gothic Cathedral as the Heavenly Jerusalem: Liturgical and Theological Sources,” Gesta 8 (1969): 35–41. My analysis here is a more ambitious study and one I apply to a particular edifice. Panofsky, 18. This codex is now Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Grec, 437. Crosby, The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis from its Beginnings, 4. Service Books, 46–9, 235–48.

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology l’abbataile de Suger institue le modèle exemplaire. Art de clartés et d’irradiation processive.”15 Paul Rorem makes the additional argument that “[o]f all the Dionysian themes in the Middle Ages, those associated with The Celestial Hierarchy were distorted the least.”16 In an early chapter of this treatise, Pseudo-Dionysius presents his understanding of how the sensible world is to be interpreted as an anagogical symbol: Material lights are images of the outpouring of an immaterial gift of light. . . . Order and rank here below are a sign of the harmonious ordering toward the divine realm. The reception of the most divine Eucharist is a symbol of participation in Jesus. And so it goes for all the gifts transcendentally received by the beings of heaven, gifts which are granted to us in a symbolic mode. . . . He revealed all this to us in the sacred pictures of the scriptures so that he might lift us in spirit up through the perceptible to the conceptual, from sacred shapes and symbols to the simple peaks of the hierarchies of heaven. (121D, 124A)17

In this blending of light metaphysics with scriptural allegory and sacramental theology, Pseudo-Dionysius presents a Platonic conception of the sensible world that has been adapted for biblical interpretation and Christian worship. The sensible world is an invitation, an occasion to experience the immaterial, sacred realm; but it is the word-pictures of the Bible – the sacramental signa, to use Augustine’s language – and the liturgical rites of the Church that are the most important visual manifestations of the divine realm. Much scholarship has been devoted to identifying other possible Christian-Platonist influences upon Abbot Suger. Grover Zinn, for example, emphasizes how the twelfth-century Victorines, especially Hugh (1096– 1141) and Richard (d. 1173) informed the thought of Suger and the symbolic programs of his new church.18 Bernard McGinn has called Hugh of St.-Victor “the great Dionysian of the twelfth century.” Nonetheless, McGinn argues, and correctly I believe, that Augustine was the most important influence upon twelfth-century Christian-Platonist thought. He argues further that there has been “an over concentration on the Dionysian aesthetic tradition” in studies of Gothic architecture. Suger and the twelfth-century theologians, McGinn points out, were “steeped in Augustine’s thought,” and the “Dionysianism” that characterizes the ideas of Hugh of St.-Victor and his pupil Richard, “can be best described as “Augustinianized.”19 15 L’Europe des cathédrales 1140–1280, vol. 2 of Le Moyen Age (Genève: Skira, 1966), 14. 16 Pseudo-Dionysius; A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence (Oxford:

Oxford UP, 1993), 239; cf. 78–9. Paul Rorem also points out that John Scotus Eriugena, Hugh of Saint-Victor, Suger of St.-Denis, John Sarracenus, Robert Grosseteste, and Jean Gerson all “singled [this treatise] out for special attention,” (239). See also Stephen Gersh’s important study, From Iamblichus to Eriugena: An Investigation of the Prehistory and Evolution of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1978). 17 Pseudo-Dionysius; The Complete Works, 146–7. 18 Grover A. Zinn, Jr., “Suger, Theology, and the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition,” 33–40. 19 “From Admirable Tabernacle to the House of God,” 47–8.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem Others have argued that Suger was influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius through the Latin translation and commentary by John Scotus Eriugena (850–77). In Eriugena’s main work, the Periphyseon, and in his subsequent commentary on Dionysius’ Celestial Hierarchy, Eriugena formulates a symbolic aesthetic by adapting many Dionysian themes, especially the concept of theophania and the Platonic framework of procession and return. Eriugena combined these, in turn, with the teachings of Augustine. As Edouard Jeauneau has observed, Eriugena was the first figure to synthesize the teachings of Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine, “becoming, therefore, the founder of a new kind of Neoplatonism, typically medieval.”20 Eriugena saw a fundamental agreement between Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine in their understanding of how the visible world can be read as a manifestation of the divine realm. Eriugena elaborates upon their formulations, however, by emphasizing, not unlike Plotinus, how art objects can serve as embodiments or vehicles of divine ideas. Eriugena “could speak of God as the artist and the world as art. Because he viewed existence or being itself as a theophany and the world as metaphor, he also could view art as anagogy, more explicitly than Dionysius ever did.”21 One work of Eriugena’s that is especially relevant for the specific focus of this chapter is his poem of one hundred lines entitled Aulae sidereae (starry halls).22 It is an occasional poem, written for the consecration of the church of St. Mary of Compiègne.23 In it we find a concise illustration of how Eriugena interpreted the Platonic system of timeless procession and return in terms of Christian salvation history. Eriugena writes, Verbum namque deus processit virginis alvo Lucis in augmento, quam noctis vicerat umbra ... Restaurare volens priscasque reducere sedes. (22–23, 30) [For the God-Word proceeded from the womb of the Virgin in an increase of the light that the darkness of night had over-come. . . . The God-Word willed to restore and give us back our former seats.]

Verses later in the poem draw even more explicitly on the Platonic vocabulary of procession and return, offering a model of spiritual movement that has been transformed and is made possible by the incarnation of Christ:

20 “Pseudo-Dionysius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor in the Works of John Scottus

Eriugena,” in Carolingian Essays; Andrew W. Mellon Lectures in Early Christian Studies, ed. Uta-Renate Blumenthal (Washington: Catholic U of America P, 1983), 146. 21 Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius, 80. 22 Other possible translations include “gleaming,” “glittering,” or “heavenly” (sidereae) “courts,” “palaces,” or “dwellings” (aulae). 23 The church was consecrated on 5 May 877. This church was one of the first to be modeled on the church built by Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle. For the Latin text of the poem and an English translation, see John J. O’Meara, Eriugena (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 177–89.

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology Quae mens, quae virtus, superum quae facta sophia In carnem poterit descensum dicere verbi, Carnis et in verbum sublima bimata nosse? Ut deus aeternus factus caro lapsus ad ima, Sic caro facta deus vere levis evolat alta. (67–71) [What mind, what power, what created wisdom of those above can describe the descent of the Word into flesh, and know the ascents sublime of the flesh to the Word? As God eternal become flesh, descended to the lowest, so flesh, become God, is truly born lightly up on high.]

The last seventeen lines of Eriguena’s poem describe the church edifice in all its artistic splendor; it is simultaneously an architectural, liturgical, and royal tribute to God: Proxima sis Karolo tutrix, munimen et altum, Qui tibi mirifice praeclaram fabricat aedem, Aedes marmoreis varie constructa columnis, Alta domus pulcre centeno normate facte. Aspice polygonos flexus arcusque volutos, Compages laterum similes, capitella basesque Turres, luriculas, laquearia, daedala tecta, Obliquas tyridas, ialini lulminus haustus, Intus picturas, lapidum pavimenta gradusque, Circum quaeque stoas, armaria, pastaforia, Sursum deorsum populos altaria circum, Lampadibus plenas faros altasque coronas. Omnia collucent gemmis auroque coruscant; Pallia, cortinae circumdant undique templum. (85–97) [Charles who builds wonderfully for you a shining church, a church constructed with variety on marble columns, a lofty house, beautifully made on the basis of a hundred. Look at the bendings of the polygon and the unrolling of the arches, the regular joinings of the sides, the capitals, the bases, the towers, the balusters, the paneled ceilings, the crafted roofs, the embrasured windows, drinking in light through the glass. Inside see the pictures, the pavements and steps of stone, and everywhere around porches, closets, and sacristies, the people going up and down around the altars, the light-holders full of torches, and lofty crowns. Everything sparkles with precious stones and gleams with gold. Pallia and hangings clothe the temple everywhere.]

M. Foussard has argued correctly, I think, that in this poem Eriugena applies his vision of art to the church edifice, seeing it in all of its detailed parts – structure, design, light, and liturgy – as an image of the New Jerusalem.24 The occasion of the consecration of a church would have been an ideal opportunity 24 “Aulae sidereae,” Cahiers archéologiques 21 (1971): 79–88. See also O’Meara, 180–81.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem for Eriugena to express such a vision of art – a vision that is both Plotinian and apocalyptic.25 As a scholar familiar with both the Dionysian and the Augustinian traditions of Christian-Platonism, Eriugena would have found proper theological justification for this kind of celebration of the material building. The following passage from Augustine’s De civitate Dei, for example, would have sufficed: [A]s for one who loves . . . according to Christ . . . God forbid that this love should be consumed as wood, hay, or stubble, and not rather be deemed a building of gold, silver and precious stones! For how can a man love those more than Christ, whom he loves only for Christ’s sake?26

One conclusion that may be drawn from the history of scholarship on possible sources of Abbot Suger’s Christian-Platonism is that the Royal Abbey of St.-Denis is a material translation of Plotinian aesthetics having passed through the minds of some of the most prominent and influential early Christian-Platonists: Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Eriugena, and Hugh of St.-Victor. For the church building to function as a symbol of the New Jerusalem, however, the Christian formulation must include a perception of the edifice as an eschatological and apocalyptic landscape. Interestingly, Pseudo-Dionysius places no emphasis on this particular theme in his discussions of divine symbols. This absence of an articulated apocalyptic eschatology in the Dionysian writings recalls a similar Plotinian indifference to, or general lack of interest in, the symbolism of place, communal or private. The absence in Dionysius is more notable than that in Plotinus, however, given the sixth-century writer’s focus on Christian formulations of liturgical and ecclesiastical symbolism.27 While eschatological and apocalyptic themes are lacking in PseudoDionysius’ writings, these themes are prominent in the writings of Augustine, Maximus the Confessor (580–662) and Eriugena.28 Jeauneau has shown that among the Greek writers Maximus exerted the most influence on Eriugena – even more so than Dionysius. Jeauneau writes, “the Dionysius whom John Scottus read was a Dionysius revised and corrected by Maximus.”29 Maximus 25 Panofsky argued that Suger used the writings of Eriugena to derive certain words and phrases of 26 27

28

29

his own poetry. Paul Rorem agrees. Other scholars disagree, however, with Panofsky’s claim. See Panofsky, 24. civ. Dei XXI.26; cf. I Cor. 7.5, 32. This essential point has been largely overlooked by scholars arguing for a Dionysian influence in the development of Gothic. Paul Rorem, however, is a notable exception: “The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy contained not a hint of such eschatological typology or correlation of the events of the liturgy with the future glory of heaven. In fact, the entire Dionysian corpus is devoid of eschatology, except for one passage (592C), 52–3. Jeauneau argues that Eriugena seems not to have noticed, or had deliberately overlooked this “striking” contrast between the world views of Dionysius and Augustine. Jeauneau writes, “Augustine is closer to Plotinus and Porphyry, Dionysius closer to Proclus . . . [he] consciously or unconsciously seems to have ignored the differences in order to stress the common tradition (145). Jeauneau, 147. John Scotus’ admiration for Dionysius seems to have led him to read and translate

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology the Confessor interprets the church building variously as images of God, the universe, the material world, and the human being.30 He ascribes a symbolic meaning to each part of the building and to the liturgical participation of the faithful. These interpretations all contribute to his understanding of the sacred edifice as way of passage from the material realm to the spiritual and as a preparation for the celestial feast at the end of time. As Rorem observes, Maximus’ interpretive method is remarkably creative and original, showing no signs of Dionysian influence.31

The Abbey Church of St.-Denis and the Feast of the Dedication Scholarship strongly suggests that Abbot Suger’s understanding of sacred art and architecture was influenced, either directly or indirectly, by one or more of the Christian-Platonists who have been discussed briefly in this chapter. What I emphasize in the remaining pages of this chapter, however, is how Abbot Suger’s familiarity with the monastic liturgy celebrated in his own church would have taught him to understand the building as a tabernaculum admirabile, as a locus where the faithful gather, prepare for, and participate in the joys of the Celestial City.32 While the concept of the church building as a habitation of God and as an apocalyptic and eschatological landscape has its roots in the Bible,33 the liturgy for the dedication of a church makes masterful use of these themes, and it is also the subject of one of Suger’s celebrated treatises.34 Anne Walters Robertson’s study of the service-books of St.-Denis, and Margot Fassler’s work on the twelfth-century liturgy at the Abbey of St.-Victor in Paris are testimonies to how the study of liturgy can assist in our understanding of the interaction between theological concepts and medieval church architecture.35 Art historians and literary medievalists are also discovering the riches that liturgical sources can provide.36 Although a wealth of

30 31 32

33 34 35 36

Maximus and then Gregory of Nyssa. Among the works of Maximus that Eriugena translated were the Ambigua ad Iohannem and the Quaestiones ad Thalassium. He also translated Gregory of Nyssa’s De hominis opificio, which Eriugena called De imagine. But he thought the author of this work was Gregory of Nazianzus, also called the Theologian. See Jeauneau, 141–42. See especially, “The Church’s Mystagogy,” trans. George C. Berthold, Maximus Confessor; Selected Writings (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1985), 181–225. Pseudo Dionysius, 122. As stated above, it was Eriugena’s Latin translation of the Dionysian corpus that Suger would have read. I borrow the phrase tabernaculum admirabile from Bernard McGinn: “The humanly constructed beauty of a church building is meant to form an ‘admirable tabernacle’ which will lead to God,” “From Admirable Tabernacle,” 48. See the Introduction, 4–6. Libellus alter de consecratione ecclesiæ; see Panofsky, Abbot Suger. Robertson, Service Books; Fassler, Gothic Song. See the excellent collection of essays in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. Thomas J. Heffernan and E. Ann Matter, Medieval Institute Publications (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 2001).

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem medieval liturgical books survives in libraries, however, relatively few of these have been edited and published. Roger E. Reynolds has therefore urged medievalists not to “wait for the handful of living liturgiologists to publish these texts,” many of which could demonstrate important associations between the design and decoration of the monuments and the theology that informs the liturgies themselves. The liturgical sources that Reynolds especially recommends are the medieval pontificals, ordines, and customaries; these contain not only extensive ceremonial directions and prayers, they also mention architectural and decorative features of the churches in which the liturgies were performed.37 Christopher Wilson, in his study of the technical aspects and stylistic developments of medieval church architecture, calls attention to the language of church dedication liturgies for evidence of the building’s function as an apocalyptic symbol. “Every medieval church,” Wilson writes, was an evocation of the heavenly Jerusalem, the abode of the saved to be established after the completion of the Last Judgment (Revelation, chapters 21 and 22). That this was the primary meaning of church buildings is clear from the service for their consecration, where frequent allusions are made to St John’s vision.38

As is well known, Abbot Suger describes the consecration ceremony of his new church with fond enthusiasm for liturgical objects and elaborate celebration. Unfortunately, no liturgical document contemporary with Suger’s abbacy survives that describes this ceremony in detail. The First Ordinary of the Royal Abbey of St.-Denis (Mazarine 526) does, however, record the thirteenth-century liturgy for the feast of the church dedication.39 Libri ordinarii were auxiliary liturgical books, not to be used during the liturgies themselves; they provided instead the essential texts and directions for celebrating the offices, the Mass, and the local rites that were arranged according to the church year for a specific community. Mazarine 526 is a particularly rich liber ordinarius. In its descriptions for ceremonies it often mentions specific locations within the building where segments of the liturgy were to be carried out. The manuscript mentions processions, gestures, the number of ministers to serve in a given rite, vestments, and a variety of liturgical objects.40 This ordinary, the first major liturgical manuscript of St.-Denis to be published in its entirety, is an especially 37 “Liturgy and Monument,” in Artistic Integration of Gothic Buildings, 63. For an introduction to

liturgical books and manuscripts, see Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy; An Introduction to the Sources, rev. and trans. William G. Storey and Niels Krogh Rasmussen (Washington, DC: Pastoral Press, 1981). 38 The Gothic Cathedral; The Architecture of the Great Church 1130–1530 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), 8. 39 The First Ordinary of the Royal Abbey of St.-Denis in France (Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine 526, fols 111v–113r; ed. Edward B. Foley (Fribourg, Switzerland: Fribourg UP, 1990), 496–98. 40 See Foley, 27–8.

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology rich source for reconstructing liturgical practices at St.-Denis in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.41 It is to this document, then, that we turn to gain a greater appreciation of how liturgy identifies the medieval church as an image of the New Jerusalem. It is also an excellent textual source by which to evaluate Abbot Suger’s comments on the symbolism of the new church. Before turning to the liturgical text itself, however, it will be helpful to introduce briefly the main features of the history of the dedication ceremony from the time of the early Christians to the Middle Ages. This introduction, while not a full summary of the work that has been completed on this topic by liturgical scholars, is meant to provide the necessary historical context for the dedication liturgies at St.-Denis in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.42

The Liturgy for the Dedication of a Church: Early Christian Developments In the first three centuries after the death and resurrection of Christ, Christians gathered for communal worship in private homes, since fear of Roman persecution discouraged them from worshiping in public places. It was not until 313, with Constantine’s Edict of Tolerance, that Christians were given freedom to worship publicly. In the following year, we find the first mention of the dedication of a church: Eusebius describes the dedication of the Cathedral of Tyre in 314. The celebration of the Eucharist is the only essential feature of this liturgy, and it would remain so for the next two centuries.43 At the end of the sixth century, the dedication of churches became commonly associated with the deposition of saints’ relics, which were carried into the building in procession and then enclosed in an altar before the celebration of Mass. In the eighth century, the lustration, or anointing of the 41 Foley cites architectural evidence for this claim that the ordinary be used to reconstruct

twelfth-century, as well as thirteenth-century, liturgical practices at St.-Denis: “It is generally agreed that the thirteenth-century reconstruction of St.-Denis began in 1231 and was completed before the consecration in 1281. Furthermore, it seems that the reconstruction began in the east end, specifically with the chevet. . . . A [Mazarine 526] presumes virtually the same arrangement of the chevet as that which is found in the writings of Suger. Therefore, though copied a few years after the beginning of the reconstruction, A reflects none of the changes in the chevet which that reconstruction produced” (59–60). 42 For a fuller history of the dedication ceremony, from the time of the early Christians to the medieval period, see John G. Davies, “The Consecration of Churches,” in The Secular Use of Church Buildings (London: SCM, 1968), 249–64; L. Duchesne, Christian Worship: Its Origin and Evolution, 5th edn, trans. M. L. McClure (London and New York: Macmillan, 1919), 339–418; R. W. Muncey, A History of the Consecration of Churches and Churchyards (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, 1930); P. de Puniet, “Dedicace des églises,” in Dictionnaire d’archéologie Chrétienne et de liturgie, vol. 4 pt 1 (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1920), 374–406; G. G. Willis, Further Essays in Early Roman Liturgy, Alcuin Club Collections, no. 50 (London: SPCK, 1968); Thaddeus S. Ziolkowski, “The Consecration and Blessing of Churches; A Historical Synopsis and Commentary,” Doctor of Canon Law diss., Catholic University of America Canon Law Studies, no. 187 (Washington: Catholic U of America P, 1943). 43 For Eusebuius’ early description of the cathedral dedication see his Historia ecclesiastica, X.3–4, Patralogiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, XX.847, ed. and trans. K. Lake and J. Oulto, The Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926) vol. 2, 395.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem edifice with holy water became another feature of the dedication ceremony.44 By the ninth century, the features of the Roman dedication rite consisted of the carrying of relics in procession and their deposition in the altar, the anointing of the building, and the celebration of Mass. One recognizes in the Roman rite its funerary character, with the altar serving as a tomb for the saint whose relics were deposed there.45 The rites of baptism and confirmation served as the primary models for the Gallican dedication ritual, which displays clear Eastern Orthodox influence (Byzantine and Syrian) and also borrows directly from ancient Hebrew rituals described in Exodus 29.12–13, 18 and Leviticus 8.11. Although the deposition of relics is also a common feature of the Gallican ritual, the lustrations of the altar and building takes precedence. The Gallican Ordo XLI (775–800) contains an added feature to the dedication ritual: the inscribing of the alphabet on a St. Andrew’s cross that has been traced on the pavement of the nave with sand or ashes.46 In the tenth century, the Roman and Gallican rites were fused in the compilation of the Romano-Germanic Pontifical at Mainz (950–62). This fused rite gave prominence to the deposition of relics, but it also retained much of the lustration practices and the alphabet ceremony of the Gallican rite.47 The twelfth-century dedication ceremony for Abbot Suger’s new church would have reflected this fusion of the Roman and Gallican traditions. Suger describes many of these traditional dedication rituals in his writings, including the transfer and deposition of relics, the splendid processions intus et extra, the lustration of the church’s walls, the blessing of the altar, and the concordant celebration of Masses in the upper choir and the crypt.48 Most of the liturgical texts the Abbot cites for the dedication of his church and those listed in the Mazarine ordinary for the thirteenth-century feast of the dedication also had become part of the standard liturgical tradition by the tenth century.49

44 Gregory the Great required the lustration of pagan temples that were to be converted and used for 45

46 47

48 49

Christian worship. This is the origin for the term aqua Gregoriana for the type of lustral water used in the dedication ritual. A detailed description of the Roman rite from the second half of the eighth century is found in Michel Andrieu’s Ordo XLII, which provides instructions for enclosing the relics in the altar, anointing the altar, and the lustration of the church; it concludes with a dedication Mass, to be repeated through an octave. Apart from this Mass, the dominant element in Ordo XLII is the elaborate burial of the relics. Andrieu, Les Ordines Romani du haut moyen âge, 4 (Louvain: “Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense” bureaux, 1931–61), 397–402. See also Vogel, Medieval Liturgy; An Introduction to the Sources, 180–81. The main elements of the Gallican rite are found in the Angoulême Sacramentary (c. 800). See also Andrieu, Les Ordines, vol. 4, 339–47. The fundamental structure of this fused rite, with added modifications such as the inclusion of the seven penitential Psalms (Pss. 6, 31, 37, 50, 101, 129, and 141) was retained by the Roman Catholic Church until 1961, when it was simplified and abbreviated. Here and elsewhere I cite Psalms according to the Vulgate, or medieval system of numbering. See Panofsky, 112–21. Edmond Martène, De Antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibus, 4 vols (Rouen: G. Behourt, 1700–6), vol. 2, 244–72.

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The First Ordinary of St.-Denis and the Thirteenth-Century Dedication Liturgy The thirteenth-century Mazarine Ordinary shows that the liturgy for the feast of the dedication of St.-Denis consisted of prayers and hymns that were chosen and arranged to demonstrate how a church building functions as a sacred space and how it is to be understood as a complex symbol.50 The liturgical language is, of course, primarily biblical, drawing directly from the Psalms and other Old Testament passages pertaining to the historical city of Jerusalem or Sion, passages from the New Testament Apocalypse, and readings from I and II Corinthians. These readings were clearly selected to teach theological concepts that complement and refer to one another. As the liturgy progresses from vespers on the vigil, to vespers on the feast itself, there is the accompanying thematic progression from the concept of the building as the house of God to the identification of human beings as the “living stones” of the church. This thematic progression follows what Christians understood as the evolving emphasis in the Bible itself, from descriptions of Moses’ Tabernacle and the Jerusalem Temple to New Testament interpretations of the ancient Hebrew structures.51 The chief theme that recurs throughout the liturgy for the feast of the dedication is the concept of the church building as a figure of the New Jerusalem. This liturgical emphasis does not directly follow biblical precedent, but is, more accurately, an elaboration on biblical teachings. Passages from John’s Revelation are placed at the beginning of vespers on the vigil, at the beginning of matins, lauds, sext, and at the very end of vespers on the feast day. The New Jerusalem theme both unifies the entire liturgical celebration and serves as the frame within which other themes are introduced and developed. The opening antiphon of vespers on the vigil defines the church as a habitation of God, a theme that acquires additional nuances as the celebration rituals proceed: Sanctificavit Dominus tabernaculum suum: quia hæc est domus Dei, in qua invocabitur nomen ejus, de quo scriptum est: Et erit nomen meum ibi, dicit Dominus.52 50 Foley has identified the feast for the dedication of St.-Denis as a duplex feast. This category of

feasts includes: (1) twelve lessons at matins, (2) first and second vespers of the feast, (3) the morning and principal Mass of the feast, with a sequence at the latter, and (4) proper antiphons, responses, hymns, readings, etc. for all the major hours, with partial propers for the Little Hours. Out of the 112 feasts in the Ordine, there are six duplex feasts: St. Hilary, the anniversary of Dagobert, the Dedication of the church of St.-Denis, the Invention of St. Denis, St. Eustace, and St. Eugene (Foley 169). Foley has demonstrated that the feasts of Dagobert and the Dedication of the Church of St.-Denis were the most important of the duplex feasts (169–73). 51 St.-Denis’ liturgy for the feast of the church dedication began at vespers on the vigil of the feast, 23 February, and continued with first and second nocturns of matins, followed by lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, concluding with vespers on the 24th. 52 Mazarine 526 provides only the incipits for the prayers and hymns of the liturgy, as is the practice for all liturgical documents of this kind. For the complete texts, the following sources have been helpful: John B. Tolhurst, Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester: II (London: Henry

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem [The Lord has sanctified His tabernacle; for this is the house of God, in which His name will be invoked, as it is written: and my name will be there, says the Lord.]

Immediately following the opening antiphon, a chapter is read from Revelation: Vidi civitatem sanctam, Jerusalem novam, descendentem de cælo a Deo, paratam sicut sponsam ornatam viro suo. (21.2) [I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven from God, made ready as bride adorned for her husband.]

This image of the New Jerusalem descending from heaven before John’s eyes and placed so prominently near the start of the liturgy, immediately introduces the symbolic relation between the Heavenly Jerusalem and earthly church. This chapter from Revelation served as a standard reading in virtually all consecration rites and feasts for the dedication during the Middle Ages and continues to be central to dedication ceremonies today. During the anniversary liturgy at St.-Denis the passage was repeated twice more, once at lauds and again at the end of vespers on the feast. Additional passages that were read from Revelation and from other New Testament writings served as interpretive glosses on this central image of the New Jerusalem descending from Heaven. After the apocalyptic theme is introduced early in the vigil, the liturgy returns to the concept of the church as the house of God. Here it is presented with added emphasis on the physical building and its stone foundation, together with the image of the church not only as the gate to Heaven but as a palace, or court, of God. The following response, verse, and antiphon introduce these images, which are drawn from Old Testament readings: Terribilis est locus iste: hic domus Dei est, et porta cœli: et vocabitur aula Dei. [How terrible is this place: here is the house of God, and the gate of heaven: and it will be called the court of God.] Hæc est domus Domini firmiter ædificata, bene fundata est supra firmam petram. [This is the house of the Lord solidly built, it is well founded on solid rock.] O quam metuendus est locus iste: vere non est hic aliud, nisi domus Dei et porta cæli. (Genesis 28.17)

Bradshaw Society, 1932), vol. 70; Roman Catholic Church, Benedictine Hours for Sundays and All Feasts of First or Second Class Rank; Terce, Vespers, Compline (York: Sidney Lee, 1934); Martène, De Antiquis Ecclesiae Ritibus, vol. 2, 244–72.

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology [How awesome is this place. Truly this is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven.]

The liturgy for matins introduces links between Solomon’s Temple and the New Jerusalem. Indeed, the matins liturgy presents a succinct history of interpretation of ancient Hebrew architecture according to Jewish and Christian traditions. The liturgical voices represented in this interpretive history include Yahweh, the Psalmist, Jacob, Jesus, and Michael the Archangel. The ancient biblical idea of a temple as the resting place, throne, or palace of God serves as the conceptual basis for the use in the matins liturgy of specific psalms that extol Jerusalem, such as the psalms known collectively as the Songs of Sion.53 Psalm 23, for example, is a liturgical psalm that was sung by the ancient Israelites upon entering the Temple on Mount Sion and was probably used in connection with a procession of the Ark of the Covenant. The following verse from Psalm 23 was perhaps sung by a choir outside the temple gates, requesting to be admitted: Attollite, portas principes vestras, et elevamini, portæ æternales: et introibit rex gloriæ. (7, 9) [Lift up your gates, O Princes, and rise up, eternal gates: and the King of glory will come in.]

At the dedication ceremonies in the Middle Ages, a bishop stood before the doors of the church to be consecrated and recited this verse.54 Psalm 23 marked the beginning of the first nocturn of matins on the feast, but five additional psalms, each emphasizing the importance of Jerusalem and the Temple, were also included during matins. Psalm 42, for example, contains the following verse: Emmitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam; ipsa me deduxerunt, et adduxerunt in montem sanctum tuum, et in tabernacula tua. (3) [Send forth your light and your truth; they have led me, and they have brought me to your holy hill, and to your tabernacles.]

The phrase montem sanctum refers to the site of the Temple and recurs often

53 The psalms known collectively as the Songs of Sion are Pss. 45, 47, 75, 83, 86, and 121. The liturgy

for the feast of the dedication of St.-Denis employs Pss. 45, 47, 83, and 86. Ps. 121 is read during vespers on the feast. 54 G. G. Wills provides historical background for this ritual: “The ceremony of receiving the bishop at the church door is Byzantine in origin, and was performed on 24 December 562 at the rededication of St Sophia at Byzantium after the reconstruction of the dome, by the Patriarch Eutychius in the presence of Justinian the Emperor . . . When the bishop arrives he knocks three times with his staff on the church door, crying out, Tollite portas principes vestras [Ps. 23.7] and the whole of Psalm 23, Domini est terra, is sung,” Further Essays, 161. Wills cites Ordo XLI, 2, ed. Andrieu, Les Ordines Romani, IV, 340. On Justinian’s response to the reconstruction of St.-Sophia, see my Introduction, 17–18.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem in the Songs of Sion.55 Psalm 86 was sung during the second nocturn of matins for the feast; it extols Sion as the city most favored by God: Fundamenta ejus in montibus sanctis: diligit Dominus portas Sion super omnia tabernacula Iacob. (1–3) [The Lord loves the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob; Her foundations are laid upon holy hills.]

Although “Sion” refers to the montem sanctum upon which the Temple was built, and “Jerusalem” refers to the historical city, the uses of these terms in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament are, of course, rarely so precise. In the psalms, they are often used interchangeably to designate the ancient city capital. But this historical designation acquires an additional meaning in the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, as well as in such New Testament passages as Hebrews 12.22 and Revelation 14.1. According to prophecy, the montem sanctum is an image of Heaven and will be the location for the consummation of history.56 By adopting for the dedication of their churches the ancient Hebrew concept of the Temple as the house of God, Christians assured the prophetic and symbolic continuity of the Old and New Testaments. Solomon’s Temple was thought to be the historical archetype of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Ezekiel’s vision (40–44) of the ideal temple, also inspired by the Temple of Solomon, and the description of the heavenly palace in the Book of Enoch, “built of crystals” and having walls “like a mosaic crystal floor,” are other sources that influenced medieval concepts of the Celestial City.57 Among the liturgical hours for the feast of St.-Denis’ dedication, matins is unique in its emphasis on the relation between the earthly sanctuaries of the Hebrew Bible and apocalyptic visions of the montem sanctum. But matins also presents a series of antiphons and responses, occurring at different intervals throughout the liturgy, which tell the story of Jacob’s ladder and his subsequent erection of a shrine at Beth-El (Genesis 28.10–22). Many of these prayers appear again in the liturgical hours that follow, but only in matins do we find such a complete collection. Here are a few of the examples: Vidit Iacob scalam, summitas ejus cælos tangebat, et descendentes Angelos, et dixit: Vere locus iste sanctus est. [Jacob saw a ladder with its top reaching to the heavens, and angels descending, and he said, truly this place is holy.]

55 See for example, Ps. 47, 1–2. 56 See Georges A. Barrois, “Zion” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, ed. George A. Buttrick,

vol. 4 [R–Z] (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962), 959–60.

57 Otto von Simson made this observation on the connection between the New Jerusalem and the

description of the palace in the Book of Enoch (Gothic Cathedral, 11).

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology Mane surgens Iacob erigebat lapidem in titulum, fundens oleum sesuper; votum vovit Domino: Vere locus iste sanctus est, et ego nesciebam. [When he arose in the morning, Jacob set up the stone as a memorial pillar and poured oil over it. He made a vow to the Lord: “Truly this place is holy, and I did not know it.”] O quam metuendus est locus iste: vere non est hic aliud, nisi domus Dei et porta cæli. [How awesome is this place. Truly this is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven.]58

Jacob’s dream, together with his subsequent words and actions, offered a special element to Jewish and Christian interpretations of their sacred buildings. The stone on which Jacob rests his head, just before dreaming of the ladder stretching from earth to heaven, was the same stone that he used to erect the shrine at Beth-El. This stone is mentioned three times: first, when Jacob chose it for a pillow (Genesis 28.11); second, when he set it up as a pillar and poured oil over it (Genesis 28. 18); and shortly afterwards when he proclaims that the stone – that is, the pillar or shrine – will be a house of God (Genesis 28.22). Between the first and second references to the stone, Jacob receives his vision of the angels going up and down the ladder and of God standing beside him, announcing His covenant with Jacob’s descendants. The stone, then, plays an essential role in the organization and symbolic meaning of the story. It serves as the physical, local frame within which Jacob receives his vision, and it becomes the physical, local foundation for his shrine to God. Jacob’s dream is a revelation of divine presence and of passage between the sacred and the temporal realms. In realizing this presence and in participating in this passage, Jacob’s stone is at least as important as the ladder. In other words, the locus of revelation is inseparable from the revelation itself. It is a holy place, an awesome, fearful place. It also represents the gate of Heaven, the house of God, and the Church. Augustine provides commentary on the multiple, symbolic meanings of biblical ideas of “place”: [W]hen God said . . . ‘And I will give peace in this place’, the word ‘place’ is a symbol, and by it we are to understand that which it symbolizes. And so the re-building ‘in this place’ stands for the Church which was to be built by Christ . . . For the Master Builder Who said, ‘Many are called, but few are chosen’ . . . intended to show us a house built up of the elect, which henceforth shall fear no ruin.59

58 Andrieu shows that a selection of these quotations from Genesis on Jacob’s dream and verses from

Psalms 45 and 86 were part of the Roman dedication liturgy in the eighth century. See Les Ordines Romani, IV, Ordo Romanus XLI (750–75), 336. 59 civ. Dei XVIII, 48.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem Those few who are chosen are the builders of a place that they inhabit for all time. This place they build is their own, which is also part of the communal place that is the Church, represented materially by the church building. Place and salvation are, therefore, inseparable concepts. Jacob’s shrine is not intended to limit the presence of God, but to serve as a complex symbol of the sacredness of the place where he had laid his head. The pouring of oil on the stone is the formal, ancient gesture that confirms this sacred status. The implication is, of course, that the shrine will act in the same way as the dream: as an occasion for revelation. In Augustinian terms, Jacob does not worship the stone as a res, which would be a perversion of caritas, but as a sacramental signum. In De civitate Dei, Augustine makes clear the distinction and highlights the specifically Christian allegory: This was an act to which prophetic signification belongs. When Jacob poured oil over the stone he was not committing idolatry, as if making a god of it; for he did not bow down to the stone, or sacrifice to it. Rather this was a symbolic act conveying a great mystery; for the name of “Christ” is derived from “chrism,” which means “anointing.” As for the ladder, we know that the Saviour Himself recalls this to our memory in the Gospel . . . “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (XVI.38)60

The story of Jacob and his ladder appears frequently in the iconographic programs of medieval churches. The organization of its main elements – stone, revelation, shrine – provided the Christians with a simple, yet efficient model for their own building projects. The soaring nave of the great Gothic church was the Jacob’s ladder of the Middle Ages. Light, liturgy, and art conveyed the divine presence and provided the opportunity for apocalyptic vision. Abbot Suger understood the importance of the ancient models for the symbolic program of his own church. This is clear from his quotation of a prayer in connection with the consecration of St.-Denis.61 At the feast for the dedication it was introduced during matins and was repeated at lauds, terce, and vespers: Lapides preciosi omnes muri tui, et turres Jerusalem gemmis ædificabuntur. [All of your walls are precious stones, and the towers of Jerusalem will be built with jewels.]

This prayer was appropriate for Suger, who insisted that his new church be lavishly decorated with jewels and precious stones. By including the prayer in the dedication liturgy, it becomes a concise expression of how the church was conceived as both the fulfillment of the ancient Hebrew Temple and a figura 60 Jn. 1.47–51 61 In Panofsky, 102.

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology of the New Jerusalem.62 From the Christian perspective, the Hebrew Temple was an ossified eschatological landscape, whose chief limitation was the stone frame – essential but undeniably temporal. Suger’s genius was to make the most of this limitation by removing walls to let in light. But he also made abundant use of special stones, stones that in their reflective properties seemed to possess more immaterial than material qualities. The liturgy for matins for the feast of the dedication of St.-Denis is especially rich in its references to the sanctuaries of the Hebrew Bible. Christians embraced the ancient concept of the Temple as a locus for divine presence and as an opportunity for passage between the temporal and the sacred realms. Matins also includes two short passages from the New Testament that are clear attempts to distinguish the ancient law from the new, while assuring their prophetic, or eschatological agreement. Jesus Christ and Michael the Archangel are the representatives of the new Church. A verse is taken from Matthew 21.13 in which Jesus enters the Temple at Jerusalem and drives out the money changers:63 Domus mea domus orationis vocabitur, dicit Dominus: in ea omnis qui petit, accipit; et qui quærit, invenit; Et pulsanti aperietur. [My house will be called a house of prayer, says the Lord. In it, everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; And to him who knocks, it will be opened.]

Jesus was a Jew who worshipped in the Temple, but for Christians the coming of Christ is the irrevocable rupture in human history. His cleansing of the Temple in Jerusalem can be understood, in the context of the dedication liturgy, as a gesture symbolizing this rupture. Michael the Archangel holds a special place in the Christian vision of the Second Coming. In the Bible he is presented as the champion and protector of Israel and the supreme symbol of justice destroying evil.64 The liturgy for matins on the feast of St.-Denis’ dedication includes a prayer based on passages from Revelation that describe the sounding of the seventh trumpet and Michael’s war in Heaven against the dragon:65 Dum sacrum mysterium cerneret Joannes, Archangelus Michael tuba cecinit: Ignosce Domine Deus noster, qui aperis librum et solvis signacula ejus.66 62 Suger also cites Ezekiel’s description of the temple when referring to the decoration of his own 63 64 65 66

church: lapis preciosus operimentum tuum, sardius, topazius, jaspis, crisolitus, onix et berillus, saphirus, carbunculus et smaragdus (Panofsky, 62). Also in Mk. 11.15–19; Lk. 19.45–48. Dan. 10.13, 21; 12.1; Jude 9–10; Rev. 12. Rev. 11.12. This is a prayer that was, and still is, commonly said on 29 September, the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, or Michaelmas. In the Roman Catholic Breviary, it appears as an antiphon for vespers on that day. I find no other evidence for its use in other dedication ceremonies during or after the

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem [While John was beholding the sacred mystery, Michael the Archangel sounded the trumpet: Forgive us Lord our God, you who open the book and who unloosen its seals.]

