Bücheler Anna 201411 PHD Thesis

Ornament as Argument: Textile Pages and Textile
Metaphors in Medieval German Manuscripts (800—1100)
by
Anna Bücheler
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements

for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Art
University of Toronto
© Copyright by Anna Bücheler 2014

Ornament as Argument: Textile Pages and Textile Metaphors in
Medieval German Manuscripts (800—1100)
Anna Bücheler
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Art
University of Toronto
2014
Abstract
This dissertation explores notions of ornamentation and issues of materiality in early and high
medieval manuscript illumination. Focusing on ornament that evokes the weave patterns of
Byzantine and Islamic silk in tenth and eleventh century manuscripts from Echternach,
Einsiedeln, Reichenau, and elsewhere, this study argues that—in specific contexts—ornament
has meaning and serves functions that go beyond mere decoration. The dissertation
contextualizes so-called textile pages in the codicological and iconographic structure of the
manuscripts in which they appear and examines them in light of exegetical texts that discuss the
function and metaphoric meaning of matter in religious art. After the first chapter clarifies the
formal relationship between medieval textiles and textile ornament, the subsequent chapters
bring the ornamental images together with various textile metaphors. From such a reading of
textile iconography emerge three major strands of meaning: the notion of scripture as a veil of
revelation, the Incarnation as a symbolic garment, and textile-ornamented manuscripts as the
corporeal book-bodies of scripture. In addition to an investigation of the allegorical meaning of
textile ornament, a discussion of the function of physical matter in private meditation and the
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liturgy opens new perspectives on the utility and necessity of physical props for contemplative
and liturgical purposes in medieval worship.
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Acknowledgments
« This dissertation could not have been written without the support of numerous colleagues and
friends in Canada, Germany, and Switzerland. My biggest debt of gratitude is to my mentor and
Doktorvater, Adam S. Cohen. His teaching and guidance have been invaluable assets in my
development as a scholar. By pushing my ideas and challenging me to take medieval manuscripts
seriously, he has shaped my thinking about medieval art. I gladly acknowledge his contribution
to this study and his unshakeable support in producing these pages.
It has been an honor to benefit from Diane Reilly’s careful reading and her critical feedback. I
also owe much to Jill Caskey and David Ganz for their useful comments and questions. Thanks
also to Björn Ewald for stepping in as a committee member late in the process. Throughout my
graduate career, I received support from many gifted teachers. I wish to thank especially Linda
Safran and Alexander Nagel for a fruitful and inspiring learning experience at the University of
Toronto, as well as Madeline Caviness, who first opened the doors to medieval art to me at Tufts
University.
I have been fortunate to receive generous support from various individuals and institutions. I
thank the University of Toronto for making this project possible with a five-year fellowship, a
Dissertation Completion Award, and two research travel grants from the School of Graduate
Studies. The Swiss National Science Foundation and the European Research Council funded a
stay at the University of Zürich, where I was kindly hosted by the Kunsthistorisches Institut. I
thank especially Tristan Weddigen, whose interest in textiles has brought me to Zürich. The
members of the research group “Textile: An Iconology of the Textile in Art and Architecture”
have inspired my work intellectually on many occasions and I am lucky to have colleagues who
have also become dear friends. The Emmy Noether-Nachwuchsgruppe “Kosmos/Ornatus” at the
Freie Universität Berlin kindly welcomed me at their research colloquium during a year of
research in Berlin. I thank especially Vera Beyer and Isabelle Dolezalek for challenging
questions and valuable input during the earlier stages of writing. At the Abegg-Stiftung in
Riggsberg near Berne, I spent several productive days at the library and in the textile collection
and enjoyed comfortable nights at the guest house. I thank Regula Schorta and her team of
researchers and conservators for sharing their knowledge about textiles and for their warm and
generous hospitality.
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Several museums and libraries have graciously made their collections accessible to me: Abegg-
Stiftung, Riggisberg; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich (with gratitude especially to Elisabeth
Klemm); Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum
Mainz (I thank Anja Coffeng for generous help with images); Domschatz and Dommuseum
Hildesheim; Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg (thank you to Frank Heydecke);
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig (a warm thank you to Regine Marth); Herzog
August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel; Hessische Landesbibliothek, Fulda; Hessisches
Landesmuseum, Darmstadt; Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz (I thank Anja Ostrowitzky);
Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg; Uppsala Universitetsbibliotek; Staatsbibliothek Bamberg (I
thank Werner Taegert and Stefan Knoch); Stadtbibliothek Trier; Staatliche Museen Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; Stiftsbibliothek Einsiedeln (thanks to Pater Justinus);
Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart.
I also thank all those who have helped bring these chapters together by reading drafts and
providing other assistance. I am especially grateful to my student Sabrina Schmid and to Isabelle
Dolezalek, Flora Ward, Sarah Guérin, and David Alexandre.
My family and dear friends in Rottweil, Berlin, Toronto, and Zürich have been pillars of love and
friendship in the years leading up to the completion of the PhD. It is to those who walked with
me in times of change and regrowth that I dedicate these pages.»
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Table of Contents
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii
Introduction: Textile Ornament as Argument ................................................................................. 1
Chapter 1: Textiles, Textile Ornament and Textile Iconography ................................................. 22
Chapter 2: Textile Ornament as a Veil of Revelation ................................................................... 70
Chapter 3: The habitus of the Body and the Veil of the Incarnation .......................................... 115
Chapter 4: Scripture Embodied ................................................................................................... 162
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 200
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 204
Figures ........................................................................................................................................ 239
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List of Figures
1 Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Sal. IX b, Petershausen Sacramentary, dated 980, fol.
40v, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
2 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 426 Helmst., Corvey, late 10th century,
fol. 18v, photo: Bildindex Marburg.
3 Wolfenbüttel, Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel, 6 Urk 11, marriage Charter of Otto II and Theophanu,
photo: Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel.
4 Uppsala Universitetsbibliotek, Cod. C 93, Codex Caesareus, fol. 2v—3r, photo: Uppsala
Universitetsbibliotek.
5 Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, HS 156142 (Codex aureus Epternacensis), fols.
109v—110r, photo: Grebe, Codex Aureus, fig. 71, 96.
6 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Lat. 27, fol. 73v, photo: Adam Cohen.
7 Mainz, Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum, Inv. Kautzsch Nr. 1 (=Nr. 974), 11th
century century, fol. 113r, Luke, photo: Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum Mainz.
8 Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, dated ca 1015, fol. 179r, Initial page to
the Gospels of John, photo: Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar, 30.
9 Maastricht, St. Servatius, silk samite, Inv. 6—3, photo: Stauffer, Die Mittelalterlichen
Textilien, 33, plate 5.
10 Bamberg, Diozesanmuseum, silk tapestry, Gunthertuch, Constantinople, 971, photo:
Baumstark, Rom und Byzanz, 2:207.
11 Hildesheim, Dommuseum, inv. no. D 1997—4, eastern Persia (?), photo: Puhle, Otto der
Grosse, 2:481.
12 Hildesheim, Domschatz, Bernwardsbibel, inv. no. DS 61, fol. 4v, photo: Brandt and
Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, 570.
13 Riggisberg, Abegg Stiftung, silk fragment from Byzantium or the eastern Mediterranean, inv.
no. 98, photo: Otavsky and Salīm, Mittelalterliche Textilien I, 137.
14 Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, HS 156142 (Codex aureus Epternacensis), fol.
15 Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, HS 156142 (Codex aureus Epternacensis) fol
51v—52r, photo: Grebe, Codex Aureus, fig, 50, 71.
vii
16 Léon, Real Colegiata de San Isidoro, lining from the caja de los marfiles, photo: Schorta,
Monochrome Seidengewebe, fig. 58, 93.
18 New York, Metropolitan Museum, silk and cotton textile, Accession no. 31.106.64, photo:
Metropolitan Museum, digital collection.
19 Rome, Vatican, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, inv. no. 1275, silk with winged horses,
photo: Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit, 2: 658.
20 Venice, Museo Marciana, transenna panel, photo: Evans and Wixom, Glory of Byzantium, fig.
292, 452.
21 Maastricht, St. Servatius, Inv. 9—13, reliquary pouch, fatimid (?), 11th century, photo:
Stauffer, Die Mittelalterlichen Textilien, 131.
22 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 426 Helmst., fol. 59v, photo: Bildindex
Marburg.
23 Schänis, Stiftskirche St. Sebastian, ca 820, photo: Faccani, “Geflecht mit Gewürm,”137, fig.
23.
24 Ahenny, County Tipperary, stone cross (detail), eighth century, photo: Brown, Lindisfarne
Gospels, 30, fig. 16.
25 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Rep I 57, fragment of a sacramentary, fol. 2r, photo: Brandt
and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, 2:409.
26 London, British Library Add. MS 8900, Cuthbert Gospels, front and back cover, photo:
British Library, digital Collection.
27 Ivory diptych from a book cover, St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 60, photo: Duft and
Schnyder, Die Elfenbein-Einbände, plate 2.2.
28 Hildesheim, St. Michael, column with lozenge floral pattern from the northern section of the
choir screen, photo: author.
29 Saint- Benoît-sur-Loire, Schmuckfussboden im Chor der Abteikirche, photo: Brandt and
Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, 2:300.
30 Antioch on the Orontes, floor mosaic, photo: Grabar, “Le Rayonnement de l’Art Sassanide,”
plate 7, fig. 1.
31 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 8318, fragment of a pattern book, fol. 64v.
photo: Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, 2:258.
viii
32 Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 85r, photo: Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv.
33 Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 56r, photo: Ronig, Egbert: Erzbischof,
plate 107.
34 Chelles, Musée municipal Alfred Bonno, inv. no. E16, two woven bands from the tomb of
Saint Balthild, 7th century, photo: Krone und Schleier, 245.
35 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, fol. 15r, photo: Suckale-Redlefsen, Die
Handschriften, 1.1: 124, fig. 399.
36 Cividale del Friuli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Ms. 136, Egbert Psalter, dated 977—993,
fol. 151v—152r, Liutwinus, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 19.
37 Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 24, Egbert Codex, dated 977—993, fol. 6r, John, photo: Gunther,
Der Egbert Codex, 89.
38 Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Sal. IX b, dated 980, fol. 43r, Vere Dignum, photo:
Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
39 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, dated 978—983, fol. 3r, Vere Dignum,
photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 323.
40 London, British Museum, Ms. Add. 5111, fol. 10v, Prologue, Constantinople 7th century,
photo: Nordenfalk, Die Spätantiken Kanontafeln, plate 1.
fol. 52v—53r, Maternus, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 11.
42 Bucharest, Alba Iulia Biblioteca Documenta Batthyaneum, Ms. R II—I, Lorsch Gospels, 810,
page 36, photo: Exner, Das Guntbald-Evangeliar, plate 57.
43 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 1203, Godescalc Gospels, fol.
3v—4r, photo: Crivello, Denoël, and Orth, Das Godescalc-Evangelistar, plates 6 and 7.
44 Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung, inv. no. 655, Silk fragment, Persia or Mesopotamia, 11th—12th
century, photo: Otavsky and Salīm, Mittelalterliche Textilien I, 133.
fol. 173v—174r, Magnericus, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 21.
century century, fol. 16v, Matthew, photo: Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum
Mainz.
47 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 15r, photo:
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, digital collection.
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48 Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, dated ca 1015, fol. 19r, Matthew, photo:
Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar, 10.
49 Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, dated ca 1015, fol. 16v, Bernward at the
altar, photo: Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar, 5.
50 Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, dated ca 1015, fol. 18r, the Magi, photo:
51 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 12084, dated 790—804, fol. 1v, photo:
Laffitte and Denoël, Trésors carolingiens,79.
52 Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, dated ca 1015, fol. 175v, John and the disappearing Christ,
photo: Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar, 29.
53 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4452, Perikopes of Heinrich II, dated 1007—1012,
fol. 3v, Matthew, photo: Fabian and Lange, Pracht auf Pergament, 178.
54 Berlin, Staatliche Museen Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Hs. 78 A 1, 11th century, fol. 77v,
Luke, photo: Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
55 Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, dated ca 1015, fol. 118v, Luke, photo:
56 Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, dated ca 1015, fol. 76r, Mark, photo:
57 Wolfenbüttel, Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel, 6 Urk 11, marriage Charter of Otto II and
Theophanu, detail, photo: Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel.
58 Schänis, Stiftskirche St. Sebastian, ca 820. photo: Faccani, “Geflecht mit Gewürm,” 137, fig.
23.
59 Washington D.C., Dumbarton Oaks Collection, one leaf from a pair of silver book covers,
Constantinople, mid 6th century, photo: Safran, Heaven on Earth, color plate 7B.
60 London, British Library, Cotton Ms. Nero D.IV, Lindisfarne Gospels, fol. 2v, prefatory cross-
carpet page, photo: London, British Library, digital collection.
61 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity, floor mosaic from the Grotto beneath the church, 5th
century, photo: Kitzinger, “The Threshold of the Holy Shrine,” 642, fig. 3.
62 St. Maurice, Klosterkirche, lower part of an ambo frontal, 7th—8th century, photo: Riek, Goll,
and Descœudres, Die Zeit Karls des Grossen, 143, fig. 38.
century century, fol. 16v, Matthew, photo: Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum Mainz.
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64 Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 24, Egbert Codex, dated 977—993, fol. 3v, Matthew, photo:
Gunther, Der Egbert Codex, 86.
65 Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 24, Egbert Codex, dated 977—993, fol. 4r, Mark, photo: Gunther,
66 Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 24, Egbert Codex, dated 977—993, fol. 5v, Luke, photo: Gunther,
67 Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 24, Egbert Codex, dated 977—993, fol. 6r, John, photo: Gunther,
68 New York, Public Library, Ms. Astor 1, page 2, Matthew, photo: Alexander, Marrow and
Sandler, The Splendor of the World, 144.
69 Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Inv. AE 679, Mainz, first half 11th century, fol. 21v,
textile page, photo: Märker, Gold und Purpur, 29.
Mark, photo: Märker, Gold und Purpur, 32.
John, photo: Märker, Gold und Purpur, 36.
72 Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Inv. AE 679, Mainz, first half 11th century, fol. 190r,
73 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 15r, textile
page, photo: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, digital collection.
74 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 15v, Matthew,
photo: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, digital collection.
76 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 66v, Mark,
77 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 67r textile
79 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 110v, Luke,
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81 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 174v, John,
82 Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 85r, photo: Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv.
83 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Mss. Laud. lat. 27, fol. 17v—18r, photo: Pontifical Institute of
Medieval Studies, Toronto, slide Library.
fol. 18r, photo: Bildindex Marburg.
87 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 13601 (Uta Codex), Regensburg, ca 1025. fol. 6v,
photo: Cohen, Uta Codex, color plate 14 a.
photo: Cohen, Uta Codex, color plate 14 b.
photo: Cohen, Uta Codex, color plate 14 c.
photo: Cohen, Uta Codex, color plate 14 d.
