Daniel S. Berman
(Hunter College, City University of New York)
Abstract of Paper
presented at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(Kalamazoo, 2025)
Session on
“Deviant Images:
Text/Image Relationships in Medieval Manuscripts
(1): Visual Intervention”
Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
Organized by
Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
and
Courtney Anne Berg (City University of New York)
2025 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program
“Let No One Doubt the Measure:
Conjuring Christʼs Body
through Faith and Devotional Action”
Abstract:
During the fourteenth century, a new image-type arose in Central and Western Europe depicting Christʼs disembodied side-wound rendered “to scale.” Although varying somewhat in form and even size, most of these images derive their authority to impart Christʼs bodily presence from nearby authenticating inscriptions which confirm that the images reproduce the woundʼs actual metric dimensions. Oftentimes the identifying inscriptions occur in rubrication around the imagesʼ borders, mirroring the red color of Christʼs blood within; in these cases, the red of the ink was elided with Christʼs blood in order to further authenticate the images as having been produced not only from the actual dimensions of Christʼs wound, but from the blood of his covenant. Thus the form and materiality of the images worked in tandem with the subject matter and accompanying texts to convey their authenticity as true relics of Christʼs body.
Images of this type were part of and contributed to a tradition of virtual pilgrimage in which worshipers could imaginatively reconstruct Christʼs body with the aid of images and their related textual directives and rubrics, allowing beholders to perceive divine presence and receive spiritual rewards like indulgences (remittances of time off from purgatory) without the necessity of partaking in physical pilgrimage. As has been made clear by various scholars however, it was primarily the faithful actions of the beholders themselves in relation to the texts and images which allowed them to both conjure Christʼs bodily presence and receive spiritual rewards for doing so. Indeed, it was in fact only through faith and the enactment of things like attentive contemplation, reading, prayer, memory, counting, and in some cases, touching and even kissing, that beholders could activate Christʼs presence in the images. Thus, without faith and devotional action, inscribed images of Christʼs side-wound were simply form without function.
Abstract