This prayer has little precise biblical authority. In Revelation, the blowing of the seventh trumpet (11.5) announces the consummation of God’s kingdom (10.7), but it is not clear if Michael actually blows this trumpet, since he is first mentioned in the following chapter waging war against the dragon. Nor does the appeal for forgiveness appear in the biblical text. Yet, the biblical references were, nonetheless, the textual sources for the medieval legend surrounding St. Michael, the legend that is depicted on façades and capitals of many medieval churches, especially in France. It is often difficult to measure the extent to which existing iconographic conventions influenced medieval liturgy, but the prayer cited above is, I think, one example of such an influence. Perhaps St. Michael is most familiar to us as he is portrayed in late medieval illuminated manuscripts: he is shown as a knight in armor holding a lance, a banner (often both), or a great sword. At his feet is a dragon or devil-like creature, whom Michael has vanquished. This image of Michael is a late medieval convention, not appearing until after the thirteenth century. In the earlier iconographic programs of medieval churches, Michael is the principal actor in scenes of the Last Judgment. He holds the authority to judge the good from the bad and to introduce them to the other world, leading them before the great tribunal of God. In these scenes he is shown standing, not in chivalric armor, but dressed in a long, pleated robe. Suspended from his hand is a balance that he uses to weigh the actions of the trembling soul that has come before him, awaiting a verdict. The devil is also present, attempting to tip the scale in his favor with one finger, but to no avail.67 Matins for the feast of the dedication of St.-Denis succeeds in illustrating how the medieval church building is to be understood as an eschatological and apocalyptic landscape. It is a masterfully constructed liturgy combining the Middle Ages. Perhaps it was not unique to St.-Denis, but was rarely included for dedication liturgies. 67 This scene had been transmitted to southern France from the east through the intermediary of illuminated manuscripts. It spread rapidly through the south. There is an eleventh-century representation on a capital in the museum of Toulouse. Other locations in France include a capital at the Abbey of St.-Pon, on a portal of St.-Trophime at Arles, on a capital of St.-Eutrope at Saintes, at St.-Nectaire in Auvergne, at Chartres, on the portals of Notre-Dame-de-la-Couture at Le Mans, at Amiens, and at Bourges. Émile Mâle explains, too, that the cult of St. Michael as the angel of the dead, and hence the principal actor in the judgment of the dead, can be traced to the first century of Christianity, when the Church ascribed to St. Michael attributes of the pagan god, Mercury: “Michael, who was already the messenger of heaven, became, like Mercury, the conductor of the dead.” See Mâle, Religious Art in France: the Thirteenth Century: A Study of Medieval Iconography and its Sources, trans. Marthiel Mathews. Bollingen Series XC: 2 (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984), 377. See also Mâle, L’art religieux du XIIe siècle en France. Etude sur l’origine de l’iconographie du Moyen Age (Paris: Armand Colin, 1966), 413–414; L’art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France. Etude sur l’iconographie du moyen âge et sur ses sources d’inspiration (Paris: Armand Colin, 1958), 380–88.

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology poetry of the Songs of Sion with passages taken from some of the most memorable and dramatic moments of the Bible: Jacob’s dream and his building of the shrine, Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple, and the sounding of the seventh trumpet in The Book of Revelation. It also shows signs of having been enriched by the iconographic programs of the churches themselves, especially in its use of St. Michael as the spokesman for matters of Final Judgment. The arrangement and presentation of this liturgy is most impressive, perhaps, because it succeeds in conveying multiple, interrelated meanings of the sacred edifice and establishes the historical and symbolic foundation for the concept of the church as an image of the New Jerusalem. It is an excellent attestation to Roger E. Reynolds’ statement, “liturgy is and clearly was an art form.”68 The remaining liturgical hours for the feast of St.-Denis’ dedication repeat each of the themes first introduced during the vigil and at matins. A number of passages from the story of Jacob, for example, are repeated, particularly the antiphon, O quam metuendus, and the response, Mane surgens. The prayer that Suger cited in connection with the consecration of St.-Denis, Lapides preciosi, is repeated at lauds, terce, and vespers. The second verse of Revelation 21, Vidi civitatem sanctam, Jerusalem novam descendentem de cælo a Deo, paratam sicut sponsam ornatam viro suo, which first appeared near the beginning of the vigil, recurs at lauds and just before the closing antiphon of vespers. At sext, the quotation from chapter 21 of Revelation includes verse three: Et audivi vocem magnam de throno dicentem: Ecce tabernaculum Dei cum hominibus, et habitabit cum eis; et ipsi populus eius erunt, et ipse Deus cum eis erit eorum Deus. (Revelation 21.3) [And I heard a great voice from the throne saying: “Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and he will dwell with them; and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them, their God.]

This is just one of the numerous additional features of the liturgy that conveys the relationship between the earthly church and the New Jerusalem. Enthronement hymns (i.e., Psalms 95 and 98) that celebrate the kingship of God are included during the second nocturn of matins. Interestingly, Psalm 98 is used as well in Chronicles 19.23–24 on the occasion of the movement of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. At terce we find a prayer from Isaiah 11.1 describing the Tree of Jesse, which was also an iconographic subject of one of Suger’s famous windows. Vespers on the feast day is a celebration of Jerusalem, employing Psalms 121, 123, and 147. Each canonical hour of the feast is a liturgical unit that emphasizes a particular theological concept, but prayers are repeated and new ones added to demonstrate the conceptual relationships, the progression of meanings, and the symbolic continuities among the hours. We have seen that in matins 68 “Liturgy and Monument,” 60.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem special care was taken to illustrate the historical significance of the ancient sanctuaries of the Hebrew Bible and their role in the symbolic understanding of the Christian church. The liturgy for terce is quite different. The third monastic hour traditionally has been the hour devoted to the Holy Spirit, since this was the hour when the Spirit descended upon the apostles at Pentecost (Acts 2.2–4). As a liturgical unit, terce for the feast of the dedication may also be understood as an invocation to the Holy Spirit. It begins most appropriately with the hymn Veni creator spiritus.69 This theme identifies the physical, temporal building with the spiritual realm and it includes, as well, an understanding of how individuals in the community of worshippers participate directly in the apocalyptic vision. The epistle that was read at Mass during terce provides the most complete illustration of these features. The incipit given in the manuscript to inform us of which epistle was to be read at terce is simply, Unusquisque propriam. Edward Foley has identified the biblical text to which this direction refers as II Corinthians 5.10. The full reading, however, would have included more than verse ten, perhaps verses one through ten, an appropriate length for such a purpose:70 Scimus enim quoniam si terrestris domus nostra hujus habitationis dissolvatur, quod ædificationem ex Deo habemus, domum non manufactam, æternam in cælis. Nam et in hoc ingemiscimus, habitationem nostram, quæ de cælo est, superindui cupientes: Si tamen vestiti, non nudi inveniamur. Nam et qui sumus in hoc tabernaculo, ingemiscimus gravati: eo quod nolumus expoliari, sed supervestiri, ut absorbeatur quod mortale est a vita. Qui autem efficit nos in hoc ipsum, Deus, qui dedit nobis pignus spiritus. Audentes igitur semper, scientes quoniam dum sumus in corpore, peregrinamur a Domino: Per fidem enim ambulamus, et non per speciem. Audemus autem et bonam voluntatem habemus magis peregrinari a corpore, et præsentes esse ad Dominum. Et ideo contendimus sive absentes sive præsentes placere illi. Omnes enim nos manifestari oportet ante tribunal Christi, ut referat unusquisque propria corporis, prout gessit, sive bonum, sive malum. [For we know that if our house of this earthly habitation should be destroyed, we possess a building from God, a house not made, but eternal in the heavens. For indeed we lament our habitation here, longing to put on our 69 This hymn has been ascribed to Rabanus Marus (776–856), Charlemagne, St. Ambrose, and to

Gregory the Great. It is the traditional hymn for vespers and terce on Pentecost and throughout the octave. According to Britt, there is no other hymn, with the exception of the Te Deum, that has been used so extensively in the Roman Church (The Hymns of the Breviary and Missal, ed. Matthew Britt (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1922), 162–4). 70 The Latin text is from the Vulgate. This reading is not found in the Breviarium Romanum for the dedication feast. Nor is it listed as a reading for the feast in Tolhurst’s edition of the Benedictine breviary of Hyde Abbey (St.-Denis was a Benedictine monastery). Andrieu does not list it in his Les Ordines Romani du haut moyen age, vol. IV, Ordines XXXV–XLIX. Perhaps its inclusion in the dedication ceremony at St.-Denis represents a rare usage.

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology habitation which is from heaven. So that if we are thus clothed, we shall not be found naked. For indeed we lament, we who are oppressed in this earthly dwelling: not because we wish to be unclothed, but to be covered over, so that what is mortal may be absorbed by life [eternal]. He, however, who has formed us thus, is God, who has given to us the Spirit as assurance. Therefore we are always eager, resolved, knowing that while we are in the body, we wander from God: For through faith we walk, and not through the sight of our eyes. We are brave, however, and we possess the good inclination to wander, rather, from the body, and to be in God’s presence. And, therefore, we strive to please Him, be it that we are at hand or away. For we all must be exposed and brought before the tribunal of Christ, so that each individual may account for all the deeds peculiar to the body, according to what he has done, be they good or bad.]

Paul’s teaching in this passage, which, as we have seen, Augustine also quotes and comments upon at length, contains many images evoking movement to and from certain places or certain states of being.71 The possibility of transformation and passage is presented from the perspective of the lamenting, striving human being who wanders from God but who possesses the faith and good will to be in God’s presence sive absentes sive præsentes. Paul describes the domum æternam as a putting on of clothes, a covering over of the mortal self. Heaven comes down, just as John says: Vidi civitatem sanctam, Jerusalem novam descendentem de cælo a Deo (Revelation 21.2). With a longing to be clothed in the heavenly dwelling, to be in the presence of God, old clothes are not shed; instead, one recognizes the Spirit within. The “covering” is invisible, but it is not illusory. This image recalls the action of Plotinus’ rational principle, adorning the soul with light from the One while facilitating passage between the temporal and spiritual realms. As we have seen, it is also the controlling image of Augustine’s commentary on the elevation of the human being as an image of God and the Church as a sacramental signum. Because of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, the faithful possess within themselves the kingdom of God: “[s]urely you know that you are God’s temple, where the Spirit of God dwells.”72

Twelfth-Century Commentaries on the Dedication Liturgy Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of St.-Victor, both contemporaries of Abbot Suger, wrote commentaries on the liturgy for the dedication of churches. Both Bernard and Hugh were especially interested in the central question raised in the passage quoted above from II Corinthians: how can the building (or body) be sacred, despite its inherent limitations?73 Bernard addresses the question directly: 71 See Chapter Two, 52, 52 n. 13. 72 I Cor. 16. 73 Sancti Bernardi, Abbatis Claræ-Vallensis, In Dedicatione Ecclesiæ, Sermo I, PL 183, 517–21.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem Quid enim lapides isti poterunt sanctitatis habere ut eorum solemnia celebremus? Habent utique sanctitatem, sed propter corpora vestra. An vero corpora vestra sancta esse quis dubitet, quæ templum sancti Spiritus sunt, ut sciat unusquisque possidere vas suum in sanctificatione? Itaque sanctæ sunt animæ propter inhabitantem Spiritum Dei in vobis; sancta sunt corpora propter animas; sancta est etiam propter corpora domus. (518–19 D) [In what respect, however, were the stones able to have sanctity so that we celebrate their solemnity? They certainly have sanctity, but on account of our bodies. In truth, who doubts that your bodies are holy, which are the temple of the holy spirit, so that each individual understands to possess his own vessel in holiness? Therefore souls are holy on account of the dwelling of the holy spirit in you; bodies are holy on account of souls; it is holy, in fact, on account of the bodies.]

For Bernard, the stone building is holy, because human beings worship inside it.74 The human presence in the church together with the communal effort to serve and worship God render the stone edifice sacred. Furthermore, Bernard suggests, God is not limited by being present in the building through the worshipers: Mirabilis plane Deus in sanctis suis, non modo in cœlestibus, sed etiam in terrenis. (519 D) [God is completely marvelous amidst his holy ones, who could be earthly as well as heavenly.]

Here Bernard teaches, with Augustinian optimism, that heaven begins on earth. For Hugh of St.-Victor the ceremony for the dedication of a church becomes a preparation for the visio pacis, a commemoration and earthly manifestation of eternal, celestial liturgies: Ad hunc regem immortalem videndum facie ad faciem præparat se præsens Ecclesia; et dum hic agit festa temporalia, patriæ suæ festiva et æterna recolit gaudia, ubi sponsus angelicis laudatur organis.75 [To behold this immortal King face to face, the Church below prepares herself: and while she celebrates here the temporal feasts, she remembers the

Appendix ad Hugonis Opera Mystica, Sermo III. De Dedicatione Ecclesiæ anagogice, PL 177, 905–7. 74 Quando enim domus ista per manus pontificum dedicata est Domino, propter nos sine dubio factum est; non solum qui tunc præsentes fuimus, sed et quicunque usque in finem sæculi Domino sunt in hoc loco militaturi (520 A). (When moreover that house was dedicated to God through the hand of the high priests, on account of us it was done without doubt; not only we who were at hand at that time, but also all those who are in this place, ready to serve God until the end of time.) 75 Appendix ad Hugonis Opera Dogmatica, Speculum de mysteriis Ecclesiæ. Speculum Ecclesæ, Cap. I. PL 177, 338.

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology festivals of her native home and of eternity; where the bridegroom is praised by angelic instruments.]

Every visible liturgical act corresponds to an invisible movement of the soul, a movement prompted by the Holy Spirit. Like Paul in II Corinthians and Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh maintains that the soul is the true temple of God. To sanctify the church, therefore, is to sanctify the soul: Quæ autem hic fiunt visibiliter, omnia in anima per invisibilem virtutem Deus operatur, quæ verum templum Dei est, ubi fides fundamentum facit, spes erigit, charitas consummat. Ipsa etiam Ecclesia catholica, una ex multis lapidibus adunata, templum Dei est, quia multa templa unum templum, quorum unus Dominus et una fides. Domus ergo dedicanda est anima sanctificanda;76 [For those things that are done here visibly, God works all through invisible power in the soul, which is the true temple of God; where faith makes the foundation, hope raises [the building], and charity finishes it. Also the catholic Church herself, made one from many stones, is the temple of God; because many temples make one temple, of which there is one Lord and one faith. Therefore the house must be dedicated; the soul sanctified;]

Since individual souls make up the Church community, and since each soul is the temple of God, Hugh believes, following Augustine, that the Church – the community of worshippers – signifies the New Jerusalem on earth. The people are its living stones: Jerusalem civitas sancta, et civitas Sancti, sancta Ecclesia est, quae sicut civitas aedificatur, et ædificata diversis ornamentis ornatur. Habet hæc civitas sancta, id est Ecclesia, lapides suos, murum suum, turres suas, ædificia sua, portas suas.77 [The holy city Jerusalem, and the city of Saints, is the holy Church, which is built like a city, and the structure is adorned with various ornaments. This holy city, that is the Church, possesses its own stones, its own wall, its own towers, its own buildings, its own gates.]

Hugh identifies each part of the building with a particular feature of the members of the Church: the walls represent a fortress of good morals, the towers signify the sublime contemplatives, things in the church made of ivory represent those who are chaste, and so on. The faithful members of the community are the living temples of God – the ornaments of the New Jerusalem. Once again, Hugh’s teaching demonstrates his debt to Augustine: [A]nd a house is indeed now being built for the Lord in all the earth: the City of God, which is holy Church, after that captivity in which demonic forces

76 Speculum Ecclesiæ, Cap. II, PL vol. 177, 338–39. 77 Sermo III, PL vol. 177, 905.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem held prisoner those men who, because they believed in God, have become living stones in His house.78

The medieval liturgy for the dedication of a church is a masterfully crafted elaboration upon biblical teachings and upon the allegorical readings of early Christian exegetes. Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugh of St.-Victor are twelfth-century inheritors of this exegetical tradition. The liturgy itself identifies the building progressively as the habitation of God; the location for a possibility of passage between the temporal and sacred realms; a confirmation and celebration of the events of Christ’s life; a reminder and preparation of the Last Judgment; and finally, a community of worshippers, whose individual members are the true temples, the living stones, the sacramental signa of the Church. At the center of this liturgy is the concept of the church building as an image of the New Jerusalem; from this concept follow all other significations. Jean Hani eloquently expresses the synthesizing richness of the New Jerusalem image: “la Jérusalem céleste synthétise l’idée chrétienne de « communauté des élus » et « corps mystique » et l’idée juive du temple résidence de Très-Haut, et assure la continuité d’un Testament à l’autre et, par conséquent d’un temple à l’autre.”79

Abbot Suger and the Dedication of his New Church: Concluding Remarks The unprecedented role of light in the design of Abbot Suger’s new church is a subject that never ceases to impress and stir the imaginations of specialists and non-specialists alike, from the scholars and religious faithful on their respective pilgrimages to St.-Denis, to the novice tourist entering the great nave for the first time. Suger believed that if a church was meant to be an image of the New Jerusalem, then it must be flooded with colored light. The architectural features of the new church, especially the choir with its crown of adjacent chapels, the iconography of the western entrance depicting scenes from Matthew’s Last Judgment and the Book of Revelation, and the abundant use of jewels and precious metals “radiant as the sun” are some of the prominent ways in which Suger’s church gave shape and color to the idea of the Heavenly Jerusalem.80 In his treatise De consecratione, Suger expresses his exhilaration for what must have been one of the most festive and splendid liturgical events of the Middle Ages. He quotes frequently from prayers and psalms that were sung 78 civ. Dei VIII.24. 79 Le Symbolisme du Temple Chrétien (Paris: Vieux Colombier, 1962), 26–7. (The Heavenly Jeru-

salem synthesizes the Christian idea of the elect community and the mystical body and the Jewish idea of the Temple [as the] residence of the Almighty, and [it] assures the continuity from one Testament to the other and, as a result, from one temple to another.) 80 Panofsky, 107.

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Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology during the consecration liturgy, in particular from the Songs of Sion (Psalms 45, 47, and 86) the great antiphon, Lapides preciosi omnes muri tui, and the passage from I Corinthians 3.11.81 He specifically mentions the reading of the office of matins the night before the consecration ceremony, and when describing the magnificence of the ceremony itself, he writes that the attending nobility had “believed themselves to behold a chorus celestial rather than terrestrial, a ceremony divine rather than human.”82 In the same treatise Suger also cites a passage from Ephesians 2.19–22, in which Paul describes the faithful as “the saints and household of God,” and Christ as the “chief cornerstone” of the temple. But Suger elaborates upon the biblical passage, adding phrases of his own so that Suger’s text reads:83 Jam non estis, inquit, hospites et advenae; sed estis cives sanctorum et domestici Dei, superaedificati super fundamentum Apostolorum et Prophetarum, ipso summo angulari lapide Christo Jesu, qui utrumque conjungit parietem, in quo omnis aedificatio, sive spi – ritualis, sive materialis, crescit in templum sanctum in Domino. In quo et nos quanto altius, quanto aptius materialiter aedificare instamus, tanto per nos ipsos spiritualiter coaedificari in habitaculum Dei in Spiritu sancto edocemur. [Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, says he, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone which joins one wall to the other; in Whom all the building – whether spiritual or material – groweth unto one holy temple in the Lord. In Whom we, too, are taught to be builded together for an habitation of God through the Holy Spirit by ourselves in a spiritual way, the more loftily and fitly we strive to build in a material way.]84

Panofsky argues that Abbot Suger twists “St. Paul’s metaphor into a justification of superesplendent architecture” with his qualification of the word “building” by the phrase “whether spiritual or material.”85 Surely, however, Suger was also familiar with the passage from II Corinthians that was read during Mass for the feast of the dedication of St.-Denis. In that passage, Paul used the earthly edifice as a metaphor for human bodies: the earthly edifice refers both to the church building and the human body; the heavenly habita-

81 Fundamentum aliud nemo potest ponere præter id quod positum est, quod est Christus Jesus

82 83 84 85

(Panofsky, 88). Mazarine 526 shows that his chapter was sung during none. In De consecratione, Suger mentions the chanting of Psalm 86, Fundamenta ejus in montibus sanctis, when the bishops laid the first stones for the new church. He also cites from Psalms 45 and 47. All these are Songs of Sion that were sung during the feast for the dedication of the church, and which I discuss earlier in this chapter. As I mentioned previously, Suger cites the antiphon from the dedication liturgy, Lapides preciosi omnes muri tui (Panofsky, 102). Ibid. 115. The biblical text Suger quotes is italicized, following Panofsky. Panofsky’s translation, 105. Panofsky, 16.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem tion is both the New Jerusalem and the Holy Spirit. Suger may very well have used Paul’s own teachings to interpret the passage from Ephesians. The liturgy for the dedication of Suger’s church was, in almost all respects, not new, but the setting for that liturgy was new. In all likelihood, Suger was more intimately familiar with the monastic liturgy of his own abbey than he was with the tradition of Christian-Platonism represented in the writings of the authors discussed earlier in this chapter. Nonetheless, Suger was sufficiently aware of this tradition to envision a more effective setting for the Platonic drama of procession and return. Suger understood that through liturgy the participants enter into mystery and mystery enters into the participants. As liturgy proceeds, participation in the drama changes from one of physical, exterior communication to an interior, invisible communication until there is no longer anything to see or hear. It was Otto von Simson’s view that at no time has the effort to create the Heavenly Jerusalem on earth been more successful than in the achievements represented by the great churches of twelfth- and thirteenth-century France. One need not be an architectural historian to appreciate the merits of such a claim; one need only to stand inside Notre Dame at Chartres on a bright morning or to walk through the vast space at St.-Étienne at Bourges. Yet, it must be remembered that these buildings were never built to be admired for their material achievements alone – for the material shaping of color and light. The buildings were, above all, settings for an action and that action was a liturgical action. The material elements of the churches’ building programs are the static attributes of a spiritual movement, the movement of the soul from the earthly realm to the heavenly; that movement is expressed through the prayer and spectacle of liturgical worship. The processions, the chanting, the burning of candles and incense – these actions all had a specific function within each liturgical celebration, within each liturgical expression of the eschatological and apocalyptic drama of Christian history, whether the liturgical occasion was the dedication of a church, a baptism, a Sunday Mass, or a funeral. Architectural historians have often expressed frustration over how little Abbot Suger actually had to say in his writings about the physical attributes of his church – about the building itself and his precise role in its design – preferring, to be sure, that he would have had rather less to say about his fondness for jewels. What has not been sufficiently appreciated, however, is the extent to which he did comment upon the liturgical celebrations within that church and how these comments implicitly relate to the greater design of the building. From Suger, then, it is indeed possible to gain a greater historical appreciation for how these great churches functioned not merely as picture bibles for the illiterate, or as convenient and grand gathering spots from which to convey political agendas; they were, above all, settings for a liturgy, a space for a sacred action that was a visual and aural manifestation of a movement, both anagogic and apocalyptic, that cannot be seen. In our attempt to gain a historical appreciation for the interaction between 96

Liturgy and Apocalyptic Eschatology medieval church architecture and liturgy, it is no less important to remember that the great churches that were built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were just one stage of development in the medieval effort to manifest the Heavenly Jerusalem in stone. As concepts of piety changed in the later Middle Ages the buildings in which that piety was expressed changed as well. The desire for a more personal form of worship among the faithful, in particular among the laity, led to a different notion of how best to create a liturgical space using stone, glass, light, and color. In the later Middle Ages, the private chapel became the preferred setting in which to worship. First kings and then – following the royal example – the nobility built their Heavenly Jerusalems on intimate, personal scales. Even people of far lesser means were able to enjoy a more private liturgical setting by joining a guild, where each member contributed to the establishment and maintenance of a common chapel. Some of these chapels were free-standing buildings, the most celebrated of which is the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris; others were part of the interior of an existing building, like a royal palace, a monastery, or a parish church. In fourteenth-century England, a great number of these private chapels were called “chantries,” built expressly for the singing, or “chanting,” of soul Masses, usually for a donor or members of a donor’s family. The religious and architectural expressions of the chantry movement provide a little-studied, but important context for late medieval apocalyptic eschatology, particularly in terms of how this spirituality was displayed in art, both visual and literary. It is to the English chantry movement, therefore, that I now turn.

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The Chantry Movement

4 The Chantry Movement: An Intimate Art of the Medieval New Jerusalem Private Worship and the Eschatology of Chantry Rites I Richard’s body have interred new, . . . . . . . . and I have built Two chauntries where the sad and solemn priests Sing still for Richard’s soul.

T

HE verses quoted are from one of the king’s speeches in Shakespeare’s Henry V. They are part of a prayer in which Henry asks God to “think not upon the fault” of his father, Henry of Lancaster, who had obtained the crown by murdering Richard II (IV.i.293–302). Shakespeare is probably drawing on Holinshed who says that Henry V (r. 1413–22), after his coronation, had the body of Richard (r. 1377–99) moved “with all funerall dignitie convenient for his estate,” from King’s Langley to Westminster Abbey, where he was buried with his first queen, Anne of Bohemia, in a “solemn toome erected and set up at the charges of this king.”1 Holinshed records the historical event, but Shakespeare gives us a glimpse, as well, of the religious belief and a whole set of liturgical practices associated with Henry’s actions. Here is a more complete citation from Henry’s speech: I Richard’s body have interred new, And on it have bestowed more contrite tears, Than from it issued forced drops of blood. Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, Who twice a day their wither’d hands hold up Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built Two chauntries, where the sad and solemn priests Sing still for Richard’s soul. (295–302) 1

Geoffrey Bullough, ed., Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, 7 vols (London: Routledge and Paul; New York: Columbia UP, 1957–75), vol. 5, 281; cited from G. Blakemore Evans, ed., The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), 958 n. 295.

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The Chantry Movement Shakespeare’s portrayal here of Henry V’s response to the death of Richard II provides a rare as well as sympathetic description of the piety associated with the late medieval chantry movement in England. The tears of contrition shed, perhaps, at the dead king’s tomb, the poor mourners who have been hired by Henry to pray twice a day for the atonement of his father’s guilt, and the building of the chantry chapels to have Masses said daily for Richard’s soul are some of the religious and cultural features of the chantry movement that require brief consideration before proceeding to a fuller consideration of the movement’s architectural expression.2 Approximately fifty years before Shakespeare wrote Henry V (c. 1599), the Suppression Acts of Henry VIII (1545) and Edward VI (1547) had dissolved the chantry institutions entirely. The revenues generated by these institutions became the possession of the Crown and hundreds of chantry chapels that had been built throughout England in the later Middle Ages were dismantled or destroyed.3 But even while Richard II was alive (over a century before Henry VIII) the chantry movement had come under attack by the reformers of the fourteenth century. Thomas Walsingham, one of the chroniclers of the Lancastrian revolution of 1399 and a monk at Saint Albans, gives an account of a conversation between Richard II and Thomas Mowbray, in which Mowbray tells Richard that if he were considering resigning his throne, he ought to hand over power to Henry Bolingbroke. Richard immediately dismisses this suggestion, and his reason for doing so is worthy of note: Richard says that he would never yield the crown to Bolingbroke, because if Henry became king, he would want to destroy the Church.4 2

3

4

The chantry movement is treated in the following studies: G. H. Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels rev. edn (London: Phoenix House, 1963); Joan Evans, “Chantries and Colleges,” Oxford History of English Art, 1307–1461 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1949), 172–220; Rosalind Hill, “ ‘A Chaunterie for Soules’: London Chantries in the Reign of Richard II,” The Reign of Richard II: Essays in Honor of May McKisack, ed., F. R. H. Du Boulay and Caroline M. Barron (London: Althone Press, 1971), 242–55; Alan Kreider, English Chantries: The Road to Dissolution (Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 1979); A. Hamilton Thompson, “Chantries and Colleges of Chantry Priests,” The English Clergy and Their Organization in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon, 1947), 132–60; K. L. Wood-Legh, Perpetual Chantries in Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1965). The chantry movement is included as part of the general discussion of Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400–c.1580 (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1992); see especially the chapters, “Last Things” (301–37) and “The Pains of Purgatory” (338–76). Georges Duby includes a brief discussion of the chantry chapels in his chapter “La Chapelle” in Le Moyen Age: Fondements d’un nouvel humanism 1280–1440 (Genève, Skira, 1984), 93–96. Edward VI completed the second wave of dissolutions and confiscations that Henry VIII had begun. “The chantry act of Henry VIII’s last Parliament (1545) – which was never carried out systematically – placed at the king’s disposal all ‘colleges, free chapels, chantries, hospitals, fraternities, brotherhoods, guilds, and stipendiary priests having perpetuity for ever.’ To this list the act of Edward VI’s first Parliament (1547) – which was most methodically put into effect – added priests for terms of years, obits, anniversaries, and lights, while exempting the hospitals” (Alan Kreider, 5). Chronica Maiora, printed in the nineteenth century under the title of Annales Ricardi Secundi et Henrici Quarti, in Chris Given-Wilson, trans. and ed., Chronicles of the Revolution 1397–1400. The Reign of Richard II (Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 1993), 17.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem A prominent feature of this Church that Richard feared losing was the chantry movement. The practice of endowing chantries (temporary or perpetual) by members of the clergy, the royal family, the nobility, and the guilds was the most remarkable manifestation of religious belief in late medieval England. It was remarkable not only because of its popularity in all regions of England, but also because of its importance as a form of individual religious expression. The chantry movement provided an unprecedented opportunity for religious and laity alike to participate in the organization of the church, the design of private liturgies, and the decoration of ecclesiastical monuments all for the purpose of facilitating personal salvation. Depending upon the wealth of the chantry endowment, for example, the founder of a chantry was free to choose the number of Mass priests and specific prayers that were to be recited during the liturgies, as well as the number and character of liturgical objects that were to be used. But it was in the design and decoration of the private tombs and chantry chapels that the aspirations of an individual founder were most clearly and enthusiastically displayed, where religious awareness frequently mingled with a fondness for worldly ideals of wealth and authority. The personal intercessory piety of the chantry movement drew stern condemnation from Wyclif and his followers in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The establishment of private liturgies and the adorning of ecclesiastical monuments as a means of perpetuating the memory of the deceased and securing the prayers of the living was seen by these early reformers as vain and spiritually corrupt attempts to buy one’s way into Heaven. Wyclif wrote, for example, about the vanity of rich men who believe that God would find favor by means of tales cantarias and that to desire one’s name to be remembered forever on earth is the way to the devil, not to Paradise.5 Such presumption about the benefits to be gained from founding a chantry was self-deception and harmful to one’s soul: Many men ben disseyved in founding of chauntries, in coostli sepulcris, and in solempne sepulturis; and alle thes feden the world, and done no profit to the soule; but as thei harmen men lyvynge, so thei done harm to the soul.6

A great many English people in the late Middle Ages did not, however, share this view.7 5

6 7

“Et quantum vel cantarias perpetuas per mundi divites fabricatas, patet, quod fundatores in fide primo deficiunt ac si crederent deum sibi et suo generi per tales cantarias singulariter suffragari. Et raro vel numquam deficit eis lucifernia superbia, qua cupiunt nomen suum in terris perpetuari.” John Wiclif’s Polemical Works in Latin, ed. Rodolf Buddensieg I (Wyclif Soc. 1883), 272–73, cited in K. L. Wood-Legh, 305. Cited in Wood-Legh, 305. See, for example, Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c. 1400–c.1580; Duffy’s purpose is to show that the religious reforms of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance in England were resisted by the great majority of English people. See especially the chapters, “Last Things” (301–37) and “The Pains of Purgatory” (338–76).

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The Chantry Movement The chantry movement was part of an epoch in English culture and civilization that was destroyed in the sixteenth-century politically-directed church reforms of Henry VIII and Edward VI. Lacking “the idealism of the monastic movements” and “the romance of the crusades,”8 the movement has attracted far less interest among modern historians than one might expect. Those who have given the chantry movement some treatment, have, on the whole, underestimated the centrality of the movement in the daily lives of medieval English people. The practice of saying prayers for the souls of the dead is at least as old as the third century AD, when St. Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) is reported to have offered the celebration of the Eucharist for the repose of a soul of a recently deceased Christian.9 The writings of Tertullian (c. 160–c. 225) and Gregory I (540–604) also record a tendency to observe the death of members of religious orders by celebrating Masses on their behalf, sometimes over a number of consecutive days. After the Synod of Attigny in 762, it became common practice within religious communities to celebrate a specified number of Masses for the souls of departed brethren, promising further Masses at the anniversaries of their deaths.10 The feast of All Souls’ Day was instituted by Abbot Odilo of Cluny in the eleventh century as an annual day of remembrance for all the souls of the faithful departed.11 Members of the laity, wishing to receive the spiritual benefits of soul Masses, sought to secure the prayers of the clergy by presenting alms and making endowments to monasteries and parish churches. The clergy were expected to recompense these temporal gifts by celebrating one or more soul Masses for individual benefactors at the time of death. Endowments often included provision for Masses to be recited on the anniversary of the benefactor’s death as well, not unlike the liturgical feast days celebrated annually in honor and remembrance of the saints and martyrs of the church.12 In England, each monastery kept a register known as Liber Vitae, which contained the names and anniversaries of the benefactors for whom soul Masses were to be said. In the parish churches it was called a “bede-roll” and was placed on the high altar. The names were announced at Sunday liturgies, on feast days, and during requiem Masses for individuals.13 The monasteries of England became wealthy through the great expenditure 8 9

10 11 12 13

Wood-Legh, ix. As Kotila has observed, Cyprian wrote his treatise De mortalitate in 252 “to console his flock during a dreadful plague”; it is “the first known work entirely devoted to the question of death, and it was left to Augustine to lay the theological foundations of burial and the commemoration of the departed in his work De cura pro mortuis” (35). The liturgical commemoration of the dead “was an established part of the liturgy of Jerusalem during the later part of the fourth century” (42–43). For the biblical texts that have served to justify Christian practices of praying for and paying funerary homage to the dead, see Kotila, 35–36. Wood-Legh, 2–3. Evans, 173. Wood-Legh, 2–3. Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 3–5.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem of grants by members of the laity hoping to benefit from the intercessory prayers of the monks. But by the thirteenth century, the monk-priests could not meet the liturgical requests of their benefactors, since the wish for soul Masses had become so great. At Durham, for example, the monks were under legal obligation to recite more than seven thousand soul Masses annually.14 The parish priest was similarly limited in his capacity to celebrate a daily, continuous succession of soul Masses, since meeting the private liturgical needs of benefactors was just one of his pastoral duties. Eventually it became common to make bequests either to a monastery or to a secular church for a private priest, whose primary liturgical obligation was to say Masses for the repose of the soul of a benefactor, the founder’s family members, or members of a guild or fraternity.15 In England, these bequests came to be known as chantries. In the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries the word “chantry,” derived from the Latin, cantaria, was used in England to describe any ecclesiastical service performed by a private chaplain for the personal needs of an individual, household, or group of people. Such private services were often performed for people at their own expense living at an inconvenient distance from the parish church. After the middle of the fourteenth century, however, the term “chantry” came to refer exclusively to an ecclesiastical benefice whose founder made provision, in the form of endowments of land, rents, other kinds of possessions, and, on occasion, money, for private liturgies to be performed at a designated altar in a church or in a chantry chapel built specifically for the purpose. These private liturgies were celebrated daily, weekly, monthly, and annually by a succession of priests for the good-estate (pro bono statu) of particular individuals during their lifetimes and for the repose of their souls after death.16 Chantry foundations did not replace completely the monasteries as intercessory institutions, but in the fourteenth century they became the most common and most widespread form of individual religious expression in England. Historians estimate that over two thousand chantries were dissolved under the reforms of Henry VIII and Edward VI in the sixteenth century. Alan Kreider has identified 2,182 intercessory institutions capable of supporting at least one priest each at the time of their dissolution, but of these the great majority had been founded in the fifteenth century and include only those that survived until the dissolution. “In view of the heavy toll exacted of medieval institutions by the ravages of time,” writes Kreider, “the number of chantries

14 Evans, 175. 15 Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 7. 16 Ibid. 9; Evans, 178–79; Wood-Legh, 1–2. Duffy has observed, “The language of memory

pervaded the cult of the dead: the obsequies celebrated for each departed soul on the seventh and thirtieth day after burial, and on the first anniversary, were called the week’s, month’s, and year’s ‘mind’ or remembrance. The focal point of the church’s liturgy of supplication for the dead, All Souls’ Day, was properly called the ‘Commemoration of All Souls’ ” (328).