91 Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, dated ca 1015, fol. 20r, photo: Brandt,
Das Kostbare Evangeliar, 12.
92 Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 33, Guntbald Gospels, dated 1011, fol. 22v, photo: Das
Guntbald-Evangeliar: Ein Ottonischer Bilderzyklus und sein Zeugniswert für die
Rezeptionsgeschichte des Lorscher Evangeliars (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2008),
26.
93 Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 33, Guntbald Gospels, dated 1011, fol. 88v, photo: Exner, Das
Guntbald-Evangeliar, 30.
xii
96 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 1, Lindau Gospels, St. Gallen, dated 883—890, fol.
5v, textile page, photo: Pierpont Morgan Library, CORSAIR digital collection.
12r, textile page, photo: Pierpont Morgan Library, CORSAIR digital collection.
century century, fol. 75v, Mark, photo: Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum Mainz.
century century, fol. 113r, Luke, photo: Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum Mainz.
century century, fol. 171v, John, photo: Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum Mainz.
101 Trier Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 22, Ada Gospels, dated ca 800, fol. 15v—16r, photo: Toman and
Bednorz, Kunst der Romanik, 407.
102 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 8850, Soissons Gospels, dated before 814,
fol. 81v, Mark, photo: Mütherich and Gaehde, Carolingian Painting, plate 6.
103 London, British Library, Ms. Harley 2821, Echternach, 11th century, fol. 67, photo: British
Library, digital collection.
104 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 640, 9th century, fol. 100v, photo: Holcomb, Pen
and Parchment, 40.
105 Helsinki, Suomen Kansallismuseo, inv. no. 53131, single leaf, Corvey, last quarter of the
11th century, photo: Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, 416.
106 New York, Public Library, Ms. Astor 1, page 5, John, photo: Kahsnitz, “Frühottonische
Buchmalerei,” 233.
107 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Rep. I 4° 57 a, single leaf, Corvey, last quarter of the 11th
century, photo: Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, 416.
108 Rome, S. Paolo fuori le mura, Bible, dated 870, fol. 32v, photo: Kessler, Spiritual Seeing,
154.
109 London, British Library, Add. Ms. 10546, Moutier-Grandval Bible, dated ca 840, fol. 449r,
photo: Riek, Goll and Descœudres, Die Zeit Karls des Grossen, 235.
Mark, photo: Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
xiii
Majestas Domini, photo: Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
113 Berlin, Staatliche Museen Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Hs. 78 A 1, 11th century, fol. 114r,
textile page, photo: Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
John, photo: Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
115 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 4453, Gospels of Otto III, Reichenau, late 10th
century, fol. 139v, photo: Mütherich and Dachs, Das Evangeliar Ottos III, plate 42.
116 London, British Library, Cotton Ms. Nero D.IV, Lindisfarne Gospels, fol. 209v, John, photo:
London, British Library, digital collection.
117 Salerno, Museo Diocesano, ivory plaque with the incredulity of Thomas, photo: Thunø,
Image and Relic, fig. 113.
118 Darmstadt, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Hs. 1640, Hitda Codex, dated 1020, fol.
6v—7r, photo: Boskamp-Priever, Das Evangeliar der Äbtissin Hitda, 100.
119 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 16 Aug. 2°, textile curtain, fol. 5r,
Tours 9th century, photo: Europeana Regia.
123 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 16 Aug. 2°, fol. 131r, Tours 9th
century, photo: Europeana Regia.
124 Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 56r, photo: Ronig, Egbert: Erzbischof,
plate 107.
125 Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 127r, Majestas Domini, photo: Koblenz,
Landeshauptarchiv.
126 Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 127v, John, photo: Koblenz,
Landeshauptarchiv.
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127 Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 128r, textile page, photo: Koblenz,
Landeshauptarchiv.
128 Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 84v, Luke, photo: Koblenz,
Landeshauptarchiv.
129 Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 16v, Matthew, photo: Ronig, Egbert:
Erzbischof, plate 104.
130 Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 55v, Mark, photo: Ronig, Egbert:
131 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Lat. 27, fol. 73v—74r, photo: Adam S. Cohen.
134 Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 426 Helmst., Corvey, late 10th
century, fol. 59v, photo: Bildindex Marburg.
century, fol. 60r, photo: Bildindex Marburg.
century, fol. 86v, photo: Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination, 2:plate 18.
143 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 4453, Gospels of Otto III, Reichenau, late 10th
century, fol. 23v—24r, photo: Mütherich and Dachs, Das Evangeliar Ottos III, plates
14—15.
xv
144 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, dated 1007—1014, fol. 5v, Matthew, photo:
Suckale-Redlefsen, Die Handschriften, 23, fig. 35.
145 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, dated 1007—1014, fol. 6r, John, photo: Kirmeier,
Schreibkunst, 76.
146 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, dated 1007—1014, fol. 6v, Mark, photo:
Kirmeier, Schreibkunst, 77.
147 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, dated 1007—1014, fol. 7r Luke, photo: Kirmeier,
Schreibkunst, 77.
148 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, dated 1007—1014, fol. 7v, Henry, photo:
149 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, dated 1007—1014, fol. 8r, Mary, photo: Kirmeier,
Schreibkunst, 75.
150 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, dated 1007—1014, fol. 8v, Joseph’s dream,
photo: Kirmeier, Schreibkunst, 76.
151 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, dated 1007—1014, fol. 9r, textile page, photo:
152 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, dated 1007—1014, fol. 14v, the Magi, photo:
154 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, dated 1007—1014, fol. 53v crucifixion, photo:
155 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, dated 1007—1014, fol. 59v, Women at the Tomb,
157 Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore, triumphal arch, Annunciation, 5th century, photo: Pietrangeli,
Santa Maria Maggiore, 113.
158 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 17.190.49, ivory plaque with Mary,
photo: Metropolitan Museum digital collection.
159 Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Ms. Bibl. Fol. 23, Stuttgart Psalter, fol. 83v,
photo: Württembergische Landesbibliothek, digital collection.
xvi
160 Erevan, Matanadaran, Cod. 2734, Etschmiadzin Gospels, fol. 228v, photo: Maguire, “Body,
Clothing, Metaphor,” plate 3.9.
161 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Nouvelles acquisitions latines 2246, Cluny, dated
ca 1100, fol. 6r, photo: Bibliothèque Nationale, digital collection.
ca 1100, fol. 42v, photo: Bibliothèque Nationale, digital collection.
163 Paris, Cluny Musée Nationale de Moyen âge, Thermes de Cluny, Cl. 23757, Ascension,
cutting from fol. 64 of Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Nouvelles acquisitions
latines 2246, dated ca 1100, photo: Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa 1077, 1:340.
166 London, British Library, MS Add. 49598, fol. 5v, dated 963—984, photo: Deshman,
Benedictional, plate 8.
167 Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, dated ca 1015, fol. 17r, Mary, photo:
168 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Eins. 88, dated 980—90, pages 8—9, photo: author.
169 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Eins. 88, dated 980—90, pages 74—75, photo: author.
170a Rom, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Fondo Antico 1452, dated ca 970, fol. 2v, photo: Lang
Festschrift zum tausendsten Todestag, 240, fig. 32.
170b Rom, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Fondo Antico 1452, dated ca 970, fol. 2v, photo: Labusiak,
Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 353.
171 Rom, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Fondo Antico 1452, dated ca 970, fol. 5v—6r, photo:
Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 354.
172 Darmstadt, Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, Ms. 1948, Gero Codex, shortly
before 969, fol. 5v, Maiestas, photo: Exner, Das Guntbald-Evangeliar, plate 66.
173 Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Sal. IX b, Petershausen Sacramentary, dated 980,
fol. 41r, Maiestas, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
fol. 41v, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
xvii
fol. 44r, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
fol. 42v, Dominus vobiscum, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
fol. 43r, Vere dignum, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
fol. 44v, Te igitur, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
fol. 54v, In die admissam, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
fol. 55r, Concede, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
fol. 105v, Die dominico sancta passione, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek,
digital collection.
fol. 106r, Deus qui hodierna, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
183 Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 2v, Vere
dignum, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 56.
184 Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 3r, textile
page, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 57.
185 Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 3v, Te
igitur, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 58.
186 Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 13r,
Concede, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 59.
187 Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 85r, Deus
qui hanc sacratissimam, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 66.
qui hodierna, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 67.
qui nos redemptionis, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 62.
xviii
190 Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 100r,
Deus, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 68.
191 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 10514, Poussay Evangelistary, fol. 3v,
donor portrait, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 24.
192 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 10514, Poussay Evangelistary, fol. 4r,
Christ, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 25.
Luke, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 26.
Mark, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 27.
John, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 28.
Matthew, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 29.
197 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 10514, Poussay Evangelistary, fol. 9v—
10r, Nativity, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 30.
19r, the Magi before Mary and Christ, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 31.
Candlemas, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 40.
36r, Crucifixion, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 32.
47r, Washing of the Feet, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 33.
textile page, photo: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, digital collection.
51r, Women at the Tomb, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 34—35.
67r, Ascension, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 36—37.
70r, Pentecost, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 38—39.
xix
206 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, dated 978—983, fol. 1v—2r,
frontispiece, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 321.
207 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, dated 978—983, fol. 2v, Dominus
vobiscum, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 322.
208 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, dated 978—983, fol. 3r, photo:
209 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, dated 978—983, fol. 4r, Te igitur, photo:
210 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, dated 978—983, fol. 12v, initial page
Christmas, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 326.
212 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, dated 978—983, fol. 91v, textile page,
213 Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, dated 978—983, fol. 92r, initial page
Saturday of Holy Week, photo: Puhle, Otto der Große, 2:241.
Easter, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 329.
Ascension, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 330.
Pentecost, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 331.
Assumption, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 332.
All Saints, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 333.
219 Fulda, Hessische Landesbibliothek, Cod. Aa 21, dated 1066—71, fol. 2v, dedication image,
photo: Luckhardt and Niehoff, Heinrich der Löwe und seine Zeit, 2:55, fig. 29.
220 Fulda, Hessische Landesbibliothek, Cod. Aa 21, dated 1066—71, fol. 3r, textile page, photo:
Luckhardt and Niehoff, Heinrich der Löwe und seine Zeit, 2:217, fig. 113.
221 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Lit. 3, ca 1020, fol. 62r, photo: Suckale-Redlefsen, Die
Handschriften, 40, fig. 88.
xx
222 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 23261, dated 1080—1125, fol. 69r, photo:
Usener, “Das Breviar Clm. 23261,” fig. 19.
223 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Rep. I 57, ca 970, fol. 1v, photo: Puhle, Otto der Große,
2:194.
224 Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Rep. I 57, ca 970, fol. 1v, photo: Puhle, Otto der Große,
2:195.
225 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Codex Einsiedlensis 121 (1151), dated 964—996, page 29, In
die admissam, photo: Lang, Festschrift zum tausendsten Todestag, 241, fig. 34.
226 St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 9v and 19r,
photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 304—305.
227 St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 10v, photo:
228 St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 28r and 36r,
photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 307 and 306.
229 St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 96v—97r,
230 St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 239r and
240v, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 303 and 302.
231 St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 12r, photo:
232 St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 13v, photo:
233 St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 15r, photo:
234 Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, front cover, 10th century, Byzantium, photo:
Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek.
235 Bremen, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. b. 21, fol. 1v—2r, textile page, photo: Knoll, Das
Evangelistar Kaiser Heinrichs III. Faksimile, fol. 1v—2r.
236 Bremen, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. b. 21, fol. 125v—126r, textile page, photo: Knoll, Das
17v—18r, textile page, photo: Grebe, Codex Aureus, 53, fig. 32.
xxi
238 Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, HS 156142 (Codex aureus Epternacensis) fol.
51v—52r, textile page, photo: Grebe, Codex Aureus, 71, fig, 50.
241 Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, KG 1138, front cover of Codex aureus
Epternacensis), photo: Grebe, Codex Aureus, 25, fig. 8.
242 Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum, inv. no. 78—462, Byzantium, 10th—11th century, photo: von
Wilckens, Mittelalterliche Seidenstoffe, 34.
243 Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek, Cod. C 93, Codex Caesareus, fol. 2v—3r, textile page,
photo: Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek.
244 Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek, Cod. C 93, Codex Caesareus, fol. 125v—126r, John, photo:
Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek.
245 London, British Library, Ms. Harley 2821, Echternach, 11th century, fol. 67, photo: British
246 London, British Library, Ms. Harley 2821, Echternach, 11th century, fol. 99v, photo: British
-1r, photo: Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, digital collection.
1v—2r, photo: Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, digital collection.
xxii
5v, textile page, photo: Pierpont Morgan Library, CORSAIR digital collection.
12r, textile page, photo: Pierpont Morgan Library, CORSAIR digital collection.
264 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 1, Lindau Gospels, inner front cover, 8th—9th
century, photo: Pierpont Morgan Library, CORSAIR digital collection.
265 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 1, Lindau Gospels, inner back cover, 8th—9th
266 Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek, Cod. C 93, Codex Caesareus, fol. 3v, John, photo: Grebe,
Codex Aureus, 126, fig. 97.
267 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Msc. lat. 1, First Bible of Charles the Bald (Vivian
Bible), 845, fol. 329v, photo: Laffitte and Denoël, Trésors carolingiens, 104.
268 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14000, fol. 6v, Maiestas, photo: Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek digital collection.
269 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14000, fol. 46v—47r, incipit page Mark, photo:
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek digital collection.
xxiii
270 Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Ms. Bibl. Fol. 23, Stuttgart Psalter, fol. 116v,
xxiv
Introduction: Textile Ornament as Argument
This dissertation is about textiles, ornament, and textile metaphors. All three of these aspects
come together in the so-called textile pages that are the focus of this study: full-page miniatures
that resemble the weave patterns of mechanically produced silk fabrics. Repetitive geometric
ornament framed within a miniature, or displayed as a full-folio illumination in which the
ornament covers a page fully from edge to edge, appears in illuminated manuscripts especially
between the late ninth and the twelfth century. Although textile ornament continues to appear in
the backgrounds of miniatures throughout the later medieval period, the use of these patterns as
autonomous images and full-folio illuminations is characteristic of the period before 1200.1 The
geographic focal point of textile ornament is roughly the territory under Emperor Otto I’s
control, especially modern-day Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and France. It appears that the
autonomous use of textile ornament as full-folio textile pages was not practiced by Italian and
English workshops and is similarly absent in this form from art production in Spain.2 Important
1
Bernd Rau, Die ornamentalen Hintergründe in der französischen gotischen Buchmalerei (Stuttgart:
Cantz, 1975). The only later medieval manuscript that I am aware of in which repetitive and extensible
ornament appears in a similarly independent form as full-folio ornamental image is British Library MS
Egerton 1821 from around 1480—90. On this manuscript see Nancy Thebaut, “Bleeding Pages, Bleeding
Bodies: A Gendered Reading of British Library MS Egerton 1821,” in Medieval Feminist Forum 45
(2009): 175—200. Silke Tammen, “Blut ist ein ganz besoderer ‘Grund’: Bilder, Texte und die Farbe Rot
in einem kartäusischen Andachtsbüchlein (British Library, Ms. Egerton 1821),” in Bild und Text im
Mittelalter, ed. Karin Krause and Barbara Schellewald (Cologne: Weimar, and Vienna, Böhlau, 2011),
229–251; eadem, “Rot sehen—Blut berühren: blutige Seiten und Passionsmemoria in einem
spätmittelalterlcihen Andachtsbüchlein (Brit. Libr., Ms. Egerton 1821),” in Die Farben imaginierter
Welten: zur Kulturgeschichte ihrer Codierung in Literatur und Kunst vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart,
ed. Monika Schausten (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2012), 303—322.
2
Compare also Thomas Labusiak, Die Ruodprechtgruppe der ottonischen Reichenauer Buchmalerei:
Bildquellen, Ornamentik, stilgeschichtliche Voraussetzungen (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für
Kunstwissenschaft, 2009), 297. Textile ornament occurs frequently in Italian wall painting, however. See
especially Jacqueline Leclerq-Marx, “Le décor aux griffons du Logis des Clergeons (Cathédrale de Puy)
et l’imitation de ‘tissus orientaux’ dans l’art monumental d’époque romane en France: Tour d’horizon,”
Revue d’Auvergne 594 (2010): 115–46. Eadem, “L’imitation des tissus ‘orientaux,’” in Medioevo
mediterraneo: l’Occidente, Bisanzio e l’Islam. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi (Parma, 21–25
settembre 2004), ed. Arturo Carlo Quintavalle (Milano: Electra, 2006), 456–69. Thomas E. A. Dale,
Relics, Prayer, and Politics in Medieval Venetia: Romanesque Painting in the Crypt of Aquileia
Cathedral (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). See also John Osborne, “Textiles and Their
Painted Imitations in Early Medieval Rome,” Papers of the British School at Rome 60 (1992): 309–51.
While the many extant wall paintings make it apparent that Italy was a region where textile designs were
1
centers for textile-ornament in the tenth century were especially the scriptoria of St. Gallen,
Einsiedeln, Reichenau, Trier, and Corvey. The earliest known manuscript with textile pages is
the so-called Lindau Gospels, which was made in St. Gallen ca. 880—899.3 Most extant
manuscripts with textile ornamentation from the eleventh century were made in Hildesheim,
Seeon, Regensburg, Mainz, Echternach, Liège, and St. Omer.4 The twelfth century saw a
renewed interest in the use of textile ornamentation in workshops at Braunschweig,
Helmarshausen, and Salzburg. These twelfth-century manuscripts are excluded from this study,
however, because they tend to repeat and harken back to ornamental notions that were invented
at least two centuries earlier, rather than contributing new conceptual or formal aspects to textile
ornamentation.5
Despite the fact that some textile-ornamented manuscripts count among the best-known
works of medieval book illumination, textile ornament has never been studied in depth and there
exists no survey of the topic as a whole.6 The material has only been treated partially, which
frequently appropriated for other media, it seems curious that not a single Italian illuminated manuscript
with textile ornament survived.
3
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M 1. Anton von Euw, Die St. Galler Buchkunst vom 8. bis
zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (St. Gall: Verlag am Klosterhof, 2008), cat. no. 99, 1:408–11. The
manuscript contains two textile pages, fols. 5v and 12r, which I discuss in chapter two.
4
Some of the eleventh-century manuscripts cannot be attributed to a specific scriptorium, such as
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 9475 (fol. 15r). On this manuscript see chapters one and two.
Also Elisabeth Klemm, Die ottonischen und frühromanischen Handschriften der Bayerischen
Staatsbibliothek (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004), cat. no. 226, 248–50. Béatrice Hernad, “Evangeliar aus
Niederalteich,” in Pracht auf Pergament, exhibition catalogue Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung and
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich, ed. Claudia Fabian and Christiane Lange (Munich: Hirmer, 2012),
cat. no. 48, 222–25.
5
For a discussion of textile ornament in one of these manuscripts see Anna Bücheler, “Veil and Shroud:
Eastern References and Allegoric Functions in the Textile Imagery of a Twelfth-Century Gospel Book
from Braunschweig,” in The Medieval History Journal 15 (2012): 269–97. The question of continuation
or revival of Ottonian ornamental concepts that appears to permeate these illuminated manuscripts is an
aspect I will return to in a future study.
6
In addition to the often-discussed Lindau Gospels, which is also famous because of its precious gold
covers, the Codex Aureus Epternacensis now in Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Hs 156 142,
is also a well-known manuscript. On the Codex Aureus see chapter four.
2
appears to have engendered the impression that textile ornament is a rare phenomenon and was
practiced by select ateliers. For example, textile ornament has been called a hallmark of
manuscript illumination in lower Saxony and was considered a form of ornamentation that
flowered especially in the eleventh century.7 Other scholarly work shows a strong preference for
manuscripts from the Ottonian and Salian period, or for a specific center of manuscript
production, while neglecting the numerous lesser-known books that were made elsewhere.8 In
view of such criticism it seems appropriate to note that, although I broaden the scope
substantially, the list of manuscripts that I discuss in this study is not complete either. There are
three major reasons why I work with a wide, but not all-encompassing selection of books. First,
textile ornament in medieval manuscripts is exceedingly difficult to locate because library
catalogues of illuminated manuscripts rarely describe the ornament that appears on illuminated
pages. The entries usually mention an ornamented page or a decorative text page without
specifying the type of ornament that it includes.9 Several of the manuscripts I discuss in this
7
Rainer Kahsnitz, “Die Ornamentik,” in Das Evangeliar Heinrichs des Löwen: Autorisiertes
vollständiges Faksimile des Codex Guelf. 105 noviss. 2° der Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, ed.
Dietrich Kötzsche (Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1988), vol II, Kommentarband, 244–87, esp. 255. Andrea
Worm, Das Pariser Perikopenbuch und die Anfänge der romanischen Buchmalerei an Rhein und Weser:
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 17325 (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft,
2008), esp. 23–36.
8
Albert Boeckler, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch Heinrichs III (Berlin: Deutscher Verein für
Kunstwissenschft, 1933), 67, noted that the textile pages made at Echternach in the eleventh century were
preceded by similar illuminations made in the tenth, but that these earlier images share no relationship
with the Echternach material. “Imitationen von orientalischen Stoffen finden wir auch in anderen noch
dem 10. Jahrhundert entstammenden deutschen Buchmalereien […], indessen stehen die Echternacher
Stoffseiten in keiner direkten Verbindung mit ihnen.” A select focus on specific groups of manuscripts is
also evident in Stephen Wagner, “Silken Parchments: Design, Context, Patronage, and Function of
Textile-Inspired Pages in Ottonian and Salian Manuscripts” (Ph. D. diss., University of Delaware, 2004).
See also idem, “Establishing a Connection to Illuminated Manuscripts Made at Echternach in the Eighth
and Eleventh Centuries and Issues of Patronage, Monastic Reform and Splendor,” Peregrinations 3
(2010): 49–82, and Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe.
9
This problem is especially apparent in older catalogues. An entry that usefully distinguishes between
different ornamented pages is Christine Jakobi-Mirwald, Die illuminierten Handschriften der Hessischen
Landesbibliothek Fulda, Teil 1, Handschriften des 6. bis 13. Jahrhunderts, Textband (Stuttgart:
Hiersemann, 1993), 52. Jakobi-Mirwald identifies the textile page on fol. 3r of the Gospels of Judith of
Flanders, Cod. Aa 21, as “gerahmte (Teppich-) Zierseite,” in opposition to other “purpurgrundige
Textseiten,” monochrome purple text pages. Also Elisabeth Klemm, Die ottonischen und
frühromanischen Handschriften, 249, clearly identifies the textile pages in Clm 9475 by calling them
“Teppichseiten.” I discuss these manuscripts in chapter three.
3
dissertation have been published in remote places and the texts are at times lacking even black
and white illustrations. Some of the textile pages I present have never before been published.
While library catalogues, online and in print, seemed an appropriate way to search systematically
for poorly published textile ornament, I do not claim to have exhausted the possibilities.
Therefore, it is likely that more material will surface in the future, once textile ornament has been
placed in a broader art historical frame. Second, I did not include all textile pages known to me
in this study because, contrary to earlier opinion, the number of textile pages from the ninth to
the twelfth century is vast and not all images can be discussed in detail without repeating
previously articulated arguments. The ornamental programs of those manuscripts that I only
mention in passing usually reflect the textile metaphors and theological arguments that will
already have been discussed and add no additional insight. Finally, my aim is not to produce a
comprehensive descriptive catalogue of all extant textile pages known to date. Instead, I opted
for a selection of material that favors a succinct argument.
In chapter one I take a careful look at the form and style of textile-like images in order to
clarify what textile ornament is and why it deserves this name. I discuss in detail the problems
that arose from earlier assumptions that these pages were copied from Byzantine or Islamic silk,
or made in imitation of such fabrics. I present comparisons with various possible models to
demonstrate that the ornamented manuscript pages indeed resemble some extant silken textiles.
However, I also demonstrate that other media such as ivory, metalwork, stone, and earlier book
illuminations just as likely played a role in the formation of textile ornament. My focus in
chapter one is primarily on the argument that textile ornament does not represent specific silken
cloths, but that textile pages display a common type of textile iconography, one that has been
largely ignored, and was, therefore, never recognized. My extensive formal and comparative
analysis of textile iconography shows that iconographic clues such as extensible designs,
symmetry, geometry, and color codes were meant to recall in the viewer’s memory previous
visual and physical experiences with real textiles. The purpose of this evocation was not to copy
such experiences, however, but to guide the viewer’s mind to the meaning of various textile
metaphors. This is why the form and shape of individual motifs painted in these repeat-like
patterns—most of which are highly abstracted—are practically irrelevant and it is unlikely that
4
they convey symbolic significance in and of themselves.10 It is the textile-like pattern more
generally that evokes the textile metaphor, and thus lends meaning to the image. What this
meaning implies, how it came to bear on the parchment page, and how a textile-ornamented folio
operated in a liturgical manuscript are questions I pursue further in this dissertation. Although it
is important to clarify what textile ornament is, the chief question that guides my approach is
what textile images do.11
Textile ornament has never been studied in depth from such a performative point of view.
The previous literature relied primarily on formal and stylistic approaches to the material.12
Occasionally, scholars advanced propositions concerning the function of textile ornament, but
the bias in favor of formal analysis appears to have contributed to a general tenor that textile
ornament is primarily decorative. Albert Boeckler recognized that textile pages make a
contribution to structuring the manuscript, but in his view ornamentation “aims, of course,
primarily at decorating and embellishing.”13 Boeckler suggested further that textile ornament is
nothing more than a decorative prelude to the figurative images and text pages that follow.14 This
thought reappears in Joachim Plotzek’s study on the Pericopes of Henry the III in Bremen, where
10
I address the question whether individual ornamental motifs have specific meaning critically in chapter
one, and in Bücheler, “Veil and Shroud,” esp. 273.
11
For previous approaches to medieval illuminations asking the same question see Adam S. Cohen,
“Making Memories in a Medieval Miscellany,“ Gesta 48 (2009): 135—52. Mary Carruthers, The Craft of
Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press 1998), 118. Also useful is Chris Gosden, “What Do Objects Want?” Journal of Archaeological
Method and Theory 12 (2005): 193—211.
12
Boeckler, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch. Heinrich Volbert Sauerland and Arthur Haseloff, Der Psalter
des Trierischen Erzbischofs Egbert in Cividale (Trier: Gesellschaft für nützliche Forschungen, 1901).
Peter Metz, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch von Echternach im Germanischen Nationalmuseum zu
Nürnberg (Munich: Prestel, 1956). Joachim Plotzek, Das Perikopenbuch Heinrichs III. in Bremen und
seine Stellung innerhalb der Echternacher Buchmalerei (Cologne: Walter Kleikamp, 1970).
13
Boeckler, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch, 15. “[Die Ausstattung] hat in erster Linie natürlich die
Absicht, zu schmücken und zu illustrieren. Sie verfolgt aber auch den Zweck, die Einteilung des Textes
klar herauszuheben, mit optischen Mitteln das Ganze zu einem sinnvollen und übersichtlichen
Organismus zu gliedern.”
14
Ibid. “Zwei einander gegenüberliegende Purpurseiten, Imitationen eines goldgewebten orientalischen
Seidenstoffes, eröffnen – prunkende Vorbereitung nachfolgender Pracht – in höchst opulenter Weise das
Werk.”
5
the textile pages are said to be decorative (Zierde) and subordinate to other illuminations in the
book, in addition to the author’s claim that textile pages bear no relation with the texts that they
accompany.15 More recently, Labusiak hinted at the relationship between text and textile pages
but still denied ornament any additional function except to serve as decoration.16
Defining textile ornament as mere pleasure-bringing visual enhancement recalls Oleg
Grabar’s argument of the terpnopoietic properties of ornamentation more generally.17 James
Trilling similarly has considered ornament a visual additive to a work of art that is separable
from the object’s functional shape.18 In his view, “ornament is decoration in which the visual
pleasure of form significantly outweighs the communicative value of content.”19 Trilling further
distinguished ornament from adornment, decoration, and design.20 This dissertation makes no
such distinction because I contend that it adds little to a clear interpretation of the allegoric
function and symbolic meaning of textile pages. I use textile ornament, textile ornamentation,
textile design and textile pattern as interchangeable terms.
Although the pleasure-bringing properties of ornament were often highlighted, it has also
been noted that ornament serves other functions besides decoration. Ernst Gombrich saw the
15
Plotzek, Das Perikopenbuch Perikopenbuch Heinrichs III, 66. “Zierseiten [dienen] als Rahmen […]
woraus man den (minderen) Grad an Bedeutung, die sie innerhalb des Buches besitzen, abzulesen
versucht ist, wenngleich sie andererseits in der materiellen und ideellen Kostbarkeit ihrer purpurfarbenen
und goldenen Ausführung im ornamentalen Bereich hinführende und steigernde (im Bremensis
ansteigende und ausklingende Zierde), eine schmückende Begleitung ohne unmittelbare inhaltliche
Beziehung zum Text sind. […].”
16
“Die Ornamentik der untersuchten Handschriften läßt jenseits ihrer textbezogenen Platzierung keine
Konnotationen zu. Sie bleibt reine Zierde.” Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, 265.
17
Oleg Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 37.
18
“First, ornament is separable from the functional shape of an object.” James Trilling, Ornament: A
Modern Perspective (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2003), 21.
19
Trilling, Ornament: A Modern Perspective, 23.