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The Chantry Movement actually founded in the fourteenth century must have been even greater than appears from surviving documentary evidence.”17 Endowments for Masses to be sung for a living benefactor or for the repose of the soul of a dead one increased greatly in the second half of the fourteenth century after war, plague, and famine had devastated the population of England. English people of all social classes – royalty, the nobility, ecclesiastics, merchants, civil servants – responded to this daily encounter with death by giving new force to already established forms of Christian piety. Fear of the sufferings of Hell and Purgatory, a belief in the intercessory power of the saints and the healing power of their bodily remains, a belief in the spiritual power of the prayers of the living, the desire for a personal, daily encounter with the divine, and, above all, a wish to find some way to keep the dead alive in the minds of the living are the features of late medieval piety that found renewed expression in the private liturgical rituals of the chantry movement. The reign of Richard II saw a great multiplication of chantry foundations in England, with Richard II founding many of his own. He established chantries at Carthusian, Dominican, and Benedictine institutions. The austere Carthusian establishments, King Richard’s favorites, were no less willing to pray for the souls of their benefactors than were the mendicant orders, whose preaching friars did much to stir the fears of the people with their warnings of post-mortem punishment. At one of the Carthusian institutions, the London Charterhouse, Richard II is recorded in a list of benefactors, c. 1431, for whom the monks were obliged to celebrate soul Masses: The chantry of Richard II. The King gave the advowson of Edlesburgh church to the brethren, for which they were under obligation to sing masses perpetually for the souls of Richard, Anne his Queen, his father Edward (the Black Prince) and Joan his mother, his brother Edward, Edward III, etc.18

Richard also founded chantries at Mount Grace priory, Yorkshire – also a Carthusian house – and at Dartford priory, Kent, where he made provision for daily Mass to be said for its Dominican nuns, for his soul, and for the priory’s other benefactors.19 In 1385 Richard II established a college of twelve chantry priests at St. Paul’s in London to pray for his soul, the soul of Queen Anne, and for their ancestors.20 Richard did not build a chantry chapel at Westminster Abbey even though he had great admiration for the Benedictine monks there and even though so many of his ancestors and successors were buried in that church. His endowed gifts to the abbey, however, were abundant. These were mostly in the form of property and made for the purpose of securing the prayers of the monks for 17 18 19 20

Kreider, 89. Cited in Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 35. Ibid. 36, 38. Evans, 188.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem himself and for his queen. G. H. Cook cites a record of such an endowment shortly before Richard’s deposition and murder in 1399: for his healthful estate while he lived and for the health of his soul after his death, and for the health of the soul of his consort, late queen of England, [Richard II gave] to God and the church of S. Peter, Westminster, all lands, tenements, rents and services called Hoddeford and Cowhous, in the ville of Hendon and Hamstede with appurtenances, in the county of Middlesex and elsewhere.21

Apparently not wishing to compete with Richard for the prayers of the monks at Westminster Abbey, Henry IV chose to be buried at Canterbury Cathedral, also the burial church of the Black Prince. The first King of England to erect a chantry at Westminster was Henry V, who died in 1422. The chantries that he established for Richard to atone for the guilt of his father – and to which Shakespeare refers in Henry V 22 – were founded in the Carthusian priory of Shene in Surrey and the Bridgetine nunnery of Syon in Middlesex, both monastic houses that Henry himself had established in 1414.23 Most people in late medieval England could not afford to found personal chantries and to build chapels for individual members of their families, but historians have found that a lack of financial means did not deter a great many laity, especially in the north and northwest of England, from securing prayers in the form of organized soul Masses and from erecting some chantry structure – however simple – for the purpose. At the very least, a special altar would be designated for use by a particular religious guild. In the late fourteenth century, membership in the religious guilds rapidly increased, and the collective material contributions of the guilds’ individual members were used to establish “co-operative chantries.”24 Since the main purpose of chantries was to secure prayers for the souls of the dead, the requiem Mass was most frequently celebrated, alternating at times with the Mass of All Saints, the Trinity, Corpus Christi, the Virgin Mary, a martyr, or the Mass of a given feast day. Such Masses were especially common if a chantry had been established during the lifetime of the founder.25 But no matter which Mass was being said, the cantarist was always instructed to include special prayers for the benefit of souls. These additions to the liturgy were chosen by the founder and were recited together with the collect, the Secret, and post-communion prayers of the day, according to the Use of Sarum.26

21 22 23 24 25 26

Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 174. See 98–99. Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 25. Ibid. Wood-Legh, 284–85. Ibid. 290.

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The Chantry Movement Historians of the medieval English church have commented upon the formulaic and apparently shallow nature of the wills and other documents that contain instructions for the founding and maintenance of chantries. But Eamon Duffy has rightly emphasized the ways in which these documents are fundamentally religious: they are the “concrete and practical expression of the testator’s belief in the importance of providing for prayer and good works for the health of one’s soul.” Despite their formulaic character, they “offer evidence not of shallowness but of overwhelming social consensus in religious convictions and priorities.”27 The elaborate instructions for private liturgies that exist in foundation documents and wills is evidence not only of the desire for the liturgies to be carried out conscientiously, according to the precise wishes of the benefactor, but also of the overwhelming belief among medieval people from all ranks of society in the efficacy of prayer – particularly of the Mass – to assist in the “safe transition of the souls from this world to the next.”28 It was believed that this safe transition depended upon one’s preparedness at the time of death and the extent to which the deceased would be remembered in the prayers of the living. These two concerns – preparation and remembrance – were the primary motivating sources for all features of the chantry movement, from the building of the most elaborate chapel to the burning of the smallest candle at an altar where soul Masses were said. It is as if there was an unceasing effort to remain in constant communication with the dead, to speak for them through their intercessory institutions and to be near them physically as well as spiritually by burying them in their churches, using their tombs as altars, and erecting private chapels for them – as if to carve out their individual spaces in the Heavenly Jerusalem. The liturgies for the dead and their special architectural settings bound the two communities together for eternity: the living, upon entering the late medieval English church, typically crowded with private funerary chapels, entered the space of the dead in order to speak to God on their behalf and to reflect upon the fate of their own souls after death. If Purgatory was thought to be the “antechamber” (Duffy’s term) of Heaven, the medieval church building, particularly in late medieval England, must have been conceived as a location decidedly “closer” to Paradise, despite – or perhaps on account of – its earthly ties. For medieval Christians, the Platonic journey of the soul did not end after death: the chantry movement was an expression of the potential of this world to assist in the ascent of the soul after death. For most of the departed, it was believed, this journey after death began in Purgatory and concluded, finally, in the blessedness of heaven. The chantry movement was an organized, deliberate effort to take full spiritual advantage of life, the living, of ritual, and of artifact to establish an eternal communication with the sacred world and to prepare to take one’s unique place in Paradise. 27 Duffy, 335. 28 Ibid. 301.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem According to Duffy, the wills which give proof of the widespread religious beliefs of late medieval people offer no evidence of a morbid obsession with death or hysteria over punishments that were thought to await most people in Purgatory.29 It is also true, however, that a fear of Purgatory was a motivating source for the intercessory institutions of the Middle Ages. Interestingly, however, the liturgical and architectural features of the chantry movement do not obviously express such fear. Instead, they are an elaborate valorization of this world as an opportunity to prepare for one’s place in Paradise, an organized effort to make this world an occasion for penance, purging, professing one’s faith, and for revelation.

Chantry Chapels and the Architecture of Late Medieval English Gothic The practice of saying prayers for the souls of the dead had been common throughout medieval Europe for centuries, but in the late fourteenth century, particularly in England, this practice had evolved into an elaborate and pervasive religious movement that was driven by late medieval people’s assertive confrontation with death. In the words of G. H. Cook, the chantry movement was “the most remarkable manifestation of religious belief” in late medieval England.30 By the Reformation more than two thousand chantry foundations had been established throughout England with particularly strong concentrations in London, Yorkshire, and the northwest Midlands. This late medieval religious movement – this heightened state of eschatological awareness – was expressed in England not only by the great number of chantry endowments, but also through the widespread building of private funerary chapels where soul Masses were sung and which often contained the tomb of the donor. Those medieval people who could not afford to endow a chantry foundation were familiar with the movement as a set of popular beliefs and liturgical practices. The donors of chantry foundations, for example, regularly employed the poor to serve as mourners and to come daily to the tombs to pray for the souls of the deceased. On Sundays and liturgical feast days the scores of people who filled the naves and aisles of English churches and who were kept separated from the sanctuaries by choir screens could hear and observe the soul Masses being sung in the chapels that crowded the churches’ interiors. The chantry movement also provided many children with the only schooling they ever received, since the chantry priests – in addition to performing their daily liturgical duties – commonly served as school teachers, using their chapels as classrooms. The Burghersh chantry (founded 1332) in

29 Duffy, 303, 347. 30 Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, xii.

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The Chantry Movement Lincoln Cathedral, for example, was served by five priests who were obliged to instruct six poor boys in grammar until they reached the age of sixteen.31 The priests who served the early Works chantry of Lincoln Cathedral were bestowed with special recognition for carrying out their duties.32 The chapel is enclosed by a stone screen, and over its entrance reads the inscription, Oremus p. benefactorib. istius ecclesie. On each side of the screen’s entrance are two kneeling figures of chantry priests at prayer, each about six inches tall (fig. 1). Three of these figures are original. John of Gaunt (d. 1399) added a fourth figure when he rededicated the chantry to St. Edward. The chantry movement was a curious blend of private devotion and public display. The rich purchased the soul Masses and built the monuments; the poor listened, looked on, learned their alphabet from the chantry priests, and were hired to pray for the souls of dead men and women who enjoyed material privileges while living. As an expression of personal display and material privilege on the one hand, the chantry movement also expressed the anxious belief that the prayers of the materially impoverished could transform wealth into a means of worship and entrance into Heaven. This notion is not unlike Abbot Suger’s belief that to construct a building filled with jewels and permeated with colored light for the purpose of liturgical worship was an appropriate way for humans to show reverence for God: only the most beautiful materials of this world were worthy of the human effort to show such reverence and could serve as potential “locations” for spiritual awareness – invitations for the soul’s movement from the earthly realm to the divine. Also essential to Suger’s understanding of his building as an apocalyptic and eschatological landscape, was his clear consciousness of the limitations of this world – of the dangers of lingering too long and too often on this side of the material threshold. In the late Middle Ages those who could afford to build private chapels did so in order to provide a setting for the liturgies they had purchased, liturgies that they believed would help them to avoid post-mortem suffering and exclusion from the divine realm. For Wyclif and the early reformers this effort to “buy” one’s way into heaven was worse than vanity or ignorance: it was the work of the devil.33 Seen from a historical perspective and as an expression of 31 This chantry was kept at the altar of St. Katherine in the northeast corner of the choir. The founders

of this chantry were Bartholomew, Henry (bishop of Lincoln), and Robert Burghersh. See Peter B. G. Binnal, “Notes on the Medieval Altars and Chapels in Lincoln Cathedral,” The Antiquaries Journal 42 (1962): 74; and G. H. Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 134. 32 The Works chapel is located in the most northern bay of the south transept. Peter Binnal dates the chantry foundation to 1183–85 or 1203. The Lincoln Records give 1133–35, or 1203–6. The chapel was originally dedicated to St. Guthlac. Subsequently it was rededicated to St. Anne (c. 1311), then to St. Edward, martyr, by John of Gaunt. The chantry was founded on behalf of the church’s benefactors, hence the name, Works chapel. See Peter B. G. Binnal, “Notes on the Medieval Altars and Chapels in Lincoln Cathedral,” 77; and G. H. Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 137–38. 33 See Joel T. Rosenthal, The Purchase of Paradise: Gift Giving and the Aristocracy, 1307–1485 (London and Toronto: Routledge & Kegan Paul and U of Toronto P, 1972).

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem medieval eschatological awareness, the chantry movement is an unusual combination of beliefs and practices: beliefs about how to confront death and divine Judgment, about how to participate in the sacred realm through prayer and liturgical worship, and, not least of all, about the appropriate architectural setting for such worship. When the Chantries Act was passed under Edward VI, the chantry endowments became a significant source of revenue for the Crown.34 Of the hundreds of chantry chapels that were built throughout England in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, most were dismantled or destroyed along with the removal or destruction of an untold number of liturgical objects (altarpieces, breviaries and books of hours, reliquaries, monstrances, and the like) and statuary.35 Of the seventy chapels that do survive, their decorative features have almost completely disappeared, having sustained various degrees of erosion, vandalism, and restoration. It is difficult for the modern observer of English churches to imagine the extraordinary architectural and decorative impact the chantry chapels had upon the churches in which they were built. “The present atmosphere of an English Protestant church,” writes Nicola Coldstream, “would have been wholly alien to medieval people,” since the decorative detail, bright color, and statuary that have disappeared were integral features of the larger architectural settings.36 The interior of the larger edifices were “transformed,” as Christopher Wilson put it, by the additions of these “elaborate internal fittings,” incorporating diverse “microarchitectural” genres that distinguished the English Decorated and Perpendicular styles within the larger Gothic tradition.37 It is a curious fact of medieval architectural history that the widespread building of these chapels was a phenomenon almost entirely unique to England.38 No scholar has suggested a hypothesis for why this phenomenon may be so; indeed, there has been only one attempt at a major study of the chapels by an art historian, G. H. Cook’s Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels.39 Cook’s study is divided equally between a general discussion of

34 Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 76–77, 213. 35 See, for example, the beheaded and defaced figures of the mortuary tomb of Bartholomew

Berghersh (d. 1355) in Lincoln Cathedral (figs 2–4).

36 “The Kingdom of Heaven: Its Architectural Setting,” in The Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet

England 1200–1400, ed. Jonathan Alexander & Paul Binski (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1987), 92. 37 The Gothic Cathedral, 190. 38 Ecclesiastical benefices founded for the purpose of securing Masses for the souls of the dead were not, of course, unique to England. G. H. Cook concluded, however, that the building of chantry chapels within existing edifices specifically for this purpose was unique to England. I have found no evidence in subsequent scholarship that disproves his findings. 39 Less ambitious studies that are largely derivative of Cook’s are Joan Evans, “Chantries and Colleges,” The Oxford History of English Art 1307–1461 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1949), 173–200; Georges Duby’s chapter, “La Chapelle,” Le Moyen Age: Fondements d’un nouvel humanism 1280–1440 (Genève: Skira, 1984), 93–96. A chapter on chantry chapels in English parish churches

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The Chantry Movement the chantry movement as a form of religious belief and descriptions of the architectural and decorative features of many of England’s extant chapels. It is a reliable introduction to the chantry movement, and Cook is especially instructive in his effort to see the architectural expression as inseparable from the religious beliefs and practices that took hold of late medieval England with such fervor. What this study lacks, however, is an attempt to examine how the chantry monuments function within the symbolic program of the larger edifices. Absent, too, is any attempt to understand how this movement may have penetrated other kinds of artistic and cultural achievements. Although Eamon Duffy and other historians of late medieval English religion have argued persuasively that prayers for the dead and soul Masses constituted a major expression of the belief in the close relation between the living and the dead,40 no one has argued strongly enough for the importance of the architectural settings in conveying that belief – the importance of a particular space for the efficacy of that communication. The extant chantry monuments are at least as important as the chantry foundation documents as sources to which we can turn to understand the movement itself and to come closer to understanding this movement’s influence on other kinds of artistic and cultural endeavors, including medieval literature. To understand the chantry movement in its entirety is to see it as a distinctive late medieval English phenomenon that incorporated evolving concepts of earthly images of the New Jerusalem. For the remainder of this chapter, I focus on the monuments themselves, turning to their function (both practical and symbolic) as ecclesiastical edifices within the larger Gothic architectural tradition. I examine their relationship to micro-architectural genres and to other kinds of funerary monuments, such as tombs and shrines. A study of the chantry monuments can lead to a greater awareness of the lives and aspirations of the individuals who built them. These edifices were built to convey a particular religious devotion, but this devotional expression became inseparable from the patrons’ desire to display earthly ambitions and prestige. Furthermore, the individuals who helped spread the popularity of the chantry movement, especially the royal families and members of the nobility, were without doubt also responsible for the creation and dissemination of other cultural and artistic achievements. Georges Duby’s brief chapter, “La chapelle,” in Fondements d’un nouvel humanisme, includes a reference to the English chantries and is an attempt, however abbreviated, to see the architectural expression of the chantry movement within the larger tradition of private royal chapels.41 Robert Branner

is included in A. H. Thompson, The Historical Growth of the English Parish Church (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1911), 24–50. 40 Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars. See also Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 1981); and Patrick J. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 1994), 77–92. 41 Vol. 3 of Le Moyen Age, 95.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem points out a stylistic alliance between the jewel of French Rayonnant, Louis IX’s Sainte-Chapelle, and “the miniature Gothic architecture in chantry chapels.”42 These references to the social and stylistic foundations of chantry monuments have served as a starting point for my own analysis which treats Louis IX’s Sainte-Chapelle and the succession of Sainte-Chapelle “imitations” as the conceptual and architectural prototypes of the English chantry chapels. Private chapels for royalty were originally conceived as the central place of worship within a palace or castle. These royal chapels were personal shrines for secular rulers, a place for private worship for an anointed king and his family. They often served, too, as was the case with the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, as reliquary buildings. Indeed, Louis Réau explains the specific link between the term “chapel” (capella) and the piety associated with the medieval cult of relics, particularly in France. The cape (Fr. chape) of Saint Martin (326?–397), who was named patron saint of the French monarchy, was considered by the Merovingian kings to be the most precious of all relics, a national safeguard (“un palladium national”) analogous to the oriflamme of St.-Denis.” The term chapelle originally designated the place where the chape of Saint Martin was kept.43 This theme of private chapel as giant reliquary was manifested both conceptually and stylistically by the shared accomplishments of the medieval mason and the metalworker.44 By the middle of the thirteenth century we find the metalworker applying the mason’s architectural forms to his own craft so that reliquaries resembled miniature churches made of gold, silver, and bronze, complete with gables, pinnacles, and flying buttresses.45 The mason’s craft was likewise transformed by the decorative detail and technical virtuosity that is characteristic of the metalworker’s micro-architectural projects. This exchange of expertise among specialists extended to other artistic domains as well, like wall painting, manuscript illumination, woodwork, embroidery – even literature, as I will demonstrate later in this study. The private royal chapels were spaces large enough to serve as settings for liturgy, yet small enough to exploit the technical virtuosity and material preciousness of the metalworker’s craft. The royal chapel was something less 42 St Louis and the Court Style in Gothic Architecture (London: A. Zwemmer, 1965), 59. The obser-

vation is noted in the phrase I quoted. Branner makes no further mention of the chantries.

43 “Martin de Tours (11 novembre),” Iconographie de l’art chrétien, vol. 4 (Paris: Presse

Universitaires de France, 1958), 902.

44 In the medieval period, “metalwork commonly meant goldsmith’s work, i.e. work in soft metals

(in malleable sheets of gold and silver), as much as in the harder gilt-bronze” (Jean Bony, French Gothic Architecture of the 12th and 13th Centuries [Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: U of California P, 1983], 530 n. 55). On the sharing among craftsmen and artists of different specializations, see also Michael Camile, Gothic Art: Glorious Visions (New York: Abrams, 1996), esp. chapters One, Four, and Five. 45 The shrine of Saint-Taurin at Evreux, completed by 1255, is a well-known example of a reliquary conceived in imitation of the most recent architecture. See, for example, Jean Bony, French Gothic, 400–1, 529 n. 50.

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The Chantry Movement than a great church, yet something more than a shrine or liturgical ornament; it was, as we shall see, a miniature Heavenly Jerusalem.46 The Sainte-Chapelle in Paris is the most familiar example of an ecclesiastical edifice that was at once a reliquary and a private royal chapel. It was commissioned by Louis IX in 1240 to house the relic of the Crown of Thorns which he bought from the Emperor of Constantinople in 1239.47 It is a two-storied structure and replaced the old chapel of St. Nicholas in the Parisian palace. The lower level was used as a place of worship for the king’s retainers and was dedicated to the Virgin. The upper chapel served both as the private space of worship for the king and his family and as a shrine for the Crown of Thorns, the Lance, and for other relics of the Cross that Louis IX had acquired from Constantinople after the chapel was completed in 1248. Louis IX’s Sainte-Chapelle is one of the outstanding achievements of French Rayonnant, the name given to the architectural style that appeared in northern France in the mid-thirteenth century. The influence of Rayonnant upon all stages of late Gothic architecture is well known, but nowhere is this influence more evident than in the Decorated and Perpendicular styles of late medieval England. The term “Rayonnant” was first used by nineteenthcentury archeologists who found the “radiating” rose windows, such as those on the transept façades of Notre Dame in Paris, to be the style’s most distinctive feature.48 The striking, radiating effect was produced by tracery compositions that divided the surface of a window or wall into a series of repetitive, lace like patterns. “In this new architecture conceived entirely as filigree work,” writes Jean Bony, “all forms become almost indefinitely repetitive.”49 The repetition of linear motifs in the clerestory windows at Amiens and in the windows of the thirteenth-century nave at St.-Denis are “paragons” of the Rayonnant style and were meant to give the interior of the buildings a greater sense of lightness and insubstantiality.50 The network of tracery typical of thirteenth-century French Rayonnant was an “effort toward the immaterial.”51 It was an effort that included the slenderization of columns, the merging of triforium and clerestory mullions, the removal of interior supports to create more surface area for windows, and the multiplication of gabled porches and canopied niches on the exterior of buildings such as Saint-Nicaise in Reims, the north façades of Notre Dame in 46 Charlemagne’s palace chapel at Aachen is an early medieval example of such a royal edifice. 47 There is controversy surrounding the precise dating of the Sainte-Chapelle. The chapel was begun 48 49 50

51

before 1244 (perhaps as early as 1241) and dedicated in 1248. See Branner, St Louis, 64–5 and Jean Bony, French Gothic, 387. Bony, French Gothic, 357, 362 Ibid. 375. Ibid. 361–63. Christopher Wilson argues that the “most splendid” Rayonnant church is not French, but German: Cologne Cathedral: “The choir of Cologne . . . is essentially a version of Amiens updated in the light of [the thirteenth-century renovations] of St.-Denis” (Gothic Cathedral, 124; cf. 125 and 190). On the renovations at St.-Denis, see Caroline Astrid Bruzelius, The 13th-Century Church at St.-Denis (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1985). Wilson, Gothic Cathedral, 362.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem Paris, Tournai Cathedral and the Sainte-Chapelle.52 Like the growing complexity of tracery patterns in windows, the gables, canopies, and niches on the exterior of French churches were designed to emphasize systems of progressive subdivisions or small-scale forms set within larger frames.53 The Rayonnant craftsmen, no longer impeded by the technical cruxes that challenged the builders of the earlier great Gothic buildings, channeled their creative energy into achieving expert combinations of ornament and proportion. The Sainte-Chapelle is perhaps the monument that best displays the Rayonnant expression of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Louis IX, the pious crusader-king and future saint of the Church, made his Sainte-Chapelle the ecclesiastical jewel of the Ile de la Cité, the monumental proof that Paris was to be seen as the new holy land.54 It was a monument where concepts of kingship, sacredness, and the church as a representation of the Celestial City were perfectly blended in a single, private space of Rayonnant brilliance. The interior of the upper chapel has been described by one art historian as “a casket of light,” by another as a “multifaceted diamond” and by still another as “fictive metalwork.”55 It is a single, open space uninterrupted by aisles and transepts and bounded on four sides by expansive, shimmering screens of stained-glass windows that depict narrative images of the stories of Moses, the Books of Kings, and the Books of Esther and Judith – all framed within gilded medallions. The slender piers that support the vault are set against the walls and painted in colorful geometric patterns. Their capitals depict a great variety of carved representations of flora and fauna. The bays of the vault are painted with golden stars against a dark blue field, suggesting the celestial canopy. At the level of the arcade beneath the windows are twelve gilded statues of the apostles set against the piers, with each apostle bearing one of the church’s consecration crosses. A choir of censing angels is carved on the spandrels of the arcade. The relics of the Passion were displayed under an ornate, raised canopy in the apsidal sanctuary, and a rose window adorned the western end. Louis IX’s Sainte-Chapelle became the revered model for a succession of chapels built by members of royalty and nobility in France throughout the later Middle Ages. The English kings, for example, built St. Stephen’s chapel in Westminster Palace as a deliberate imitation of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. Most of these chapels, like the Parisian model, were reliquary buildings that enshrined fragments of the Cross (given as gifts from Louis IX and his 52 Ibid. 373–75. 53 Ibid. 363–64, 386–400, 411. 54 The presence of the Passion relics invested the building and Louis with divine status. Archbishop

Gautier Cornut of Sens (d. 1241) believed that Christ had chosen France “for the more devout veneration of the triumph of His Passion,” and in 1244, Pope Innocent IV said that Christ had crowned Louis with His Crown. Louis became rex christianissimus, imago Dei and patronus ecclesiae. See Branner, St Louis, 56–57, also Michael Camille, Gothic Art, 46. 55 Joan Evans, Art in Medieval France 987–1498: A Study of Patronage (London, New York and Toronto: Oxford UP, 1948), 195; Michael Camille, Gothic Art, 46; and Wilson, Gothic Cathedral, 130–31.

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The Chantry Movement successors) or other relics of the Passion. The builders of these SainteChapelle “imitations” sought to rival the Parisian original in architectural virtuosity and precision on a small scale, in lavish decoration, and especially in their efforts to saturate the chapels’ interiors with colored light.56 Jean, Duc de Berry (1340–1416), was especially fond of emulating the Sainte-Chapelle tradition. First he built a Sainte-Chapelle at Bourges to house a fragment of the Cross that had been a gift in 1372 from Charles V. This chapel also served as the duc’s mausoleum. It does not survive, but a miniature replica is on display at the Palais Jacques Coeur in Bourges. Jean built two other Saintes-Chapelles, one at Rion, which does survive and resembles the Parisian model with the addition of two small side chapels, and another at Mehun-sur-Nièvre. Each of these chapels was as much a tribute to the duc himself and to members of his family as it was a private setting in which to worship. Especially in these late medieval reliquary chapels, we find a conspicuous mingling of secular and sacred iconography, where “the portrait of the individual had invaded the iconography of the church.”57 It became customary, for example, for the nobility to depict family members alongside biblical prophets and angels holding heraldic shields. This was the practice in Jean’s chapel at Bourges and in the more elaborate chantry chapels in England, like the chantry of Richard Beauchamp (d. 1439) in St. Mary’s church in Warwick and the Warwick chantry (erected 1422) at Tewkesbury Abbey (fig. 12). The building of the Saintes-Chapelles continued in France into the fifteenth century.58 But more to our purpose is the great English rendition of the Paris Sainte-Chapelle, St. Stephen’s chapel in the Palace at Westminster.59 St. Stephen’s was begun in 1292 by Edward I and became the most important ecclesiastical building project of the Plantagenet royal household for fifty-six 56 Joan Evans studied several of the French Saintes-Chapelles that were closely modeled on the Pari-

sian monument. “Nowhere in the world,” she observed, “is the mature Gothic that makes the walls of a building a succession of splendid windows of fairy lightness better exemplified than in the Saintes Chapelles.” Three early examples are the chapel added to the Benedictine abbey church of Saint-Germer to house a fragment of the Cross, the Lady Chapel of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and the reliquary and chapel at the abbey of Maubuisson commissioned by Louis IX’s great niece, Mahaut d’Artois, to house the bones of her deceased uncle. In 1379, Charles V founded a college of fifteen canons to serve a Sainte-Chapelle at the Vincennes château, just outside of Paris. Work on this Sainte-Chapelle began in the early years of Charles VI reign (1380–1422). France’s war with England halted building activities around the year 1400, but work resumed and was completed under François I and Henri II. (Art in Medieval France, 196–98). 57 Evans, Art in Medieval France, 197. The chapel of the Holy Cross at Karlstein Castle, near Prague, was built to house the relics and regalia belonging to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (r. 1355–78). Camille has observed, “nowhere else in Europe is the claustrophobic opulence of sacro-political power made more manifest” (Gothic Art, 48–49). 58 One was begun in 1451 at Châteaudun by Dunois, Bastard of Orleans. Louis I of Bourbon built a Sainte-Chapelle at Aigueperse and Anne, Duchess of Bourbon and daughter of Louis XI (1423–83), built one at Bourbon-l’Archambault (Evans, Art in Medieval France, 197–98). 59 See Maurice Hastings, St Stephen’s Chapel and its Place in the Development of Perpendicular Style in England (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1955); and H. M. Colvin, The History of the King’s Works (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1963), 510–27.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem years of their reign. Building activity progressed for more than twenty years, since the English wars with Scotland and France and the political crisis at the end of Edward II’s reign halted progress on St. Stephen’s chapel in 1297, 1325–26, and in 1334. The building was completed in 1348 following Edward III’s victories at Crécy and Calais, but the decoration of the chapel’s interior continued for another decade and a half.60 In their building of St. Stephen’s chapel, the Plantagenet kings sought not merely to imitate the Paris monument; their wish was to convey to the world an English royal sanctity and political prestige surpassing that of the Capetian rulers.61 The English chapel was approximately ninety feet long and thirty feet wide.62 It was a two-storied structure like its French predecessor, the main, upper chapel for the private use of the king and his family, and the lower chapel for the use of members of the Plantagenet court. The interior of the upper chapel was a marvelous display of color, imagery, and geometric patterning. Colvin reports that between 1351 and 1360 “many thousand foils of gold were used in the chapel, besides considerable quantities of silver, azure, vermilion, verdigris, white and red lead, and ochre” and that “[e]very available surface was painted, gilded, diapered or stenciled.”63 The first master mason at St. Stephen’s was Michael of Canterbury,64 a pioneer of the English Decorated style who had been employed previously by Edward I to build one of the twelve memorial crosses for his queen, Eleanor of Castile (d. 1290).65 The Eleanor Crosses, which were small-scale, threedimensional polygons, had initiated England “into the delights of microarchitecture.” They were, like St. Stephen’s chapel, the children of Capetian

60 Colvin, The History of the King’s Works, 510–18. 61 In 1548, during the reign of Edward VI, St. Stephen’s chapel became the property of the House of

62

63 64

65

Commons. Its secular use as a chamber for the Commons led to gradual deterioration and destruction of its medieval architectural forms. In 1834 a fire destroyed the upper chapel and left the lower chapel in ruins. The architectural features of the upper chapel are known to us from drawings. In the 1860s, the lower chapel was badly restored by Sir Charles Barry and his son. See Colvin, 511, 519–20, 523; and Wilson, Gothic Cathedral, 192. For comparison, the Paris Ste.-Chapelle is 131.2 feet long (40m), 39.36 feet wide (12m), and 65.6 feet high (20m). The Ste.-Chapelle at Vincennes is 108.24 feet long (33m), 35 feet wide (10.70m), and 67.24 feet high (20.5m). Colvin, 519. See also Nicola Coldstream, The Decorated Style: Architecture and Ornament 1240–1360 (Toronto, Buffalo: U of Toronto P, 1994), 96. Michael of Canterbury worked on St. Stephen’s from 1292 to 1297. On the orders of Edward I, who wished to concentrate his resources on the wars in Scotland and France, building activity at St. Stephen’s ceased on 4 July 1297 and was resumed on Michaelmas, 1320, once again under the direction of Michael of Canterbury. Progress was halted again in the winter of 1325–26 during the final crisis of Edward II’s reign (Colvin 510–18). Upon Eleanor’s death on 28 November 1290, Edward I ordered her body to be carried in procession from Lincoln to Westminster in twelve stages. Elaborate memorial crosses were erected at each stage of the cross-country funeral: at Lincoln, Grantham, Stamford, the royal manor of Geddington, Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St. Albans, Waltham, West Cheap in the City of London, and the King’s mews at Charing. Michael of Canterbury was commissioned to make the memorial cross at Cheapside. Of the twelve crosses, only three survive today (at Waltham, Northampton and Geddington). See Colvin, 479, 484, 510–11.

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The Chantry Movement monuments.66 This new phase of Gothic style emphasized further the concept of the ecclesiastical monument as a sacred space made up of many smaller, sacred spaces – an earthly manifestation of “heaven’s many mansions” (John 14.2).67 The ogee arch (a reversed, S-shaped curve) was one of the style’s principal motifs; the earliest examples of ogees as an element of window tracery appeared in the lower chapel at St. Stephen’s.68 Another principal motif of the style was the canopied niche. The church, writes Paul Crossley, “could be made a more comprehensive image of Heaven by multiplying these niches throughout the building.”69 Both of these forms had appeared on the exterior of French churches as elements of portals and buttresses, but at St. Stephen’s they became prominent features of the upper chapel’s interior space.70 The second mason in charge of St. Stephen’s was Thomas of Canterbury, probably Michael’s son.71 Thomas was also the main architect in charge of remodeling the south transept of Gloucester Abbey (now a cathedral), a project that began around the year 1331. The architecture of the south transept is the earliest example of Perpendicular, which has much in common with Decorated and is considered to be “the ultimate development of Rayonnant.”72 Both the English Decorated and Perpendicular styles were refinements and elaborations of French Rayonnant. Architectural historians tend to see Decorated as a style that combined the concept of the reliquary building with an increased emphasis on interior figure sculpture and imagery enshrined by canopies. Geoffrey Webb viewed these stylistic tendencies as the defining features of the “illuminated architecture” of Westminster Abbey.73 The term “illuminated architecture” calls attention to the interior, chromatic brilliance of the late medieval English monuments. Nicola Coldstream describes Decorated as a “fusion” of increasingly complex patterns of tracery (on vaults, as well as windows and walls) with “highly ornamented, coloured and burnished

66 Wilson, Gothic Cathedral, 92. Twenty years earlier similar monuments were erected in honor of 67

68 69 70 71

72

73

Louis IX and were used “to mark the funeral procession which carried the bones of St. Louis from Paris to St. Denis” (Colvin, 484–85). For book-length studies of the English Decorated style, see Jean Bony, The English Decorated Style: Gothic Architecture Transformed 1250–1350 (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1979) and Nicola Coldstream, The Decorated Style. Wilson, Gothic Cathedral, 194. “English Gothic Architecture,” in The Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400 (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1987), 66. Wilson, Gothic Cathedral, 191–92. Wilson observes that the double-curved or ogee arch appeared on the west portals of Auxerre Cathedral (c. 1260–80). See also Colvin, 514, 521. Edward III appointed Thomas of Canterbury as chief mason at St. Stephen’s chapel in 1331. Thomas directed building activities at St. Stephen’s from 27 May 1331 until autumn 1334, when the king’s affairs with Scotland caused progress on the building to cease (Colvin 510–17). Wilson, Gothic Cathedral, 208–10. For a book-length study of Perpendicular, but one that views Decorated as inferior to Perpendicular, see John Harvey, The Perpendicular Style 1330–1485 (London: B. T. Batsford, 1978). Coldstream, Decorated, 12–13.

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1. Chantry priests, Works Chantry (detail, early thirteenth century), Lincoln Cathedral. By permission of the Chapter Office, Lincoln Cathedral.

interior[s].” According to Coldstream, “Decorated is not primarily concerned with structure,” that is, with structural problems or with structural unity. Indeed, she describes one of its principal innovations, the S-shaped ogee curve, as “anti-structural.”74 In the middle of the fourteenth century, Perpendicular appeared in the south transept of Gloucester Abbey under the direction of Thomas of 74 Ibid. 7, 9.

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The Chantry Movement Canterbury. When contrasting Perpendicular with Decorated, architectural historians describe the former as the more “austere,” “restrained,” and “pure” aesthetic, “accompanied by a marked concentration of figure sculpture near altars and other focal points and . . . by the use of more and lighter stained glass.”75 Above all, Perpendicular seems to have been a kind of “belated acceptance” of the unifying principles of Rayonnant.76 The mason who had been in charge of the final stage of construction at St. Stephen’s chapel between 1340 and 1348 was William Ramsey of Norwich. Ramsey was also the master mason in charge of Old St. Paul’s small chapter-house and double- storied cloister (begun in 1332; destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666), whose architectural features, along with the innovations at Gloucester, “embodied” the architectural style or “system” of Perpendicular.77 From the second half of the fourteenth century to the beginning of the Renaissance, this style prevailed in the work of one of the greatest masters of the period, Henry Yevele. From 1360 until his death in 1400, Yevele, who like Ramsey was from the English Midlands, had been the chief royal architect to Westminster Palace and St. Paul’s Cathedral, in addition to owning a tombmaking business.78 Although a good deal of scholarship has been devoted to distinguishing between the Decorated and the Perpendicular styles of late medieval English Gothic, we must remember when we visit the monuments that much of the decorative features has disappeared, along with most of the chantry chapels that crowded the interiors. Lavish ornamentation, whether in the form of traceried stained glass, elaborate canopy work, or painted and gilded statuary was a prominent part of monuments now known for their Perpendicular “purity.” In Gloucester Abbey, for example, the remodeling of the south transept by Thomas of Canterbury converged with the display of two of the most ornate structures in medieval Europe: the east walk of the cloister (begun c. 1360) with its famous fan vault, and the canopied tomb of Edward II. “There are few more poetic effects in Gothic architecture” writes Christopher Wilson, than the “surge” of geometric patterns produced by the fan vault of Gloucester’s east cloister. Here the traceried patterns of Rayonnant rose windows are transferred to stone and repeated overhead in a series of trumpet-like conoids.79 Edward II’s tomb was set up in the choir after the fall of Mortimer in 1330 and became a site of veneration befitting a saint’s shrine. The elaborate, multi-tiered canopy was imitated at Tewkesbury Abbey for the tombs of Hugh Despenser (d. 1349), and Guy de Brien (c. 1390), the second husband of 75 Ibid. 10; Wilson, Gothic Cathedral, 212; see also Wim Swann, The Late Middle Ages: Art and

Architecture from 1350 to the Advent of the Renaissance (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977), 26–7.

76 Wilson, Gothic Cathedral, 206–7. 77 Ibid. 212. Edward III also appointed William of Ramsey as master mason of the king’s castles

south of the Trent (Colvin, History, 516). On Old St. Paul’s Cathedral, see G. H. Cook, Old S. Paul’s Cathedral: A Lost Glory of Medieval London (London: Phoenix House, 1955). 78 Wilson, Gothic Cathedral, 213. 79 Ibid. 207–8.

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2. Tomb (detail) of Bartholomew Burghersh (d. 1355/6), Lincoln Cathedral. By permission of the Chapter Office, Lincoln Cathedral.

Hugh’s widow. These English tombs served in turn as the models for the tomb of Pope John XXII at Avignon.80 St. Erkenwald’s shrine in Old St. Paul’s Cathedral was designed according to Perpendicular principles and stood just a few yards away from one of the most lavishly decorated chantry chapels in England.81 The chantry chapels at Tewkesbury Abbey, which have been described as “delightful specimen[s] of Perpendicular,”82 were brightly painted and gilded, and the choir in which they were built is one of England’s finest examples of early Decorated. I will have more to say later about these monuments; for now I wish to emphasize that the two stylistic tendencies existed and developed within the same edifices, often under the supervision of the same craftsmen. Indeed, the lavish decoration of the interior of St. Stephen’s chapel was carried out during the careers of William of Ramsey and Henry Yevele, the “pioneers” of English Perpendicular. 80 Joan Evans, Oxford History of Art, 165. 81 The chantry chapel of Roger de Waltham (c. 1325). 82 G. H. Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 171.

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3. Tomb (detail) of Bartholomew Burghersh.