20
Trilling, Ornament: A Modern Perspective, xiii, “Ornament is not adornment.” He further suggests, 21,
“If you want to know whether a particular feature of an object is ornament, try to imagine it away. If the
object remains structurally intact, and recognizable, and can still perform its function, the feature is
decoration, and may well be ornament. If not, it is design.” Finally, 23, “All ornament is decoration, but
not all decoration is ornament. Decoration is the most general term for the art we add to art.”
6
primary purpose of ornament in framing, filling, and connecting figurative images.21 This notion
implies that ornament is inferior to the actual work of art it accompanies. Grabar, on the
contrary, argued that ornament is also capable of being the major feature of an artwork. He
claimed that ornament is a quality that “can transform the very purpose of its carrier.”22 Trilling
echoed this relation between the ornament and its carrier in stating that the “business of
ornament is to transform shapes and surfaces, by whatever means, into something other than
what they really are.”23 The ability to transform is an important quality of textile ornament that
becomes apparent especially in the material that I discuss in chapters two and four. Covering a
parchment page in textile patterns significantly changes the manuscript page’s perceived
materiality, as well as its symbolic value.
In recent years, scholarship on textiles and ornament has shown an increased interest in
such questions of function and meaning. One such approach that is noteworthy although no
longer very recent is Bernd Rau’s little-known dissertation that argues, among other points, that
textile-patterned backgrounds in medieval book illuminations “make sense” because they serve a
compositional purpose and draw attention to specific image contents.24 Highly useful is Christine
Sciacca’s recent investigation of textile veils in manuscripts, which she read as material devices
that were designed to increase the viewer’s contemplative experience.25 I will return to Sciacca’s
argument in chapter two and show that textile pages in medieval manuscripts serve a very similar
purpose. Katharina Christina Schüppel’s recent article addresses textile ornament displayed not
in manuscripts but on the apron plates of Italian crucifixes of the thirteenth and fourteenth
century. The author usefully contextualizes textile ornament in the Good Friday liturgy and the
21
Ernst H. Gombrich, The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (Oxford:
Phaidon, 2006).
22
Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament, 41.
23
Trilling, Ornament: A Modern Perspective, 38.
24
Bernd Rau, Die ornamentalen Hintergründe, 15, ornament is a “sinnvoller Hintergrund und nicht […]
rein dekorative Flächenfüllung.” He further notes, 5, that the function of ornament is a compositional one.
25
See Christine Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain: On the Use of Textiles in Manuscripts,” in Weaving,
Veiling, and Dressing: Textiles and their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Kathryn M. Rudy and
Barbara Baert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 161–89.
7
practice of presenting the crucifix on textiles on this special feast of the veneration of the cross.26
Nancy Thebaut and Silke Tammen’s allegorical interpretations of the ornamented pages in a
fifteenth-century devotional manuscript with blood-colored pages relates to the Echternach
textile pages that I discuss in chapter four.27 Tammen’s reading of these pages as a physical
manifestation of Christ’s incarnate body closely parallels the way painters in Echternach applied
textile ornament as a material metaphor.28 Kristin Böse’s approach to questions of textiles and
materiality in medieval reliquaries is also useful, as is Thomas Dale’s metaphoric interpretation
of veils in Italian wall painting.29
Despite such recent approaches, the literature on textile ornament in German manuscripts
remains largely concerned with questions of form and style. This is not only true of the older
literature cited above, but also of more recent work like Stephen Wagner’s dissertation on
“silken parchments.”30 Wagner’s work deserves merit for touching on such important questions
as the textile-like design of the pages and raising the issue of function, but his largely descriptive
analysis calls for a more in-depth approach to the conceptual and allegorical principles by which
textile ornament was guided. Noteworthy for its thoroughness is Thomas Labusiak’s examination
of the so-called Ruodprecht manuscripts from Reichenau, many of which have textile
ornamentation.31 The catalogue and descriptions provided by Labusiak are an excellent place for
textual, visual, and codicological information on these manuscripts. While Labusiak’s book is
highly useful for these reasons, it nevertheless shows an emphasis on formal analysis that is
26
Katharina Christina Schüppel, “Tafelkreuze mit textilimitierendem Fond: Zur malerischen Dekoration
der Aprontafel in Giunta Pisano bis Giotto,” in Beziehungsreiche Gewebe: Textilien im Mittelalter, ed.
Kristin Böse and Silke Tammen (Frankfurt, Berlin and Bern: Peter Lang, 2012), 36—84.
27
British Library MS Egerton 1821. Thebaut, “Bleeding Pages.” Tammen, “Rot sehen—Blut berühren,”
303—322.
28
Tammen, “Blut ist ein ganz besoderer ‘Grund.’”
29
Kristin Böse, “Spürbar und Unvergänglich: Zur Visualität, Ikonologie und Medialität von Textilien und
textilen Reliquiaren im mittelalterlichen Reliquienkult,” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 33
(2006): 7—27. Dale, Relics, Prayer, and Politics.
30
Wagner, “Silken Parchments.”
31
Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe.
8
similar to Wagner’s dissertation. Questions of form, style, and attribution are central further in
the work of Rainer Kahsnitz, who occasionally contributed to research on textile-ornamented
manuscripts.32 Similarly focused on formals problems is Anja Grebe’s recent essay on the Codex
Aureus Epternacensis. Although she addresses the issue of function and connects textile pages to
veils and garments, the article is dominated by questions of form and style.33 Prior to Grebe,
symbolic readings of textile ornament as veils, shells, or garments have been ventured
occasionally in the scholarship on textile pages.34 The field is thus ready for a systematic and in-
depth investigation into the allegoric meaning of textile ornament in medieval manuscripts from
German scriptoria between 800 and 1100.
In light of previous arguments about the function and meaning of ornament and recent
developments in the field, Labusiak and Kahsnitz’s repeated assertions that textile ornament in
Ottonian manuscripts serves no other function but to please the eye needs to be reconsidered.35
This dissertation argues that textile ornament is directed at an audience; it has meaning and
serves a function. As Grabar observed, ornament plays a central role in establishing a
relationship between the object and the viewer. The ornament’s quality of negotiating between
the object and its audience is what Grabar called the intermediary role of ornament.36
32
His formal and stylistic approach to ornament is especially evident in Rainer Kahsnitz, “Die
Ornamentik,” in Das Evangeliar Heinrichs des Löwen: autorisiertes vollständiges Faksimile des Codex
Guelf. 105 noviss. 2° der Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, ed. Dietrich Kötzsche (Frankfurt a. M.:
Insel, 1988), vol II. Kommentarband, 244–87.
33
Anja Grebe, “Ornament, Zitat, Symbol: Die sogenannten ‘Teppichseiten’ des Codex aureus von
Echternach im Kontext von Buchmalerei und Textilkunst,” in Beziehungsreiche Gewebe: Textilien im
Mittelalter, ed. Kristin Böse and Silke Tammen (Frankfurt, Berlin and Bern: Peter Lang, 2012), 55–74.
34
Metz, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch, 50—51, 63, 67, connoted the textile pages in the Codex Aureus
with veils and garments. Plotzek, “Das Perikopenbuch Heinrichs III.,” 66, read textile pages as an “inner
protective shell.” Robert G. Calkins, Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1983), 147, interpreted textile-ornamented folios as “curtain pages.”
35
“Die Seiten sind rein dekorativ.” Rainer Kahsnitz and Thomas Labusiak, “Reichenauer Sakramentar,”
in Otto der Große: Magdeburg und Europa, ed. Matthias Puhle (Mainz: Zabern, 2001), 2:240—42, esp.
240.
36
“Ornament is itself or exhibits most forcefully an intermediate order between viewers and users of art,
perhaps even creators of art, and works of art.” Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament, 45. See also 230.
9
Ornamented surfaces are “intermediary zones of perception and understanding,”37 and hence, to
Grabar, ornament is a form of “veil through which an artwork is perceived and ultimately
reached.”38
Textile ornament is, as I will show especially in chapters two and three, a means to not
only reach the viewers but also to transform them spiritually. Chapters two and three
demonstrate further that the function of textile ornament is closely tied to the texts that it
accompanies, and vice versa, that the meaning of the texts also resonates in the function that the
textile pages take. In the liturgical manuscript that I discuss in chapter three, textile ornament
establishes in particular a relationship between the celebrant and the spiritual content conveyed
through the prayers and incantations that were said during mass. The textile patterns helped the
celebrant who used the book on the altar to raise his heart and to keep his spirit focused on the
sacrament of the Eucharist. The liturgical books discussed in chapter three can be placed in the
context of the mass because the Eucharistic celebration was the context for which these books
were made. Such a clear image of the manuscript’s practical function is the appropriate context
for an attempt to define further the audience that used these books. A clerical audience that used
the manuscripts in a liturgical setting is applicable also to the various Gospel lectionaries and the
Gospel books discussed in chapter four. Textile-ornamented pages in these manuscripts interact
with the viewer not only visually but also provoke a tactile and sensual experience with the book.
As chapter four will demonstrate, such a sensual function of textile ornament in the Gospel
books made at Echternach in the eleventh century aimed at transforming the book itself into a
material metaphor for the dual-natured body of Christ. Other manuscripts are less clear
concerning the settings in which they were used. Some books lack clear indications that would
help to define precisely who their users were. Although some of the Gospel books that I present
in chapter two may have been used on the lectern and altar, they also might have served a
different purpose. The manuscripts demonstrate that textile pages can also function as
metaphoric and physical veils through which the readers more easily access the spiritual meaning
of scripture. Such a contemplative use of textile ornament suggests that these books were likely
used for silent reading and private meditation. Therefore, while some of the manuscripts were
37
Ibid., 45.
38
Ibid., 46.
10
obviously used by ordained clerics, we know far less about the audience of other books. We can
say little more about the readers of the Gospel books presented in chapter two other than they
were literate and perhaps had a background in theology and exegesis. The contemplative
function of textile pages further suggests that they aimed at an audience that practiced a form of
scriptural meditation.
The overarching argument that connects my readings of textile ornament in chapters two
to four is the claim that one important function of textile ornament is to bridge the gap between
the spheres of matter and spirit. Textile ornament is exceptionally suited to operate along these
lines. By the definition that I propose in chapter one, textile ornament hovers between a
formulaic visual abbreviation, a pictorial code, and the evocation of a concrete material
substance: purple-colored patterned textiles. This significant visual connection between textile
iconography and textile material is the ground on which textile allegory operates. Chapters two
to four present different readings of such textile allegories. Chapter two is about textile ornament
as a veil of revelation and reads textile metaphors in the context of scripture and exegesis. The
third chapter relates textile ornament to the mass, to the Eucharist, and to textiles as a symbol of
the Incarnation. In the final chapter I take the argument of textile ornament as a visual
commentary on the Incarnation further by bring textile allegory together with the object that
presents the textile ornamented pages, that is the book. As I argue, textile ornament transforms
the manuscript into a physical container, a sort of book body, that functions in the liturgy as a
material symbol for the dual body of Christ.
My proposition that textile iconography, in these various contexts, transforms textile
pages and some textile-ornamented manuscripts into visual and material metaphors was
informed by several methodological considerations. First, my arguments on textile ornament
hinge on the physical context of the book in which these images appear. Approaching the
illuminated manuscript as a complex entity consisting of material and visual components, and
studying these in unison, is what John Lowden called “applied codicology.”39 Wherever
39
“Applied codicology” means studying a book in its totality. “The importance of the codicological
method lies in the emphasis that it places on the totality of the book. And its threat, if it has any, should
only be to those who feel that any single topic, be in text, illustration, parchment, layout, ruling, or
whatever, can be properly understood without reference to other elements that make up a book.” John,
Lowden, The Octateuchs: A Study in Byzantine Manuscript Illustration (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1992), 10. Also Idem, “The Word Made Visible: The Exterior of the Early
11
possible, I take to heart Lowden’s stipulation that the intention of a scholarly approach to an
illuminated manuscript should be “to demonstrate that the accumulation of codicological detail is
not an end in itself but provides the building blocks out of which art-historical arguments can and
must be constructed if their conclusions are to be convincing.”40 I provide or direct the reader to
information on the codicology of the manuscripts and always list all images that the manuscript
contains. Contextualizing ornament in the manuscript is important also because, as Trilling
noted, there is no one meaning for ornament, but the interpretation depends on the context, the
culture, and the function of the object.41 This is why I extend my definition of context beyond the
codicological structure to include a larger manuscript context. I discuss my definition of
manuscript context in detail in chapter one. In short, I consider the placement of textile pages
within the arrangement of the quires, but also base my arguments on the textile pages’ relation
with the texts and other images in the same book. The textile pages that I consider in this study
most frequently appear at the beginning of each Gospel. They further illuminate the Canon and
accompany the liturgical texts for the Christmas and Easter feasts. Occasionally, textile pages
take the place of frontispieces. The suggested meaning of these pages can be supported if books
are not only considered individually but also placed in a larger comparative framework.
Therefore, I also relate textile pages to similar images that appear in the same places in other
manuscripts. Finally, I keep the practical setting in which each individual book functioned in
mind. Because the books’ functions are especially clear in biblical and liturgical manuscripts, I
focus on these manuscript genres.42 While chapters two and three illustrate that the manuscript
context in tandem with the book’s function help define the allegoric meaning and practical
Christian Book as Visual Argument,” in The Early Christian Book, ed. William E. Klingshirn and Linda
Safran (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 13–47, esp. 16.
40
John Lowden, The Making of the Bibles Moralisées (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2000), 8.
41
James Trilling, The Language of Ornament (London: Thames & Hudson, 2001), 90.
42
Excluded are Psalters, saint’s lives, manuscripts containing exegetical texts, and miscellanies. I plan to
treat some of these books in the future, especially the so-called Egbert Psalter in Cividale, the Folchart
Psalter in St. Gallen, a vita of Saint Audomarus in St. Omer, and a life of Wenzel in Wolfenbüttel.
12
purpose of textile ornament, chapter four will show in particular that applied codicology can
yield fruitful results and generates new arguments. Another major aspect of my methodology is
to focus on the exegetical literature that brings textile metaphors and theological concepts about
scripture, books, and the liturgy together. I discuss the exegetical literature intertwined with my
arguments at the appropriate places. Finally, my analysis of books and textile metaphors rests on
the theory that the learned viewers who used these allegoric textile images were accustomed to
real textiles and acquainted with at least some textile metaphors. Since there is little discussion
about the use, function, and meaning of real cloth in the following chapters, some general
remarks on textiles in the medieval world will be helpful.
Textiles made of linen, wool, silk, and other fibers were omnipresent in medieval secular
and religious life and served, in the medieval period as today, innumerable functions. Although it
is usually not possible to identify textile pages as an imitation of a particular type of fabric, the
deep color and the rich patterns applied in the painted designs evoke exceptional and expensive
textiles. I discuss this hypothesis in detail in chapter one. The most precious of all fabrics
available to the patrons and artists who produced these textile pages was patterned silk, which
was not available from local workshops but imported from Byzantium, Islamic territories, and
the far East.43 Secular uses for silk include textile-clad horse saddles,44 and such unusual
43
The following selection of the vast literature indicates some places for further research into medieval
textiles. For extant medieval textiles, their make, functions and uses see Karel Otavsky and Muḥammad
‘Abbās Muḥammad Salīm, Mittelalterliche Textilien I: Ägypten, Persien und Mesopotamien, Spanien und
Nordafrika. (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 1995). Karel Otavsky and Anne Wardwell, Mittelalterliche
Textilien II: zwischen Europa und China (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2011). Regula Schorta,
Monochrome Seidengewebe des hohen Mittelalters: Untersuchungen zu Webtechnik und Musterung
(Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2001). Anna Muthesius, Studies in Silk in Byzantium
(London: Pindar Press, 2004). Eadem, Byzantine Silk Weaving AD 400 – AD 1200 (Vienna: Fassbaender,
1997). Leonie von Wilckens, Die Textilen Künste von der Spätantike bis um 1500 (Munich: Beck, 1991).
Otto von Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei (Berlin: Wasmuth, 1921). On silk production in the
Middle Ages see Robert Sabatino Lopez, “Silk Industry in the Byzantine Empire,” Speculum 20 (1945):
1—42. Anna Muthesius, “The Byzantine Silk Industry: Lopez and Beyond,” Journal of Medieval History
19 (1993): 1—67. Eadem, “A Practical Approach to the History of Byzantine Silk Weaving,” Jahrbuch
der österreichischen Byzantinistik 34 (1984): 235—54. David Jacoby, “Silk in Western Byzantium before
the Fourth Crusade,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 84—85 (1991—1992): 452—500. Donald and Monique
King, “Silk Weaves of Lucca in 1376,” in Opera Textilia Variorum Temporum: To Honour Agnes Geijer
on Her Nintieth Birthday 26th October 1988, ed. Inger Estham and Margareta Nockert (Stockholm:
Statens Historiska Museum, 1988), 67—76. On silk import and trade in the Middle Ages see David
Jacoby, Trade, Commodities and Shipping in the Medieval Mediterranean (Aldershot: Variorum, 2009).
Anna A. Ierusalimskaja and Birgitt, Von China nach Byzanz: frühmittelalterliche Seiden aus der
Staatlichen Ermitage Sankt Petersburg (Munich: Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, 1996). On eastern silk in
13
practices as relying on the thinness and transparency of white silk for tracing and transferring the
designs of stained glass windows, in addition to more obvious functions such as clothing and
household items for the elite.45 Evidence for practical uses of silk in the Middle Ages comes
from archaeological findings, written sources, and manuscript illuminations. The splendid mantle
that dresses the Virgin Mary in a miniature in the Petershausen Sacramentary provides an idea of
how precious imported silk tailored into robes was represented by tenth-century book
illuminators [fig. 1].46 Because textile pages in the manuscripts discussed in this study are
usually purple, the function and meaning of purple textiles is especially worth a closer look. I
discuss different symbolic notions associated with the color purple in the context of textiles in
chapters two, three, and four. The following remarks aim at clarifying in addition some of the
political and social functions that purple textiles played in the medieval world.
The most precious of all purple fabrics was silk dyed with expensive pigments that were
extracted from the murex snail.47 In Byzantium, murex-dyed silks were the exclusive privilege of
the imperial house and strictly regulated.48 Among the murex silks, which can be dyed in
the West see Regula Schorta, Central Asian Textiles and their Contexts in the Early Middle Ages,
Riggisberger Berichte 9 (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2009). Annemarie Stauffer, Die Mittelalterlichen
Textilien von St. Servatius in Maastricht (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 1991). Anna Muthesius, “The Role
of Byzantine Silks in the Ottonian Empire,” in Byzanz und das Abendland im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert, ed.
Evangelos Konstantinou (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 1997), 301—17.
44
Otavsky and Wardwell, Mittelalterliche Textilien II, cat. no. 16, 63—67.
45
Madeline Caviness, “Tucks and Darts: Adjusting Patterns to Fit Figures for Stained Glass Windows
around 1200,” in Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and other Cultural Imaginings, ed.
E. Jane Burns (New York: Palgrave, 2004), 104—119. For secular clothing see Henry Maguire,
“Garments Pleasing to God: The Significance of Domestic Textile Designs in the Early Byzantine
Period,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990): 215—224.
46
Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Sal. IX b, fol. 40v.
47
Lopez, “Silk Industry.” Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving.
48
George C. Maniatis, “Organization, Market Structure, and Modus Operandi of the Private Silk Industry
in Tenth-Century Byzantium,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 53 (1999): 263—332. The punishment for
violation of the strict regulations concerning murex-dyed silk was the death penalty, which illustrates the
social and political importance murex dyed silk held in Byzantine society. See also Lopez, “Silk
Industry,” esp. 8—13.
14
different colors ranging from yellow, peach, green, and red, to blue, the pure purple ones were
especially valued.49 Gifts of purple murex silk were a sign of esteem, patronage, and imperial
favor, and murex-dyed silk was further a form of monetary currency.50 The political and
economic significance of these textiles indicates why purple silk in general, both colored with
murex and other less expensive and freely available dyes, was highly valued by the Byzantine
aristocracy and members of lesser social circles likewise.51 Silk of eastern manufacture, and
purple murex cloth in particular, was highly prized by the western elite.52 The contraband silk
found in the luggage of Liudprand, the bishop of Cremona, on his return journey from
Constantinople is one well-attested incident of the means and tricks western emissaries resorted
to in order to get their hands on restricted murex silk, when other channels of import such as gift
49
Anna Muthesius, “Courtly and Aristocratic Silk Patronage,” in eadem, Studies in Silk in Byzantium
(London: Pindar Press, 2004), 85—108, esp. 95—96.
50
Anna Muthesius, “Silken Diplomacy,” in Byzantine Diplomacy: Papers from the Twenty-Fourth Spring
Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Cambridge March 1990, ed. Jonathan Shepard and Simon Franklin
(Aldershot: Variorum, 1992), 237–48. Prisoners of war were further attired with purple silk robes in order
to enhance the splendor of the triumph; Muthesius, “Courtly and Aristocratic Silk Patronage,” 94.
51
Silk was not only worn by the emperor but also by high dignitaries. The imperial silks were
distinguished by the murex dye and also received special gold embroideries that often included pearls.
Muthesius, “Courtly and Aristocratic Silk Patronage.” For a description of Byzantine courtly costume, its
functions and uses see Elisabeth Piltz, “Middle Byzantine Court Costume,” in Byzantine Court Culture
from 829 to 1204, ed. Henry Maguire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 39—51. Muthesius,
“Courtly and Aristocratic Silk Patronage,” 90, further observed that some military tunics were made of
purple silk and imperial murex textiles were also given to the Byzantine military aristocracy. James
Trilling adds that many people in Byzantium wore fake purple garments knowing that they were not
murex-dyed, and that their neighbor’s clothes were also imitations. “Yet for centuries the idea of purple
as a symbol of luxury was so compelling that on some level the difference between semblance and reality
did not matter.” Trilling, Ornament: A Modern Perspective, 80.
52
Leslie Brubaker, “The Elephant and the Ark: Cultural and Material Interchange across the
Mediterranean in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 58 (2004): 175—195.
Muthesius, “The Role of Byzantine Silks in the Ottonian Empire.” Janet Snyder, “Cloth from the
Promised Land: Appropriated Islamic Tiraz in Twelfth-Century French Sculpture,” in Medieval
Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and other Cultural Imaginings, ed. E. Jane Burns (New York:
Palgrave, 2004), 147—164, esp. 149, notes that not only murex silk but silk in general ranked highly
among western patrons. “Just as the ancient Romans decorated the Pantheon with marble imported from
the ends of the empire to emphasize the reach of their power, the exotic fabric employed in northern
courtly clothing was imported from the Mediterranean basin and the Levant in order to deliver strong
messages about European’s power and influence abroad.”
15
exchange failed.53 Murex-dyed cloth and other precious fabrics from the hands of the aristocracy
often came to the church eventually through gifts and donations, both in Byzantium and the Latin
West.54 Among other reasons, such gifts were stimulated by concerns that clothing was
important not only for the living but also for dead.55 The best-attested case of silk use in a
religious context in the Middle Ages is the custom of wrapping the relics of the saints in precious
cloth.56 Silk that ended up in reliquaries was often cut from reused secular textiles, as remnants
53
“Liudprand’s Gesandtschaft an den Kaiser Nikephoros Phokas in Konstantinopel,” in Quellen zur
Geschichte der sächsischen Kaiserzeit, ed. Albert Bauer and Reinhold Rau (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 525–89, esp. 573–77. Henry Mayr-Harting, “Liudprand of Cremona’s Account
of his Legation to Constantinople (968) and Ottonian Imperial Strategy,” English Historical Review 116
(2001): 539–56. Jon N. Sutherland, “The Mission to Constantinople in 968 and Liudprand of Cremona,”
Traditio 31 (1975): 54–81.
54
The Vita Meinwerci episcopus Patherbrunensis, ed. Franz Tenkhoff, Monumenta Germaniae Historica:
Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum Separatim Editi 59 (Hannover: Hahn, 1921), ch.
138, 71, mentions such a transfer of secular wall hanging to the church by Bishop Meinwerk of
Paderborn. The curtain hung in the bishop’s mother’s cubiculum and the son took it for his new church at
Abdinghof. Manfred Balzer, “Zeugnisse für das Selbstverständis Bischof Meinwercks von Paderborn,” in
Tradition als historische Kraft, ed. Norbert Kamp and Loachim Wollasch (Berlin and New York: de
Gruyter, 1982), 267—96, esp. 288—92. The Elephant Silk in the Aachen cathedral treasure bears an
inscription indicating that the piece came from the palace store room (eidikon) where the court kept the
imperial silks that were designated as imperial or diplomatic gifts, and some such gifts went to foreigners.
Muthesius, “Courtly and Aristocratic Silk Patronage,” 90, also 88, 98. Eadem, Byzantine Silk Weaving,
142. On other purple textiles in western European church treasures see Otto Lehmann-Brockhaus,
Schriftquellen zur Kunstgeschichte des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts für Deutschland, Lothringen und Italien
(Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1938), esp. nos. 2716, 2784, 2841, 2844–45.
55
On the importance of clothing the dead see Dyan Elliot, “Dressing and Undressing the Clergy: Rites of
Ordination and Degradation,” in Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural
Imaginings, ed. E. Jane Burns (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 55—69.
56
To name but few examples of innumerable cases, the fragment of a silk from either Byzantium or Syria,
dated eighth to eleventh century, and showing a repeat of fighting Amazons survived in Bad Säckingen,
Katholisches Münsterpfarramt St. Fridolin, where it clad remains of Saint Fridolin. Krone und Schleier:
Kunst aus mittelalterlichen Frauenklöstern (Munich: Hirmer, 2005), cat. no. 165, 281—2. Adolf Reinle,
“Der Schatz des Münsters zu Säckingen,” in Frühe Kultur in Säckingen, ed. Walter Berschin
(Sigmaringen, 1991), 105—51, esp. 109. Pieces were cut from such precious silk fragments in post-
medieval times and sold on the market. Samples of the silk from St. Fridolin are sold to collections in
Zürich and Freiburg. Suevia Sacra: Frühe Kunst in Schwaben. Ausstellungskatalog Rathaus Augsburg
(Augsburg: Mühlberger, 1973), cat. nos. 201 and 202, 193—195. Also Franz Kirchweger, “’Nunc de
Vestibus Altariis:’ Kirchentextilien in Schriftquellen des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts,” Wiener Jahrbuch für
Kunstgeschichte 50 (1997): 75–109, esp. 107, note 257. In Bad Gandersheim survived a ninth-century
silk fragment from a Byzantine (?) atelier, at the Evangelisch-Lutherische Stiftskirchengemeinde St.
Anastasius und St. Innocentius, Inv. no. 134. Krone und Schleier, cat. no. 160, 278—79. On a textile
donation by an imperial patron to Gandersheim and the subsequent use of the silk in the relic cult see
16
of seams, stitching, and cutting lines demonstrate.57 In addition to wrapping relics, silk and other
purple textiles served manifold functions in the medieval church. Silk lined the inside of
reliquaries,58 and decorated them on the outside.59 Precious textiles veiled saintly remains during
processions and translations,60 covered the tombs of the saints,61 and shrouded the dead.62
Churches were further equipped with tapestries, wall hangings, and other textiles.63 In some
cases we know that these fabrics were purple. For example, curtains made of crimson silk
Christian Popp, Der Schatz der Kanonissen: Heilige und Reliquien im Frauenstift Gandersheim
(Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2010). I thank Christian Popp for making the manuscript available to me
prior to publication.
57
Regula Schorta, “The Textiles Found in the Shrine of the Patron Saints of Hildesheim Cathedral,”
CIETA Bulletin 77 (2000): 45–56. Some of the textile wrappings mentioned in Popp, Schatz der
Kanonissen, also show signs of a previous use, as does the silken book cover of Bamberg,
Staatsbibliothek, Hs. Bibl. 95 that I discuss at the end of chapter three.
58
Schorta, “The Textiles Found in the Shrine of the Patron Saints of Hildesheim Cathedral.” The cross
reliquary of Pope Paschal I. contains a silken pillow. Holger A. Klein, Byzanz, der Westen und das
“wahre” Kreuz: Die Geschichte einer Reliquie und ihrer künstlerischen Fassung in Byzanz und im
Abendland (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004), 97.
59
Böse, “Spürbar und unvergänglich.”
60
The Translatio Sancto Modoaldi: Die Überführung der Reliquien des Heiligen Modoald von Trier nach
Helmarshausen, trans. Hans Joachim Spernal (Bad Karlshafen: Verlag des Antiquariats Bernhard Schäfer,
1999), 46, reports that saintly remains were “covered with precious cloth” before they were moved.
61
Kirchweger, “Nunc de Vestibus Altariis,” 93, note 142, and 97 note 180. John McCulloh, “The Cult of
Relics in the Letters and ‘Dialogues’ of Pope Gregory the Great: A Lexicographical Study,” Traditio 32
(1976): 163—84, esp. note 123.
62
An Islamic head shroud with inscriptions covered the face of pope Clement II (d. 1047) in Bamberg,
and bishop Gunther’s body was wrapped in a splendid Byzantine silk cloth. Sigrid Müller-Christensen,
Das Grab des Papstes Clemens II. im Dom zu Bamberg (Munich: Bruckmann, 1960). Eadem,
“Beobachtungen zum Bamberger Gunthertuch,” Münchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst: 3. Folge 17
(1966): 9–16. Gunter Prinzig, “Das Bamberger Gunthertuch in neuer Sicht,” Byzantinoslavica 54 (1993):
218–31.