The principal architectural and decorative motifs of French Rayonnant and its English derivatives were applied with great enthusiasm across all domains of visual media. Liturgical furnishings and objects (sediliae, fonts, choir stalls, and monstrances, for instance), shrines and tombs, choir screens, stained glass, embroideries, paintings, and ivory carvings all became “façades” for tracery, diaper, foliage, fauna, ogee arches, canopies, and niches. Evidence for the conscious transfer of motifs across traditional artistic boundaries is abundant. In the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, for example, the original pattern of the south transept rose window is reproduced on a floor tile. The lierne vault of the choir at Tewkesbury (figs 9, 10) is flower-like in design and is said to evoke paradise symbolically; it too is an example of how the radiating tracery of rose windows was adopted for display in other visual media. Scholars disagree over the primary direction of influence: did imitation travel from the buildings to the so-called minor arts, like goldsmithing, woodworking, manuscript illumination, and embroidery, or were buildings like the Sainte-Chapelle and St. Stephen’s chapel simply “full-scale embodiments” of micro-architecture?83 Jean Bony argues that the “shrine treatment” of the chapels is applicable only to the chapels’ interior, and that their archi83 François Bucher, “Micro-Architecture as the ‘Idea’ of Gothic Theory and Style,” Gesta 15 (1976):

83.

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4. Tomb (detail) of Bartholomew Burghersh.

tectural forms did not reflect metalwork. According to Bony, “[t]he only major work of architectural composition that was truly treated in a shrine like spirit in its relief and modeling was the glorious west façade of Reims Cathedral” designed in the mid-1250s. “The actual influence of metalwork on architectural forms,” Bony continues, “was probably more current in England than in France.”84 Other scholars argue that this process of imitative exchange was more fluid. According to François Bucher, the “idea” of Gothic is most fully expressed in the “exemplary models” of micro-architecture; “[s]tylistic inventions were often developed in small works and transferred to architecture.”85 84 French Gothic, 400–3. Bony uses Wells Cathedral as an example. 85 “Micro-Architecture,” 71, 83.

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5. Shrine of Saint Werburgh (early fourteenth century), Chester Cathedral. By permission of the Chapter of Chester Cathedral.

Robert Branner points out that while the alliance between these media – the crafts and the architecture – appears “in all periods of western art” (for example, in Nero’s Golden House in Rome, Dagobert’s decoration of the sanctuary of St.-Denis, the façade of Angoulême Cathedral, the transept porches at Chartres, the triforium at Amiens, and the dado arcade at St.-Denis), in thirteenth-century France, the “metallic, precious quality” of the metalworker’s craft became “a fundamental part of the Court Style of Gothic architecture.” Indeed, the Sainte-Chapelle is “more precisely based upon the forms of a reliquary than the earlier buildings.”86 No matter what the primary direction of influence, it is clear that the confines between architecture and other visual media were merging with one another and that the respective projects (large and small) were mutually illuminating to their craftsmen. Buildings became settings for increasingly smaller “versions” of themselves in the form of chapels, reliquaries, shrines, liturgical vessels, and niches. These edifices reflected one another, not only structurally and stylistically, but conceptually as well, for each served as a sacred enclosure for a Christian mystery, whether as a setting for liturgy or as a shelter for imagery, relics, or the eucharistic meal. Each space, however small, contributed to the concept of the church as the New Jerusalem by becoming one of “heaven’s many mansions” (John 14.2). 86 St Louis and the Court Style in Gothic Architecture, 93.

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6. Percy Tomb (c. 1340–49), Beverley Minster. By kind permission of the Vicar and Churchwardens of Beverley Minster.

The mortuary tomb of Bartholomew Burghersh (d. 1355/6) at Lincoln Cathedral displays well this conceptual interaction of large- and small-scale forms (figs 2–4). Bartholomew Burghersh fought with the Black Prince at Crécy and is celebrated by Froissart as the old knight who repeated to Queen Phillippa’s maids Merlin’s prophecy from Layamon’s Brut, namely that the crown of England will pass not to the sons of Edward III but to the House of Lancaster.87 Lord Burghersh’s canopied tomb niche is built into the north wall 87 Chronicles, ed. and trans. by Geoffrey Brereton (New York: Viking Penguin, 1968), 470. Froissart

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7. Percy Tomb (detail).

of the aisle, below the first window from the east, just a few yards from the site of the Burghersh Chantry. Bartholomew’s armored effigy rests on top of the tomb slab; at his head two angels hold his shield, and at his feet two more angels receive his soul in a shroud (figs 2, 3). The first angel group stands with wings resting against a miniature church edifice that is the same height as the angels themselves (fig. 4). The façades of the tiny structure are adorned with linear tracery and quatrefoils below bulbous clusters of foliage. The wings of the angels merge with the miniature reports that he heard this conversation in 1361, but sources indicate that Lord Bartholomew died in 1355/6. Froissart seems to have made the dating error.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem church so completely that they form a single unit, suggesting perhaps that the divine realm in which they dwell is embodied by this varied collection of edifices: they are the guardians of Bartholomew’s canopied space from which they convey his soul to Heaven, but their intercessory gifts extend to the inhabitants of the larger edifice, the miniature image of which they support upon their wings. In fourteenth-century England, the process of imitative exchange among craftsmen was stimulated by political crises and by the patronage of nobles and clergy. The wars with Scotland and France, as well as the ineffective and grim intervals of Edward II’s reign, caused royal building activities to cease periodically; this was the case, as we have seen, with intermittent building progress on St. Stephen’s chapel. In times of crisis the Crown’s resources would be reserved for essential building projects, like the fortification of royal castles located on the Welsh and Scottish borders.88 Masons and other craftsmen who had been (or would otherwise have been) employed at the Westminster workshops found professional opportunities at the parish churches and households of noble families. Creative energy became channeled, therefore, into an increasing number of small-scale projects, like chantry chapels, canopied tombs, rood screens, Holy Sepulchers, baptismal fonts, and reliquaries. The small size of these projects “was counterbalanced by enrichment of details, sophisticated treatment of materials and daring designs.” Certain liturgical innovations grew out of or coincided with this professional movement among court craftsmen to other civic or “privately financed architectural environments.”89 The cults of the Virgin and the Eucharist, for example, were stimulated or reinforced by the building of the Lady Chapels and the ornate designs of Easter sepulchers and liturgical objects. The shrine of St. Werburgh, now in the Lady Chapel at Chester Cathedral, is a excellent example of an English shrine-reliquary constructed to resemble a small chapel (fig. 5). The shrine was built in the early fourteenth century to house the relics of the popular, late seventh-century saint. It is a two-storied, free-standing structure. Its enclosed lower level, which probably served as the reliquary proper, has six deeply recessed niches framed under ogee arches. The upper story, now open at the top, is bounded on two of the four sides by traceried screen arches. The corner piers of the shrine display arch and gable arcading at mid-level and capitals of canopied niches with gilded statuary. The Percy tomb in Beverley Minster, Yorkshire (figs 6–8), is a recognized masterpiece of English Decorated art. Constructed between 1340 and 1349, the canopied tomb is traditionally thought to have been erected by Idoine, wife of Henry, Lord Percy. It is located on the north side of the sanctuary between a pier of the chancel and the enclosed spiral staircase attached to the altar screen. The tomb chest is flat and could have served as an altar – perhaps as an Easter sepulcher. With its location in the church, its possible function as 88 For example, see Colvin, 234–35. 89 See Coldstream, “Kingdom,” 93 and Bucher, “Micro-Architecture,” 74.

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8. Percy Tomb (detail).

an altar, and its remarkable sculptural features, the tomb is a kind of intermediary structure, linked both to the free-standing shrines, like St. Werburgh’s in Chester, and to the tradition of chantry architecture. The finial of the gigantic nodding ogee is a figure of Christ in Majesty receiving a shrouded, female soul from two angels (figs 7, 8). They are framed from behind by a richly crocketed gable. Two larger angels holding instruments of the Passion flank the central group. The whole scene is crowned by a pinnacle which is a great cluster of fruit and foliage. Enclosed within the cusps under the ogee are figures of knights in armor bearing heraldic shields (fig. 8). The late medieval chantry monuments provide visual evidence of a unique phase in the evolving concept of the church as an earthly representation of the New Jerusalem. As a special variety of small-scale architectural monuments that incorporate micro-architectural genres, the chantry monuments embody the defining characteristics of late English Gothic. Unlike reliquaries, altarpieces, and other liturgical objects, however, the chapels were private settings for funerary liturgies, where benefactors and family members sought to be remembered each day, individually, as participants in the eschatological and apocalyptic drama of Christian history.90

90 For an excellent treatment of the medieval merging of personal with the “universal” or “cosmic”

eschatology and apocalyptic spirituality, see Richard K. Emmerson and Ronald B. Herzman, The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1992). In their chapter on Dante, for example, the authors write: “As is typical of the apocalyptic imagina-

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem Many of the people who could afford to build chapels, to make provisions for soul Masses, and to furnish their miniature heavenly Jerusalems with ornate liturgical objects were the same individuals who were patrons of other cultural endeavors, like literary art. For example, the fourteenth-century alliterative poet who wrote Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight must have benefited from precisely this kind of patron. The geographical areas that have been most often associated with the Pearl poet are the northwest Midlands and London. Interestingly, these regions, along with Yorkshire, also contained the greatest concentration of chantry foundations in the late Middle Ages. In addition, scholars have recently offered compelling arguments that link this poet (or small group of poets) to the court of Richard II, perhaps as part of the king’s newly formed principality of Cheshire. And as a poet of the court or of a prominent household, he would have traveled frequently between the northwest regions and London. I will take up a more detailed discussion of the fascinating links between the chantry movement and the poems later in this study. But before leaving the subject of chantries and poetry altogether, the fourteenth-century funerary monuments in St. Paul’s Cathedral deserve special mention. St. Paul’s Cathedral in London was the English church that contained the greatest number of chantry foundations. One of the earliest and most elaborately decorated chantry chapels in Old St. Paul’s belonged to Roger de Waltham (c. 1325) and was located just a few yards away from St. Erkenwald’s shrine, the same monument whose commemorative saint inspired the alliterative poem named after him: St. Erkenwald. The poem, which some scholars also attribute to the author of Pearl and Sir Gawain, tells the story of a miracle performed by Erkenwald who was made bishop of London in 675. When the bishop sheds tears upon the preserved corpse of a judge who – since he lived in pre-Christian days – endures the torments of Limbo, the tears act as baptismal water; the corpse turns to dust, and the judge’s soul is received into heaven.91 Early in the poem is a description of renovations to St. Paul’s Cathedral that had begun around the year 1250. This “New Work” was dedicated in 1314. The shrine of St. Erkenwald, which is represented in the poem, can be dated to 1313.92 It was one of the most revered shrines in England and was built to resemble a miniature, late Gothic church.93 It was a three-tiered struc-

tion throughout the Middle Ages and particularly in Dante, the universal and the individual are here [in cantos 14–18 of the Paradiso] merged with those of personal conversion” (143). 91 Clifford Peterson, ed., Saint Erkenwald (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1977). 92 On the shrine of St. Erkenwald, see Maurice Hastings, St. Stephen’s Chapel, 6, 129–30; and G. H. Cook, Old St. Paul’s Cathedral: A Lost Glory of Medieval London (London: Phoenix House, 1955), 40–41. 93 The spectacular reception that took place in August 1392 to celebrate the reconciliation between London and Richard II, included a procession that ended at the shrine of St. Erkenwald in Old St. Paul’s. See John M. Bowers, Pearl, 124 and n. 59.

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9. Choir (fourteenth century), Tewkesbury Abbey. By permission of the Vicar and Churchwardens of Tewkesbury Abbey.

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10. Lierne vault, Tewkesbury Abbey. By permission of the Vicar and Churchwardens of Tewkesbury Abbey.

ture supported by miniature flying buttresses and decorated with blind tracery, ogees, and crocketed pinnacles. A colored, gilded, iron grill standing nearly six feet tall and crenellated with fleur-de-lis enclosed the shrine. In its overall conception the shrine was constructed according to Perpendicular principles: the pronounced vertical lines of the large, central tier are extended by the arcade behind the gable and are made even more conspicuous by the iron grill. Ogival figures appear in the tympanum of the gable and in the heads of the trefoil blind tracery. The three compartments of blind tracery were probably filled with colored glass. The chest, or feretrum, containing the saint’s relics was lavishly decorated with images and precious gems. A chantry foundation was added to the shrine in 1323. Some of the least elaborate chantry chapels were canopies that had been erected over tombs in the aisles or transepts of churches, the tombs themselves serving as altars. The Percy tomb (figs 6–8) is an elaborate example of such a canopied, funerary monument, although it is not clear if this tomb structure was ever used as a chantry. The niches and canopies of the “chantry tombs” rendered sacred the spaces they enclosed, since they were specific locations for private liturgies and were seen as smaller reflections of the churches in which they were built. Chaucer’s supposed tomb, which is set in a niche in the east wall of the south transept of Westminster Abbey, is adorned with a canopy that was originally part of a chantry tomb at one of the Mendicant churches of London. At the dissolution of the monasteries the canopy was 128

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11. Fitzhamon Chapel (built c. 1395–97), Tewkesbury Abbey. By permission of the Vicar and Churchwardens of Tewkesbury Abbey.

removed from that church and in 1555 was set up in Westminster to adorn the tomb we call Chaucer’s.94 The more elaborate chantry chapels resembled small churches – miniature sanctuaries for private worship within public settings. As Christopher Wilson has observed, these chapels “are frequently important works of architecture in their own right, something which can hardly ever be said of the component elements of 12th- and 13th-century Gothic great churches.”95 Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire contains one of the finest collections of extant, fourteenth-century funerary monuments in England, including three exquisite chantries of the stone-cage type surrounding the high altar (figs 9–14).96 94 Cook, Medieval Chantries and Chantry Chapels, 86. On the question of Chaucer’s burial in the

tomb at Westminster Abbey, see Donald R. Howard, Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World (New York: E. P. Dutton), 481–82. 95 Gothic Cathedral, 190. 96 Compared with other medieval English churches that were comparable to Tewkesbury in artistic and ecclesiastical importance, the latter has received little scholarly attention. There are a number of publications that provide general descriptions of the abbey and historical information. These include (listed in order of publication date): John Henry Blunt, Tewkesbury Abbey and its Associates, 2nd edn (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1898); H. J. L. J. Massé, The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury with Some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst, Gloucestershire (London: George Bell & Sons, 1906); Edward Foord, Gloucester, Tewkesbury and District (London and Toronto: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1925), 93–132; F. B. Bradley-Birt, Tewkesbury: The Story of Abbey, Town, and Neighborhood (Worcester: Phillips & Probert, 1931); Ernest

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12. Warwick Chapel (built 1422), Tewkesbury Abbey. By permission of the Vicar and Churchwardens of Tewkesbury Abbey.

Although the church’s fourteenth-century choir and funerary monuments survive relatively undamaged and physically integral, these features of the building reflect a variety of medieval English thought and culture that has almost completely disappeared. Most of the funerary monuments in the choir originally served the spiritual needs of the medieval lords of Tewkesbury, the Despensers.97 In the fourteenth century the Despensers rebuilt the east end of the abbey in the Decorated style and used it as their mausoleum, placing themselves in an architectural and iconographic Paradise (fig. 9). The stone lierne vault of the F. Smith, Tewkesbury Abbey, 2nd edn (Tewkesbury: R. A. Newman, 1934); James Bennet, The History of Tewkesbury (Dursley, Gloucestershire: Alan Sutton, 1976); Anthea Jones, Tewkesbury (Chichester, Sussex: Phillimore & Co., 1987). Scholarly publications on Gothic architecture at Tewkesbury Abbey are, R. K. Morris, “Tewkesbury Abbey: The Despenser Mausoleum,” Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 93 (1974): 142–155; R. K. Morris, “Early Gothic Architecture at Tewkesbury Abbey,” in Medieval Art and Architecture at Gloucester and Tewkesbury (1985): 93–98; J. Philip McAleer, “Tewkesbury Abbey in the Later Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 110 (1992): 77–86. See also Tewkesbury Churchwardens’ Accounts, 1563–1624, ed. C. J. Litzenberger, Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Gloucestershire Record Series, vol. 7 (1994). 97 On possible ties between the fourteenth-century Despensers of Tewkesbury and the Pearl poet’s art, see my article, “The Despensers and the Gawain Poet: A Gloucestershire Link to the Alliterative Master of the Northwest Midlands,” The Chaucer Review: A Journal of Medieval Studies and Literary Criticism, vol. 35, no. 4 (2001): 413–29.

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13. Trinity Chapel (built c. 1390–1400), Tewkesbury Abbey. By permission of the Vicar and Churchwardens of Tewkesbury Abbey.

choir is a wonderful example of early Decorated work (figs 9, 10); it is an elaborate, radiating pattern of intersecting ribs with tracery, cusping, and carved bosses of foliage. This vault, with its gigantic, flower-like pattern, is a symbolic representation of the Paradise garden and is thought to be an early forerunner of later flamboyant flower vaults like the German examples at Annaberg or Most.98 The iconography of the nave vault and the stained glass of the east end are further evidence of this symbolic intent. The carved bosses of the central rib along the nave vault illustrate the main events of the life of Christ from birth to heavenly King. They are divided into three groups of five, beginning at the west end with the nativity, the shepherds, the magi, the magi worshipping the Christ child, and the finding of Christ at the temple. Progressing eastward, the second group depicts the events of Holy Week: the entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, Christ’s betrayal, scourging, and crucifixion. The final group of bosses at the church’s east end leads the observer visually to the divine realm and Last Judgment: Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, the Coronation of the Virgin, and Christ in Majesty. The iconography and architecture of the choir, however, concentrate not on 98 Richard Morris observes that the symbolic meaning of the German vaults “has been more

commonly observed” than that of Tewkesbury, “because, by that date the image of the Paradise Garden had been thoroughly developed in Flemish and German painting” (“Tewkesbury Abbey,” 145).

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem the life of Christ but on the Despenser family’s participation in the drama of Christian salvation history. It is simultaneously a display of self-glorification in the Paradise garden and a confrontation of death and Judgment. The fourteenth-century windows of the choir are among the finest in England of that period. The east window is a representation of the Last Judgment: in the center is Christ, on His right the Virgin, and on His left Michael the Archangel; underneath, the dead are summoned from their graves, and on the extreme right is the kneeling figure of Lady Eleanor de Clare, wife of Hugh Despenser the Younger (d. 1326), and who was responsible for completing the fourteenth-century renovations of the choir. She is depicted here as she requested – simply dressed in white. At the sides are the apostles and St. John the Baptist. In the center of the rose at the top of the window is a representation of the Coronation of the Virgin. The stained glass of the choir clerestory depicts Hugh Despenser in company with figures of secular and biblical authority. In the north window of the west bay Despenser is shown with Robert Fitzhamon, the founder of the abbey and cousin of William the Conqueror. To Despenser’s right is Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, whose wealth Despenser partially inherited through marriage to Eleanor, one of Gilbert’s three daughters. Also shown is Robert Fitzroy, a son of Henry I, son-in-law of Fitzhamon, and the first lord of Tewkesbury to assume the earldom of Gloucester. Immediately east of this group are images of Old Testament prophets, patriarchs, and kings. All of the secular figures depicted in these windows are clad in fourteenth-century armor and are given sacred standing by the ornate canopies that shelter them. Most of the outstanding funerary monuments in Tewkesbury Abbey are clustered around this sanctuary. Among them are the three stone-cage chantry chapels, which are small but exquisite demonstrations of the Perpendicular style. They are miniature, rectangular enclosures made by stone screens rising to a height of approximately eight feet and erected between the Norman piers of the choir. The chapel of Robert Fitzhamon is located at the sanctuary’s north side, in the second bay from the west (fig. 11). Fitzhamon’s remains were transferred to this chapel, which was built between 1395 and 1397. The chapel is enclosed by walls of stone screens, each screen consisting of two rectilinear windows. Below the screens are paneled bases with niches, and the whole is crowned with oak-leaf cresting. Fitzhamon’s tomb stands in the middle of the chapel’s interior, which is roofed with an early fan vault. The Warwick chapel, of which Elizabeth Salter made particular mention in her reference to the “Decorated art” of Pearl, is also located on the north side of the choir, in the bay immediately to the west of the Fitzhamon chapel (fig. 12).99 Isabella Despenser erected this chapel in 1422 for her first husband, Richard Beauchamp of Warwick (hence the name, Warwick chapel). The chapel is divided into two stories, both roofed with intricately 99 “The Alliterative Revival II,” Modern Philology 64 (1966–67): 236.

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14. Kneeling Effigy of Edward Despenser (1335/6–1375), Trinity Chapel, Tewkesbury Abbey. By permission of the Vicar and Churchwardens of Tewkesbury Abbey. Photograph © Alison Stones.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem designed fan vaults, covered with tracery in a web-like pattern and with pendants. The chapel’s lower level is enclosed with stone screens of rectilinear windows. Below the screens are panels of niches displaying figures of angels holding heraldic shields. Opposite the Fitzhamon chapel on the sanctuary’s south side is the Trinity chapel built between 1390 and 1400 by Elizabeth Despenser for her husband, Edward Despenser (1335/6–1375) (fig. 13). The Trinity chapel resembles the Fitzhamon chapel; it is enclosed by stone screens of two windows with five lights each. Below these screens is a paneled base with a series of niches and above is a cornice with foliage cresting. On the exterior corners are figures of angels bearing scrolls. In both the Fitzhamon and Trinity chapels one can detect remnants of mural paintings, but the iconography can be recognized only in the Trinity chapel; here one finds a depiction of the Coronation of the Virgin and a representation of the Trinity. The chapel’s interior is roofed with one of England’s earliest fan vaults. A distinctive feature of this chapel is the ornate canopy that was constructed on its roof (fig. 14). Within is a stone figure – probably a portrait – of Edward Despenser. He kneels with his hands together at prayer facing the altar, fully clad in armor. This effigy is unique in that position. One additional oddity is that while the raised canopy can be easily seen if one stands at a short distance from the chapel, the effigy itself is almost completely hidden behind the canopy columns and other architectural obstructions, like the Norman piers – depending on where one stands. The kneeling knight, whose charm we can appreciate only with the assistance of ladders and wide-angle camera lenses, is thus one of the most intriguing examples of medieval display that was meant for God’s eyes only. The chantry monuments surrounding the sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey provide a late fourteenth-century English expression of the Sainte-Chapelle or St. Stephen’s chapel, but with the added interest of having been built specifically for funerary liturgy and by a noble family. The private chapel in England had extended beyond the boundaries of the royal palace and become more than a showcase for regalia and sacred relics. These chapels were the private dwellings of the dead, whose memories were kept alive by soul Masses and portraits created in paint, glass, and sculpture. The symbolic intent of the architectural motifs and the iconography is unmistakable. The Despensers portrayed themselves as the companions of prophets and saints in a Paradise garden both to display their temporal power and privileges and to express their hopes beyond the grave: to secure a place among the elect on Judgment Day and to complete their pilgrimage to the New Jerusalem.

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Part III Poetry

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Taking Allegory Seriously

5 Taking Allegory Seriously: Ornament as Invitation in Pearl Thou shalt make also a veil of violet and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine twisted linen, wrought with embroidered work, and goodly variety: And thou shalt hang it up before four pillars of setim wood, which themselves also shall be overlaid with gold, and shall have heads of gold, but sockets of silver. And the veil shall be hanged on with rings, and within it thou shalt put the ark of the testimony, and the sanctuary and the holy of the holies shall be divided with it. (Exodus 26.31–34) [E]ven those myths in Plato . . . are to be expounded allegorically, not absolutely in all their expressions, but in those which express the general sense. And these we shall find indicated by symbols under the veil of allegory. (Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis V.9)1

T

HE anonymous, fourteenth-century English poem, Pearl, is conventionally said to be a dream vision. The nearly literal incorporation of the dreamer’s vision of the New Jerusalem from the Apocalypse of John has been viewed by some scholars as one of its least interesting features.2 My view is quite different. To say that Pearl is a dream vision, while true according to conventional categories of genre, helps to obscure the poet’s unusual emphasis on its presentation as an artifact: a local frame placed around a vision of the New Jerusalem in an attempt to give that vision renewed force

1 2

Trans. W. Wilson, Stromata, in ANCL 12 (1969). A. C. Spearing and Patricia M. Kean are among the scholars of Pearl who have expressed a dissatisfaction with either the quality of the poetry in the portions describing the New Jerusalem or with its adherence to the biblical text. Kean, The Pearl: An Interpretation (London: Routledge, 1967), 210, 215, 218; Spearing, The Gawain Poet: A Critical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970), 165–66. See also, John Finlayson, “Pearl: Landscape and Vision,” Studies in Philology 71 (1974): 314–43. For scholars who are in general agreement with my own view, see Theodore Bogdanos, Pearl: Image of the Ineffable; A Study in Medieval Poetic Symbolism (University Park and London: Pennsylvania State UP, 1983); and Sarah Stanbury, Seeing the Gawain-Poet: Description and the Act of Perception (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1991); see also Stanbury’s article “Space and Visual Hermeneutics in the Gawain-Poet,” The Chaucer Review 21 (1987): 476–89.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem and immediacy. Indeed, this presentation of a literary work as an apocalyptic artifact may be thought to be an unusual ambition in a poem. One might well argue that the great medieval efforts to give the vision of the New Jerusalem a local and dramatic immediacy were not mainly literary; they were architectural, and as we have seen, liturgical. It was the great churches, to begin with, that could become symbols of the New Jerusalem by shaping light and color within a space designed for liturgical celebration. In the later Middle Ages, the private chapel replaced the great church as the preferred setting in which to worship, particularly for people of means; ecclesiastics, kings, and nobility built their own miniature New Jerusalems. Pearl appears as the first of four poems in a unique manuscript dated not later than 1400, now in the British Museum where it is catalogued as MS Cotton Nero A. x. The other poems in this manuscript are Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Cleanness (or Purity). Scholars remain uncertain whether one or more poets wrote these four poems, but they are all written in a dialect of the northern Midlands and seem, for most scholars, “at the deepest, most intimately sensed level of meaning, to be the work of one man’s imagination.”3 Pearl and Sir Gawain, most scholars also agree, were written during the later years of Richard II’s reign (1377–99). Some scholars have argued, as well, that the late fourteenth-century alliterative poem, St. Erkenwald (British Library MS Harley 2250, fols 72v–75v) was written by the same author of the Cotton Nero poems, a view based upon close similarities of dialect, themes, and imagery. Recent scholarship, however, seems almost unanimous in discounting this possibility.4 Another position to take on these questions of authorship, as John Bowers and others have suggested, is that a small school of poets with a common literary language, shared stylistic techniques, and similar thematic interests were responsible for the creation of these poems.5 My own experience in working closely with the poems has led me to accept a view of common authorship, if not for all five, then certainly for the four in the Cotton Nero manuscript. St. Erkenwald, if indeed written by a different poet, shares with the others – often remarkably so – features of language, style 3 4

5

Marie Borroff, Pearl: A New Verse Translation (New York and London: Norton, 1977), vii. For the most up-to-date scholarship on questions of authorship, manuscripts, and the historical background of these poems see the essays in the Introduction to A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, ed. Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson (Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 1997). Among the scholars who reject the theory of common authorship for the five poems are Ruth Morse, ed., St. Erkenwald (Cambridge and Totowa: Rowman & Littlefield, 1975), 45–8; and Larry Benson, “The Authorship of St. Erkenwald,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 64 (1965): 393–405. Those scholars who have argued in favor of the theory of common authorship include Henry L. Savage, ed., Saint Erkenwald (New Haven: Yale UP; London: H. Milford, Oxford UP, 1926), liv–lxv; Sir Israel Gollancz, ed., St. Erkenwald (London: Oxford UP, 1932), lvi–lviii; and Clifford Peterson, ed., Saint Erkenwald (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1977), 15–23. The five poems have been published in one volume under the title The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: U of California P, 1993), trans. Casey Finch, facing page Middle English texts edited by Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron (The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript [Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California P, 1978]) and by Clifford Peterson (St. Erkenwald [Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1977]).

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Taking Allegory Seriously and theme that support my arguments, especially those in the following chapter. This supporting evidence in St. Erkenwald may, of course, be a matter of coincidence, but since a tradition of scholarship does exist that argues for common authorship for all five poems, or for a small school of poets responsible for their creation, and given the striking ways in which St. Erkenwald coincides with the Cotton Nero poems in matters of architectural interest and familiarity with some of the most important ecclesiastical monuments in late medieval England, it is fitting that I include the poem as part of my analysis. Even without assuming common authorship for all the poems, there is indeed a common conceptual outlook and a common architectural sensibility. Literary medievalists have long recognized the exceptional workmanship of these poems, especially Pearl, and have made casual connections between them and the visual arts. In 1967 Elizabeth Salter even suggested an architectural itinerary that would assist readers in understanding more precisely the artistic and cultural background of the Pearl poet: we have only to look at some of the wall paintings in St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster (1350–63); the fan-vaulted cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral (1351–1407); the Percy tomb in Beverley Minster (ca. 1350); or the Warwick Chantry in Tewkesbury Abbey (1422) to see one thing clearly: even the most elaborate alliterative poem [and here Salter is referring to Pearl] is central to one very important area of fourteenth-century sensibility. And this “area” has no firm geographical boundaries: there is nothing provincial about it.6

Salter’s point is that although the dialect of the Cotton Nero poems suggests that their author was probably from the northern Midlands, he demonstrates through his poetry a sophisticated familiarity with the tastes and practices of an aristocratic culture and seems clearly to have participated in a “sensibility” that is represented in the widespread achievements of late medieval English Gothic. Salter’s suggested itinerary is specific as well as justified; the monuments she mentions are, as we have seen, among the finest representatives of the late English Gothic style.7 St. Stephen’s chapel, completed c. 1365 during the reign of Edward III (1327–77), was meant to be an English rival of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. The fan-vaulted cloister at Gloucester is famous for its “longitudinal surge” of trumpet-like conoids.8 The Percy tomb in Beverley Minster and the Warwick Chantry in Tewkesbury Abbey, funerary monuments built within larger church buildings, are both recognized masterpieces of late English Gothic. Arriving independently at Salter’s suggestion that Pearl and its companion 6 7 8

“The Alliterative Revival II,” Modern Philology 64 (1966–67): 236. See Chapter Four, 112–19, 122–25, 130–34. Wilson, Gothic Cathedral, 208.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem poems ought to be viewed within the context of late medieval English architecture, I was surprised that she stopped short of pursuing possible, more specific interactions between the Pearl poet and his architectural environment – interactions that extend beyond a general participation in a common Gothic “sensibility.” The relations between Pearl, its companion poems, and medieval architecture are, in my view, specific and deliberate, based not merely on ornamental or decorative qualities, although these qualities are essential, as we shall see, to the anagogical potential of Pearl. The symbolic program of Pearl in particular, including its eschatological perspective and conspicuous workmanship, can best be understood by viewing its author as a master builder whose aim was to create, in poetry, a literary expression of the church as a complex symbol of the New Jerusalem. But the architectural connection is even more precise: Pearl responds specifically, I argue, to the chantry movement that took hold in England with such fervor in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The author of Pearl demonstrates an awareness of how architectural space, like a dream vision, serves as an occasion for revelation. The poem is explicitly apocalyptic in its detailed descriptions of the earthly Paradise and the Heavenly Jerusalem, and it incorporates concepts that found their major symbolic expression in Gothic architecture. The Pearl poet was, of course, not a member of the religious culture that is represented by the great churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but he was fully immersed in the religious and artistic culture of late fourteenth-century England when the chantry movement and the building of chantry chapels flourished. The focus of my study thus far has been some of the more important philosophical, theological, liturgical, and architectural traditions that have contributed to the medieval expression of the church as a symbol of the New Jerusalem. These traditions are most important, as well, for understanding the apocalyptic eschatology of Pearl and the poem as a whole as a literary response to the religious and architectural expressions of the chantry movement. I begin my analysis in this chapter with an examination of how Pearl works as an epistemological process, like Plotinus’ screen of beauty and Augustine’s sacramental signa. I examine how the author uses poetry to display the veil, or what I will call the “mechanism,” of philosophical allegory and how that mechanism serves as the theoretical foundation for the poem as architecture. My analysis in the next chapter builds upon this foundation, demonstrating precisely how Pearl is to be understood as a literary edifice. The poet’s presentation of the image as a location for spiritual movement makes Pearl a poetic descendant of Plotinus’ religious philosophy, Augustine’s Ecclesia, Abbot Suger’s new church, and the rich tradition of reliquary and chantry chapels in western medieval Europe. The poem, as a display of the allegorical process, elaborates upon these models, however, in its unusual dramatization of the transformational power of the image from a psychological perspective. The poem considers the limitations of the human spirit and takes seriously the possibility that human beings, standing before the screen 140

Taking Allegory Seriously of beauty and yearning for intimate communication with the divine, fail nonetheless to pass beyond, never fully grasping, while we live, that which gives us life. The poet’s complex presentation of the image as a location for spiritual movement includes a variety of interconnected symbolic forms: the poem itself as a structural and thematic whole, the jeweled images within the poem (such as the Paradise garden, the pearl maiden, and the New Jerusalem), and the rich and complex word patterns that function as the linguistic frame of his literary architecture. The poet also incorporates the teachings and spectacle of liturgy, an art form that crosses visual, textual, and aural boundaries. With the legions of angels worshipping the Lamb in the New Jerusalem and the poem’s final image of the consecration of bread and wine, the poem becomes, like eucharistic liturgy, an image that is meant to be both temporal and sacred. In my effort to demonstrate the poet’s sophisticated understanding of his architectural environment – the understanding with which he proceeded to build his own jeweled, literary space – I treat each of these images as “ornaments,” since it is ornament that serves as the medium by which Pearl becomes its own “deuyse/ Bytwene myrþes” (139), a division that actually serves as a conduit between poetry, ecclesiastical architecture, and the medieval art of the goldsmith.9

The “makellez perle” and the Ornamental Veil The craft and transforming spirituality of allegoresis, from antiquity through the Middle Ages, is marked by frequent use of words like “ornament” and “adornment.” These words were often used to portray the progress of human perception from an ignorant or profane state to a state of perfection or sanctity. The words were also used to convey the final stage of that progression. Fulgentius, for example, uses them to describe the process of perfecting one’s power of judgment through learning and then arriving at a state of “ornamentation.” Fulgentius writes: [t]rifarius in uita humana gradus est, primum habere, deinde regere quod habeas, tertium vero ornare quod regis.10

9

As the dreamer in Pearl looks into the jewel-filled stream in the Paradise garden, he hopes, or believes, that the water is a “deuyse/ Bytwene myrþez by merez made;” [a device made by pools between delights]. E. V. Gordon notes that “deuyse (used in the sense ‘division’ in Wyntoun’s Chronicle vi. 1041, c. 1420) might alternatively be ‘device,’ referring to an artificial conduit.” Pearl (Oxford: Clarendon, 1953), 52 nn. 139, 140. 10 Fabii Planciadis Fulgentii V. C., Expositio virgilianae continentiae secundum philosophos moralis, in Opera, ed. Rudolfus Helm (Leipzig: Teubner, 1898), 89. Hereafter cited as, Fulgentius, Expositio. Emphasis is mine. I follow the translation of Fulgentius’ Expositio by Leslie George Whitbread, “The Exposition of the Content of Virgil According to Moral Philosophy,” in Fulgentius the Mythographer (Columbus: Ohio State UP: 1971), 124.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem [there is a threefold progression in human life: first, to possess; then to control what you possess; and, third, to ornament what you control.]

“Pay close attention to these stages,” he continues, uirtus animi naturaliter data quae proficiat . . . secunda doctrina quae naturam ornat cum proficit, ut est aurum; est enim natura in auro productionis et decoris, sed ad perfectionem malleo proficit excudentis.11 [first, there is given by nature that courage of soul which may serve for advancement . . . second, there is the learning which adorns nature as it advances, just like gold, for it is the nature of gold to be improved and to become ornamental, and it advances to its perfect state through the workman’s beating it out with his hammer.]

Learning, as Fulgentius understands it, is a process of refinement or purification that “adorns nature” in the same way that the piece of gold “advances to its perfect state” as the craftsman works upon it, refining it and mastering it until the object corresponds – in as much as it can correspond at all – to the idea in his mind. According to Fulgentius, the gold is not “ornamental” until it is qualified by a process of “adornment” or purification. In other words, objects in nature, like the piece of gold or the human being, can qualify as images of a more perfect state only in so far as they are refined. Note the paradox here: when we think of ornament or adornment we usually think of something added, something applied. But Fulgentius invests these words with an additional figurative meaning, since what is “added on” actually corresponds to a process of disclosure, an adornment that is actually an unveiling of the object’s more perfect or truer self. This allegorical process of simultaneous adding on and disclosing is a fundamental feature of the transformational power of Plotinus’ screen of beauty and Augustine’s sacramental signa. Adornment is the progression toward an idea; ornament is the representation or image of the idea itself. The aesthetic properties, together with the philosophic or anagogic potential of ornaments as images of perfection and sanctification stimulated the craftsmen and literary artists of the Middle Ages. The mysteries and ineffable truths of Christian faith were represented by objects thought worthy of such representation, worthy by virtue of their lovely appearance, their monetary value, their rareness, and so on. The decoration of churches, paintings, and liturgical books with statuary, precious gems, elaborate tracery patterns, and colored glass are the most obvious examples of such ornamentation. According to Pseudo-Dionysius, however, these “positive affirmations” are less successful in assisting the soul in its ascent than are base or “dissimilar” representations:

11 Fulgentius, Expositio 90.

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Taking Allegory Seriously a manifestation through dissimilar shapes is more correctly applied to the invisible. . . . High-flown shapes could well mislead someone into thinking that the heavenly beings are golden or gleaming men, glamorous, wearing lustrous clothing, giving off flames which cause no harm, or that they have other similar beauties with which the word of God has fashioned the heavenly minds.