63
The Translatio Sancto Modoaldi, trans. Spernal, 60, mentions “Wandteppiche,” but it is unclear which
material these were made of. Kirchweger, “Nunc de Vestibus Altariis,” 96, and n. 166, mentions “pallia
ad murum pendentia.” Balzer, “Zeugnisse für das Selbstverständis Bischof Meinwercks,” 289, mentions
another such example. When Meinwerk takes the wall-hanging from his mother’s place, he replaces it
with his mantle (pallium), which he hangs on the wall.
17
separated the aisle from the nave in some medieval churches, and closed off the sanctuary.64 In
addition to white linen, some of the coverings that clad the altar were red or purple.65 The Gospel
book was further placed on a silk cushion, of unspecified color, that was laid on top of the altar,66
and textiles bedecked the chalice.67 Priests dressed in liturgical vestments that were often made
64
Durandus of Mende mentions curtains in his Rationale Divinorum Officiorum 3.35—37, and gives a
symbolic or typological explanation. Timothy M. Thibodeau, The Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of
William Durand of Mende: A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2007), 43—44. Also Kirstin Faupel-Drevs, “Bildraum als Kultraum? Symbolische und
liturgische Raumgestaltung im ‘Rationale divinorum officiorum’ des Durandus von Mende,” in Raum und
Raumvorstellungen im Mittelalter, ed. Jan. A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer (Berlin and New York: de
Gruyter, 1998), 665—84, esp. 678—283. On curtains hanging before the altar on Sundays see further
Rupert von Deutz, Liber de Divinis Officiis, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, transl. Helmut und Ilse Deutz
(Freiburg: Herder, 1999), 2:539. We are especially well informed about the use of curtains in the churches
of Rome, of which the Liber pontificalis mentions numerous ones. The Lives of the Eighth-Century Popes
(Liber Pontificalis), trans. Raymond Davis (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1992). Anton de Waal,
“Figürliche Darstellungen auf Teppichen und Vorhängen in römischen Kirchen bis zur Mitte des IX
Jahrhunderts nach dem Liber Pontificalis,” Römische Quartalschrift 2 (1888): 313—21. Stephan Beissel,
“Gestickte und gewebte Vorhänge der römischen Kirchen in der zweiten Hälfte des VIII. und in der
ersten Hälfte des IX. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst 12 (1894): col. 358–74, esp. 369–70.
Osborne, “Textiles and Their Painted Imitations,” esp. 312—21. Christel Meier and Rudolf Suntrup,
Lexikon der Farbenbedeutungen im Mittelalter (Vienna, Cologne, and Weimar: Böhlau, 2011), 679,
mention curtains in various colors.
65
Kirchweger, “Nunc de Vestibus Altariis.” Jörg Richter, “Linteamina: Leinen als Bedeutungsträger,” in
Beziehungsreiche Gewebe: Textilien im Mittelalter, ed. Kristin Böse and Silke Tammen (Frankfurt, Berlin
and Bern: Peter Lang, 2012), 303—445. On the general use of liturgical textiles on or near the altar see
Joseph Braun, Der christliche Altar in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Munich: Guenther Koch,
1924), 2:9—30. Meier and Suntrup, Lexikon der Farbenbedeutungen, 663 also mention other colors
besides purple for altar coverings.
66
Rupert of Deutz, Liber de Divinis Officiis, book 1.37, ed. Haacke, 1:237, notes that the deacon walks in
front of the subdeacon, who carries a small cushion, which he places under the Gospels. Rupert gives a
typological explanation for this custom. It represents the succession of the New covenant after the Old.
The Gesta Abbatum Fontanellensium, ed. Samuel Löwenfeld, Monumenta Germaniae Historica:
Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum Separatim Editi 28 (Hannover: Hahn, 1886), 44, an
early ninth century source, further records the donation of three silk cushions that were used for
supporting the Gospel book on the altar (pulvillos sericos sub euangelium ponendos tres). Peter Brown,
“Images as a Substitute for Writing,” in East and West: Modes of Communication: Proceedings of the
First Plenary Conference at Merida, ed. Evangelos Chyros and Ian Wood (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 15—46,
esp. 29, mentions that other books were laid on pillows as well.
67
Kirchweger, “Nunc de Vestibus Altariis.” Barbara Schellewald, “Aër—Epitaphioi in Byzanz: Tuch—
Körper—Christus,” in Beziehungsreiche Gewebe: Textilien im Mittelalter, ed. Kristin Böse and Silke
Tammen (Frankfurt, Berlin and Bern: Peter Lang, 2012), 323—450. Sharon Gerstel, Beholding the
Sacred Mysteries: Programs of the Byzantine Sanctuary (Seattle and London: University of Washington
Press, 1999), 76.
18
of silk,68 and were supposed to be red especially on the days when the cross was venerated.69 On
Good Friday the cross was displayed on or wrapped in textiles.70 During Lent and the Easter
season in general, textiles were particularly prominent in the church. Silken veils covered the
images in the church at the time of Lent,71 some of the Easter vela were purple colored,72 and
during baptism, which usually occurred on the Saturday of Holy Week, the Gospels were further
clad in red cloth.73 Finally, textiles functioned prominently in liturgical manuscripts. Textiles
were pasted into book covers on the inside, and protected the backs and spines on the outside.74
68
Rupert of Deutz, Liber de Divinis Officiis, book 1.18—23, ed. Haacke, 1:188—99. Timothy M.
Thibodeau, William Durand: On the Clergy and their Vestments. A New Translation of Books 2—3 of the
“Rationale Divinorum Officiorum” (Scranton, Pa.: University of Scranton Press, 2010), book 3, 131—
221. The vestments mentioned in Durandus are made of various fabrics. For garments in silk and a
symbolic reading of this material as chastity esp. 176. For an extant silken vestment see, for example, the
so-called chasuble of St. Vitalis from Salzburg, Otavsky and Wardwell, Mittelalterliche Textilien II, cat.
no. 46, 142—48.
69
Meier and Suntrup, Lexikon der Farbenbedeutungen im Mittelalter, 672.
70
Kirchweger, “Nunc de Vestibus Altariis,” 87. Richter, “Linteamina,” 308, 310. Schüppel, “Tafelkreuze
mit textilimitierendem Fond,” 45—6.
71
Kirchweger, “Nunc de Vestibus Altariis,” 98. In the Byzantine church, veils were integrated into the
veneration of images on more occasions during the year. Veils over icons see Evangelatou notes 20, 21
Valerie Nunn, “The Encheirion as an Adjunct to the Icon in the Middle Byzantine Period, Byzantine and
Modern Greek Studies 10 (1986): 73—102. Bissera V. Pentcheva. “Rhetorical Images of the Virgin: The
Icon of the ‘Usual Miracle’ at the Blachernai,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 38 (2000): 34–55.
72
Meier and Suntrup, Lexikon der Farbenbedeutungen im Mittelalter, 663. Durandus of Mende,
Rationale Divinorum Officiorum 3.35—37, trans. Thibodeau, The Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of
William Durand, 43—44. Kirchweger, “Nunc de Vestibus Altariis,” 98, mentions “Fastentücher.”
Richter, “Linteamina,” 308—10, cites sources for the use of pallae, cortinae or a sudarium, which where
likely white, during the Easter morning liturgy. Also Katharina Krause, “Material, Farbe, Bildprogramm
der Fastentücher: Verhüllung in Kirchenräumen des Hoch- und Spätmittelalters,” in Das “Goldene
Wunder” in der Dortmunder Petrikirche: Bildgebrauch und Bildproduktion im Mittelaler, ed. Barbara
Welzel, Thomas Lentes, and Heike Schlie (Bielefeld: Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 2003), 161—81.
73
Meier and Suntrup, Lexikon der Farbenbedeutungen, 651.
74
Leonie von Wilckens, “Zur Verwendung von Seidengeweben des 10. bis 14. Jahrhunderts in
Bucheinbänden,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 53 (1990): 425—442. For a manuscript with silken back
cover see Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Hs. 71 Aug. fol., in Muthesius, Byzantine Silk
Weaving, cat. no. M 67. Also the so-called Bernward Gospels, Regula Schorta, “Seidengewebe und
Schließe,” in Michael Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar des heiligen Bernward (Munich: Prestel, 1993),
61—63. Silken “fly-leafs” were further pasted onto the inner front and back cover of the Lindau Gospels,
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library Ms. M 1, http://corsair.morganlibrary.org/cgi-
19
Some books were entirely clad in silk.75 Moreover, silken veils overlaid illuminated pages, and
holes in parchment pages were repaired with textile techniques.76
As this very brief overview demonstrates, the uses and functions of textiles in the Middle
Ages were many, and more examples could be given. The textiles employed in liturgical contexts
serve not only practical functions but moreover have symbolic meaning. Some recent
publications have taken increased notice of such allegoric functions of textiles.77 The following
chapters aim to bring together two different artistic media that have recently seen a renewed
bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&Search_Arg=osin+%22ms+M+1%22&Search_Code=CMD&CNT=50&H
IST=1 [accessed, 27.01.2014]. These textiles likely date from the ninth century. Herman A. Elsberg,
“Two Mediaeval Woven Silk Fabrics in the Binding of the 9th Century Ms. ‘The Four Gospels’ in the
Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City,” The Bulletin of the Needle and Bobbin Club 17 (1933): 2—
11, esp. 7—11. Adèle Coulin Weibel, Two Thousand Years of Textiles: The Figured Textiles of Europe
and the Near East (New York, 1952), no. 62, 95. Also Schorta, “Seidengewebe und Schließe,” note 46.
The so-called Elfenbein-Evangeliar from Jena, Universitäts und Landesbibliothek, Hs El. f. 3 dated to
around 1000, preserved a piece of tenth-century byzantine silk. The silk was originally pasted on the
leather binding of the exterior back cover, which now displays a miniature that was glazed over with
polished horn. Irmgard Kratzsch and von Sabine Wefers, Schätze der Buchmalerei: Aus der
Handschriftensammlung der Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Jena (Jena: Friedrich-
Schiller-Universität, 2001), cat. no. 2, 14—24.
75
I discuss the textile cover of Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek Ms. Bibl. 95 in chapter three. See Regula
Schorta, “Der Seideneinband des Bamberger Evangelistars (Msc. Bibl. 95),” in Das Buch mit sieben
Siegeln: Die Bamberger Apokalypse, ed. Gude Suckale-Redlefsen and Bernhard Schemmel (Luzern:
Faksimile Verlag, 2000), 175—76. Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving, cat. no. M 41, 177, mentions
another Gospel book now in Rome, Vatican Library, that also preserved a full textile cover made of an
eighth or ninth century eastern Mediterranean silk.
76
Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain.” Eadem, “Stitches, Sutures, and Seams: ‘Embroidered’ Parchment
Repairs in Medieval Manuscripts,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 6 (2010): 57—92.
77
In addition to the literature that I cite in chapters two to four, the following titles are especially useful
for their methodological and thematic scope, and an excellent place for further research into textiles and
their metaphoric uses in the Middle Ages. Kathryn M. Rudy and Barbara Baert (eds.), Weaving, Veiling,
and Dressing: Textiles and their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007). David
Ganz and Marius Rimmele (eds.), Kleider machen Bilder: Vormoderne Strategien vestimentärer
Bildsprache (Emsdetten and Berlin: Edition Imorde, 2012), [Textile Studies 4]. Warren T. Woodfin, The
Embodied Icon: Liturgical Vestments and Sacramental Power in Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012). Mateusz Kapustka und Warren T. Woodfin (eds.), Clothing the Sacred [Textile Studies 8]
(Emsdetten and Berlin: Edition Imorde, forthcoming). Kristin Böse, “Spürbar und Unvergänglich.” E.
Jane Burns, Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). See also the various volumes of Medieval Clothing and Textiles.
20
scholarly interest: textiles and ornament. In arguing that ornament has precise meaning in
specific contexts, I aim to contribute to a clearer understanding of an “iconology of the textile.”78
The four chapters aim to demonstrate that textile images in medieval manuscripts are not
decorative but have meaning. They make succinct theological arguments about the visibility and
invisibility of the Divine. My contextualized reading of textile iconography and textile
metaphors suggests that textile ornament has wider implications for our understanding of
materiality, material metaphors and the function of physical matter in medieval religious art.
78
The iconology of the textile is currently being investigated on a broad scope by the research group,
“Textile: An Iconology of the Textile in Art and Architecture” located at the University of Zürich under
the direction of Prof. Tristan Weddigen, and collaborates 2013—16 with Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft and Humbold Universität Berlin under Prof. Gerhard Wolf.
http://www.khist.uzh.ch/chairs/neuzeit/res/textile.html [accessed 27.01.2014].
21
Chapter 1 : Textiles, Textile Ornament and Textile Iconography
Medieval silk produced on mechanical looms by weavers in Byzantium, the Islamic world, and
Spain typically displays a type of continuous ornament, called a repeat. The composition of such
a repeat can be more or less complex and may consist of a single or multiple design elements.
The repeat motif is usually mirrored along the horizontal extension of the loom (if the repeat
design is smaller than the total width of the loom), and perpetuates itself in the vertical direction
as the length of cloth grows with the weft that weaves the fabric. Because textile ornament is
reminiscent of the weave patterns of such draw-loom woven silk, scholars have referred to it as
textile, or textile-like ornament.79 Textile ornament is akin to medieval woven repeats in the way
the pattern is usually repetitive, extensible, symmetrical, and frequently constructed of simple
geometric shapes. Textile-like ornament in early medieval manuscripts most often appears as a
framed full-folio miniature. A typical example of such a non-figurative ornamented image can be
found in a Gospel book from Corvey dated around the year 1000 (Wolfenbüttel, Cod. Guelf. 426
Helmst., fol. 18v [fig. 2].80 This folio is one of several ornamented pages in the book, most of
which are textile-like.81 The image on fol. 18v displays a symmetric, geometric, and extensible
pattern composed of medallions in two shades of purple that forms the background of a golden
inscription comprising the beginning verse of the Gospel of Matthew. The ornament resembles a
sort of stylized “mock-repeat,” a repetitive pattern that extends from one end of the frame to the
other. Row by row the painted design repeats itself, just as would be the case if such a pattern
were woven on a loom.
79
The most recent overview of the material is Stephen Wagner’s dissertation, “Silken Parchments:
Design, Context, Patronage, and Function of Textile-Inspired Pages in Ottonian and Salian Manuscripts”
(PhD diss., University of Delaware, 2004). See also idem, “Establishing a Connection to Illuminated
Manuscripts Made at Echternach in the Eighth and Eleventh Centuries and Issues of Patronage, Monastic
Reform and Splendor,” Peregrinations 3/1 (2010): 49–82.
80
On this manuscript see Monika Müller, “Evangeliar aus Helmstedt,” in Schätze im Himmel Bücher auf
Erden: Mittelalterliche Handschriften aus Hildesheim, ed. Monika Müller (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
2010), 276–78. Also Gerd Bauer, “Corvey oder Hildesheim: Zur ottonischen Buchmalerei in
Norddeutschland” (PhD diss., University of Hamburg, 1977), 2: 145–60.
81
Textile-ornamented pages appear on fols. 17v–18v (Matthew); 59r–60r, 61v (Mark); 86v–87r, 88v
(Luke); 128v–129v (John).
22
Scholars have connected the compositional features of these framed textile pages and
other, less frequently occurring ornamented pages, in which an entire double-page of a
manuscript is completely covered in a textile-like pattern, directly with the repeats of precious
eastern silk.82 It has often been assumed that western painters copied the repeats of Byzantine
and other eastern fabrics wholesale.83 It is true that manuscript textile ornament in general
evokes the look of woven repeat patterns and that many textile pages display details that
resemble typical visual attributes of a piece of patterned silk. As Anton von Euw noted, painted
textile pages in which the frame intersects the repeat-like pattern appear especially textile-like,
because fragmenting the “repeat” along the borders of the image makes the painted pattern
appear “as if a piece of cloth had been cut with scissors.”84 This effect can be observed in Cod.
Guelf. 426 Helmst., fol. 18v, where the frame slightly overlaps the medallion-patterned image,
82
Rainer Kahsnitz observed: “Daneben hat das Scriptorium [von Echternach] offenbar in Nachahmung
byzantinischer oder orientalischer Seidenstoffe ungerahmte Zierseiten zur Trennung der verschiedenen
Evangelien in die Handschrift eingefügt, über deren Musterung im unendlichen Rapport jedoch weder
Schriftzeichen noch Bilder gelegt wurden.” Rainer Kahsnitz, “Die Ornamentik,” in Das Evangeliar
Heinrichs des Löwen: Autorisiertes vollständiges Faksimile des Codex Guelf. 105 noviss. 2° der Herzog
August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, ed. Dietrich Kötzsche (Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1988), Kommentarband,
2: 244–87, esp. 263. Compare further Anton von Euw, “Ikonologie der Heiratsurkunde der Kaiserin
Theophanu,” in Kaiserin Theophanu: Begegnung des Ostens und Westens um die Wende des ersten
Jahrtausends. Gedenkschrift des Kölner Schnütgen-Museums zum 1000. Todesjahr der Kaiserin, ed.
Anton von Euw and Peter Schreiner (Cologne: Schnütgen Museum, 1991), 2:175–191, esp. 190.
83
Albert Boeckler, “Bildvorlagen der Reichenau,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 12 (1949): 7–29, esp.
20 and n. 58, suggeste that textile ornament imitates Byzantine silk textiles. Similar, Hanns Swarzenski,
“Die deutschen Miniaturen des frühen Mittelalters in amerikanischem Besitz,” Zeitschrift für bildende
Kunst 63 (1929–30): 193–200, esp. 194. Karl Hermann Usener noted that the plant and animal motifs in
Gospel books from Corvey are of “eastern origin, [and were] likely transmitted through textiles.” He cites
a tenth century Byzantine silk from a Corvey manuscript now in Trier (Dombibliothek Ms. 401, olim 152
F), which is contemporary with the book, as proof that local artists had access to oriental silk. Karl
Hermann Usener, “Buchmalerei bis 1200,” in Kunst und Kultur im Weserraum 800–1600 (Münster:
Aschendorff, 1966), 2: 465. More recently, the idea that textile ornament copies oriental textiles was most
clearly expressed by Anja Grebe, who describes textile ornament as an “optical illusion.” Anja Grebe,
Codex Aureus: Das goldene Evangelienbuch von Echternach (Darmstadt: Primus, 2008), 50–53, esp. 53.
See further Thomas Labusiak, Die Ruodprechtgruppe der ottonischen Reichenauer Buchmalerei:
Bildquellen, Ornamentik, stilgeschichtliche Voraussetzungen (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für
Kunstwissenschaft, 2009), 294–302; with references to older literature. Also Rainer Kahsnitz,
“Frühottonische Buchmalerei,” in Otto der Große: Magdeburg und Europa, ed. Matthias Puhle (Mainz:
Zabern, 2001), 1:228. Henry Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination: An Historical Study (London:
Miller, 1999), 159–66.
84
Von Euw, “Ikonologie der Heiratsurkunde,” 175.
23
cutting off parts of the painted “repeat.” The textile-like image thus resembles a patterned cloth
that was cut from a larger piece and sized to fit into the miniature’s frame. This observation led
von Euw to the conclusion that “in case of the textiles, one observes that Byzantine art directly
transmitted these motifs to the West,” and that from the textile arts they migrated into other
media such as illuminated parchment.85
Thinking of textile ornament as a wholesale copy of the repeats of eastern silk, let alone
of trompe l’oeil paintings, is not without problems, however.86 As the material presented in this
chapter will show, the relationship between patterned oriental silk and western textile-images
cannot be reduced to a straightforward relationship between oriental textile model and painted
parchment copy. The relationship between the repeats of oriental silk and textile images in
western medieval manuscripts is more complicated. Although this has been noted occasionally,
the notion that textile ornament directly reflects silk models still dominates the literature.87 The
methodological scope of the earlier literature appears to have contributed to this view. Most
previous studies focused on a small number of select examples and preferred miniatures that
were particularly textile-like, or which could be compared easily to existing medieval silk. The
most frequently discussed objects are the marriage charter of Theophanu and Otto II and the
textile pages of the Echternach Gospel books, among which the Codex Caesareus Uppsaliensis
85
Von Euw, “Ikonologie der Heiratsurkunde,” 190. Compare also Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, 299.
86
According to Grebe, textile ornament in the Codex Aureus Epternacensis imitates an oriental textile so
perfectly “the viewer only recognizes at a second glance that the image is painted and not a real piece of
fabric. The painter most likely used real textiles as a source of inspiration for this trompe-l’oeil-effect.”
Grebe, Codex Aureus, 50–53.
87
For an early critique of the direct model-copy relationship see Carl Nordenfalk, Codex Caesareus
Uppsaliensis: An Echternach Gospel-Book of the Eleventh Century (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell,
1971), 97–102. Arthur Haseloff, in Heinrich Volbert Sauerland and Arthur Haseloff, Der Psalter des
Trierischen Erzbischofs Egbert in Cividale (Trier: Gesellschaft für nützliche Forschungen, 1901), 112,
suggested that textile ornament in the Echternach manuscripts has been “borrowed from the textile arts”
(Weberei) although the textile pages are “not direct copies of specific textiles.” He differentiated the
ornamented pages in the Egbert Psalter that show animal motifs, from other pages with “textile character”
(Stoffcharakter) in the manuscript, and noted that the animal pages are decidedly less textile-like.
Although the more recent studies by Wagner and Labusiak mention occasional discrepancies between
textile image and silk model in their discussions of textile ornament, both authors uphold the impression
that oriental silk played a major role in the formation of textile-ornamented backgrounds in Ottonian
illuminated manuscripts. Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, 294–302. Wagner, “Silken Parchments,” 4, notes
that only few textile pages “might be termed ‘copies.’”
24
and the Codex Aureus Epternacensis have received the most attention [figs. 3—5].88 The focus
on these particularly sophisticated textile-like paintings has contributed to the impression that
most textile pages in medieval manuscripts display an extraordinary artistic quality and can be
related easily to the repeat patterns of extant silk. However, the marriage charter and the
Echternach Gospel books are by no means typical or representative examples of textile ornament
produced in the early Middle Ages prior to 1100. Previous studies seem generally unaware of the
stylistic diversity in textile ornament and the varying pictorial quality that some manuscripts
display. Only a small part of the extant textile ornament, in fact, shows enough detail in the
patterns to make a direct comparison with existing textile repeats possible at all. But this material
is poorly published and therefore little known.89 It cannot be overstated that most examples of
textile imagery from the early Middle Ages are highly stylized and less detailed in comparison to
the paintings of the marriage charter and the Echternach textile designs. While the charter and
the Echternach illuminations are rich in pictorial detail, and hence easily comparable to extant
silk, the individual ornamental motifs of most other pages are constructed of basic ornamental
forms that often lack detail. In some cases, not only the design but also the painterly execution is
rather basic. Popular in particular are textile-ornamented surfaces that show medallions,
lozenges, and cross-shaped designs. A textile page from a late tenth-century manuscript perhaps
from Corvey and now in the Bodleian Library, for instance, shows such a simple pattern
constructed of lozenge-shaped acanthus leaves. The design is a far stretch from the sophisticated
88
Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel, 6 Urk 11. Anthony Cutler and William North, “Word over Image: On the
Making, Uses, and Destiny of the Marriage Charter of Otto II and Theophanu,” in Interactions: Artistic
Interchange Between The Eastern and Western Worlds in the Medieval Period, ed. Colum Hourihane
(Princeton NJ: Index of Christian Art, 2007), 167–187. See further Hans K. Schulze, Die Heiratsurkunde
der Kaiserin Theophanu: Die griechische Kaiserin und das römisch-deutsche Reich 972–991 (Hannover:
Hahn, 2007), with more literature. Nordenfalk, Codex Caesareus Uppsaliensis; Grebe, Codex Aureus;
Rainer Kahsnitz and Elisabeth Rücker, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch von Echternach: Codex aureus
Epternacensis HS 156142 aus dem Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Faksimile-Edition
(Frankfurt: Fischer, 1982).
89
Andrea Worm, Das Pariser Perikopenbuch und die Anfänge der romanischen Buchmalerei an Rhein
und Weser: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 17325 (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für
Kunstwissenschaft, 2008), recently published one of these lesser known manuscripts. On the textile
patterns in the images of the evangelists see esp. 23–36.
25
animal combat motif depicted on the marriage charter [fig. 6].90 The checkerboard pattern in the
image of Luke from a mid-eleventh century Gospel book from Mainz is an even more simplistic
rendering of a textile motif [fig. 7].91 It is the aim of this dissertation to draw attention to the
lesser-studied material. Including the schematic and stylized textile pages in an examination of
textile ornament in early medieval manuscripts contributes significantly to a clarification why
textile ornament appears textile-like. These formulaic textile pages show that textile ornament
evokes the look of repeat designs because it follows certain iconographic principles.
In order to assess the iconographic code that underlies the textile-like appearance of
painted ornament, it is necessary to take a careful look at what real medieval silk looks like, and
to compare these repeat patterns with the painted textile images in the manuscripts. Such an
analysis will show that even the more naturalistic textile images that have been claimed as copies
of eastern textiles at times differ significantly from the repeats of extant medieval silk. Curiously,
despite such claims, not one particularly textile-like page from a medieval illuminated
manuscript has ever been matched successfully with a truly identical woven repeat of a medieval
silk.92 Therefore, the more recent literature has viewed the model-copy relationship between
textile ornament in manuscripts and real silk more critically. A new study on the marriage charter
by Anthony Cutler and William North, and Anja Grebe’s recent essay on the Codex Aureus
Epternacensis, for instance, have re-phrased the model-copy problem by noting that medieval
illuminators did not necessarily copy the patterns of silk but frequently appropriated textile
designs and altered them.93 Considering textile ornament from the later medieval period,
90
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Lat. 27, fol. 73v. The textile page contains the initium to the
Gospel of Mark, which is written in golden capitalis on top of the textile-like ground. The manuscript was
dated to the second half of the tenth century. Otto Pächt and Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Illuminated
manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 1: cat. no. 24, 1:2. Hanns
Swarzenski, “Die deutschen Miniaturen des frühen Mittelalters in amerikanischem Besitz,” Zeitschrift für
bildende Kunst 63 (1929–30): 193–200, esp. 194.
91
Mainz, Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum, Inv. Kautzsch Nr. 1 (=Nr. 974), fol. 113r. On this
manuscript see Michael Brandt and Arne Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim und das Zeitalter der
Ottonen (Hildesheim: Dom und Diözesanmuseum, 1993), cat. no. IV–5, 2: 155–56.
92
See for example von Euw “Ikonologie der Heiratsurkunde,” 190. Also Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe,
299–302.
93
Cutler and North, “Word over Image.” Anja Grebe, Anja Grebe, “Ornament, Zitat, Symbol: Die
sogenannten ‘Teppichseiten’ des Codex aureus von Echternach im Kontext von Buchmalerei und
26
Margaret Goehring has further shown that artists also invented imaginary textile-like patterns.94
Such recent developments in the field call for a re-evaluation of the model-copy relationship and
a definition of textile ornament based on a representative number and stylistic scope of
manuscripts.
The notion that medieval textile ornament directly copies oriental silk provokes several
issues. First, reading textile ornament as the direct copy of eastern silk implies that medieval
book illuminators, directly or indirectly, had first-hand knowledge of Byzantine and Islamic silk
and used these textiles as models for their painted designs. While the sophisticated textile-like
design of the marriage charter makes it likely, in fact, that the artist had intimate knowledge of
early medieval Byzantine medallion silks, the bulk of the remaining material does not allow such
conclusions.95 First, it is usually difficult, if not impossible, to prove a direct influence of textiles
on paintings because in most cases no comparative material survives. Second, although it is
without question that painted textile ornament resembles the look of patterned textiles such as
Byzantine and Islamic silks, the ornament never imitates specific silks and also does not mimic
the technical or material properties of these fabrics. Similar problems concerning the model-
copy-relationship are apparent in textile ornament that was executed in other media, especially in
Italian wall paintings.96 Third, eastern silk is not the only medium that displays extensible
Textilkunst,” in Beziehungsreiche Gewebe: Textilien im Mittelalter, ed. Kristin Böse and Silke Tammen
(Frankfurt, Berlin and Bern: Peter Lang, 2012), 55–74.
94
Margaret L. Goehring, “The Representation and Meaning of Luxurious Textiles in Franco-Flemish
Manuscript Illumination,” in Weaving, Veiling, and Dressing: Textiles and their Metaphors in the Late
Middle Ages, ed. Kathryn M. Rudy and Barbara Baert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 121–155, esp. 124.
95
Cutler and North’s recent assessment of the charter’s textile design as an Ottonian appropriation of a
Byzantine medallion silk implies that the artist was well aware of Byzantine textile repeats. There is no
doubt that the medallion pattern was designed to evoke such textiles, but the point is that the textile
pattern was altered according to the Ottonian patrons’ expectations. Such an appropriation presupposes
that the artist had good knowledge of real textile repeats and knew how to change the motif in order to
invest it with a specific Ottonian Iconology. Cutler and North, “Word over Image.”