Dionysius is quick to add, however, that even “shameful” images possess a share of beauty, since they are part of God’s creation, “for as scripture rightly says, ‘Everything is good.’ ”12 Dionysius’ understanding of images, then, confirms the notion that even the grotesque figures of demons and beasts on the exterior of medieval churches may adorn the Christian soul with desire to communicate with God. Ornament was, of course, often employed in medieval art as a means to display secular authority or, more generally, for primarily decorative purposes. In other words, medieval art commonly emphasizes secular – even whimsical – themes. What I wish to emphasize, however, is how ornament in medieval art and literature was employed as a means to make the adorned object (whether church, painting, or poem) sacramental in the Plotinian and Augustinian sense, a showcase for the soul’s movement through sensible and invisible realms of light. To put the matter in terms more typically literary, ornament served as the physical representation of the screen – or veil – of allegory. The allegorical ornament functions as the veil in essentially two ways: first, it is the material image through which multiple realities are thought to be absorbed, or collected, and released. Second, it stimulates the observer’s mind to move between disparate realities or realms of meaning.13 What I am suggesting, then, is an additional rendering of the ornament’s dual properties. In my initial discussion of Fulgentius’ understanding of ornare, I explained how “ornament” is at once an “adding on” and a disclosure. The ornament, like the veil, conceals as well as reveals. It is like the involucrum, or integument, described by Bernardus Silvestris: a type of exposition which wraps the apprehension of truth in a fictional narrative, and thus it is also called an involucrum, a cover. One grasps the utility of this work, which is self-knowledge.14

Figuratively speaking, the cover needs to be removed for the meaning (or

12 This understanding of “dissimilar” images is an important element of Pseudo-Dionysius’ Negative

Theology. See, for example, The Celestial Hierarchy, in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, 150. 13 The observer could also be a reader or auditor who responds to the ornamental features of oral poetry and music, as in liturgy. 14 Commentary on the First Six Books of Virgil’s Aeneid, trans. Earl G. Schreiber and Thomas E. Maresca (Lincoln and London: U of Nebraska P, 1979), 5.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem meanings) to be disclosed; hence, the allegory requires interpretation.15 The possibility of multiple meanings is essential to the act of interpretation, and the number of those possibilities remains open-ended, even infinite. The potential unveiling of a perfect or sacred state, then, ought not to be considered something complete, final, or static; it would be a new beginning, a new life in eternity. The veil is removed through a process of purification – through the ornatum aureum studii, “the golden ornament of learning,” as Fulgentius put it.16 “Adornment” is a word used to describe this progression, which is a progression toward an idea – a gradual unveiling of nature’s perfect or true self. “Ornament” is the representation or image of that idea. By treating ornament as a physical representation of the screen, or veil of allegory, one may explore medieval concepts of the symbol by focusing directly upon the level of the screen.17 Ornament, like the screen, is at once a separation between realms and a stimulus for passage between them. The screen, since it participates in both realms, allows the ineffable to be perceived in so far as it can be perceived at all. Without the screen, the separation between realms would be absolute; it is, therefore, the necessary barrier that absorbs dual realities and permits – even facilitates – movement between them, while at the same time limiting the movement of the ignorant, the profane, or the unwilling. Simply put, the screen is at once an invitation and a limitation; vision is reserved for those who aspire to perfection and sanctity through “the jewel of learning.” Pearl is a literary example of how this relationship is displayed in a spectacular way. What is of special interest, therefore, is how the poet displays through ornament the mechanism of philosophical allegory, how the poet presents symbolic meaning, rather than what those meanings may or may not be. I reserve the latter approach for the next chapter. In both cases, however, I am concerned primarily with philosophical, theological, or what I will call “vertical” allegory, as opposed to the “lower” or “horizontal” levels, such as moral fable, irony, puns, and other plays on etymology.18 Vertical allegory – which Pearl strives to be – passes between temporal and eternal realms; the open-endedness of this allegory is infinity itself. The lower levels are primarily historical; past events may prefigure the present, which in turn may signify future events, but the allegory remains within earthly time. Horizontal allegory is, in theory, open-ended as well, but the number of interpretations will depend, of course, upon the number of questions one asks.19 15 Michael Murrin makes this point in The Veil of Allegory: Some Notes Toward a Theory of Allegor-

ical Rhetoric in The English Renaissance (Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 1969), 101.

16 Fulgentius, Expositio, 97. 17 I favor the word “screen” rather than veil, curtain, cover, and so on, because it suggests more

directly a medium that serves as both separation and passage.

18 I introduce the terms “vertical” and “horizontal” not to confuse the system further, but because I

sought a more lucid way of distinguishing philosophical, theological, or apocalyptic allegory from the many lower levels. 19 “If a critic concerns himself with the literal content of a story, he produces a literal interpretation

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Taking Allegory Seriously In his study of Pearl, Ian Bishop uses the term “Apocalyptic symbolism” for what I have chosen to call vertical allegory. Bishop explains, A is spoken of in terms of B, not out of any desire to conceal A, but because there is no other way of speaking of it: we are confronted here with genuine mystery rather than deliberate mystification.20

Bishop’s definition is useful because it emphasizes the necessity of the screen (B) in the manifestation of divine mystery (A), but the “desire to conceal A” raises a new set of issues; for example, if A is the ineffable One, it is not clear how far the observer’s desire will take her in the ascent. Nor is it clear how much the observer wishes – or is able – to perceive when she is faced with the possibility of full revelation. To put it another way, the invitation of the ornament can lead to terror – perhaps rejection, as in Pearl. Further, there is no way of knowing how much A “wishes” to reveal or be concealed. In Pearl, for example, it seems that neither full disclosure nor full concealment of A is possible. When the dreamer asks the pearl maiden to take him to see her heavenly dwelling, she responds: Þat God wyl schylde; Þou may not enter wythinne Hys tor; Bot of þe Lombe I haue þe aquylde For a syȢt þerof þurȢ gret fauor. (965–68)21 [That (dwelling) God will shield; you may not enter within His stronghold; but I have gained permission through great favor from the Lamb for you to have a glimpse of it.]

The dreamer must view the “bylde” (963) from without, at a distance. The invitation of the ornament remains before him, beckoning, but it does not lead to a state of perfection or sanctity; the dreamer wakes up, still earthbound. The possibilities of meaning and subsequent tensions that occur at the level of the screen, especially in representations of divine reality, are inherent to the nature of that reality. By treating Pearl as philosophical allegory, we are not, as Theodore Bogdanos has observed, dealing with “the invention of any modern critical predilection for ‘tension’ and ‘paradox’” or “a modern attempt to rescue medieval literature from its dullness.” Instead, Bogdanos continues, . . . moral questions . . . the moral allegory. But there is a limit in fact, though not in theory, to the number of levels which a critic could find in a work, for he cannot ask an infinite number of different questions” (Murrin, Veil 102). 20 Pearl in its Setting: A Critical Study of the Structure and Meaning of the Middle English Poem (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1968), 68. 21 Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from Pearl are taken from The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron (Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California P, 1978), 53–110. The modern English translations of passages from Pearl are my own, with assistance from the glosses and notes in Andrew and Waldron, and E. V. Gordon’s edition of Pearl (Oxford: Clarendon, 1953).

145

Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem It finds its philosophical and . . . artistic justification in the medieval notion of analogy . . . it deals in ontological terms with the capacity or inadequacy of human similitudes to represent divine reality.22

Although God cannot be seen directly, the visible world is the image or reflected space that allows the observer to participate in the divine realm. What I wish to stress, however, is that the image permits reciprocal – though not identical – movement between A and the reflection of A. The mimesis is not, in other words, straight imitation; instead, it is a way of passage, and it is at the level of the image, or screen, that the spiritual transformation takes place. The movement itself is of a spiritual nature but initiated through the senses, just as it is in the Plotinian system. The Gothic edifice presented a visual, concentrated imitation of this movement, since it served as a grand setting for ornament and for the spectacle of processions and rituals that were part of medieval liturgy. From the medieval perspective, as Georges Duby explains: the universe did not stand still. It moved with God’s own movement . . . and although architecture, sculpture, and painting were immobile by nature, they too had a mission to convey the universal movement.23

As modern observers, we consider architecture, sculpture, and painting to be “immobile by nature.” Indeed, the ostensibly “static” nature of these art forms has created difficulties for modern scholars – especially literary medievalists – who seek to understand their allegorical qualities. As Jill Mann has observed, for example, In recent times, writers on allegory such as Rosemond Tuve or Morton Bloomfield have insisted that the complexity and originality of allegory lie in narrative action rather than in the figures or objects which appear in that action – in other words, that its metaphorical strength lies not in the noun but in the verb. . . . It is not just that the building does not do anything of itself, but that it seems difficult for the writer to do anything with it, other than to attach labels to its various parts which will identify them with appropriate abstract qualities.24

Mann argues that literary edifices “from Ovid’s House of Fame to Chaucer’s” defy “the notion of stability” through their “fantastic” and “anarchic” qualities. She discusses their unstable foundations, their many open doorways, their glittering jewels, and the way they whirl about. She argues further that the “frigid symmetry” of visionary buildings, such as Ezekiel’s temple (40–44) and the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 “becomes the essence of its 22 Pearl: Image of the Ineffable; A Study in Medieval Poetic Symbolism (University Park and London:

Pennsylvania State UP, 1983), 5.

23 The Age of Cathedrals: Art and Society 980–1420; trans. Eleanor Levieux and Barbara Thompson

(Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 1981), 78.

24 “Allegorical Buildings in Medieval Literature,” Medium Aevum LXIII (1994): 192.

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Taking Allegory Seriously mystery” by suggesting “the stillness of a world beyond time.”25 I must disagree; it is my view, instead, that not only literary descriptions of objects, but also the visible objects themselves were understood by their medieval observers as neither frigid nor still; instead, they were believed to be inherently mobile. To adorn visual objects and literary descriptions of objects was only the most obvious method of conveying their participation in the sacramental movement of the cosmos. As we have seen, the teachings of Plotinus and the early ChristianPlatonists, and the church buildings as they were defined by the liturgies celebrated within them, are complex programs of transformation in which the observer’s longing for perfection and sanctity finds direction and focus. These are ideal mimetic models, encouraging the observer to look for and to see this world as an opportunity for revelation. Abbot Suger’s use of ornament found justification in the metaphysics of light that informed his theology; his theology, in turn, qualifies the ornament in the same way that Plotinus’ rational principle and Augustine’s incarnational logos qualifies or “adorns” the image, so that the church becomes an ornament on a grand scale, “having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal” (Revelation 21.11). These religious models point to the glorious possibilities of breaching the distance between realms through mimetic reflection, and Pearl displays clearly the influence of these ideal mimetic traditions. The meticulous craftsmanship of Pearl, together with its display of brilliant images and liturgical features, calls to mind the design and purpose of the Gothic edifice, suggesting that the poem, as artifact, can point the way toward higher vision. The alliterative, twelve-line stanzas combine with a complex rhyme scheme (a b a b a b a b b c b c), bringing together sound patterns of early English verse and poetic elements from continental traditions. The mingling of alliteration, assonance, and end-rhyme creates rich sounds that are meant, perhaps, to imitate the “swete asent” of the birds’ song in the Paradise garden (94), or the sounds made in heaven by the “Legyounes of aungelez” who “Al songe to loue þat gay Juelle,” the Lamb (1121). The music of voices becomes an additional ornament that serves as a conduit between different realms of the universe: Þe steuen moȢt stryke þurȢ þe vrþe to helle Þat þe vertues of heuen of joye endyte. (1125–26) [The sound might strike through the earth to hell, that the virtues of heaven made for joy.]

The linking of stanza groups by key words such as “adubbemente” (adornment, splendor), “jueler,” “blysse,” and “Jerusalem” gather the structural parts into a self-contained unit, which suggests a sphere, or the pearl itself. 25 Ibid. 192–93.

147

Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem This design, in turn, gives shape to the verbal surface where opulent images become channels of physical, emotional, and spiritual perception. In its artistic representation of movement between the spiritual and temporal realms, Pearl conveys the mystery of the ineffable better than doctrine or straight exposition, since readers (or listeners) of the poem may respond with the dreamer to psychological tensions created at the level of the screen. As the poem progresses, for example, its central ornament, the pearl, is applied variously (and symbolically) to a lost child for whom the jeweler grieves, to the maiden who is beyond the dreamer’s reach in the Paradise garden, to the grace of God that is the reward of Heaven, and to Heaven itself: This makellez perle, þat boȢt is dere, Þe joueler gef fore alle hys god, Is lyke þe reme of heueness clere – (733–35) [This matchless pearl, that is priceless, for which the jeweler gave all his goods, is like the realm of bright heaven –]

What is especially intriguing about this poem, however, is the sustained exhibition of symbolic meanings in material form. In addition to the maiden’s pearl-encrusted crown and garments, a “wonder perle” is set like a great brooch “Inmyddez hyr breste” (221–22; 740) – an adornment that she associates with the merchant’s “perle of prys” (746) in Matthew’s parable (13.45–6). A similar pearl is also worn by the virgins in “prosessyoun” in the Celestial City: Depaynt in perlez and wedez qwyte; In vchonez breste watz bounden boun Þe blysful perle with gret delyt. (1102–4) [Adorned in pearls and white garments; in every breast was firmly fastened the blissful pearl with great delight.]

The ground upon which the dreamer treads in the “Paradyse erde” (248) is made of “precious perlez of oryente” (82), and the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem are all adorned with “A parfyt perle þat neuer fatez” (1038). The poem’s central ornament, therefore, is a “location” that manifests both realms and serves as a point of departure for increasingly complex meanings. By implication the poem itself is an ornament designed to move the minds of readers and listeners, just as the dreamer’s mind never ceases to be stirred at the sight of a daunting “meruayle” (157), be it the approaching pearl maiden: Þenne nwe note me com on honde Þat meued my mynde ay more and more. (155–56) [Then a new thing (the pearl maiden) came before me that moved my mind more and more.]

the New Jerusalem: 148

Taking Allegory Seriously An-vnder mone so great merwayle No fleschly hert ne myȢt endeure As quen I blusched vpon þat bayle.26

(1081–83)

[No mortal heart under the moon would be able to endure so great a marvel, as (I saw) when I gazed upon that castle wall.]

or the Lamb: Delit þe Lombe for to deuise With much meruayle in mynde went. (1129–30) [My delight in gazing upon the Lamb was coupled with much wonder in my mind.]

In Pearl, ornament is the literal manifestation of the screen – or veil – of allegory. It is both the material stimulus for higher vision and the screen through which divine light shines.

“So madde Ȣe be!” The Dream of Getting on the Other Side of the Screen As the dreamer responds to the opulence that he sees before him, his emotions fluctuate between sorrow and joy, terror and ecstasy, yearning and resentment. It is ornament, most notably the pearl, that stimulates this emotional drama. Ornament is the site of both invitation and deficiency: the image always beckons, but is never grasped. The poem presents, therefore, a recognition that the ascent to higher vision cannot be sustained. As Barbara Nolan has observed, the dreamer “must be content with partial vision and partial knowledge, still plagued by earthly desire.”27 Pearl stresses the distance between realms, even while the work is presented as philosophical allegory. This distance is also the spiritual and psychological torment of Dante’s Limbo, a torment that arises from the frustration of not being able to know completely what is beyond the screen – even with the help of allegorical ornament or, as in Dante’s case, the intellectual solace of ancient philosophy and Virgil’s epic poetry. The soul’s yearning for vision, to be united with “that alone,” was, for Plotinus and the Christian-Platonists the most powerful manifestation of the divine within the human world, for “the soul also loves that Good, moved by it to love from the beginning.”28 The dreamer’s yearning in Pearl for the maiden is a similar expression of this idea. Although she rebukes him for his misdi26 Here I follow Gordon’s edition: his “bayle” (rhymes with dayly, fayle, counsayle, see 313–15) and

which he glosses as “castle wall” is preferred to Andrew and Waldron’s “baly.” See Gordon, 58 nn. 313–15. 27 Barbara Nolan, The Gothic Visionary Perspective (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1977), 201. 28 Plotinus, Enn. I.6.7, VI.7.31.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem rected passion, she stands glittering before him as an image of Heaven, instructing him in Christian doctrine. His yearning for her is at once a human inclination and a manifestation of the divine within him. The poem, however, uses the ideal mimetic models to suggest possibilities other than the ascent to perfection, sanctity, and absolute glory. It displays an additional view of what it might be like for the observer to stand before the screen, yearning to accept its invitation. In structure, theme, and imagery it displays a yearning for higher vision, but at the same time illustrates the limits of both image and mind. It does so not by dismissing the image as a poor copy of the ineffable – and here, in my view, is the genius of the Pearl poet – but by considering what it might be like for the observer to actually take that very image seriously. The jeweler-dreamer travels gradually through his eschatological and apocalyptic landscapes, from the burial mound to the Paradise garden to the hill upon which he gazes at the New Jerusalem. The “erber grene” (37), in which the jeweler mourns over the loss of his “precious perle,” is a landscape rich with fragrance, pigment, and light, where “Blomez blayke [yellow] and blwe and rede/ Þer schyne ful schyr agayn þe sunne” (27–8). The marvelous fragrance of these flowers causes him to slip into a “slepyng slaȢte”(59), and in his dream he finds himself in an unearthly garden whose precious materials and chromatic brilliance resembles the accomplishments of the medieval metalworker. Here the dreamer encounters “crystal klyffez,” and “bryȢt” trees with trunks “as blwe as ble of Ynde” (74–76). He sees the “schymeryng schene” of light reflecting off the “bornyst syluer” of leaves (78, 80), treads upon the pearl-gravel (82), and comes to a stream that separates him from “paradyse” (137). The banks of the stream are made of “beryl bryȢte” (110), and when he looks into the water his gaze is met with an abundance of precious stones: “emerad, saffer, and oþer gemme gente,” that shone as “ÞurȢ glas þat glowed and glyȢt” (114, 118). He hopes or believes that this water is a mere “deuyse” (139) that he can cross, but sees that it is too deep and that he “dorst not wade” (143). He looks all about him for a “forþe” (ford, 150) but senses again that the dangers are too great to cross over: Bot woþez mo iwysse þer ware, Þe fyrre I stalked by þe stronde; And euer me þoȢt I schulde not wonde For wo þer welez so wynne wore. (151–54) [But indeed there were more dangers, the farther I walked by the shore; and ever I thought that I should not shrink from harm, where there were such delights.]

The water cannot be crossed, only looked into. It acts like a screen placed between desire and fulfillment. It suggests, invites, and encourages wonder; it makes the dreamer strangely aware, yet fearful too of the greater “maruaylez” (64) beyond the “bonkez brade” (138). 150

Taking Allegory Seriously Standing upon the threshold of divine reality, the dreamer sees a maiden with a “vysayge whyt as playn yuore” (178), whom he recognizes as his lost pearl (156). This “meruayle” moves his “mynde ay more and more” (156–57), from a sense of glory to that of fear or dread: On lenghe I loked to hyr þere; Þe lenger, I knew hyr more and more. . . . . . . Suche gladande glory con to me glace As lyttel byfore þerto watz wonte. . . . . . . More þen me lyste my drede aros: I stod ful stylle and dorste not calle; Wyth yȢen open and mouth ful clos I stod as hende as hawk in halle. (167ff) [For a long time I looked at her there; the longer I looked I knew her more and more. . . . Such gladdening glory glided over me as I had never known before. . . . More than I wished my dread arose: I stood completely still and dared not call out; With eye open and mouth shut tight I stood as still as a hawk in a hall.]

At times the dreamer grieves deeply over his isolation and distance from the maiden; he wonders about death, destiny, and our unclear relations with God. At other moments, as when he finds himself in the shining “londe” where there “[n]is no wyȢ worþé þat tonge berez” (100), the marvelous “adubbemente” makes him forget his grief (87). For all its glory, however, there are several terrifying aspects of his vision: fear of the unknown nature of the spiritual reality; fear of getting beyond the screen and staring into the face of eternity; and fear of the death that must precede that confrontation: ÞurȢ drwry deth boz vch man dreue, Er ouer þys dam hym DryȢtyn deme.

(323–24)

[Through cruel death must every man pass, before God allows him over this water.]

Finally, the dreamer fears that the vision will escape him: I dred onende quat schulde byfalle, Lest ho me eschaped þat I þer chos, Er I at steuen hir moȢt stalle. (186–88) [I was afraid about what would happen, lest she whom I beheld there escaped me before I could stop and meet her.]

There is the constant peril as well of the dreamer being distracted by the beauty of his vision. Several details in the maiden’s appearance are borrowed from literary and visual portraits of ideal feminine beauty at the time: her 151

Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem ivory skin, her golden hair, her gray eyes. Dressed in the white robes of the Apocalypse virgins, the maiden is covered with pearls, even her “HiȢe pynakled” crown “of cler quyt perle” (207); she is a kind of literary predecessor of Jan van Eyck’s jeweled Virgin of the Annunciation. The pearl maiden belongs to the sacred realm and is an image of the perfection and permanence of that world; indeed, her very words are ornaments: A juel to me þen watz þys geste, And juelez wern hyr gentyl sawez. (277–78) [A jewel to me then was this guest, and her noble words were jewels.]

The dreamer explains to her how he has suffered great “dystresse” (280) for having lost his pearl, and he urges her to let him pass beyond the stream. But she rebukes him for his “tale mysetente” (257) and says that it is a “mad porpose” (267) to be thus concerned about transitory things, for on earth she was “bot a rose/ Þat flowred and fayled” (270). Thus she presents him with the austere realization that nothing on earth partakes completely of the sacred world. The dreamer has erred in thinking that, because he now sees her, he can dwell with her. She is wholly unsympathetic to his responses and says that his error is fit for mockery. She accuses him of mortal pride, for wanting his love for her returned – or to put it in aesthetic terms – for taking the visual spectacle too seriously. The dreamer believes that what he sees is available to him, and it is this belief that the maiden calls madness: “Jueler,” said þat gemme clene, “Wy borde Ȣe men? So madde Ȣe be!”

(289–90)

[“Jeweler,” said the bright gem, “Why do you jest? You are quite mad!”]

As the maiden stands before him, she presents herself as an invitation for higher vision. She functions as a screen of beauty, Augustine’s sacramental signa, and Fulgentius’ “jewel of learning,” for she is a reflection of the theology that qualifies her own imagery, except that the dreamer has difficulty understanding and accepting that qualification. He sees her there and takes the allegory seriously, but complete passage to her is impossible, except through death. For now, he must replace his grief with greater spiritual awareness: he must recognize the limitations of earthly love and believe in God’s gift of Christ. So she guides him to the hill where he will be granted a glimpse of “Þe nwe cyté o Jerusalem” (792). But here is the paradox: the sacred world, which transcends time and space, is represented by its contradiction: an image that is an artifact of time and space (the painting, the poem, the music, the church). The observer’s absorption in that artifact ultimately betrays the transcendent aim. In other words, to believe that you can rupture the screen and attain what it holds out to you – to 152

Taking Allegory Seriously abandon yourself to the painting and think that you can get on the other side – is “madde” – just as the maiden says it is. Virgil (or rather Dante) said it too: Matto è chi spera che nostra ragione possa trascorrer la infinita via che tiena una sustanza in tre persone. State contenti, umana gente, al quia; ché, se potuto avest veder tutto, mestier non era parturir Maria; [Foolish (or mad) is he who hopes that our reason may compass the infinite course taken by One Substance in Three Persons. Be content, human race, with the quia; for if you had been able to see everything, no need was there for Mary to give birth;]29

When the dreamer sees the maiden in procession in the “nwe cité” he is overwhelmed with “luf-longyng” (1152), abandons himself to the image, and tries to cross the water. The dreamer himself describes this abandonment as madness: Delyt me drof in yȢe and ere, My manez mynde to maddyng malte; (1153–54) [Delight entered into my eye and ear, dissolving my mortal mind to madness;]

And it is a madness that does not find favor with the Lamb of heaven: Hit payed Hym not þat I so flonc Ouer meruelous merez, so mad arayd. (1165–66) [It did not please him that I flung myself over marvelous waters in so mad a manner.]

At the moment when he thinks that nothing can prevent him from crossing the stream and attaining what he desires, the dreamer awakens with his head resting on the “hylle” where his “perle to grounde” had “strayde” (1173). In a sense, the image betrays him, and in the end he shows considerable resentment over being “outfleme”: Me payed ful ille to be outfleme So sodenly of þat fayre regioun, Fro alle þo syȢtez so quyke and queme.

(1177–79)

[It displeased me greatly to be turned out of that fair region so suddenly, from all those sights so vivid and pleasant.]

29 Purgatorio III 34–9, The Divine Comedy, ed. and trans. Charles S. Singleton, Bollingen Series

LXXX (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1973). Singleton translates “Matto,” as “foolish,” but “mad” is also correct.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem Love for his “perle” limits him to this world. Still, it was a love worthy and powerful enough to reflect – if inadequately – that other. All earthly loves must eventually bear the frustrations of human inadequacies – the inadequacies of language, of body, of mind, and of course the inevitable separation through death. And the more deeply one loves, as the dreamer knows, the more crushing to one’s spirit these inadequacies can become. Pearl, one might say, is a poem about the devastating limitations of human love and our yearning for it to be otherwise – the need for it to be something more permanent, more perfect, free from disappointment, betrayal, apathy, or sickness of any kind. Free from all inherently human weaknesses. But the poem is not by any means a rejection of this world, grounded as it is in jeweled brilliance and finely articulated craftsmanship. Rather, it recognizes brilliantly, if solemnly, that now we live here; this world is where we live and shape our lives until death. Still, it is an expression of human desire for perfection, even if this desire can only be partly fulfilled through images; that is, even if the potential of images remains unrealized. More simply put, it is a poem about the very best we are able to muster before we turn away – for whatever reason – or before we die. And so it is fitting that it should end with an image of bread and wine, the simplest visual and physical expression of Christian desire for perfect and permanent love in our midst and, therefore, one that belongs to both worlds.

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6 “Þe nwe cyté o Jerusalem”: Pearl as Medieval Architecture Geometry moves between two things antithetical to it, namely the point and the circle – and I mean “circle” in the broad sense of anything round, whether a solid body or a surface; for as Euclid says, the point is its beginning, and, as he says, the circle is its most perfect figure which must therefore be conceived as its end. . . . Geometry is furthermore most white insofar as it is without taint or error and most certain both in itself and in its handmaid, which is called Perspective.” (Dante, Il Convivio II.13)1 For I seemed to myself to behold the King’s son, John, in a green plain, appearing as though he were about to found a church. . . . after the fashion of surveyors, he marked the turf making lines on all sides over the surface of the earth, visibly drawing the plan of a building. (Gerald of Wales, De rebus a se gestis)2

T

HE Pearl poet’s conception of the image as a location for spiritual movement and his use of ornament as the screen, or veil, of allegory is the foundation for his presentation of the poem as a literary edifice. As I have argued, the poet’s sophisticated allegorical techniques establish remarkable affinities between Pearl and the symbolic programs of the great churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. These affinities are established further with a recognition of these edifices as figures of the New Jerusalem. But the Gothic vision of Pearl is, in my view, one that embodies a specifically fourteenth-century religious, artistic, and political environment. It is to fourteenth-century England, therefore, that one must turn in order to understand more precisely the Pearl poet’s Gothic visionary perspective.3 1 2 3

Dante Alighieri, Il Convivo (The Banquet), trans. Richard H. Lansing, Garland Library of Medieval Literature, vol. 65, ser. B (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1990). In H. Butler, The Autobiography of Giraldus Cambrensis (London: J. Cape, 1937), 89. I borrow the phrase “Gothic visionary perspective” from the book of the same title by Barbara Nolan (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1977).

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem In his recent scholarship on Pearl, John M. Bowers attempts to place the poem more firmly within a precise historical and cultural context.4 Bowers’ evidence consists of an impressive variety of documentary, literary, and artistic components of Ricardian court culture. This “archive,” as he calls it,5 includes the library of Richard II’s uncle, Thomas, duke of Gloucester (the contents of which form the literary background of the Pearl poet); the fourteenth-century group of Apocalypse wall paintings in the Chapter House at Westminster Abbey; the Wilton Diptych; and Philippe de Mézières’ allegorical Epistre to Richard II, written to secure peace between England and France and to promote a crusade to the Holy Land.6 Bowers’ argument succeeds, I believe, in demonstrating that the author of Pearl was an inspired participant in the court culture of Richard II, although the poet’s courtly tastes certainly reflect an Edwardian influence as well.7 Neither Bowers nor other recent scholars who have sought to understand the social and political context of Pearl, however, have made use of late medieval architecture for assistance, even though the poet displays an explicit interest in his architectural environment, and even though the architectural works sponsored by the Plantagenet rulers were their grandest efforts to manifest visually the power and prestige of their courts.8 As Jeffrey Hamburger observes: architecture in the Middle Ages “provided the governing context for sacral and liturgical performance as well as an overarching metaphor for the sacred.”9 In addition, architecture was the most important visual medium used to display the political aspirations of Church and Crown. The Plantagenet kings, for example, wishing to proclaim to the medieval world an English royal sanctity and political prestige surpassing that of the Capetian rulers, commissioned a series of architectural projects that displayed

4 5 6 7

8

9

The Politics of Pearl: Court Poetry in the Age of Richard II; Bowers, “Pearl in its Royal Setting: Ricardian Poetry Revisited.” “Pearl in its Royal Setting,” 114. Ibid. 122, 126, 128, 130–35. Philippe de Mézières, Letter to King Richard II, ed. and trans. G. W. Coopland (Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 1975). Edward III’s reign lasted for fifty years (1327–77). As Sandra Pierson Prior has observed, Edward III’s “influence on English culture and society was powerful enough that much of late fourteenth-century England is at least as ‘Edwardian’ as it is ‘Ricardian’.” The Pearl Poet Revisited (New York: Twayne, 1994), 4. The most influential studies on the historical (especially Ricardian) background of the Cotton Nero poems include, Michael J. Bennett, “The Court of Richard II and the Promotion of Literature,” Chaucer’s England, ed. Barbara Hanawalt (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1992; Bennett, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Literary Achievement of the North-West Midlands: The Historical Background,” Journal of Medieval History 5 (1979): 63–88; Bennett, Community, Class and Careerism: Cheshire and Lancashire Society in the Age of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983), esp. pp. 233–35); Bowers, The Politics of Pearl; Bowers, “Pearl in its Royal Setting: Ricardian Poetry Revisited.” See also the important collection of essays in Essays on Ricardian Literature in Honour of J. A. Burrow, ed. A. J. Minnis, Charlotte C. Morse, and Thorlac Turville-Petre (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997); and essays in A Companion to the Gawain-Poet. “Medieval Studies and Medieval Art History,” in The Past and Future of Medieval Studies, ed. John Van Engen (Notre Dame and London: U of Notre Dame P, 1994), 386.

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture this intention in an unmistakable and spectacular way. The grandest projects included Henry III’s renovation of the interior of Westminster Abbey (1245–72), which was carried out to emulate – under one roof – the symbolic programs (both sacred and political) of the two royal churches of France: the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Notre Dame Cathedral in Reims; the twelve memorial crosses erected by Edward I after the death of his queen, Eleanor, in 1290; St. Stephen’s Chapel, begun in 1292 by Edward I and completed in 1348 by Edward III to rival the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris; the extensive building and renovation of castles in England, Scotland, Wales, and Normandy; and the elaborate funerary monuments constructed for Eleanor of Castile, Edward II (c. 1330), Edward III (c. 1386), and monuments for Richard II and his queen, Anne (1395–97), which Richard had ordered built before his death.10 By building their own private chapels and elaborate tombs, members of the nobility shared in the sacral, social, and political performance that medieval architecture yielded. Elizabeth Salter is a notable exception to the scholarly neglect of architecture as a source for understanding the craftsmanship and symbolism of Pearl, as well as the poet’s social standing and political affiliations.11 Salter’s suggestion in 1967 that we treat the poems of the Cotton Nero manuscript within the context of late medieval English architecture was based on her conviction that the author of Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was in no way provincial, even though the poems were written in a dialect of the northern Midlands. Instead, she argued that the anonymous author demonstrates through his poetry a mature understanding of late medieval art, especially English architecture.12 As we have seen, these architectural achievements were promoted enthusiastically by the English rulers, either through projects they commissioned for themselves and their families or through projects carried out by masons, carpenters, and metalworkers who, if hired by members of the clergy or nobility, were trained either in court workshops or by masters of those workshops.13 My aim in this chapter is to demonstrate how the symbolic program of Pearl, including its apocalyptic and eschatological perspectives, its finely wrought craftsmanship, and its political associations can best be understood by viewing this poet as a master builder, a literary architect whose aim was to create, in poetry, a late fourteenth-century expression of the Church as a figure of the New Jerusalem.14

10 See H. M. Colvin, The History of the King’s Works: for Henry III’s renovation of Westminster

11 12 13 14

Abbey, see pp. 130–57; on the Eleanor crosses, see pp. 479–85; on St. Stephen’s chapel, see pp. 510–72; for the funerary monuments, see esp. pp. 481–88. On the royal castles see esp. pp. 110–19, 228–41, 293–433, and 553–894. “The Alliterative Revival II,” 233–37. See Chapter Five, 139–40. Ibid. 236. See, for example, Chapter Four, 103–4, 113–18, 124. The scholarship on the apocalyptic and eschatological features of medieval English literature is

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“figures of ferlylé shappes”: Architectural Virtuosity and Exchange in the Cotton Nero Poems and St. Erkenwald In his study of the distinctive role of micro-architecture within the larger Gothic tradition, François Bucher provides a short list of what he considers to be the basic tenets of Gothic architecture: “dazzling structural dexterity, intensely geometric complexity and a hypnotic dissolution of the structure through light.” It was micro-architecture, Bucher argues, that provided the “exemplary models” of Gothic, combining “formal bravado with theological complexity in a small space.”15 Bucher’s understanding of Gothic – while perhaps not accepted universally among architectural historians – corresponds closely, I believe, with the Pearl poet’s understanding of his own craft and of the poem’s participation in a tradition that views the ecclesiastical edifice as an apocalyptic landscape. Bucher argues that fantastic descriptions of buildings in medieval literature stimulated the craftsmen’s efforts to build micro-architectural expressions of the New Jerusalem, since it was impossible to construct large-scale renditions of the imaginary edifices. Micro-architecture resolved “the dilemma between the poetic and the realizable building.”16 Bucher’s argument is a compelling one for this study, since it supports the hypothesis of a close interaction between literature and late medieval architectural developments. But Bucher appears to restrict his understanding of this influence to the view that it was carried forward in one direction only: from literature to architecture. If fantastic verbal buildings did provide an impetus for late medieval architectural developments, it is also plausible that a literary artist attempted to reproduce the conceptual and stylistic elements of late medieval architecture so that

vast. For excellent introductions to the subject and bibliographies, see Richard K. Emmerson and Ronald B. Herzman, The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P 1992); Emmerson and Herzman, “The Canterbury Tales in Eschatological Perspective,” in The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. Verbeke, Verhelst, and Welkenhuysen, Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 15 (Leuven: Leuven UP, 1988), 404–24; Emmerson, “The Prophetic, the Apocalyptic, and the Study of Medieval Literature,” in Poetic Prophecy in Western Literature, ed. Jan Wojcik and Raymond-Jean Frontain (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1984), 40–54; Morton Bloomfield, Piers Plowman as a Fourteenth-century Apocalypse (New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1961); Barbara Nolan, The Gothic Visionary Perspective; Mary J. Carruthers, “Time, Apocalypse, and the Plot of Piers Plowman,” in Acts of Interpretation, ed. Mary J. Carruthers and Elizabeth D. Kirk (Norman, OK: Pilgrim Books, 1982), 175–88; Douglas Bertz, “Prophecy and Apocalypse in Langland’s Piers Plowman, B-Text, Passus XVI–XIX,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 84 (1985): 312–27; Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Reformist Apocalypticism and Piers Plowman (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990). 15 “Micro-Architecture,” 83. 16 Ibid. 72. Verbal buildings of “fantastic architectural daring” include, Bucher argues, the tombs described in the Roman de Troie, the domed vault and throne of Cosdroe in the Norman epic Eracle (1164), and the Grail temple in Albrecht von Scharffenberg’s Younger Titurel (c. 1270).

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture literature would work in conjunction with the visual arts to convey the eschatological and apocalyptic symbolism of church buildings. As a group, the Cotton Nero poems and St. Erkenwald demonstrate an interest in all aspects of medieval architecture, from the laying of the groundwork for a medieval cathedral, to the ornamental creativity of micro-architectural structures, to the sacred edifice as an Apocalyptic landscape.17 At the extremes of these architectural portraits, we find in St. Erkenwald an appreciation for the technical difficulties of building a great Gothic church, where particular care must be taken to construct a foundation strong enough to support the massive weight of the completed edifice: Mony grubber in grete þe grounde for to seche Þat þe fundement on fyrst shuld þe fote halde.18

(39–42)

[Many dug in the earth to make the groundwork for the building, so that the foundation from the start would hold the structural supports.]

This humble beginning of the ecclesiastical edifice as a large hole in the ground reaches its anagogic fulfillment in the vision of the New Jerusalem in Pearl: As John þe apostel hit syȢ wyth syȢt, I syȢe þat cyty of gret renoun, Jerusalem so nwe and ryally dyȢt, As hit watz lyȢt fro þe heuen adoun. (985–88) [As John the apostle saw it with his own eyes, I saw that city of great renown, Jerusalem so new and royally adorned, as it descended down from heaven.]

The Pearl poet had a particularly keen eye for the ornamental detail and technical virtuosity of micro-architectural forms. Bertilak’s castle in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a faithful rendition of the late medieval style, represented in the latest fairy-tale fashion where the old need for defense has given way to a profusion of little turrets and decorative ornaments: And innermore he behelde þat halle ful hyȢe, Towres telded bytwene, trochet ful þik, Fayre fylyolez þat fyȢed, and ferlyly long, With coruon coprounes craftyly sleȢe. Chalk-whyt chymnées þer ches he innoȢe, Vpon bastel rouez þat blenked ful quyte. So mony pynakle payntet watz poudred ayquere 17 For a discussion on the authorial status of St. Erkenwald and why I choose to include it as part of

my literary analysis, see Chapter Five, 138–39, 138 n. 5.

18 St. Erkenwald, ed. Clifford Peterson. Unless otherwise noted, all citations from the Cotton Nero

poems are taken from Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron, eds., The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, 1978.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem Among þe castel carnelez, clambred so þik, Þat pared out of papure purely hit semed. (794–802) [And further in, he (Gawain) beheld that very high hall, (with) towers erected, evenly spaced, thick battlements, fair pinnacles that were fitted, and exceedingly tall, with carved, ornamental tops skillfully made. He perceived there many chalk-white chimneys, upon roofs of towers that gleamed all white. So many painted pinnacles were scattered everywhere among the embrasures of the castle, clustered so thickly, that it seemed to be cut out of paper.]

The best-known model for this kind of castle, and one that was contemporary with the poet, was the Hôtel des Tournelles in Paris (built about 1388, now destroyed), one of the seven Parisian residences of the kings of France.19 The Pearl poet, as a member of Richard II’s court or of the retinue of a noble family, may very well have seen the Parisan monuments, not unlike his literary contemporary, Chaucer, who traveled on the continent as courtier, poet, and soldier. The description of the “halle ful hyȢe” in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight shows striking similarities to descriptions of miniature edifices in Cleanness. The author describes a collection of elaborately carved canopies, or “logges,” for instance, that were placed over silver platters of food at the banquet in Baltazar’s palace: Lyfte logges þerouer and on lofte coruen, Pared out of paper and poynted of golde, Broþe baboynes abof, besttes anvnder, Foles in foler flakerande bitwene, And al in asure and ynde enaumayld ryche; (1407–12) [Raised canopies over them and carved on top, cut out of paper and painted with gold; grotesque gargoyles above, beasts underneath, birds in foliage fluttering between, and all in azure and indigo, richly enameled;]

What the poet is describing here is an exotic genre of late medieval micro-architecture: table decorations at sumptuous feasts.20 But unlike Bertilack’s castle, these raised “logges” seem actually to be made of paper. The poet employs the identical simile in Sir Gawain in order to emphasize the elaborate workmanship of the castle.21 Taken together, the two architectural descriptions are of particular interest, since they demonstrate the poet’s awareness of how larger medieval edifices, by incorporating micro-

19 See, for example, André Devèche, Les 7 Résidences Parisiennes des Rois de France (Paris:

Tourelle, 1986), 19–24.

20 See Andrew and Waldron, 168 nn. 1407–12. 21 This observation was noted by Tolkien and Gordon, eds, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 2nd

edn, by Norman Davis (Oxford: Clarendon P, 1967), 100 n. 802.

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture architectural elements, may rival smaller structures in “structural dexterity” and ornamentation.22 In Cleanness, the poet seems especially determined to convey a sophisticated familiarity with his architectural environment. A passage that describes a collection of liturgical vessels reads like an article on medieval art treasures in an exhibition catalogue: Houen vpon þis auter watz aþel vessel, Þat wyth so curious a crafte coruen watz wyly. Salamon sete him seuen Ȣere and syþe more, Wyth alle þe syence þat hym sende þe souerayn Lorde, For to compas and kest to haf hem clene wroȢt. For þer were bassynes ful bryȢt of brende golde clere, Enaumaylde with azer, and eweres of sute, Couered cowpes foul clene, as casteles arayed, Enbaned vnder batelment with bantelles quoynt, And fyled out of fygures of ferlylé schappes. (1451–60) [Raised upon this altar were noble vessels that had been cleverly shaped with such elaborate skill. Solomon had given himself seven years and a bit more, with all the knowledge that the sovereign Lord had sent to him, in order to plan and to create, to have them perfectly made; for there were very bright basins of clear, refined gold, enameled with azure, and ewers to match, very bright covered cups, adorned like castles, fortified under battlements with skillfully made bantels, and carved out in figures of marvelous shapes.]

The poet is, perhaps, imagining a workshop whose masons and metalworkers delight in an exchange of decorative creativity and structural techniques. Indeed, one imagines a mason in charge of constructing Bertilack’s castle in Gawain as one inspired by the micro-architectural details of elaborate table ornaments, while the sacred vessels at Baltazar’s feast are said to be “as casteles arayed” (1458). The structural details of Bertilack’s castle come clearly to mind in the extended description of vessels in Cleanness, but this description may be applied with equal visual effect to medieval church architecture: The coperounes of þe cauacles, þat on þe cuppe reres Wer fetysely formed out in fylyoles longe; Pinacles pyȢt þer apert, þat profert bitwene, And al bolled abof with braunches and leues, Pyes and papejayes purtrayed withinne, As þay prudly hade piked of pomgarnades; (1461–66) [The tops of the covers that rose on the cups were artfully formed into long turrets, pinnacles set there skillfully, which projected at intervals, 22 Bucher, 83.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem and were completely embossed above with branches and leaves, and magpies and parrots portrayed within, as if they proudly had pecked on pomegranates;]

The poet adorns these vessels with an extraordinary variety of gems and jewels, creating objects whose chromatic brilliance rivals even the most elaborate medieval reliquary: For alle þe blomes of þe boȢes wer blyknande perles, And alle þe fruyt in þo formes of flaumbeande gemmes, And safyres, and sardiners, and semely topace, Alabaundarynes, and amaraunz, and ammaffised stones, Casydoynes, and crysolytes, and clere rubies, Penitotes, and pynkardines, ay perles bitwene; (1467–72) [For all the blooms of the boughs were gleaming pearls, and all the fruit was in the form of glowing gems, and sapphires, and sardian stones, and excellent topaz, almandines, and emeralds, and amethystine stones, chalcedonies, and chrysolites, and clear rubies, peridots, and carnelian stones, with pearls always in between;]

What is especially striking about these descriptions is that the details identify the poet not only as a keen observer of the stylistic motifs of French Rayonnant and English Decorated, but also as one who advocates the use of adorned objects to convey ideas of sanctity that are applied to a specific object or place: So trayled and tryfled atrauerce wer alle, Bi vche bekyr ande bolle, þe brurdes al vmbe; Þe gobelotes of golde grauen aboute, And fyoles fretted wyth flores and fleez of golde; Vpon þat avter watz al aliche dresset. (1474–77) [(the vessels) were all traced and ornamented with trefoils from side to side, on every beaker and bowl, all around the rims; the goblets of gold were engraved round about; and the cups were adorned with flowers and butterflies of gold. Everything was arrayed alike upon that altar.]

The poem further unflolds how Baltazar’s father, NabugondenoȢar, had taken these vessels from the sancta sanctorum (1491) of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, and how afterwards they were hidden in “coferes” (1428). On Baltazar’s orders, his treasurer retrieves the vessels by unlocking these “coferes” – elsewhere called “kystes” – with keys (1438), an image that, as we shall see, is repeated in St. Erkenwald. It is Baltazar’s wish for his knights and “ladyes,” or concubines, to enjoy their wine from the “jueles out of Jerusalem” (1441). Thus the consecrated vessels become “fouled” (1495), and God, in order to demonstrate his great displeasure with the festivities, sends a chilling warning to Baltazar and his guests: 162

Pearl as Medieval Architecture Þer apered a paume, wyth poyntel in fyngres, Þat watz grysly and gret, and grymly he wrytes; Non oþer forme bot a fust faylande þe wryste Pared on þe parget, purtrayed lettres. (1533–36) [There appeared a hand, with a stylus in its fingers, that was horrible and great, and sternly it writes; no other form but a fist, lacking the wrist, cut into the plaster, portrayed letters.]

Baltazar is stunned with fear as he watches the floating hand carve mysterious “runisch sauez” (runish writings) (1544–45) in the wall. The image in Cleanness of the treasurer unlocking with keys the “coferes” where the sacred vessels are kept and the motif of the mysterious, runish writings are both repeated in St. Erkenwald. Furthermore, the shared images are specifically linked in both poems to either a larger or a smaller architectural form or setting. In Cleanness the sancta sanctorum of Solomon’s Temple and the liturgical vessels are presented. In St. Erkenwald, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and an elaborate tomb within that church appear. As the edifice where Perpendicular Gothic was introduced, and because of its importance as the ecclesiastical center of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral stood as a rival to many of the great churches of medieval Europe.23 Around the year 1250 a reconstruction program was begun at St. Paul’s.24 St. Erkenwald records the building activities: Mony a mery mason was made þer to wyrke, Harde stones for to hewe wyt eggit toles, Mony grubber in grete þe grounde for to seche Þat þe fundement on fyrst shuld þe fote halde. (39–42) [Many a happy mason was made to work there, who cut hard stones with sharp tools, many dug in the earth to make the groundwork for the building, so that the foundation from the start would hold the structural supports.]

The reconstructed building was dedicated in 1314.25 The author of St. Erkenwald was sufficiently familiar with the architectural history of this edifice to refer to it in his poem as the “New Werke.”26 The architectural character of St. Erkenwald’s shrine, its tremendous popularity as a site of medieval pilgrimage, and its association with the English chantry movement has been discussed in Chapter Four of this study.27 The shrine was famous for the miracles that were said to have occurred there, and 23 See G. H. Cook, Old S. Paul’s Cathedral. 24 Ibid. 33–36. See also, Maurice Hastings, St. Stephen’s Chapel and its Place in the Development of

Perpendicular Style in England, 5–12.

25 The shrine of St. Erkenwald had begun the year before in 1313. A chantry was added to the shrine

in 1323. See Hastings, 6.

26 Peterson, St. Erkenwald, 38. 27 Pp. 118, 126, 128.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem the author of the poem St. Erkenwald seems to have conflated a legend about a miracle performed by the seventh-century saint with his knowledge of the thirteenth-century New Work and the fourteenth-century shrine.28 The building activities that the poem recounts lead to the uncovering in the church of a marvelous tomb that contains the preserved corpse of an ancient judge who suffers in Limbo for having lived and died as an unbaptized pagan: For as þai dyȢt and dalfe so depe into þe erthe Þai founden fourmyt on a flore a ferly faire toumbe. Hit was a throghe of thykke ston thryuandly hewen, Wyt gargeles garnysht aboute alle of gray marbre. (45–8) [For as they worked and dug so deep into the earth, they found, built on the floor, an exceedingly beautiful tomb. It was a coffin of thick stone excellently cut, decorated all over with gargoyles made of gray marble.]

The lid of this tomb is embellished with “bryȢt golde lettres” (51) whose “resones” or sentences were “roynyshe” (52), that is, mysterious, or rune-like. After hearing High Mass, the bishop arrives at the tomb and baptizes the judge with his tears, thus providing for his passage into Heaven. Of interest from an architectural perspective, and for its similarity to a passage in Cleanness, is the image announcing Erkenwald’s arrival at the tomb: As riche reuestid as he was he rayked to þe toumbe, Men vnclosid hym þe cloyster wyt clustrede keies, Bot pyne wos wyt þe grete prece þat passyd hym after. (139–40) [Arrayed in rich vestments, he proceeded quickly to the tomb; men unlocked the cloister for him with keys in a cluster. But pain was with the great throng that went after him.]

One can hear in the alliterative stresses of this passage the clanking sound of the keys against the iron grate surrounding the shrine.29 In the three poems we have been discussing, Sir Gawain and the Green 28 Clifford Peterson explains the anachronistic coupling in this poem about Erkenwald, who was

made bishop of London in 675, and the thirteenth-century reconstruction of St. Paul’s Cathedral: “The first cathedral in London dedicated to St. Paul was built by King Æthelbert in the time of Bishop Mellitus, while ‘New Work’ was the name regularly given to a period of reconstruction at St. Paul’s that began in the mid-thirteenth century. Erkenwald, however, was widely regarded as the man who had set the original ecclesiastical foundation on a steady footing. . . . Erkenwald’s association with the New Work is . . . not as unlikely as the apparent anachronism of placing thirteenth-century work in the seventh century would make it seem.” Peterson concludes that a connection between St. Erkenwald, a miracle that occurred at the saint’s shrine in 1087, and the New Work “may have been in the poet’s mind when he associated the bishop with the New Work. . . . However, it may as well have been that the poet simply included familiar, if inexact, local references in order to give his poem a general sense of place.” St. Erkenwald, 36–37. 29 The keys that are used to unlock the grating are perhaps representative of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven that Christ gives to Peter to act as minister of his Church on earth (Matt. 16.19). See T. McAlindon, “Hagiography into Art: A Study of St. Erkenwald,” Studies in Philology 67 (1970):

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture Knight, Cleanness, and St. Erkenwald, we find a series of architectural forms and settings that mimic one another in ornamentation and structural detail. These forms range in scale from canopied serving platters, liturgical vessels stolen from the Temple of Solomon, a marble tomb embellished with gargoyles and enclosed with a gate as if “cloystered,” and a late medieval castle modeled, perhaps, on a Parisian royal residence. These poems are a literary record of a medieval artistic phenomenon that has been the subject of scholarly research for some of the most prominent architectural historians of our day.30 With a fond awareness of his architectural environment, the poet records the imitative exchange of ideas and techniques that occurred among medieval craftsmen of the visual arts. This imitation and interaction of styles and concepts is underscored by common designations for different architectural spaces in the poems. I will discuss these linguistic connections at greater length below; for now let it suffice to point out that the word “cloyster” is applied not only to the shrine in St. Erkenwald, but also to the castle in Gawain (804) and to the New Jerusalem in Pearl: “Þat clene cloyster” (969). By repeating images of micro-architectural detail in a variety of structures, each edifice becomes an alternative setting for the display of sanctity, mystery, and divine Judgment. The special association of architecture with these themes is particularly evident in Cleanness and St. Erkenwald, where human contact with architectural forms (canopied table settings, liturgical vessels, shrine) provokes God’s favor or displeasure. The shared motif in the two poems of the engraved, rune-like message is an emblem of sacred mystery, a revelation of divine presence, and a concealment of God’s will. The castle in Sir Gawain is not an architectural setting that conveys a sense of sanctity, but it is an edifice shrouded with the mystery of Gawain’s quest for the Green Knight, and it is – like all the edifices in the Pearl poet’s works – a setting for a moral drama that will lead to a confrontation with death. Further, it must not be forgotten that the aim of Gawain’s quest is to find an edifice that is sacred – sacred, that is, by its designation as a chapel and by the act of penance staged before it upon Gawain’s arrival and subsequent trial with the Green Knight.

Landscapes, Dwellings, Symmetries, and Circles: Laying the Foundation for the Apocalyptic Drama While the Pearl poet uses images of architecture in his poems as settings through which to convey concepts of sanctity, mystery, and divine Judgment, it is in Pearl itself that the poet’s fond awareness of architectural form and its 489; and Casey Finch, ed. and trans., The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: U of California P, 1993), 403 n. 140. 30 For example, see Jean Bony, French Gothic Architecture; Bony, The English Decorated Style; Robert Branner, St Louis and the Court Style in Gothic Architecture; Wilson, The Gothic Cathedral; Coldstream, The Decorated Style; Michael Camille, Gothic Art: Glorious Visions.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem potential as an anagogic symbol is most enthusiastically and carefully displayed. In short, what we find in Pearl is a sophisticated demonstration of the poet’s ambitions as a master builder, but one who chose words, rather than stone, as his building medium, and who looked to fourteenth-century funerary monuments for his architectural “scale” and presentation of eschatological themes. There are two principal ways in which the poet demonstrates his architectural ambitions in Pearl. The first of these ways is the feature for which the poem is, perhaps, most justly famous, namely its complex structure with a network of word links, number schemes, and rich sound patterns. Second, the poet presents his eschatological drama through a series of landscapes that in the Middle Ages were laden with architectural significance. One-third of the poem is devoted to a detailed description of the most revered literary edifice in Christian history: the walled city of the New Jerusalem. But this edifice – or complex of edifices – is only the grandest and most architecturally obvious of the three landscapes in the poem; the other two, the “erber grene,” or hortus conclusus, and the Paradise garden were favorite motifs for medieval exegetes, who employed them regularly in their fluid network of architectural metaphors. The anonymous author of Pearl demonstrates a familiarity with this exegetical tradition, and he takes careful measures to exploit it for his own ambitions as a poet-architect. The conspicuous and complex design of Pearl has received highest praise from scholars of the poem. John Fleming, for example, called it “the most structurally complex of the great vernacular masterpieces of the later Middle Ages,” and according to Marie Borroff, its complexity is “unmatched in English poetry before or since.”31 The poem’s twenty sections each contain five stanzas of twelve lines, with section XV as the one exception, containing six, instead of five stanzas. The stanzas in a given section are connected to one another by link-words that are repeated in the first and last lines of the stanzas, often as part of a refrain. The sections themselves are joined by “concatenation,” or overlapping repetition; that is, the link-word of a given section appears in the first line of the first stanza of the following section. Finally, the last word of the opening line, “paye” (pleasure), becomes the link-word in the last stanza-group, thus joining the beginning with the end in a near-perfect enclosure. Even the exceptions to this overall scheme seem to be deliberate. The extra stanza (lines 901–12) of Group XV makes Pearl end with 1212 lines; 12 x 12, which equals 144, relates to the architecture of the New Jerusalem (1029–32), and there are 144,000 virgins in the heavenly procession (869–70). This configuration is ornamented throughout by a combination of

31 John V. Fleming, “The Centuple Structure of the Pearl,” in The Alliterative Tradition in the Four-

teenth Century, ed. Bernard S. Levy and Paul E. Szarmach (Kent, OH: Kent State UP), 82; Marie Borroff ed., Pearl: A New Verse Translation, xvi. See also P. M. Kean, “Numerical Composition in Pearl,” Notes and Queries 12 (1965): 51.

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture alliterative techniques and a complex, end-rhyme scheme, creating rich patterns of sound to accompany the visual brilliance of the poem’s imagery. This unusually deliberate and minutely controlled craftsmanship is the frame within which the poet describes his eschatological landscapes with stunning, luminous detail. The author’s fondness for describing physical detail and his appeal to the senses through the sounds and images of his poetry make Pearl, as John Gatta observed, “emphatically ornate.”32 The closest medieval parallel to this combination of structural complexity, sound, and ornament is the medieval ecclesiastical edifice – a parallel strengthened further by the poem’s liturgical character, eschatological subject matter, and apocalyptic symbolism. Sound and symbolism are completely integrated with structure, ornament, and theme, just as the music and spectacle of medieval sacred liturgy served as an aural and visual complement to the structure and decoration of the stone edifices in which those liturgies were celebrated. The structural and decorative qualities of Pearl that I have put forward as evidence for the poet’s ambitions as a master builder have prompted some scholars to argue for connections between the poem and medieval art objects such as altarpieces, reliquaries, and stained-glass windows.33 One aspect of the poem’s structure that has attracted considerable scholarly attention is the poem’s cyclical nature, with its repetition of “echo” words that link the stanzas and the first and last lines. This circularity corresponds metaphorically to the roundness of the poem’s central symbol, the pearl, and comparisons have therefore been made between the poem and a kind of garland of linked units, or a corona candelabrum, itself “a gilded, jeweled circle that was taken to represent the Heavenly Jerusalem.”34 But the poem is clearly symmetrical as well as circular. Louis Blenkner has described the poem as tripartite, with a middle section – the “homiletic center” – flanked by two descriptive sections, the garden landscapes and the New Jerusalem.35 Britton J. Harwood, on the other hand, sees in its patterns of symmetry a medieval diptych and divides the poem not into three sections, but into two halves of ten groups.36 John M. Bowers goes a step further, arguing that the themes and style of the Wilton Diptych (c. 1394–96), “closely match those of Pearl.”37 These readings of Pearl call attention to its fine craftsmanship and succeed in demonstrating how the author sought to expose himself as a keen observer, admirer, and imitator of objects and images of the visual arts. My own view,

32 “Transformational Symbolism and the Liturgy of the Mass in Pearl,” Modern Philology 71

(1973): 248.

33 See, for example, Borroff, xix; Heather Phillips, “Mediaeval Glass-Making Techniques and the

Imagery of Glass in Pearl,” Florilegium 6 (1984): 195–215.

34 See Ian Bishop, Pearl in its Setting (Oxford: Blackwell, 1968), 29–30; and Britton J. Harwood,

“Pearl as Diptych,” in Text and Matter; New Critical Perspectives of the Pearl-Poet, eds. Robert J. Blanch, Miriam Youngerman Miller and Julian N. Wasserman (Troy, NY: Whitson, 1991), 61. 35 “The Theological Structure of ‘Pearl’,” Traditio 24 (1968): 44. 36 “Pearl as Diptych,” 61–78. 37 “Pearl in its Royal Setting,” 126.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem however, is that the poet’s ambitions as a craftsman exceeded the desire to imitate in Pearl a corona candelabrum or a medieval diptych, while wishing to include such objects metaphorically in his architectural repertoire, as a way of suggesting further his active participation in the exchange of ideas and techniques of the visual arts. In order to appreciate fully the poet’s ambitions as a master builder in Pearl, it is essential to view this poem not as an isolated expression, but as a mature work within the small group of alliterative poems we’ve been discussing, a work whose pathos and artistic refinement surpass those of the other poems in its unusually sophisticated exploration of eschatological themes and architectural motifs. We observe in each of the related poems a fascination with geometric patterning and with finely crafted shapes and enclosures, both as images within the poems and as architectural frames for an interior drama. This drama is always driven by an assertive confrontation with death and divine Judgment. Furthermore, the liturgical influence upon these poems is great indeed, one that has been noted in the scholarship; but there has been no attempt to see this liturgical influence in conjunction with the poet’s interest in eschatological space, enclosure, and ornament. The great interest we find in these poems in the human confrontation with death and divine Judgment is expressed through a series of interconnected landscapes, and I use the term “landscapes” broadly to mean enclosed spaces, buildings, and communities typically fraught with eschatological meaning. Some of the most obvious of these include the Ark of Noah, Solomon’s Temple, and the historical Jerusalem in Cleanness – a poem about divine Judgment. In Pearl, we have the “erber grene,” the Paradise garden, and the New Jerusalem based on the account in John’s Apocalypse. The cathedral setting and elaborate tomb of St. Erkenwald add significantly to this network of eschatological landscapes. In his four–volume study, Exégèse Médiéval, Henri de Lubac includes a chapter, “Symboles architecturaux,” in which he reviews the tradition of architectural motifs in medieval exegesis. Lubac writes, la métaphore de l’édifice occupe une place privilégiée dans la littérature religieuse, doctrinale ou spirituelle. ‘Pas de figures plus utilisée par les maîtres médiévaux de l’allégorie, que celles de la cité, du château, de la maison, du temple.’ Ce sont là, d’ailleurs, déjà des images bibliques, évangéliques et pauliniennes, dont les Pères avaient fait grand usage.38 [the metaphor of the edifice occupies a privileged place in religious literature, doctrinal or spiritual. “There are no figures more utilized by the medieval masters of allegory, than those of the city, of the château, of the

38 Exégèse Médiévale; Les Quatre Sens de L’Écriture, Seconde Partie II (Paris: Aubier, 1962), 44.

Lubac cites Ford Lewis Battles, “Hugo of Saint Victor as a Moral Allegorist,” Church History XVIII (1949): 229. For a Pauline example, Lubac cites I Cor. 3.9.

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture dwelling, (or) of the temple.” We recognize these already in the biblical images, in the Gospels and in Paul, of which the Church Fathers made great use.]

Among his many examples of exegetical authorities on this subject, Lubac cites St. Augustine who, as we have seen, used the edifice metaphor in his commentary on Psalm 95. For Augustine, to sing the new song was, in fact, to build: ipsum cantare, aedificare est.39 In his discussion of the popular motif of Noah’s Ark, Lubac cites Hugh of St.-Victor, who interprets the structure as a symbol for what the Christian must build in his heart. Hugh also identifies the Ark both as a symbol of the world’s axis and the tree of life. Saint Avit de Vienne delivered a homily on the Ark in connection with the dedication of the basilica of Saint-Ireneus in Lyon, the liturgy which, as we have seen, identifies the church building as a figure of the Heavenly Jerusalem.40 St. Ambrose saw in the construction of Noah’s Ark the figure of the human body,41 while Augustine, elaborating upon Ambrose’s ideas, interpreted the Ark as the edification of the Church: Without doubt this [ark] is a symbol of the City of God on pilgrimage in this world: that is, of the Church which is saved through the wood upon which hung “the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

To emphasize the complex symolic relationship between the Ark, the human body, and the Church, Augustine continues: Now the dimensions of the Ark, its length, height and breadth, symbolize the human body. . . . And all the other details mentioned in connection with the building of the Ark are signs of things in the Church. (De civitate Dei XV.26)

The Temple of Solomon, as we have discussed in various parts of this book, was interpreted similarly as an edifice that the Christian was to recognize metaphorically (and alternatively) as the temple of Christ’s body, the origin of the Church on earth, and a prefiguration of the Heavenly City.42 But the metaphorical interpretation of the edifice extended even further, beyond biblical architecture, to include the human body, the Christian soul, and the spiritual life. The female body, for example, was “destiné à représenter l’Église” through Mary, the mother of Christ. The soul is commonly interpreted as the temple or the house of God, and the spiritual life is “un édifice ou

39 40 41 42

Exégèse Médiévale, 44. See Chapter Two of this book. See Chapter Three of this book. Exégèse Médiévale, 41–42. Exégèse Médiévale, 42–43. Solomon’s Temple is the subject of discussions in the Introduction, 16–21, Chapter Two, 56, 64, and in Chapter Three, 83–4.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem une ‘structure’ céleste, qui s’élève dans le silence, comme jadis le temple de Salomon.”43 This last example is particularly interesting, for it combines the idea of the spiritual movement of the soul toward God with the image of the construction of a historical edifice. The great Gothic church, with its pointed arches, soaring naves, and liturgical processions seems to have been an attempt to manifest visually this conflated image. But the principal construction, observes Lubac, celle qui command toutes les constructions spirituelles, c’est la construction de l’Église: universa spiritualis fabricae structura. . . . Le symbole en est à la fois la maison de la Sagesse, l’arche de Noé, le tabernacle, le temple, la maison des noces de la parabole évangélique. L’Église, qui est à la fois de la terre et du ciel, c’est Jérusalem; c’est le temple d’Ezéchiel, qui est à lui seul une cité; c’est la cité de l’Apocalypse, qui est tout entière un temple.44 [the one that commands all spiritual constructions, is the construction of the Church: universa spiritualis fabricae structura. . . . The symbol is at the same time the house of Wisdom, Noah’s ark, the tabernacle, the temple, the house of the wedding from the gospel parable. The Church, which is at the same time of earth and of heaven, is Jerusalem; it is the temple of Ezekiel, which is itself a city, it is the city of the Apocalypse, which is in all its entirety, a temple.]

And of this great Church, “l’église visible et matérielle est le signe.”45 As we have seen in Chapter Three, the rituals and prayers for the dedication of a Christian church supply what is perhaps the most comprehensive and artfully designed demonstration of this play of metaphors, all pointing directly or indirectly to the concept of the church as a figure of the New Jerusalem. It is indeed striking how many of the most common architectural motifs found in the medieval exegetical tradition are included or referred to in the Cotton Nero poems: Noah’s Ark, Solomon’s Temple, the house in the Gospel parable of the wedding feast, the historical and the Heavenly Jerusalem.46 The two garden landscapes in Pearl also have architectural connotations that were promoted by the medieval exegetes. The green “erber,” for example, described in the poem’s opening stanzas is an enclosed space that the jeweler-dreamer must enter:

43 Exégèse Médiévale, 7. (Trans. An edifice or a celestial structure, which rises in silence, like in

former times the Temple of Jerusalem.)

44 Ibid. 50. 45 Ibid. 53. (The church visible and material is the sign.) 46 Not unlike Dante, then, the poet has created not merely a literary extension but a literary imitation

of biblical texts. Ronald B. Herzman explores the question of whether Dante saw the Apocalypse as a model for his Commedia. This chapter is one way of investigating the extent to which the Pearl poet used the Apocalypse as a model for his own literary art. See Herzman, “Dante and the Apocalypse,” in The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, 398–413.

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture To þat spot þat I in speche expoun I entred in that erber grene. (37–8)47 [To that spot that I describe in speech, I entered into that green garden.]

By calling this enclosed garden “a spot of spysez” (25) and referring later to the pearl maiden as “Þat special spyce” (235, 938) the poet links both garden and maiden to the hortus conclusus, the enclosed spice garden from the Song of Songs (4.12).48 The location and physical attributes of the “erber” stimulate the jeweler’s recollection, grief, and longing for his lost pearl. The maiden is an inhabitant of the heavenly realm; through her divine intercession, the “spot of spysez” takes on sacred associations and becomes an addition to the system of mixed metaphors related to the biblical hortus conclusus. As Andrew and Waldron point out, the enclosed garden of the Song of Songs “was variously interpreted as allegorically representing the Virgin Mary, Christ’s human nature, Christ’s resurrection, and the Church.”49 The “erber” is a locus in which the jeweler’s bereavement and longing for the pearl are isolated and concentrated, but the “erber” itself “does not exist in isolation,” since it is a prefiguration of both the Paradise garden and the New Jerusalem.50 Medieval conceptions of Paradise were part of the complex system of metaphors that included architectural motifs. The garden of Eden, for example, was seen as a prefiguration of the Church, Heaven, and the Paradise of the Christian soul. The Heavenly Paradise was understood by medieval exegetes as a kind of interpretive force, or standard, that transformed the scriptural events of Christian history into a panorama of sacred symbols, with the New Jerusalem as the edifice that spans all meanings, earthly and spiritual.51 The Pearl poet’s metaphorical treatment of this impressive collection of architectural motifs is excellent evidence that the poet was familiar with not 47 “The precise use of the prepositions should be observed: the poet goes into the herb garden to the

spot in that garden where the grave is.” Gordon, 47 nn. 37–8.

48 See P. M. Kean, “The Pearl: An Interpretation (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967), 16; C. A.

Luttrell, “Pearl: Symbolism in a Garden Setting,” Neophilologus 49 (1965): 160–76; Marie P. Hamilton, “The Meaning of the Middle English Pearl,” Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 70 (1955): 805–24. The tradition of medieval gardens as representatives of the terrestrial paradise or the garden of love can be traced to the classical conception of the locus amoenus; see Ernst R. Curtius, European Literature and Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask, Bollingen Series 36 (Princeton, Princeton UP, 1973), 192–200; and Derek Pearsall and Elizabeth Salter, Landscapes and Seasons of the Medieval World (Toronto and Buffalo: U of Toronto P, 1973), 56–118. 49 The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, 53–54 n. 9. 50 Pearsall and Salter, Landscapes and Seasons, 103. My discussion here of the symbolic relationship between the garden landscapes and the New Jerusalem in Pearl owes much to the excellent observations of Pearsall and Salter, 59, 102–3. 51 Derek Pearsall and Elizabeth Salter summarize this medieval perspective: “The teaching of the Church on Paradise provided writers and artists, as it did preachers and students of theology, with a range of alternatives, rather than with a straightforward choice between literal and spiritual truth, between history and exegesis. Above all, it provided for the simultaneous holding of beliefs which to later ages might seem mutually exclusive,” Landscapes and Seasons, 59.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem only their biblical significance but with how these motifs were treated allegorically by medieval exegetes. The New Jerusalem in Pearl is the architectural space that emits a light brighter than the sun, a light that penetrates the Paradise garden and beyond, to the “spot of spycez” where the jeweler lost his pearl. It is, therefore, the overarching symbol of the poem, the edifice that gives “shape” to the garden landscapes and, ultimately, to the poem itself. The wide range of architectural motifs included in the Cotton Nero poems has not gone unnoticed by literary medievalists.52 Scholars have drawn attention to ways in which smaller enclosures, like the boxes, chests, graves, houses, and arks, function as “microcosms of the larger enclosures of temples and cities.”53 Besides the architectural motifs already mentioned, one may include in this catalogue of enclosures the curtained bed and the green chapel in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Lot’s house in Cleanness, and the whale’s belly in Patience, which is presented as a kind of exotic grave for Jonah. Previous studies on the poet’s use of enclosed spaces treat the subject primarily from a theoretical perspective. Beyond a general acknowledgment of the poet’s delight in describing the external details of literary edifices, large and small, the poet is thought to have conceived of space abstractly, without any specific, or specifically learned, interest in the architectural projects of his own day. There has been no attempt, therefore, to understand the poet’s interest in architectural motifs, eschatological themes, and ornament by taking a careful look at late medieval English architecture, except in a very general way, as in the case of Elizabeth Salter’s observations on the poem. My suggestion that the poet was attempting to build, with Pearl, a kind of late medieval ecclesiastical edifice – a literary church in miniature form – is, therefore, novel; yet the poem’s complex structure, ornamental qualities, and eschatological landscapes – informed by the themes and imagery of the other poems – suggest this possibility. Further, no one has examined the role of liturgy in conjunction with the poet’s interest in architectural forms; in other words, the Pearl poet liturgists and the literary space theorists do not seem to have benefited from their respective studies.54

52 A study by S. L. Clark and Julian N. Wasserman on the Pearl poet’s city imagery, and Sarah

Stanbury’s work on space and visual perception in the poems are two prominent examples of this scholarship: “The Pearl Poet’s City Imagery,” The Southern Quarterly XVI (1978): 297–309; see also Sarah Stanbury, “Space and Visual Hermeneutics in the Gawain-Poet,” The Chaucer Review 21 (1987): 476–89; Stanbury, “Visions of Space: Acts of Perception in Pearl and in Some Late Medieval Illustrated Apocalypses,” Mediaevalia 10 (1988): 133–58; Stanbury, Seeing the Gawain-Poet; Description and the Act of Perception (Philadelphia, U of Pennsylvania P, 1991). 53 Clark and Wasserman, “The Pearl Poet’s City Imagery,” 300–1. 54 For an excellent, recent survey on the uses of liturgy in medieval literature, see Evelyn Birge Vitz, “The Liturgy and Vernacular Literature,” in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. Thomas J. Heffernan and E. Ann Matter (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan U), 551–618.

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Burial Mound, Sion, Jerusalem: “it is the same thing” – “tout entière un temple” For further evidence of the poet’s awareness of the forms and symbolic meaning of Gothic architecture and of his ambitions as a master builder, it will be helpful to examine some of the terms the poet uses to describe his landscapes, as well as the close links between these terms and medieval ecclesiastical structures. Roughly one-third of Pearl is devoted to a detailed description of the New Jerusalem, its walls, foundations, precious stones, and the river of life. It is presented as an elaborate architectural space, a city or a kind of castle, and a locus for liturgical celebration.55 In the Middle Ages the terms used to denote cities and buildings were used interchangeably.56 Augustine was an influential guide to this linguistic flexibility in descriptions of sacred buildings: It does not matter whether we call this house [of which Christ is the foundation] the House of God or the Temple of God or the City of God, and none of these names is at odds with customary Latin speech. (De civitate Dei, XV.19)

According to Augustine, even Virgil “imitates” scripture when he calls the Romans “the house of Aeneas,” since in the Bible the Hebrews are called “The house of Jacob.”57 As Jill Mann has pointed out, the walls of a city bound it into a single architectural entity, and conversely, a castle, which we might think of as a single building, was not so much an individual dwelling as a centre of population.58

In other words, a walled city or a castle is first of all a community. The Church itself is the exemplary community, the “house” of which Christ is the foundation and which has both spiritual and material representations. It is a “château-fort” as Lubac observes, since it remains standing – even flourishing – while enduring besiegement on every side by the enemy.59 In Robert Grosseteste’s Chasteau d’Amour, the body of the Virgin is a figure of a castle, the point being that she is the protective sanctuary of God made flesh and from her springs the Church on earth and Heaven.60 55 For examples of instances when the poet refers to the New Jerusalem as a city, see lines 957, 1023,

56 57 58 59 60

1048. For references to the New Jerusalem as a castle or medieval manor see, for example, lines 1029 and 1083. For the New Jerusalem as a setting for liturgy, see lines 861–62, 1093–96, and 1119–26. See Roberta D. Cornelius, “The Figurative Castle: A Study in the Mediæval Allegory of the Edifice with Especial Reference to Religious Writings” (Ph.D. diss., Bryn Mawr, 1930), 10–13. Cf. Eph. 2.20; Aeneid, I.284; III.97. “Allegorical Buildings in Mediaeval Literature,” Medium Aevum LXIII (1994): 193. Exégèse Médiévale, 53. See Cornelius, “The Figurative Castle,” 37–48 and Jill Mann, “Allegorical Buildings,” 198. The middle English versions of Grosseteste’s poem have been edited by Kari Sajavaara, The Middle

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem The medieval fondness for viewing the Church, the temples of Solomon and Ezekiel, and the historical and Heavenly Jerusalem as alternative expressions of one another is, as we have seen, eloquently observed by Lubac.61 This conception of the New Jerusalem as a temple “tout entière” is also clearly demonstrated in Pearl: Kyrk þerinne watz non yȢete, Chapel ne temple þat euer watz set; The AlmyȢty watz her mynster mete, Þe Lombe þe sakerfyse þer to refet. (1061–64) [Yet there was no church in that place, no chapel nor temple was ever built there; the Almighty was her noble minster, the Lamb, the sacrifice to refresh (the inhabitants) there.]

The poet qualifies his sacred city in this way so that his audience may not interpret it as kind of earthly edifice. Although he describes its architectural and decorative features in great detail, the city is, ultimately, beyond human imagination. Although the church built by human hands is a representation of the New Jerusalem, one must not err in believing that the New Jerusalem can be understood completely in human terms. Heaven does not contain a church, because there is no need for one; it is “tout entière” a temple through the everlasting presence and worship of Christ. In the Cotton Nero poems and in St. Erkenwald, we find a conscious adherence to this tradition of mingling medieval concepts of city, dwelling, castle, and temple. In addition, the poet expresses these concepts with terms denoting tombs or grave-sites, shrines, and cloisters. This practice is especially evident in Pearl. In the maiden’s conversation with the dreamer, for example, she speaks of the historical city of Jerusalem and uses designations from Hebrews 12.22 and Revelation 3.12 (“ceté of God” and “syght of pes”) that denote the Heavenly City (950–52). Alternatively, she describes the New Jerusalem as the “hyl of Syon, that semly clot” (789) (the hill of Sion, that fair “clot”), with “clot” denoting clay, earth, or hill. “Clot” incidentally is the same word used to identify the spot where the jeweler-dreamer lost his pearl; in other words, this is a location associated with a burial mound, a grave. It is also the spot to which the dreamer returns after he awakens and where he makes reference to the eucharistic liturgy. The pearl maiden’s activity in the New Jerusalem is identified as a specific liturgical activity, a celebration of the Mass: Þe Lombe vus gladez, oure care is kest; He myrþes vus all at vch a mes. (862)

English Translations of Robert Grosseteste’s ‘Château d’Amour,’ Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 32 (Helsinki: Uusfilologinen yhdistys, 1967). 61 See p. 170 above.

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture [The Lamb makes us glad, our care is removed; he (Christ) delights us all at every Mass.]

The Burial mound, Syon (Sion), and Jerusalem are all, therefore, locations for liturgy. Other synonyms the poet uses for the Celestial City in Pearl are “bylde” (963), “mote” (936–37, 948–49, 973), and “wone(z)” (1049, Pl. 32, 917, 924, 1027), the last term meaning “dwelling(s) or abode(s).” One occurrence of “wonez” seems to be a reference to the concept of Heaven as an abode of many mansions.62 Þe wonez withinne enurned ware Wyth alle kynnez perré þat moȢt repayre.

(1027–28)

[The dwellings within (the Heavenly city) were adorned with all precious stones that could be gathered there.]

In St. Erkenwald, “cenacle” (336) relates to the Latin “coenaculum,” the upper chamber or room, where the holy spirit descended upon the apostles.63 The cenacle is where the judge, after having been baptized by the bishop, is welcomed into Heaven (336). The gate-enclosed space that contains the tomb in St. Erkenwald is called a “cloyster” (140). In Pearl, Heaven is also called a “cloystor” (969), which some editors have glossed as “city” or “city wall.” The word “lome” in St. Erkenwald is used for coffin (68, 149); the same word is used in Cleanness for Noah’s Ark. (149). In Pearl, the maiden tells the dreamer that she is enclosed in a “cofer so comly clente” (259) meaning the earthly Paradise, but as Marie Borroff points out, cofer could also mean “coffin.”64 The latter meaning of the word refers the reader back to the opening “clot” where the pearl is buried. The garden landscapes are metaphors for Paradise, and as the crowning image in this network of architectural motifs, the New Jerusalem in Pearl is at once coffer, city, castle, cloyster, shrine, and pearl (735).

From Burial “huyle” to Apocalyptic Vision: The Shaping of Scripture and Light in Pearl The medieval ecclesiastical edifice, like the dreamer’s vision in Pearl, was a blended space designed to accommodate a display of sacramental ornament and for commemorative, communal worship. The display of ornament and 62 Jn. 14.2. 63 Acts 1.13–14. 64 Pearl, xix. Borroff adds, “An analogy becomes irresistible: the verbal artifact called Pearl is itself

a kind of painstakingly crafted container, embellished with every device of language in order that it may be worthy of its contents, the vision of the pearl-maiden and the precious teachings she imparts . . . [Pearl] can be contemplated . . . as a patterned object.”

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem liturgical worship was contained within an architectural frame that was perceived, as Abbot Suger described it, as a space existing halfway between the sacred and the temporal realms.65 From ancient times, ecclesiastical edifices were constructed upon burial sites. St.-Denis outside of Paris is a famous example of this practice, for the medieval church is thought to have been built on the site where the third-century remains of Denis and his martyred companions, Rusticus and Eleutherius, were buried.66 As we have seen, Pearl adheres to this tradition of shaping an apocalyptic vision on a burial site. The jeweler enters the enclosed “erber” and his vision rises up from or out of the “clot,” (20) “huyle” (41), or mound that covers the pearl and where the dreamer laments his loss: I playned my perle þat þer waȢ spenned .... I felle vpon þat floury flaȢt, Suche odour to my herneȢ schot; I slode vpon a slepyng-slaȢte ... Fro spot my spyryt þer sprang in space; My body on balke þer bod in sweuen. My goste is gon in GodeȢ grace In aventure þer mervayleȢ meuen. (53–64)67 [I mourned for my pearl that was imprisoned there . . . I fell upon that flowery turf, such odor rushed to my head; I slipped into a deep sleep. . . . From that spot my spirit rose after a time; my body remained there on the ground in sleep. My spirit rose up in God’s grace, on a quest where marvels take place (literally, where marvels “move” or “stir”).]

The three main landscapes of Pearl – the “erber,” the Paradise garden, and the vision of the New Jerusalem – correspond to the three main elements of a typical medieval ecclesiastical edifice: the main entrance (frequently the west portal), the nave, and the eastern choir and sanctuary. The “erber” is the location of entrance and exit; it is the gate that leads to the vision and it will be the spot to which he will return at the end of the poem. The long, central portion of Pearl is a place of instruction, observation, and penance, where all the elements of the landscape are described in terms of medieval metalwork: rocks are crystal, leaves are silver, the dreamer’s path is made of pearls, the banks of the stream that separate him from the maiden are 65 On Suger’s description of the church building as a blended space, see Chapter Three, 70–71, 95. 66 In the fifth century, Sainte Geneviève is believed to have persuaded the priests to build a chapel

over the tombs of Denis and his companions, and this chapel became what was to be the mausoleum of the kings of France. See Sumner McKnight Crosby, The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis from its Beginnings to the Death of Suger, 475–1151, 3–7. 67 Here I follow E. V. Gordon’s edition of Pearl; Gordon retains the MS reading “spenned” (as opposed to Andrew and Waldron’s “penned,” 53). Also Gordon does not insert terminal punctuation between “bod” and “in” (62), as Andrew and Waldron do.

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture made of gold, and the stream itself is filled with gems. Although the dreamer sees, hears, and responds to the maiden’s instruction, the glittering stream is the boundary that separates him from the maiden and the divine realm she represents. The stream, as boundary, serves as a poetic rendering of the medieval altar screen, on the “west side” of which the dreamer must remain: Ȣe setten Hys wordez ful westernays Þat leuez noþynk bot Ȣe hit syȢe; (307–308) [You set his words completely awry, (you) who believe nothing unless you see it.]

The word “westernays” is probably a form of the Old French “bestorneis,” meaning “awry” and modified by the poet “as a result of its application to churches facing west instead of east.”68 The dreamer’s vague understanding of doctrinal matters is “westward” looking, and is opposed to the eastern orientation of all the sacred figures in the poem. The various images of pearls – from lost child and maiden, to the pearly gravel, and finally to the pearls of the New Jerusalem – are all said to be from the “oryente,” that is, from the east. The association of Paradise with the east was a common medieval convention, but its application here is particularly significant, for it positions the dreamer’s spiritual journey as one that moves from west to east, returning, finally, to the original locus of departure. The most interesting aspect of the dreamer’s response to this landscape – interesting, that is, from an architectural perspective – is that the dreamer thinks he sees Paradise beyond the stream: Forþy I þoȢt þat paradyse Watz þer ouer gayn þo bonkez brade; (137–38) [wherefore I thought that paradise was over against the broad banks;]

When the dreamer encounters the maiden, he wonders why he does not see a walled city. She seems, to him, too precious to appear outside the limits of Jerusalem: Haf Ȣe no wonez in castel-walle, Ne maner þer Ȣe may mete and won? Þou tellez me of Jerusalem þe ryche ryalle, Þer Dauid dere watz dyȢt on trone, Bot by þyse holtez hit con not hone, Bot in Judée hit is, þat noble note. (917–23) [Have you no dwellings in a walled-castle, no mansion where you may meet and live? You tell me of the royal kingdom of Jerusalem, where

68 See Andrew and Waldron eds, The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript, 69 n. 307 and E. V. Gordon ed.,

Pearl, 57 n. 307.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem worthy David was set on a throne, but by these woods it is not situated, it is in Judaea, that noble structure.]

The dreamer is disturbed by the thought that the maiden and the “motelez meyny” (925) who are her companions “schulde lyȢ þeroute” (930, sleep out of doors), for such a large retinue would require the shelter of “gret ceté” (927). What appears at first to be a misunderstanding of the maiden’s habitation, proves instead to be a metaphoric exchange of the spice garden for a vision of the earthly Paradise, a Paradise that should – in all due respect for the “pakke of joly juele” (929) that dwell there – be a castellum.69 With the maiden’s explanation that she lives not in the “olde Jerusalem” (941), but in the “nwe” (943), where “glory and blysse schal ever encres” (959), “the two gardens, the two cities, the two concepts” merge; that is, the “web of reference and change” comes full circle.70 At the apex of the dreamer’s vision is the Heavenly City, which serves as the poem’s eastern window. It is not a sustained vision, but it is, nonetheless, a long moment in which God’s presence is apprehended and commemorated in the image of bread and wine at the poem’s closing. If we allow ourselves to recognize the structural similarities of Pearl with the typical, medieval church building, the patterns of concatenation that link the poem’s stanzas begin to look like the tracery patterns in late Gothic windows or the cross ribs of a Gothic vault. The lierne vault of English Decorated and the fan vault of English Perpendicular (such as those in the choir and chantries at Tewkesbury Abbey) reproduce the radiating patterns of Rayonnant windows on ceilings and, therefore, provide near-perfect architectural parallels with the design of Pearl. The individual bays of a Gothic vault are, perhaps, represented by the poem’s carefully proportioned, linked stanzas. Indeed, the fusion of circular and symmetrical geometric patterning, the abundant use of ornament and color, and the presentation of smaller enclosures as microcosms of the larger edifice in which they stood, were precisely the features of late English Gothic that the Pearl poet adopted and applied to his own art. Given these striking similarities in both design and artistic purpose, the poet must have been familiar with Christian adaptations of Platonic number theory, such as we find in the following passage by Gregory of Nyssa, explaining the relationship between the Platonic fusion of geometric forms and the design of sacred architecture: The form of the chapel is a cross, which has its figure completed throughout, as you would expect, by four structures. The junctions of the buildings intercept one another, as we see everywhere in the cruciform pattern. But within the cross there lies a circle, divided by eight angles (I call the 69 The exchange here is, according to Pearsall and Salter, “a familiar medieval variation upon the

walled garden of Genesis, particularly in the literature of the Alexander legends” (Landscapes and Seasons, 104). 70 Ibid. 105–6.

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture octagonal figure a circle in view of its circumference), in such a wise that the two pairs of sides of the octagon which are diametrically opposed to one another, unite by means of arches the central circle to the adjoining blocks of the building; while the other four sides of the octagon, which lie between the quadrilateral buildings, will not themselves be carried to meet the buildings, but upon each of them will be described a semicircle like a shell, terminating in an arch above: so that the arches will be eight in all, and by their means the quadrilateral and the semicircular buildings will be connected, side by side, with the central structure. (Epistolae XVI, 31)71

Mary Carruthers has treated literary buildings as occasions for “mnemonic technique” and “meditational recollection.”72 She argues that literary descriptions of churches, monastery buildings, castles, towers, amphitheaters, and “smaller-scale forms,” such as trees, ladders, cloisters or enclosed gardens were perceived as having been “built by an architectus or master builder,” and that these builders were the writers themselves.73 Drawing on Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria nova (1202) in which he discusses the poetic craft in terms of constructing a building, Carruthers writes: in the memory, things are enclosed as in a recess, a stronghold, or box (the words commonly used for the idea of memory as a “storage chest” in which memorial things are placed and contained. Composition begins with the laying out of a mental diagram or picture: “intrinseca linea cordis” . . . [a]n interior string, of the sort a master builder would use in laying out the plan of a building, measures out the work.74

According to Geoffrey of Vinsauf, this work is conceived “with a circular structure in mind, a common shape, often subclassified as a ‘rose’ or other sort of wheel, or . . . mappa mundi.”75 It is striking how closely Geoffrey’s conception of poetic composition resembles the structural techniques in Pearl: the series of interconnected enclosures, the verbal building, the interior string of linking words and phrases, the structural and metaphoric circularity combined with a symmetry akin to a frame or progression of distinct symmetrical units, all leading toward a vision of the New Jerusalem. The mappa mundi, which depicts the New Jerusalem at the center of the world, is a particularly intriguing parallel to Pearl. Another characteristic feature of the Cotton poems and St. Erkenwald that lends even stronger credibility to the poet’s envisioning himself as an 71 Gregory of Nyssa’s Epistolae XVI survives in an eleventh-century manuscript in the Laurentian

Library in Florence. Cited in Nigel Hiscock, The Wise Master Builder, 131.

72 The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge:

Cambridge UP, 1998); “The Poet as Master Builder: Composition and Locational Memory in the Middle Ages,” 882, 886. 73 Carruthers, “The Poet as Master Builder,” 882. 74 Ibid. 889. 75 Ibid. 890.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem architectus is the poet’s repeated designation of God as a craftsman or builder. In Cleanness, for example, God is “Þe WyȢ þat wroȢt alle þinges” (5). In Pearl the deity is called “Þe Fader of folde and flode” (736), and in St. Erkenwald, He is the “MaȢty maker of men” (283). Patience, the poem that contains the least number of explicit architectural motifs, contains the greatest number of references to God as builder. In one passage, God is He “Þat eres alle made” (123); in another, “Þe Welder of wyt” (129); and in an ardent speech by Jonah, we find the following description: Þat WyȢe I worchyp, iwysse, þat wroȢt alle þynges, Alle þe worlde with þe welkyn, þe wynde and þe sternes, And alle þat wonez þer withinne, at a worde one. (206–8) [That Person I worship, indeed, that wrought all things, all the world with the sky, the wind, and the stars, and all that live in it, by a single word.]

The supreme model for the dream vision in Pearl is John’s vision in the Book of Revelation. That the poet states repeatedly his allegiance to the biblical text suggests, perhaps, that he saw himself as a participant in a kind of divine workshop, where the word of God, “Þe Welder of wyt,” was revealed to John and passed on to the poet, who recreates the vision for his listeners and readers: Tyl on a hyl þat I asspyed And blusched on þe burghe, as I forth dreued, ByȢonde þe brok, fro me warde keued, Þat schyrrer þen sunne with schaftez schon. In þe Apokalypce is þe fasoun preued, As deuysez hit þe apostel John. (979–84) [Until on a hill I caught sight of the city, and gazed at it as I went forward, having descended (from Heaven) at a distance from me, beyond the brook, that shone with shafts of light brighter than the sun. In the Apocalypse is the fashion of it shown, as the Apostle John describes it.]

If we apply the architectural qualities of Pearl to Carruthers’ theory of medieval ekphrasis, Pearl proves to be a grand exemplar of the medieval imaginative, mnemonic plan, with its painstaking attention to geometric form, its refrains and echo-words, its great variety of architectural motifs and mingling of architectural terms and concepts. One could argue that Pearl is, simply put, a poem about remembrance. On the one hand it serves as an architectural elegy – a shrine to the maiden; on the other it is the task of the dreamer, after he has received his homiletic instruction and is shown the vision of the New Jerusalem, to remember how to act on his own behalf, to be a jeweler in the sense that Christ and the New Jerusalem are jewels. He must, in other words, become the craftsman of his own soul. 180

Pearl as Medieval Architecture

Prayer, Homilies, and Procession: Liturgical Drama and the Literary Chapel Pearl is a poem that literary medievalists have categorized as being simultaneously elegy, consolatio, and dream vision. But it is also a highly liturgical poem; like liturgy, Pearl offers a conception of individuality that is an inescapable part of human experience, even within a concept of human existence that looks to the spiritual realm beyond earthy experience and beyond time. The emotions of mourning and yearning that the poem expresses are not effaced, not even by the knowledge conveyed to the dreamer by the maiden and in his vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem, where death is not a loss and a degeneration but a spiritual birth into a resplendent relationship with the divine. Like the liturgy itself, which is presented and re-presented in an enduring artistic form, the dreamer, who lives in the world of human logic, must be reminded again and again of what gives meaning to his world in the first place. Pearl incorporates through imagery and scriptural teachings the fundamental divisions of the Mass: the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist.76 These divisions are complemented by displays of liturgical spectacle, allusions to specific Christian rites, and to the liturgies of actual feast days. The pearl maiden is the poem’s homiletic voice. As an intermediary between the sacred and the earthly realms, she teaches the tenets of Christian faith relating to repentance, death, and divine Judgment. Scripture is her primary authority for instruction, with references or allusions to readings in both the Old and New Testaments, including Psalms 14 and 23, which, as we’ve seen, were recited as part of the medieval liturgy for the dedication of a Christian church and cited by Abbot Suger in his commentary on the consecration of his new church.77 The maiden’s biblical references also include Isaiah 53, the Book of Wisdom (10.10), the Beatitudes (Matthew 5.3–10), the synoptic Gospels (Luke 18.15–17; Matthew 19.13–15; Mark 10.13–16), the Gospel of John (1.29), and especially the Book of Revelation. The liturgy of the Mass is an explicit point of reference for the pearl maiden in her role as intermediary and instructor: As Mathew melez in your messe In sothfol gospel of God almyȢt: In sample He can ful grayþely gesse And lyknez hit to heuen lyȢt. (497–500) [As Matthew tells you in your Mass, in the true Gospel of Almighty God, in parable he “aptly conceives it” and likens it to a bright Heaven.] 76 See John Gatta, “Transformational Symbolism and the Liturgy of the Mass in Pearl,” Modern

Philology 71 (1973): 249–50.

77 See Chapter Three, 83–4.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem The “sample” referred to here is the parable of the vineyard, whose lord in Pearl tends to his daily activities with an hourly precision reminiscent of a monk’s liturgical schedule. He rises “ful erly” (506) to hire his laborers, goes to the market place “[a]boute vnder” (513), the third hour, or nones, and converses with the “ydel men ful stronge” at “evensonge/ On oure byfore the sonne go doun” (529–31). To be an inhabitant of Heaven in Pearl is to participate in an eternal liturgy, whose celebrant is the Lamb of the Apocalypse: Þe Lombe vus gladez, oure care is kest; He myȢes vus alle at vch a mes. (861–62) [The Lamb makes us glad, our care is removed; he delights us all at every Mass.]

The Lamb is also the beloved recipient of continuous worship by the 144,000 virgins who “harpen in her harpe,” sing “ful cler” the “nwe songe” (881–82), and pass in “prosessyoun” before the Lamb’s throne (1093–96). This liturgical spectacle is completed by the “aldermen” who prostrate themselves before the Lamb (1119–20) and by the “Legyounes of aungelez” (legions of angels) who offer “ensens of swete smelle” (sweet smelling incense) (1121–22) and sing a “songe to loue” the Lamb, “Þat gay Juelle” (1124). The explicit reference to the blessing of bread and wine in the poem’s final stanza completes the liturgical program of the poem, a program that commences with the jeweler clasping his hands in prayer in the opening stanzas (49), continues with scriptural instruction, procession, the offering of incense, and voices raised in song, and ends with the eucharistic meal. This design alone would qualify the poet as something of a liturgist, but we find, as well, correspondences with the liturgies of specific feast days and with the funerary liturgy for children. An important liturgical model for the Pearl poet was the liturgy for the Feast of All Saints’ (1 November) whose readings and themes are employed not only in Pearl (675–84), but also in Patience (11–28) and Cleanness (23–28). In Patience, the poet paraphrases the Beatitudes from Matthew 5 and says that he heard the text “on a halyday, at a hyȢe masse” (9). The “halyday” referred to here is probably All Saints’ Day, as Ordelle Hill and others have pointed out, since after the eighth century the text of the Beatitudes served as the Gospel reading for that feast.78 All Saints’ Day is also the last day that Sir Gawain is at Camelot before he sets off to find the green chapel. In Pearl, the author uses the readings from John’s Apocalypse that served as the epistles for All Saints’ Day. The theme of this feast corresponds remarkably well with

78 Ordelle G. Hill, “The Audience of Pearl,” Modern Philology 66 (1968): 104; Susan J. Rastetter,

“ ‘Bot mylde as maydenes seme at mas’: The Feast of All Saints and Pearl,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 74 (1992): 141–42.

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture that of the poem, since both commemorate the dead who have been granted the reward of heavenly salvation.79 While the liturgy for the Feast of All Saints’ figures prominently in the Pearl poet’s works – a liturgy that fits well with the eschatological themes represented in them – the funerary liturgy for children seems to have been an even greater source of liturgical influence in Pearl.80 Oakden has demonstrated how the funeral rites that were held on the occasion of the death of a child “under the age of discretion” were adopted by the Pearl poet.81 In these rites, flowers that adorn the altar, the child’s coffin, and the priest’s vestments are all white to symbolize the innocence of the deceased. There is no absolution performed, and instead of a requiem there is a votive Mass of the holy angels. The pearl maiden was a child no more than two years old when she died (483); the dreamer’s grief over her death “pervades the whole texture” of the poem,82 while white is the poem’s most pervasive color. Furthermore, much of the pearl maiden’s discussion with the dreamer is an account of why she was able to bypass post-mortem suffering and ascend after death to the Heavenly Jerusalem. The sadness that one encounters in reading Pearl is the sadness of the bereaved dreamer. The poem, argues Oakden, “is a long ‘De profundis,’ which [the poet] has transferred from the Requiem to the rite of infants.” The influence of burial rites” Oakden continues, “is all-pervading.”83 These liturgies for the dead, especially the liturgy for the Feast of All Saints’, are rich with passages from the Book of Revelation.84 Furthermore, they were the most common liturgies celebrated in chantry chapels built in the English churches in the later Middle Ages. It should be recalled, as well, that 79 Rastetter also makes this point (141). There are a number of other feast days that scholars have

80 81 82 83 84

recognized as possible influences in the Pearl poet’s work. See Israel Gollancz’s Introduction and notes to this passage in his edition of Pearl: Pearl: an English Poem of the XIVth century, ed. with modern rendering together with Boccaccio’s Olympia (London: Chatto & Windus, 1921); see also Gordon, ed., Pearl; Andrew and Waldron, eds, Pearl. For additional arguments on the liturgical background of the poems, see William J. Knightley, “Pearl: The hyþ seysoun,” Modern Language Notes 76 (1961): 97–102; M. P. Hamilton, “The Meaning of the Middle English Pearl,” Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 70 (1955): 37–59; Elizabeth Petroff, “Landscape in Pearl: The Transformation of Nature,” Chaucer Review 16 (1981): 181–93; J. P. Oakden, “The Liturgical Influence in Pearl,” Chaucer und Seine Zeit: Symposium für Walter F. Schirmir, ed. Arno Esch. Buchreihe der Anglia, Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 14 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1968), 342, 348, 350–51; Santha Bhattacharji, “Pearl and the Liturgical Common of the Virgins,” Medium Aevum LXIV (1995): 37–50. For the liturgical features of St. Erkenwald, see Peterson (45, 50, 132–33); Evelyn Birge Vitz, “The Liturgy and Vernacular Liturgy,” in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, 567–68. The discussion which follows is based on J. P. Oakden’s study, “The Liturgical Influence in Pearl,” 337–53. Ibid. 339. Ibid. 337. Ibid. 343. C. Clifford Flanigan has shown that the influence of John’s Apocalypse upon medieval liturgy is especially rich (“pervasive” and “complex” are words he uses) in the liturgies for All Saints’ Day and the Feast of the Holy Innocents, “The Apocalypse and the Medieval Liturgy,” The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, 334–36. For my discussion of the liturgies of the chantry Masses, see Chapter Four, 101–2, 104–6, 134.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem the chantry movement was most popular in the North, the northwest Midlands, and in London, the regions of England most often associated with the author of Pearl and its companion poems.85 The liturgical connection, therefore, between the chantries and Pearl could not be more explicit. While there is no evidence in Pearl of a morbid fear of death or hysteria over the sufferings in Purgatory – and this would be the case in the death of young child – nor is it unequivocally an occasion of unqualified hope and pure ascent for the dreamer.86 He is burdened by anxieties and frustrations resulting from his loss, his confusion over the maiden’s spiritual standing, and his urgent desire to somehow keep her – who is beyond his reach – close to him. Just as liturgy is an intrinsic part of the ecclesiastical edifice, so too is the Pearl poet’s presentation of liturgical features intrinsic to the architecture of his poem. The poem is, like the late medieval chantry movement, an occasion for honoring, remembering, and communicating with the dead. But it is also an occasion for instruction, penance, and revelation for the dreamer himself. It is thus a preparation for the dreamer’s own death, forcing him to confront the inevitable Judgment of his own soul. That he has a glimpse of the New Jerusalem is no guarantee of his own future place in it, but it is, perhaps, akin to the experience of a medieval person’s participation in the liturgy of a Mass for the dead within a setting designed to be a figure of the New Jerusalem, like the choir of Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucestershire.87 The elaborate workmanship of the poem is the architectural frame, the “material” setting within which the remembrance, the communication, the instruction, the preparation, and the apocalyptic vision take place. The implication is that liturgical ritual and eschatological landscapes are the necessary “prescriptions” for the “mental task” of the dreamer to construct himself as a sanctuary – of being his own chapel dedicated to the salvation of his own soul.88 It is my view that the author of Pearl wished to participate fully in the structural and stylistic exchange among craftsmen of the late Middle Ages, that he sought, in particular, to create a literary alliance with the metalworker and the mason. This is why, for instance, he describes his gardens using the aesthetic vocabulary of metallurgy, presents his dreamer as a jeweler, and his poem as a minutely controlled, richly ornamented frame for liturgy and a 85 See Chapter Four, 106, 126. 86 Historians stress the close connection between the medieval chantry movement and fear of Purga-

tory. It is significant, however, that no visual evidence associated with the chantry movement (for example, the chapels’ wall paintings and sculpture) exists which shows evidence of a fear or hysteria over sufferings in Purgatory. In addition, the chantry foundation documents also contain no references to fear of Purgatory, only with remembering the dead and the wish to be granted entrance into Heaven. It should be noted, however, that scholars detect Dante’s influence on the Pearl poet though the Purgatorio: Dante’s meeting with Beatrice (XXX 31–99) bears strong resemblance to the dreamer’s encounter with the pearl maiden (160–94). 87 See Chapter Four, 127, 128, 129–34. 88 I quote “prescriptions” and “mental task” from Carruthers, who applies these terms to the “picturae and formae which we encounter in twelfth-century literature, such as in the meditations of Hugh and Richard of St. Victor.” See Carruthers, “The Poet as Master Builder,” 900.

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Pearl as Medieval Architecture vision of the New Jerusalem. The Gothic influence upon the poem, then, is not general or superficial; it is a literary project that is meant to be seen, as well as read and heard. Further, it is meant to be recognized as an alliance with a specific ecclesiastical setting, namely the private chapel, or chantry, of late medieval England. The courtly poems of the Cotton Nero manuscript and St. Erkenwald were conceived by a poet (or small group of poets) whose life was touched daily by the chantry movement and whose creative efforts conveyed the same preoccupation with death, divine judgment, and material preciousness. As we have seen, the author of Pearl was wonderfully sensitive to the stylistic refinements that took place in the middle of the fourteenth century in churches like Gloucester and Old St. Paul’s, for he understood his craft as he understood his architectural environment: systems of mutually illuminating spaces, the large and small edifices reflecting one another stylistically and conceptually. He was keenly aware of the potential of architecture to express Christian beliefs and practices in an intense, concentrated, and exemplary way, for he conceived of his own poem as an architectural genre combining lavish ornamentation with “structural dexterity” and “geometric complexity.”89 The argument I maintain is that the poet was familiar with some – perhaps all – of the monuments I have discussed in this study, such as the Sainte-Chapelle, St. Stephen’s chapel, Gloucester Abbey, and Tewkesbury Abbey. The poet, therefore, was by no means “provincial,” but traveled to London and in the Midland regions between Cheshire and the southeast, probably to France and perhaps as far as Italy. As a member of the court of Richard II or a member of the household of a noble family, the poet would have had ample opportunities for such travel.90 When we consider the Cotton Nero poems and St. Erkenwald in light of the architectural developments in late medieval England, Pearl especially seems to be an effort to combine the ornamental richness of Decorated with the structural unity of Perpendicular. The meticulous craftsmanship of the poem and the landscapes defined within the structural framework are presented in a Platonic language of geometric form: in the metaphor of the circle, for example (the abundant pearl imagery and the poetic structure itself), in the numerical symmetry of the stanza groups, and in the description of the New Jerusalem. The poem is a literary expression of the Sainte-Chapelle, but updated in light of English architectural developments and the chantry move89 Bucher, 83. 90 I discuss the historical background of the Pearl poet in a recent article, providing more detailed

evidence for these assertions that point in a specific way to the poet’s likely travels and exposure to medieval ecclesiastical architecture, especially his familiarity with chantry architecture. The exquisite chantry chapels in the Decorated choir of Tewkesbury Abbey are, I argue, especially compelling subjects for studies that seek to gain a more accurate understanding of the Pearl poet’s local courtly culture and architectural environment. See my article, “The Despersers and the Gawain Poet: A Gloucester link to the Alliterative Master of the Northwest Midlands,” The Chaucer Review 35 (2001): 413–429.

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Medieval Allegory and the Building of the New Jerusalem ment, which helped to transform the private chapel from a space of worship for royalty to a liturgical space desired by all who could afford one, and where the daily confrontation with death was given a spatial and liturgical expression on an intimate, private scale. The nineteenth-century scholars who devised the architectural categories of Decorated and Perpendicular were largely interested in identifying differences between styles, and so their divisions are perhaps more rigid than the medieval perspective. My aim has been to understand the monuments from the perspective of a fourteenth-century English poet who attempted to apply their ornamental, architectural, and symbolic features to his own art. In Pearl, ornament and structural unity – prominent stylistic features of the Decorated and Perpendicular styles respectively – are not presented as competing systems of expression. There is a balanced emphasis on ornament and controlled structure or space – equal contributors to the concept of the poem as an eschatological landscape and as a setting for a vision of the New Jerusalem. The spiritual journey in Pearl is described in a visually precise and elaborate manner, drawing on images and concepts that have unmistakable affinities with the symbolic programs of medieval church architecture. It is a minutely controlled presentation, in poetic form, of Platonic light metaphysics. It is a demonstration of how the image may be perceived as an artifact of philosophical allegory; that is, as an invitation to spiritual transformation. Finally, the Pearl poet was conscious of the function of ecclesiastical architecture as the setting for the dramatization of Christian mysteries. The beliefs and rituals that were expressed through medieval liturgy are essential to an understanding of the symbolic programs of the edifices and the stylistic developments that those edifices portray. In short, Pearl is a “nexus” between architecture, goldsmithing, and literature, but it is at the same time a dramatization of an action that derives its eschatological force from the liturgical commemoration of the dead and a concern with the fate of the soul after death.91 These eschatological themes are presented through the personal experience of the dreamer; it is this “private” eschatology that links the poem so closely with the chantry movement of late medieval England and to the chapels that stood as its architectural expression.

91 Bucher had used the term “nexus” to describe the symbiotic relationship between architecture and

goldsmithing in three-dimensional, micro-architectural objects (73).

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Epilogue This book has explored how modern men and women are to understand the remarkable medieval effort to build Heaven on earth. Technical, sociological, and political motivations have entered into discussions in each of the chapters, but my main interest has been the religious motivations that stood behind the architecture of revelation in the medieval west. By studying some of the most important philosophical, theological, and liturgical traditions; by visiting some of the extant buildings themselves; and by becoming familiar with some of the great literature of the period, we come closer to understanding the spirituality that inspired these medieval achievements. Sometimes one arrives at a greater understanding by accident. On 11 June 2002, the feast day of Saint Barnabus, I attended a noon liturgy in the Chapelle Mansart in the church of Saint-Séverin, located in one of the few remaining sections of Paris’ Latin Quarter that retains the medieval pattern of streets. Later that afternoon, I studied at the Bibliothèque of the Institut d’Études Augustiniennes. This library is located in what was the medieval Abbot’s Palace of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The collection of approximately 45,000 volumes is dedicated to the study of Saint Augustine, including all aspects of the Augustinian theological tradition and, more broadly, to the history of Christianity from late antiquity. The readers’ work areas are all in one small room and placed adjacent to open stacks of reference materials. There is space enough for only about twelve readers, but most desks are situated so that one may look out at eye-level to the church’s famous Romanesque bell tower, the oldest in the city, and onto the church’s nave. The Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés was, of course, one of the most important intellectual communities in western medieval Europe, and historians of art and architecture make the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés one of their priorities when visiting Paris to see its medieval achievements. One of the books I pulled from the shelves that day was the Histoire de L’Abbaye Royale de Saint-Denys en France.1 In it I read (and was reminded) that the great consecration of Abbot Suger’s new church had taken place on 11 June 1144, exactly 858 years before, on the feast of Saint Barnabé. The coincidence struck me then, as it does now, as remarkable, because it had connected my experience with something that happened so long ago. This striking continuity of time and place had been established by the accidental convergence of a variety of stories and buildings: the story of a saint’s life; the story Abbot Suger told of the building of his new church; the story of Augus1

Michel Félibien (Paris: Éditions du Palais Royal, 1973).

187

Epilogue tine’s conversion and the monumental theological history that his works and influence represent; the simple, light-filled chapel in Saint-Séverin; the abbey church of Saint-Denis whose crown of chapels inaugurated medieval French Gothic; and the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, whose medieval flèche stands out as a precious sign of one of the most intellectually vibrant and culturally rich cities in the world, in the twelfth century as in the present. One of the many gratifying results of this project has been the insight I have gained on how the “disciplined” distinctions between philosophy, theology, liturgy, architecture, and literature so fluidly interacted with one another in the medieval effort to represent the New Jerusalem on earth. I remain especially impressed by the anonymous, late medieval poem, Pearl, extant in a single, unimpressive manuscript and written in a dialect of English that was becoming obsolete even while it was being written. The poem, however, demonstrates this fluidity and convergence of medieval forms of expression with exquisite care and imagination, and with a religious sensibility that belonged to a whole set of cultural practices that have all but disappeared. The sacred architecture of the Hebrew Bible and the Book of Revelation provided the transformational image of the New Jerusalem, and medieval theologians, liturgists, and artists responded to that image in ways that have never been surpassed. The Hellenistic world that informs the teachings of St. Paul and the fourth Gospel provided the metaphysical foundation for the craft and transformational spirituality of medieval allegory. Medieval liturgy dramatized in a spectacular way the Christian-Platonic pilgrimage of the soul and qualified the architectural spaces in which those liturgies were celebrated as Plotinian screens of beauty and Augustinian sacraments. An anonymous poem about death and love places us at the apocalyptic threshold of the divine realm and asks us to take the sacramental allegory seriously. In the beginning was the Word, and what is left at the end of the poem is the burial mound and the sacrament itself.

188

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Index Page numbers in bold type refer to illustrations and their captions. A note is normally indexed only if the topic for which it is cited is not mentioned in the corresponding discussion in the body of the text. Abraham 63 ad imaginem Dei 47, 51 adornment/ornament as terms in allegoresis 141–2 as unveiling of ideas/perfection/ revelation 51–2, 91, 142–4, 155 see also Augustine: sacramental theology; Plotinus: sacramental cosmology, screen of beauty; veil/screen of allegory Alcuin 16–17 All Saints’ Day, liturgy 182–3 All Souls’ Day, liturgy 101–2 allegory (allegoria, alia oratio, allêgoroumena, alieniloquium) Dante, use of 1, 3 as epistemological process 4 etymology of the term 2 God’s Covenant as 63–4 in Homer 3 interpretive and compositional traditions of 2–4, 144–5 in Latin and Greek grammarians and rhetoricians 2–3 Old Testament, Christian interpretations using 13 Philo Judaeus, terminology for 27 n.5, 28 Plotinus’ screen of beauty as veil of 41–2, 52 related terms in ancient and medieval texts 2–3 requires interpretation 144–5 St. Paul’s teachings on 4, 4 n.7, 64 as a term in New Testament 2–3 veil/screen of 4, 21, 52, 140, 143–6, 147–8, 155, 186 in Virgil’s poetry 13, 22 see also under architecture (biblical); architecture (medieval church); Augustine of Hippo; Bede, Venerable; Pearl; Plato see also Bede, Venerable: exegesis of biblical architecture; Dedication liturgy at St-Denis: architecture/architectural motifs in, symbolism in; exegesis; imago; Jerusalem (historical city); New Jerusalem Ambrose, Saint 20, 31 on Ark of Noah 169

Amiens Cathedral (Notre Dame) 111, 121 Ammonius Saccus 31, 32 n.19 anagogy 42, 73 allegorical level of 3 art/architecture, as means to 70, 74, 146 liturgy, as means to 96, 146 see also adornment/ornament; Jacob’s vision; movement/journey/pilgrimage; New Jerusalem; Paradise; revelation; soul; theophania analogia 31 n.15 Angoulême Cathedral (St-Pierre) 121 Anne of Bohemia, queen of England (under Richard II) 98, 103, 157 Apocalypse see Revelation, Book of apocalyptic eschatology see eschatology apocalyptic literature, interpretive complexities of 6 architect God/logos/Wisdom as 15, 18, 19, 30, 74, 180 ideal, in Vitruvius 14–15, 18 see also art/artist under Eriugena; Plotinus architectural history renaissance 12 traditions of scholarship in (medieval) 1–2, 6–7 and Vitruvius 12 architectural theory and biblical exegesis 16–17 and Vitruvius 12, 22 architecture/architectural motifs and burial sites 176 Cistercian 22 Garden of Eden as 171 humanist 14 as image of cosmos 14, 17 and the liberal arts 14 Paradise as 171 Virgin Mary as 173 see also under Cotton Nero MS: poems; Dedication liturgy at St.-Denis; liturgy; St. Erkenwald; titles of poems in the Cotton Nero MS see also architecture (biblical); architecture (Gothic); architecture (medieval church); Bede, Venerable: exegesis of biblical

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Index architecture; chapels, chantry; chapels, royal; literary edifices; names/locations of specific buildings architecture (biblical) Christian allegories of 20–1, 83–4, 87, 89–90, 94, 170–1, 173, 188 and liturgy 6, 87 sacred Hebrew 4, 17–20, 87 see also architecture/architectural motifs; Ark of the Covenent; Ark of Noah; Augustine: Jerusalem/Babylon; Bede, Venerable: exegesis of biblical architecture; Covenant (biblical); exegesis; Jacob’s vision; Jerusalem; literary edifices; New Jerusalem; Solomon’s Temple; Tabernacle architecture (Gothic) Decorated, genre of 108, 111, 114–17, 118, 130–1, 162, 178, 185–6 developement of 9, 73, 94, 124 features of (general) 158, 185 French Rayonnant, genre of 110–12, 115, 117, 119, 162, 178 and light/Illumination 36, 70–3, 94, 112–13, 147 as micro-architecture 108, 110, 114, 119, 125 in Cotton Nero MS poems 160–2 literary edifices, response to 158–9 nave as Jacob’s ladder 86 Perpendicular, genre of 108, 111, 115–17, 118, 128, 132, 178, 185–6 and Platonism 6–7, 27, 70, 178–9 politics, displayed through 96, 156–7 reliquary buildings 110–11, 115 see also under Pearl/Gawain poet; Pseudo-Dionysius; St.-Denis, Abbey of see also architecture/architectural motifs; architecture (medieval church); chapels, chantry; chapels, royal; literary edifices; names/locations of individual buildings; New Jerusalem: church building, symbol of see also architecture/architectural motifs under Cotton Nero MS: poems; St. Erkenwald; titles of poems in Cotton Nero MS architecture (medieval church) anagogical potential of 146 as blended space 175–6 and cosmic dynamism 36 distinguished from other art forms 70 eschatology of 4, 8, 60, 64–5, 88–9 as God’s house 82–4 as image of the New Jerusalem biblical sources for 4, 53 evolving concepts of 125, 134, 138 inadequacy of 21–2, 92 theological foundation for 8, 47–8 and liturgy 23, 77–8, 88–9, 124

see also Dedication liturgy at St.-Denis parts of, allegorized 76–7, 93–4 as settings for communication with the dead 109 see also under Pearl; Pearl/Gawain poet see also architecture/architectural motifs; architecture (Gothic); building, act of; chantry movement; chapels, chantry; chapels, royal; literary edifices; New Jerusalem; Pearl; names/locations of individual buildings. Aristotle/aristotelianism 32, 34, 36, 37 n.35, 42, 53 Ark of the Covenant, in exegesis 30, 64 n.62, 83, 89 Ark of Noah, in exegesis 30, 64 n.62, 168, 169, 170 Armstrong, A. H. 40 art/artist anagogical experience through 70, 74, 146 and craftsmen, enchange of ideas/techniques with 110, 119–21, 124, 158–9, 161, 165, 168, 184–5 Eriugena, theory of 74–5 Plato, role of 40 Plotinus, theory of 43–4 see also adornment/ornament; imago; liturgy/liturgical worship: as art/ synthesis of artes Augustine of Hippo, Saint 187–8 use of allegoria, figura, and related terms 2–3, 3 n.3, 63 n.59 on Ark of Noah 169 on body/being (human) 51–4, 91 and caritas/cupiditas 56, 57, 61, 62, 63, 86 and church (building) allegories of 173 Jacob’s stone as (Gen.28) 85–6 Church (Ecclesia) Ark of Noah, figure of 169 as corpus mysticum 49, 55 as corpus permixtum 62, 64 and eschatology 61–2 as eucharistic community 55, 62 Jacob’s vision (Gen.28), figure of 86 role of 55, 61–2 as sacramental signum 8, 55, 56, 61, 62, 91, 188 Christology in 49–53, 54, 55, 69, 147 cities (Jerusalem and Babylon), theology of 8, 31, 47–8, 60–5, 173 civitas (city), as a term 62–3 Covenant (biblical), as allegory 63–4 and Dionysians (twelfth-century), influenced by 71–2 on divine Judgment 54, 64 Eriugena, John Scotus, influenced by 74, 76 eschatology in 51, 60–2, 64 Ethics in 52 on the eucharist 55–6, 57

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Index Hebrew pasch, term and concept in 57 and history, theology of 69 and imperial theology 61 on Jerusalem/Babylon, theology of the two cities 8, 31, 47–8, 60–5, 173 light/Illumination in 45, 52 liturgical worship in 58–60 and Manicheans 51 Plato’s works, known to 28 n.7 platonism/platonists reading of 28–9, 31, 45 transmitter of, to medieval west 8, 28, 30, 69 treatment of 47–51, 53 Plotinus, influence on/treatment by 8, 28–31, 45, 48–9, 52 on prayer (oratio, laus) 58–60 on predestination 50 n.8, 61 n.50 on Psalm 95 169 and religious mystery, linguistic struggle with 53 sacramental theology in 55–60, 86, 140, 142, 147 on salvation 55, 55 n.25 and screen of beauty 52, 53 and sense-world, cognition of 33, 50–1, 54, 147 signs (signa), theory of 55–8, 86 sin, defined by 54, 55 on Solomon’s Temple 64 on soul ascent of, through Christ 53–4 corruptibility of 54 St Paul as authority on allegory 2, 52, 63–4 Suger, Abbot, influenced by 73 Trinitarian theology in 50, 53, 54 and Virgil 53, 173 De civitate Dei 31 in age of transition 48 and architecture of revelation, theological foundation for 8, 47–8 and Jerusalem, allegories of 48, 60–5, 173 on liturgical worship 59 as a pastoral work 61–2 as a patristic work 48 Platonism in 28, 31, 48 and Rome, collapse of 60 Confessiones 31, 33 Contra academicos 31 De doctrina Christiana 56 De magistro 56 Barnabus, Saint, feast of 187 Bede, Venerable and allegorical tradition 20 exegesis of biblical architecture 6, 11, 16–21, 22 and Vitruvius 16–17

De tabernaculo 17 De templo 1, 17 being, levels of, see Plato: hierarchy of being; Plotinus: hyposteses Bernard of Clairvaux on Dedication liturgy (commentary) 72, 91–2 reproach of Abbot Suger by 22 Beth’el/Beth-el 56, 84, 85 Beverly Minster 122, 123, 124–5, 128 Bible, the New Testament allegorical terminology in 2–3 Hellenism in 30, 188 Acts 2 90 Acts 17 72 Chronicles 19 89 Corinthians I.3 1, 18, 95 Corinthians I.10 3, 20, 69 Corinthians I.16 91 Corinthians II.5 52, 90–1, 93 Daniel 10, 12, 21 87 n.64 Ephesians 2 19–22 Exodus 12 57 Exodus 23 56 Exodus 25–40 4, 11, 16, 19 Exodus 25 19 Exodus 26 21, 137 Exodus 29 80 Ezekiel 40–5 4, 30, 84, 146 Galatians 4 2 Genesis 1 47, 51 Genesis 28 56, 84, 85 Hebrews 8 63 Hebrews 10 59 Hebrews 12 84, 174 Isaiah 11 89 Isaiah 53 181 Isaiah 66 21 John 1 30, 181 John 12, 13 55 John 14 115 Jude 9–10 87 n.64 Kings I.5 4, 11, 16, 30 Kings I.8 56 Luke 18 181 Matthew 5 181 Matthew 6 49 Matthew 13 148 Matthew 19 181 Matthew 20 61, 64 Matthew 21 87 Matthew 22 55 Psalm 3 62 Psalm 14 19, 181 Psalm 23 83, 181 Psalm 42 83 Psalm 45 95 Psalm 47 20, 95 Psalm 86 84, 95

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Index Psalm 95 89 Psalm 98 89 Psalm 121 89 Psalm 123 89 Psalm 131 19 Psalm 147 89 Psalms (Songs of Sion) 83–4, 95 Revelation 1 5 Revelation 3 174 Revelation 10 88 Revelation 11 87, 88 Revelation 12 87 n.64 Revelation 14 84 Revelation 17 5 Revelation 21–2 4–5, 6, 52, 89, 91, 146, 147 Romans 12, 51 Song of Songs 4 171 Wisdom 10 181 Bishop, Ian 145 Blenkner, Louis 167 Bloomfield, Morton 146 body/being (human) church (building) as metaphor of 90–1, 95 as living stones 21 Manichean hatred of 51 resurrection of 51 n.5 as sacrament 51–3, 64 St. Paul’s teachings on 18, 51, 52, 90–1 as temple of God 18, 51–3, 64, 91–2 Bogdanos, Theodore 145–6 Bony, Jean 111, 119–20 Borroff, Marie 166, 175 Bourges Cathedral (St-Étienne) 52, 96 Bowers, John 138, 156, 167 Branner, Robert 109–10, 121 Brown, Peter 31 Bucher, François 120–1, 158 building, act of as unveiling of ideas/perfection/revelation 51–2, 91, 142–4 see also adornment/ornament; anagogy; art/artist; revelation buildings, in literature, see literary edifices burial sites, and church buildings 176 Cain and Seth, allegories of 63 Canterbury Cathedral 104 Capetian kings of France 114, 115, 156–7 see also individual monarchs Carolingian Renaissance 16 Carruthers, Mary 179, 180 Chalcidius 27 n.5 chantry, as a term 102 chantry movement 97 documents pertaining to 105, 109 eschatology of 9, 108, 125, 134 and fourteenth-century reformers 99, 107–8 geographical areas of 106, 126, 183–4 and language of memory 102 n.16

and liturgy 101–2, 104–6, 134, 183–4 priests’ role in 106, 107, 116 religious and cultural features of 9, 99–108, 134, 184 and Richard II 98–100 and Shakespeare 98–9, 104 and suppression acts 9, 99, 102, 108 see also under Cotton Nero MS: poems; Pearl/Gawain poet; St. Erkenwald; titles of poems in the Cotton Nero MS see also chapels, chantry; St. Paul’s Cathedral: chantry foundations/chapels in; soul Masses; Tewkesbury Abbey: chantry chapels and tombs in chapel/chapelle/capella/chape, as terms 110 chapels, chantry 9, 97, 109, 125 architectural styles of 108, 110, 128–9, 132 Beauchamp, Richard tomb and chapel of (St. Mary’s church, Warwick) 113 chapel of (Tewkesbury Abbey) 113, 130, 132, 134, 139 Burghersh, Bartholomew chapel and tomb of (Lincoln Cathedral) 106–7, 108 n.35, 118, 119, 120, 122–4 and church interiors 108 as English phenomenon 108 eschatological features of 109, 125, 134 Fitzhamon chapel (Tewkesbury Abbey) 129, 132 inconography of 113 Roger de Waltham, chapel of (St. Paul’s Cathedral) 118 n.81, 126 Trinity chapel (Tewkesbury Abbey) 131, 133, 134 Warwick chapel (Tewkesbury Abbey) 113, 130, 132, 134, 139 Works Chantry (Lincoln Cathedral) 107, 116 see also architecture (Gothic); architecture (medieval church); chantry movement; chapels, royal; Despenser family; Erkenwald, Saint: tomb of; St. Paul’s Cathedral: chantry foundations/chapels in chapels, royal 52, 97, 110–13 and chantry movement 9 see also architecture (Gothic); architecture (medieval church); chapels, chantry; Ste-Chapelle (Paris); Ste-Chapelle: imitations of; St. Stephen’s Chapel (Westminster Palace) Charles V, king of France 113 Chartres Cathedral (Notre Dame) 1, 52, 96, 121 Chaucer, Geoffrey 160 tomb of 128–9 Chester Cathedral 121, 124, 125 Church (Ecclesia) as symbol in exegesis 170, 171, 173

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Index Virgin Mary, as symbol of 167 see also under Augustine of Hippo Christ birth of, and Pax Augusta/Romana as hortus conclusus 171 and Jerusalem temple, cleansing by 87 and light/Illumination, theology of 70, 74 and verbum (the Word) 50 and Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue 13 see also Augustine of Hippo: Christology, Trinitarian theology; God; logos Christiana libertas 53 Christianity divergence from Platonism 36, 69–70 as pilgrimage 59 Christian-Platonism, 147, 149 late ancient, early medieval 27–32 and liturgy 7, 9, 27, 32, 72 see also under Suger, Abbot see also Ambrose, Saint; Aristotle/aristotelianism; Augustine of Hippo; Bernard of Clairvaux; Eriugena, John Scotus; Gregory of Nyssa; Hugh of St-Victor; Maximus the Confessor; Origin; Plato; platonism/platonists/ neoplatonism; Plotinus; PseudoDionysius; Richard of St-Victor Cicero 27 n.5, 28 civitas (city) 47, 48, 62–3 see also Augustine of Hippo: cities (Jerusalem and Babylon); Jerusalem (historical city) Cleanness (Purity) architecture/architectural motifs in 160–2, 172, 175 terminology for 175 authorship/dialect/manuscript 138 and chantry movement 10 divine Judgment in 165, 168 see also Cotton Nero MS: poems; Pearl/Gawain poet; St. Erkenwald Clement of Alexandria 27, 28, 30, 31, 137 Coldstream, Nicola 108, 115–16 Colvin, H. M. 114 Cook, G. H. 104, 106, 108–9 corpus mysticum 55 cosmic dynamism 35–6, 40, 69 see also movement/journey/pilgrimage; soul; Plotinus: sacramental cosmology Cotton Nero A. x MS authorship/dialect 138 poems in (Cleanness, Patience, Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) architecture/architectural motifs in 165, 168, 170–2 architectural terminology in 173–5 and chantry movement 185 eschatology in 165, 168, 182–3 God as architect in 180 liturgy in 168, 172, 182–3

moral dramas in 165 see also titles of poems in Cotton Nero MS; St. Erkenwald Covenant (biblical) allegories of 63–4 and sacred architecture 20 Crossley, Paul 115 Dante Alighieri, 149 use of allegory 1, 3 and sacramental poetry 53 and Virgil/limits of reason 14, 153 Il Convivio 155 Dedication of churches, liturgy Ark of Noah in 169 commentaries on 72, 91–4 early history of 79–8 types of (Gallican, Roman, Romano-Germanic) 80 see also Augustine: sacramental theology; Dedication liturgy at St.-Denis; Eriugena, John Scotus: church consecration; liturgy; prayer Dedication liturgy at St.-Denis 7, 8, 72, 181 apocalyptic/eschatological language of 78, 88–9 architecture/architectural motifs in 83–4, 87, 94 network of metaphors 170 chief theme of 81 duplex feast 81 n.50 Enthronement hymns in 89 and First Ordinary of St.-Denis (Marazine 526) 78–9 as fusion of Roman and Gallican traditions 80 Holy Spirit, invocation to 90 Jacob’s vision (Gen. 28.10–22) in 84–6, 89 Jerusalem (historical city) in 84 matins 83–9 Michael the Archangel in 87–8, 89 and the New Jerusalem/Visio pacis (Rev. 21–2) 82, 92–4 symbolism in, summarized 94 terce 90–1 thematic progression in 81 Tree of Jesse in 89 vespers (vigil) 81–2 Despenser family (fourteenth-century) tombs and chantries of 9–10, 117–18, 130–4, 133 see also Tewkesbury Abbey Dionysians (twelfth-century) 71–3 see also Christian-Platonism; Eriugena, John Scotus; Hugh of St.-Victor; Pseudo-Dionysius; Richard of St.-Victor; Suger, Abbot Duby, Georges 72, 109, 146 Duffy, Eamon 105, 106, 109

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Index Eden, Garden of, as architectural motif 171 Edward I, king of England 113, 114, 157 Edward II, king of England 114, 124, 157 tomb of 117 Edward III, king of England 114, 139, 157 Edward VI, king of England, religious suppression acts of 9, 99, 102, 108 ekphrasis 180 Eleanor of Castile, queen of England (under Edward I) 114, 157 Eleanor de Clare 132 Eleanor Crosses 114, 157 Emmerson, Richard K. 4 enigma (aenigma) relation to allegory (as a term) in ancient and medieval texts 2 Enoch, Book of 84 Eriugena, John Scotus art/artist, theory of 74–5 Augustine, influenced by 74, 76 church consecration, subject of a poem by 74–5 Gregory of Nyssa, translated by 77 n.29 Maximus Confessor, influenced by 76–7, 77 n.29 Pseudo-Dionysius (Celestial Hierarchy), translated by/commentary by 74 Aulae sidereae 74–5 Periphyseon 74 Erkenwald, Saint legend of 164 shrine of 118, 126, 128, 163–4 eschatology and medieval Christianity 6 merging of personal with universal/cosmic 125–6 n.90 and Pseudo-Dionysius, absent in 76 see also under architecture (medieval church); Augustine of Hippo; chantry movement; chapels, chantry: eschatological features of; Cotton Nero MS: poems; Maximus the Confessor; St. Erkenwald see also Judgment, divine/Last Eschaton, see Judgment, divine/Last Eusebius 61, 79 exegesis and architectural theory 16 architecture/architectural motifs in 168–9, 170–1 as hybrid genre 16 see also under Ark of the Covenant; Ark of Noah; Bede, Venerable; Pearl; Pearl/Gawain poet see also allegory: interpretive and compositional traditions of; Augustine of Hippo; Dedication of churches, liturgy: commentaries on

Fassler, Margot 7, 77 figura (“figure”) relation to allegory (as a term) in ancient and medieval texts 2, 3 see also Augustine of Hippo: use of allegoria, figura, and related terms Fitzroy, Robert, earl of Gloucester 132 Fleming, John 166 Foley, Edward 90 Foussard, M. 75 Fulgentius, Fabius Planciades 13 n.30, 142, 143, 144 Gawain poet, see Pearl/Gawain poet Geoffrey of Vinsauf, Poetria nova 179 Gilbert de Clare 132 Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales) De rebus a gestis 155 Gloucester Abbey (now Cathedral) 115, 117, 139, 185 God as architect/artist 15, 18, 19, 30, 74, 180 and Covenant, Old/New 63–4 and the Tabernacle 19–20 and sacred world, cannot be represented 21, 21 n.46, 43, 92 see also Christ; Augustine of Hippo: Christology in, Trinitarian theology in; imago: divinity, reflection of; imago: inadequacies of; logos; Plotinus: on the One/Good Gregory I, Pope, Saint (the great) 20 Gregory of Nyssa 28, 77 n.29, 178–9 Grosseteste, Robert, Chasteau d’Amour 173 guilds 97, 102, 104 Guy de Brien, tomb of 117–18 Hagia Sophia 17–18, 83 n.54 Hamburger, Jeffrey 156 Harwood, Britton 167 Henry III, king of England 157 Henry IV, king of England, duke of Lancaster (Bolingbrooke) 98, 99, 104 Henry V, king of England 104 see also Shakespeare, William: Henry V Henry VIII, king of England, religious suppression acts of 9, 99, 102 Heraclitus, on allegory in Homer 3 Hill, Ordelle 182 Hiscock, Nigel 7, 27 history, theology of 69, 96 Holy of Holies (sancta sanctorum) in Cleanness 162–3 veil of allegory before 21 Homer 3 Hôtel des Tournelles (Paris) 160 Hugh of St.-Victor 28 and allegory (as a term) 2 on Ark of Noah 169

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Index Dedication liturgy, commentary on 72, 91, 92–4 as a Dyonisian 73 hyponoia (“under-sense”), relation to allegory (as a term) in ancient and medieval texts 2, 3 icon (eikon) 44 relation to allegory (as a term) in ancient and medieval texts 2 iconography, relation to liturgy 88–9 imago (“image”) anagogical potential of 140, 142 and divinity/cosmos, represented by 14, 17, 38, 43, 45, 92, 147, 186 inadequacies of 149, 152–4 relation to allegory (as a term) in ancient and medieval texts 2, 3 see also adornment/ornament; art/artists; Augustine: sacramental theology, screen of beauty, signs (signa); New Jerusalem: church building as symbol of; Plotinus: screen of beauty, images (validated by) integumentum 3 n.4 involucrum 143 Isaiah, censor of images 21, 22 Isidore of Seville 2 Jacob’s vision (Gen. 28.10–19) 56, 58, 64 n.62 in Dedication liturgy 84–6, 89 Jan van Eyck 152 Jean, Duc de Berry 113 Jeauneau, E. 76 Jerome, Saint 2 Jerusalem/Hierusalem/Ierusalem (historical city) allegories of 48, 60–5, 84, 170, 173 in Cleanness 168 in Dedication liturgy at St.-Denis 83–4, 87, 94, 170 see also Augustine of Hippo: Jerusalem/Babylon; Bede: exegesis of biblical architecture; New Jerusalem; Pearl: architecture/architectural motifs in; Solomon’s Temple; temple (Jerusalem) John of Gaunt 107 Judaism, and Hellenism 30 Judgment, divine/Last in Cotton Nero MS poems 165, 168 knowledge of (in Augustine) 60, 61 n.50, 64 Michael the Archangel, role in 87–8 see also eschatology; Revelation, Book of Justinian, and Hagia Sophia 17–18, 83 n.54 Kenny, John 34 Knowles, David 28–9 Kreider, Alan 102 Lady chapels 124

Lancastrian revolution 99, 122 Last Supper 58 n.40 Leclercq, Jean 22 liberal arts, and architecture 14 light/Illumination logos as 74 and medieval architecture 36, 70–3, 94, 112–13, 147 metaphysics/theology of 45, 52, 70–3, 147, 186 see also Plotinus: light/Illumination Lincoln Cathedral 106, 107, 108 n.35, 116, 118, 119, 120, 122–4 literary edifices influence upon architecture 158–9 and sacramental view of reality 146–7 see also architecture/architectural motifs; architecture (biblical); Bede: exegesis of biblical architecture; exegesis see also architecture/architectural motifs under Cotton Nero MS: poems; Dedication liturgy at St.-Denis; St. Erkenwald; titles of poems in Cotton Nero MS liturgical books, types of 78–9 liturgical painting and poetry 53 liturgy/liturgical worship as applied theology 8 and architecture 23, 77–8, 88–9, 124 as art/synthesis of artes 22–3, 72, 89 and chantry movement 101–2, 104–6, 134, 183–4 and Christian-Platonism 7, 9, 27, 32, 72 and cosmic dynamism 36 and drama of revelation/movement of soul 72, 93, 96, 146 early Christian 79–80 and iconography 88–9 and material weath 107 and personal piety 97 as sacramental activity 58–60 see also under Augustine of Hippo; Cotton Nero MS: poems; chantry movement; titles of poems in the Cotton Nero MS see also All Saints’ Day; All Souls’ Day; Dedication of a church, liturgy; Dedication liturgy at St.-Denis; prayer; soul Masses locus/place/setting as anagogical image 140 and communication with the dead 109 essential to revelation 70, 77, 85–6, 87 locus amoenus 171 n.48 logos as architect 30 as light/Illumination 74 and number/ratio/proportion 31 n.15 see also Christ; God Louis IX, king of France, saint 111, 112 love 154

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Index Lubac, Henri de, Exégèse Médiéval 168–9, 173–4 Macrobius 27 n.5 Mann, Jill 146, 173 mappa mundi 179 Martin, Saint, cape of 110 Mary, Virgin as castle/sanctuary 173 as Church (Ecclesia) 167 cult of 124 as hortus conclusus 171 Maximus the Confessor 76–7 McGinn, Bernard 71, 73 medieval culture, use of term 4 medieval studies distinctions between disciplines in 188 theoretical approaches in 1–2 Menn, Stephen 33 Merton, Thomas 65, 69 Michael the Archangel, biblical and medieval traditions of 87–8 Michael of Canterbury, mason 114 mimesis, dynamic/complex vs mere copy 146–7 Mount Sinai 19, 21 Mount Sion 19–20 movement/journey/pilgrimage of the soul 71 in Augustine 53–4 in liturgy 72, 93, 96, 146 in Platonism 96, 105 in Plotinus 38–42, 149 see also anagogy; Augustine of Hippo: sacramental theology; cosmic dynamism; liturgy; Plotinus: light/Illumination, saramental cosmology musicology 7 mysteria, relation to allegory (as a term) in ancient and medieval texts 3 neoplatonism as misleading term 6 n.11 see Ambrose, Saint; Aristotle/aristotelianism; Augustine of Hippo; Barnard of Clairvaux; Christian-Platonism; Eriugena, John Scotus; Gregory of Nyssa; Hugh of St.-Victor; Philo Judaeus; Origin; Plato; platonism/platonists; Plotinus; Pseudo-Dionysius; Richard of St.-Victor; Suger, Abbot New Jerusalem (Visio pacis: Rev. 21–2) 4–5, 52, 53, 56, 62, 188 and adornment/ornament 91 in Augustine 8, 31, 47–8, 60–5, 173 church building as symbol of biblical sources for 4, 53 evolving concepts of 125, 134, 138 inadequacy of 21–2, 92

theological foundation for 8, 47–8 as Church (Ecclesia) 60–1, 170 in Dedication liturgy 82, 91, 92–4 in exegesis, as controlling metaphor in 168–9, 170–1 as New Covenant 63–4 and Pearl 10 as temple 170 traditions of interpretation 5 see also architecture (biblical); architecture (Gothic); Bede, Venerable: exegesis of biblical architecture; Jerusalem (historical city); literary edifices; Paradise; revelation; Revelation, Book of see also architecture/architectural motifs under Pearl; Dedication liturgy at St.-Denis Nolan, Barbara 149 Oakden, J. P. 183 Octavian (Ceasar Augustus) 11 Origen 1, 20, 28, 31 Palais Jacques Coeur (Bourges) 113 Panofsky, Erwin 6, 95 Paradise as architectural motif 171 as castellum 178 and the East/orient 177–8 Paris Cathedral (Notre Dame) 111, 112 pasch/Passover 57–8, 58 n.40 Patience architectural motifs in 172 authorship/dialect/manuscript 138 and chantry movement 10 see also Pearl/Gawain poet; Cotton Nero MS; St. Erkenwald; titles of poems in Cotton Nero MS Paul, Saint on allegorical interpretation 2, 4, 4 n.7, 20, 52, 63–4 on church (building) as metaphor for human body 90–1, 95 on human body/being as sacrament/holy temple 18, 51, 52, 90–1 on God as architect 18 Pax Augusta/Romana 11, 12, 13 Pearl allegorical technique in 144–5, 147–8, 188 apocalyptic/eschatological features of 137, 140, 151–2, 166, 176, 178, 180, 184–6, 188 eschatological landscapes 150, 165, 176–8 as architecture 10, 137–8, 140, 155, 172, 176–8, 184–6 architecture/architectural motifs in 165, 171, 174, 176–8 terminology for 174–5

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Index architecture, English Gothic, links with 132, 139–40 and Augustine’s sacramental signa 140 and chantry movement 10, 126, 140, 184–6 and exegesis 165 and Geoffrey of Vinsauf (Poetria nova) 179 homiletic center of 167, 181–2 light metaphysics in 186 liturgical features of 141, 174–5, 178, 181–4, 186, 188 as love poem 153 madness in 153 and mappa mundi 179 and metalurgy 176, 184–5 as mixed genre 137, 180–1 mnemonic plan of 180 and ornament as veil/screen/mechanism of allegory 140, 147–8, 155, 186 inadequacies of the veil 149, 152–4 pearl symbolism in 141 and Platonic number theory/geometry 185 and Plotinus’ screen of beauty 140 psychological tensions in 140, 145, 148, 149, 151–4, 183–4 and Ricardian court culture 156, 160 and space, theoretical perspectives on 172 structural and ornamental features of 139, 147–8, 165–7 and visual arts 167–8, 186 see also Cotton Nero MS; Pearl/Gawain poet; St. Erkenwald; titles of poems in the Cotton Nero MS Pearl/Gawain poet as architect 157, 180 and chantry movement 9, 10 exchange of ideas/techniques with artists/craftsmen 168, 184, 188 and exegesis, knowledge of 171–2 and Gothic architecture, knowledge of itinerary 157, 160, 168, 185–6 forms/techniques/symbolic programs of 159, 161–2, 172, 178, 185–6 identity, questions of 138–9, 184 political and geographical associations of 126 and Ricardian court culture 10, 156, 160, 185 see also Cotton Nero MS; St. Erkenwald; titles of poems in Cotton Nero MS Percy Tomb (Beverly Minster) 122, 123, 124–5, 128, 139 Philippe de Mézières 156 Philo Judaeus allegorical terminology in 27 n.5, 28 Hellenism and Judaism, synthesis by 30 Philosophy, and theology, modern distinction between 48 n.4 Plantagenet kings of England architectural projects of 113–14, 156–7

see also individual monarchs Plato hierarchy of being in 32, 40, 53 negative (apophatic) theology in 34 Plotinus, influenced by 33–5, 37 n.36 Timaeus, Latin translations of 27 n.5, 28 Republic allegory of the cave in 35 role of artist in 40 see also Aristotle/aristotelianism; Christian-Platonism; platonism/ platonist/neoplatonism platonism/platonist/neoplatonism Christian divergence from 69–70 drama of the soul (procession/return) in 38–42, 96, 105, 149 medieval church architecture, influenced by 6–7, 27, 70, 178–9 medieval liturgy, evidence of 7, 9, 27, 32, 72 as terms 6 n.11 see also Ambrose, Saint; Aristotle/aristotelianism; Augustine of Hippo; Christian-Platonism; Eriugena, John Scotus; Gregory of Nyssa; Hugh of St-Victor; Maximus the Confessor; Origin; Philo Judaeus; Plato; Plotinus; Pseudo-Dionysius; Richard of St-Victor; Suger, Abbot Plotinus, Enneads Augustine’s Platonism, informed by 8, 28–9, 31, 45 Aristotle/aristotelianism, influence in 37 n.35, 42, 48–9 and art/artist, theory of 40–5 Byzantine aesthetics, influenced by 29 n.11 Christian adaptation of 7–9, 32, 35–6, 41–2, 45–6 concept of beauty in 31 cosmic dynamism in 35–6, 40, 69 and Egyptian heiroglyphics 43–4 Ethics in 44 and Forms 38, 40 and the Gnostics 35 n.34 hierarchy and organicism models united by 33, 40, 42 hyposteses in 32 n.20, 33, 36, 38, 39–42 images, validated by 37–8, 41–5 and Intellect/Nous/rational forming principle 36, 39, 44–5, 91, 147 life of 32 n.19 light/Illumination (emanation theory) in 32–7, 50, 69 negative (apophatic) theology in 42 as (neo)Platonist 6 n.11 as religious mystic 34, 42–3, 76, 149 scholarship, neglect of 28–9 on the One/Good 33–5, 37, 40, 42–3, 50 optimism in 37

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Index and Plato, as authority for/departure from by 33 n.24, 35, 37 n.36 proportion theory (for beauty), rejected by 38 sacramental cosmology in 8, 36–7, 49–50, 56 and sense-world cognition of 35, 37–8, 41, 146, 147 and screen of beauty (Intellect) 41, 46, 52, 53, 62, 140, 142, 188 on the soul ascent/decent of 38–42, 149 dual nature of 39–41, 54 incorruptibility of 54 purification of 44 and Stoicism 37 n.35, 43 n.42 Porphyry 8, 28, 31–2 prayer for the dead 101–2, 104–6 as oratio/laus 58 see also All Saints’ Day; All Souls’ Day; Augustine of Hippo: sacramental theology; Dedication of churches, liturgy; Dedication liturgy at St.-Denis; liturgy/liturgical worship; soul Masses prophecy 12–14 in Aeneid 13 n.30 proportion theory of beauty 38–9 Protestant Reformation 106 chantry movement, suppressed by 9, 99, 102, 108 Pseudo-Dionysius and Christian adaptation of Platonism 72–3 on dissimilar similitudes 142–3 eschatology, absent in 76 Gothic architecture, influenced by 73 and light/Illumination, theology of 72–3 liturgy at St.-Denis, influenced by 7, 72 mistaken identity of 72 negative (apophatic) theology in 142–3 sacramental theology in 73 Suger’s writings, influenced by 9, 71–4 writings of, possesion of St.-Denis 71–2 Celestial Hierarchy commentary on/Latin translations of 74 themes in 73 Purgatory 105–6, 184 see also chantry movement; soul Masses Pythagorean philosophy of numbers 34 Quest del Saint Graal, as apocalyptic literature 6 n.10 Ramsey, William, mason 117, 118 Réau, Louis 110 Reformation, see Protestant Reformation Reims Cathedral (Notre Dame) 120, 157 relics, cult of 110, 111, 112, 113

revelation building (act of)/adorning, as means to 51–2, 91, 142–4 locus/place/setting, essential to 70, 85–7 as a term 1 see also adornment/ornament; anagogy; Jacob’s vision; movement/journey/ pilgrimage; New Jerusalem; Revelation, Book of; soul; theophania Revelation, Book of 188 medieval religion and culture, influenced by 4 see also New Jerusalem Reynolds, Roger E. 78, 89 Richard II, king of England chantry movement, involment in 98–100, 103–4 Pearl/Gawain poet, connections with court of 10, 126, 138, 157 Richard of St.-Victor 28, 73 Robertson, Anne Walters 7, 72, 77 Rogier van der Weyden 23 Rome, in Aeneid 12 Rorem, Paul 73, 77 sacramentum relation to allegory (as a term) in ancient and medieval texts 3 see also Augustine of Hippo: sacramental theology; body/being (human): as sacrament; liturgy: as sacramental activity; Plotinus: sacramental cosmology; Pseudo-Dionysius: sacramental theology Salter, Elizabeth 132, 139–40, 157, 172 Schuler, Stefan 15 screen of beauty, see under Augustine of Hippo; Plotinus see also veil/screen of allegory sense-world and anagogy 73 see also under Augustine; Plotinus see also art/artist; imago; veil/screen of allegory Shakespeare, William, Henry V and the chantry movement 98–9, 104 signum (“sign”) relation to allegory (as a term) in ancient and medieval texts 2 see also Augustine of Hippo: signs (signa); imago Silvestris, Bernardus 13 n.30, 143 similitudo relation to allegory (as a term) in ancient and medieval texts 3 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight architecture/architectural motifs in 159–61, 165, 172 authorship/dialect/manuscript 138 moral drama in 165

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Index see also Cotton Nero MS; Pearl/Gawain poet; St. Erkenwald; titles of poems in Cotton Nero MS Solomon’s Temple 6, 11, 56, 168 in Cleanness 162–3 Hagia Sophia, as image of 18 significations of in exegesis 4, 16, 30, 64, 169–70 in Dedication liturgy 83–4 purpose and construction of 19–20, 21 see also architecture (biblical); Bede, Venerable: exegesis on biblical architecture; exegesis; literary edifices; Tabernacle soul journey of, mirrored in liturgy 72, 93, 96, 105, 146 and platonic drama of procession and return 38–42, 96, 105, 149 as temple of God 93, 169 see also under Augustine; platonism/ platonist/neoplatonism; Plotinus see also anagogy; cosmic dynamism; soul Masses soul Masses 9, 134 belief in efficacy of 105 early Christian tradition of 101–2, 104 see also All Saints’ Day; All Souls’ Day; chantry movement: liturgies for; liturgy/liturgical worship; Pearl: liturgy in; prayer; purgatory St.-Denis, Abbey of anagogical program of 70 on ancient burial site 176 as applied theology 70 chevet 94 choir 70–1 and consecration of Suger’s new church 187 Gothic style of 8, 9, 70–1, 94, 111, 121, 188 as New Jerusalem 94 and Pseudo-Dionysius 7, 71–2 and Westminster Abbey, political counterpart to 157 see also architecture (Gothic); architecture (medieval church); Dedication liturgy at St-Denis; Suger, Abbot St. Erkenwald 126 architecture/architectural motifs in 159, 163–4, 165, 168 terminology of 175 authorship/dialect/manuscript 138 and chantry movement 10 n.20, 185–6 and Cleanness, architectural/linquistic links with 162–3, 164 and Cotton Nero MS poems general connections with 138–9 eschatological features of 165, 168 liturgical aspects of 164, 168 moral drama in 165

and Ricardian court culture 10 n.21 see also Cotton Nero MS; Erkenwald, Saint; titles of poems in the Cotton Nero MS St.-Germain-des-Prés, Abbey of (Paris) 187, 188 St.-Gervais–St.-Protais (Paris) 60 n.47 St. Mary’s church (Warwick) 113 St.-Nicaise church (Reims) 111 St. Paul’s Cathedral (London) chantry foundations/chapels in 103, 117, 118 n.81, 126 “New Work” of 126, 128 and Perpendicular Gothic 163 in St. Erkenwald 163–4 St. Erkenwald’s shrine in 118 St.-Séverin church (Paris), Chapelle Mansart in 187, 188 St. Sophia, see Hagia Sophia St. Stephen’s chapel (Westminster Palace) architectural styles/decoration of 114–15, 118, 119 chantry chapels, associations with 134 construction history of 113–14, 118, 124 as imitation of the Ste-Chapelle (Paris) 52, 112, 114 as Plantagenet display of power/authority 157 St.-Victor, Abbey of (Paris) and Christian-Platonism 9 medieval liturgy at 7 see also Hugh of St-Victor; Richard of St-Victor Ste-Chapelle (Paris) 52, 97, 111–12, 139, 185 chantry chapels, associations with 110, 119, 121, 134 imitations of 112–13 see also architecture (Gothic); architecture (medieval church); chapels, royal Stephen, Saint, as censor of images 22 Suger, Abbot, 175 Bernard of Clairvaux, reproach of 22 and Christian-Platonism, knowledge of 9, 70, 71–4, 76–7, 91–4, 96 and liturgy, knowledge of 9, 71–2, 77, 94–6, 181 and material opulence, passion for 22, 78, 87, 96, 107, 147 Pseudo-Dionysius, influenced by 9, 71–4 writings by 8, 70, 87, 187 De consecratione 94–6 see also St.-Denis, Abbey of; Dedication liturgy at St-Denis symbol (symbolon) relation to allegory (as a term) in ancient and medieval texts 2 theology, as qualifyer of 42 Tabernacle (Exod. 25–40) 6, 11, 18 purpose and construction of 19–20, 21 as symbol 4, 16, 30, 64 n.62, 170

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Index see also architecture (biblical); Bede, Venerable: exegesis on biblical architecture; exegesis; literary edifices; Solomon’s Temple temple body/being (human) as 18, 51–3, 64, 90–2, 95 New Jerusalem as 170 soul as 93, 169 see also architecture (biblical); temple (Jerusalem); Solomon’s Temple temple (Jerusalem), Christ’s cleansing of 87 Tewkesbury Abbey (Gloucestershire) 185 choir 9, 127, 178 chantry chapels and tombs in 9, 113, 117–20, 129–34, 178 as Despenser mosoleum 9–10 iconography of 131–2, 134 lierne vault 119, 127, 128, 130 and Pearl/Gawain poet 10, 184 theology and philosophy, modern distinction between 48 n.4 as qualifier of images for representing the sacred world 42 as rational principle 42 theophania 74 Thomas of Canterbury, mason 115, 116–17 tropological level of allegory 3 Tuve, Rosemond 146 typikôs/typos, as terms in the New Testament 3 typological level of allegory 3

Victorinus, Marius 28 Veni creator spiritus, hymn 90 Vincent of Beauvais 15 n.38 Virgil and Augustine 53, 173 and Dante 14, 153 as imitator of scripture 173 and Pax Augusta/Romana 12 Aeneid 11 Christian allegories of 13, 22 prophecy and revelation in 12–13 Fourth Eclogue, Christian allegories of 13 Visio pacis, see New Jerusalem Vitruvius career of 11–12 and Epicurian philosophy 17 n.41 and medieval aesthetic theory 15 De architectura 11, 12, 14–17 and architectural theory 22 von Simson, Otto 6, 84 n.57, 96

umbra, relation to allegory (as a term) in ancient and medieval texts 3 veil/screen of allegory 4, 52, 143–4 before Holy of Holies 21 and mimesis (dynamic/complex) 145–46 psychological effects of 145–6 see also under Pearl see also screen of beauty under Augustine of Hippo; Plotinus see also adornment/ornament; allegory; building, act of; imago

Walsingham, Thomas 99 Webb, Geoffrey 115 Wells Cathedral 120 n.84 Werburgh, Saint, shrine of (Chester Cathedral) 121, 124, 125 Westminster Abbey 115 and chantry movement 103, 104 chapter house 119, 156 Chaucer’s tomb 128–9 as rival of Abbey church of St.-Denis and Reims Cathedral 157 Whitman, Jon 3 Wilson, Christopher 78, 108, 117, 129 Wilton Diptych (National Gallery, London), and Pearl 156, 167 Wyclif, John 100, 107 Yevele, Henry, royal architect 117, 118 Zinn, Grover 73

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