96
See especially Jacqueline Leclerq-Marx, “Le décor aux griffons du Logis des Clergeons (Cathédrale de
Puy) et l’imitation de ‘tissus orientaux’ dans l’art monumental d’époque romane en France: Tour
d’horizon,” Revue d’Auvergne 594 (2010): 115–46. Eadem, “L’imitation des tissus ‘orientaux,’” in
Medioevo mediterraneo: l’Occidente, Bisanzio e l’Islam. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi
(Parma, 21–25 settembre 2004), ed. Arturo Carlo Quintavalle (Milano: Electra, 2006), 456–69. The
27
symmetrical ornament similar to the textile patterns in medieval manuscripts. There might be
other models that inspired these textile-like paintings. Reviving some observations on the formal
quality of textile ornament that were mentioned in the older literature, this chapter aims to
compare textile ornament to a broad variety of possible models. These include carved stones,
ivory, and also textiles that are not made of silk. I further look at textiles that are patterned
although they were not woven but, for example, embroidered. Finally, I take into consideration
comparisons from earlier book illumination, which, as I argue, played a decisive role in the
formation of textile ornament in the period under discussion.
Previous notions of textile ornament and silken models appear to have been informed by
modern notions of mimesis. While I continue in the first part of this chapter the previous hunt for
the perfect silk model that matches a specific textile page, my aim is eventually to re-direct
attention to the ways in which a medieval audience perceived textile ornament. Looking at
painted textile designs through the filter of medieval ideas of copying and likeness contributes to
a clearer understanding of textile iconography and also explains why so many textile pages are
formulaic. I aim to show that textile ornament is an iconographic code—a common form of
textile iconography—that was frequently used by medieval artists to represent patterned textiles
in book illumination. The formal relationship that textile ornament shares with Byzantine and
Islamic silk is not informed by copying individual textiles wholesale but by imitating the formal
and compositional principles that characterize a woven repeat, such as extensibility, geometry,
and symmetry.
Textile ornament and textile iconography: proposition for a new terminology

The previous scholarly focus on the model-copy relationship lacked a clear definition of
why textile ornament appears textile-like. This desideratum resulted in a range of terminological
inventions, some of which are more useful than others. Haseloff was among the first to use
model-copy problem concerning textile ornament in wall painting corresponds to the issue in book
illumination. While the wall paintings are clearly textile-like, it is difficult to find directly comparable silk
examples. Just as in book illumination, the artists seem to be inspired by silk repeats, but interpret and
appropriate the patterns according to their own ideas and intentions.
28
“textile imitation,” a term that frequently appears in the literature to this day.97 More nuanced are
Nordenfalk’s “simulated textile pages,” “silk-simulating double page,” or “full-page textile
ornaments.”98 Stephen Wagner recently coined the term “silken parchments” and revived Karl
Hermann Usener’s “textile-inspired.”99 Christine Sciacca referred to textile pages recently also as
“simulated textiles.”100 Von Euw further labeled textile ornament as “pages painted in imitation
of decorative textiles.”101 Most useful in my view are such neutral terms as Henry Mayr-
Harting’s “textile-like patterned grounds,” as well as “textile ornament,” and “textile-like” as a
general attribute.102 Also productive is Robert Calkins’ contribution of the “curtain page.”103 The
term implies a definition of textile ornament based on function and allegorical meaning instead
of formal criteria. While this approach merits notice, the terminology also has limitations
because the metaphoric function implied by the “curtain” is not universally applicable to all
contexts in which textile ornament appears. Since I examine textile ornament from a range of
97
“Stoffimitationen.” Haseloff, Der Psalter Erzbischof Egberts, 110.
98
Nordenfalk, Codex Caesareus, 98.
99
Wagner, “Silken Parchments,” 2, 4. Karl Hermann Usener, Kunst und Kultur im Weserraum, 2: 465,
described the patterned purple folios in Corvey manuscripts from the tenth century as “textile-like purple
grounds” (die reich gemusterten, oft stoffartigen Purpurgründe). Wagner, “Establishing a Connection to
Illuminated Manuscripts,” 69, noted in passing that textile ornament somewhat looks like the repeat of
eastern silk, although a direct model-copy relationship between the two media is not necessarily apparent,
but he did not develop the problem further. His approach lacks a clear assessment and definition of textile
ornament.
100
Christine Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain: On the Uses of Textiles in Manuscripts,” in Weaving, Veiling,
and Dressing: Textiles and their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages, eds. Kathryn M. Rudy and Barbara
Baert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 161–89, esp. 165.
101
Von Euw mentioned “gemalte imitierte Stoffzierseiten mit blauer Ornamentik auf graublauem Grund,
gelb versiert und gehöht” in the Lindau Gospels. Anton von Euw, Die St. Galler Buchkunst vom 8. bis
zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (St. Gall: Verlag am Klosterhof, 2008), cat. no. 99, 1: 408–11,
esp. 409. Franz Ronig, “Evangeliarfragment aus Luxeuil,” in idem, Schatzkunst Trier (Trier: Spee, 1984),
cat. no. 36, 2: 107, used a similar term, “decorative textile pages” (textile Zierseiten).
102
Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination, 159–66, esp. 164, 165. Curiously, despite his thoughtful
use of terminology, Mayr-Harting insisted that textile-like ornament is an “obvious imitation of oriental
silk.” He went so far as to link certain textile-ornamented paged directly to specific imperial gifts of silk,
a view, which I oppose for reasons outlined below.
103
Robert G. Calkins, Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages (London: Thames and Hudson, 1983), 147.
29
functional angles and in diverse contexts, I prefer the neutral terms “textile-like” and “textile
ornament,” or Haseloff’s “textile page.” My use of this terminology aims to communicate that
the formal relationship between the repeats of real silk and painted textile ornament is not a
direct one but that textile ornament evokes the look of patterned silk based on specific formal
criteria that I will discuss below. I understand the denomination “textile” in textile ornament as a
reference to an iconographic formula and to textile material in the most general sense, not as
pertaining to a specific textile model or a distinct textile technique. I disagree with perceptions of
textile ornament as “trompe l’oeil” painting, or “simulation” and “imitation,” because they fail
to do justice to what textile ornament is.104 I further disapprove of the term “carpet page” or its
German equivalent Teppichseite, because textile ornament in medieval manuscripts bears no
closer visual or conceptual resemblance to carpets than it does to Byzantine and Islamic silk.105
A comparison of textile ornament with textile repeats

Claiming that textile ornament is not an imitation of Byzantine and Islamic silk provokes
a closer look at the formal characteristics that make textile ornament textile-like. The so-called
104
Grebe, “Ornament, Zitat, Symbol,” 64, 68, 70, 73, and Codex Aureus, 53, uses this term extensively.
John Osborne further refers to curtains painted in trompe’l oeil manner in his essay “Textiles and Their
Painted Imitations in Early Medieval Rome,” Papers of the British School at Rome 60 (1992): 309–51,
esp. 312.
105
This term can be found throughout the literature up to the most recent publications. Claudia Fabian and
Christine Lange, Pracht auf Pergament, exhibition catalogue Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung and
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich (Munich: Hirmer, 2012), 222. In addition to the little helpful term
“trompe-l’oeil” effect or painting, Grebe relies frequently on the term Teppichseite in eadem, Codex
Aureus, 50–4, 69, 79, 95. In effect contradicting her trompe-l’oeil characterization of textile ornament,
she notes in “Ornament, Zitat, Symbol,” 55 and esp. 73, that the carpet pages (“Teppichseite”) of the
Codex Aureus do not explicitly imitate carpets, but they are “maßstabsgetreue Trompe-l’oeils von
Stoffen, die real existiert haben könnten.” I will show in the following that textile ornament neither copies
textiles wholesale, nor do the patterns painted on these pages reflect the proportions of existing repeats.
Kahnsitz, “Frühottonische Buchmalerei,” 234, also uses the term “Teppichseite.” Another problematic
aspect of the term “carpet page” is that this expression was applied in a universal manner to ornament
from cultural contexts as diverse as insular interlace, non-figurative Hebrew illumination, and Ottonian
manuscript pages. Christopher de Hamel described full-page ornamented pages in Hebrew Bibles as
“carpet pages” and sees a resemblance to oriental tapestries. Christopher de Hamel, The Book: A History
of the Bible (London and New York: Phaidon, 2001), 44–5. Michelle Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels:
Society, Spirituality, and the Scribe (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 2003), uses the
term throughout her book for the ornamented pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels, which, in my view, are no
more carpet-like than Ottonian textile pages are textile-like.
30
precious Gospels of Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim, a manuscript made in Hildesheim around
1015, is an excellent starting point for a systematic analysis of textile ornament. 106 The
manuscript contains a large number of miniatures that display an unusually rich repertoire of
ornamental forms, many of which are textile-like. In addition, the miniatures employ stylistically
and iconographically diverse types of textile ornament, which invite a contextualized reading of
textile ornament against the iconographic and codicological structure of the manuscript. Before
treating the manuscript context, a close formal examination of the initial page before the Gospel
of John demonstrates the extent to which some painted textile patterns resemble real repeats,
while also making clear why the assumption that medieval painters directly copied the repeats of
silk fabrics is problematic.
The textile page on fol. 179r of the Bernward Gospels has never been analyzed in terms
of textile ornamentation [fig. 8]. The miniature displays an extensible symmetrical lozenge
pattern painted in gold on purple ground and outlined in minium. Small golden circles mark
points where the lozenges intersect. Encased in the diamond-shaped grid pattern are small
circular flowers with a short stem. The pattern closely resembles the repeat of a silk fragment
that is preserved at the church of St. Servatius in Maastricht [fig. 9].107 This tiny fragment of a
Byzantine silk samite dates from the ninth to eleventh century. Its repeat depicts on dark-blue
ground a grid of lozenges that was woven in red and is interrupted by small dots where the
lozenges meet. The diamond-shaped compartments enclose triple-colored flower buds. Their
stems and pinnacles are white, while the calyx is red, green, and yellow. This lozenge-and-flower
pattern from the Maastricht silk fragment is almost identical to the one on the Hildesheim page.
Closely related to both objects is the background pattern of the Gunthertuch, a magnificent
eleventh-century Byzantine silk shroud, in which Bishop Gunther of Bamberg was buried in1065
106
Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61. Michael Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar des heiligen Bernward
(Munich: Prestel, 1993). On ornament in the Bernward Gospels in general, especially concerning its
function, see Jennifer P. Kingsley, “The Bernward Gospels: Structuring Memoria in Eleventh-Century
Germany,” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2007).
107
Inv. 6—3. Annemarie Stauffer, Die Mittelalterlichen Textilien von St. Servatius in Maastricht
(Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 1991), cat. no. 45, 110–11. The piece measures 5.8 cm in hight and 6 cm in
width.
31
[fig. 10].108 The background behind an image of a ruler on horseback is filled with flowers that
appear inside green medallions on violet ground. The color of the flowers alternates in each row
between pink and blue. In comparison with the Bernward Gospels textile page and the
Maastricht silk, the shape of the background pattern in the Gunthertuch is not lozenge-shaped but
circular. Lozenges appear, however, in the spaces between the flower medallions. These are
yellow or pink and each has a circle in its center. An important difference between the lozenges
in the Gunthertuch and the Bernward page and Maastricht silk is that the lozenges in the shroud
are not connected. They rather add additional variety to the flower-and-medallion pattern, which
is the primary motif. While the Guntertuch thus displays a medallion repeat, the Maastricht silk
shows a lozenge repeat, which resembles the background pattern in the Bernward manuscript
page. In addition to differences in form, the three objects vary in color. The painted flowers in
the miniature are white, while the blossoms in the silk pieces show additional colors. Despite
these discrepancies, the overall visual effect of all three ornamental designs is very similar. Each
displays a flower bud with short stem, which is embedded in a system of geometric forms that
fills a considerable expanse of space with extensible ornamentation. This comparison allows the
conclusion that, although the ornaments in the two silk pieces and the page from the Bernward
Gospels are not wholly identical, they resemble each other closely.
Given the close resemblance between the Bernward Gospels page and the Maastricht silk,
it is tempting to assume a direct model-copy relationship between the two objects. However,
such conclusions must be met with caution. It should be pointed out that the success of such
formal comparisons between manuscript illumination and silk depends to a large part on the
chance survival of matching textiles. The Maastricht silk and the Gunthertuch provide suitable
comparanda, but it is also possible that the artist of the Bernward Gospels copied the lozenge
pattern from a silk that is now lost. Other problems arise from such comparisons. It is possible
that the manuscript illuminator did not copy a silk model wholesale but adopted the repeat of a
textile that suited his purpose. Finally, the painter perhaps created a repeat-like pattern from
memory that happens to resemble the repeat of an extant silk. Therefore, even if matching
108
Gunter Prinzig, “Das Bamberger Gunthertuch in neuer Sicht,” Byzantinoslavica 54 (1993): 218–31.
Sigrid Müller-Christensen, “Beobachtungen zum Bamberger Gunthertuch,” Münchner Jahrbuch der
Bildenden Kunst, 3. Folge, 17 (1966): 9–16. The cloth was dated to 1060 and used in Bamberg as burial
shroud for Gunther, who died on the return journey from Constantinople in 1065. Eadem, Das
Gunthertuch im Bamberger Domschatz (Bamberg, 1988), 4, 10.
32
models survive, formal analogies do not prove that the medieval artists who designed textile
pages had access to silk and copied their repeats. On the contrary, it is difficult to establish a
direct connection between a medieval silk and a book illumination atelier, even if silk survives in
the churches that sponsored the paintings.
An unusually large piece of silk was recently discovered in the shrine of the patron saints
of Hildesheim Cathedral, where it was used to wrap relics at the end of the tenth century.109 The
precious silk shows eagles contained in pearl-string medallions [fig. 11]. Fol. 4v of the so-called
Bernward Bible, another manuscript made at Hildesheim in the early eleventh century, shows an
eagle between rosettes in a square-shaped frame positioned in the upper section of the page [fig.
12].110 The large bird spreads its wings and perks its head sideways. The eagle in the miniature is
reminiscent of the eagles on the Byzantine silk found inside the shrine, but there are also obvious
differences. The bird in the manuscript is painted in two shades of purple, while the textile
probably used to be red, yellow, white, and green, before its colors faded.111 In addition, the
plumage and the wings in the bird painted in the miniature display considerably more detail
compared to the highly stylized shape of the eagles on the silk. These two objects, of course, may
have no relation at all despite the fact that they share a provenance. The comparison raises the
question more generally whether painters copied full repeats or individual repeat motifs from
textiles even if they had such textile models at their disposal.
A specific detail in the usage of the textile pattern in the miniature from the Bernward
Gospels suggests that the artist was perhaps inspired by a real piece of silk [fig. 8]. The
ornamented manuscript page shows a flower-bud motif that not only resembles the patterns in
the Maastricht fragment and the Gunthertuch formally, but also serves similar functions. In all
three objects, the small-scale flower patterns were used as a background in a larger composition.
The Gunthertuch especially makes clear that the flower-bud pattern functions as background for
109
Regula Schorta, “The Textiles Found in the Shrine of the Patron Saints of Hildesheim Cathedral,”
CIETA Bulletin 77 (2000): 45–56. Together with the textile a wax seal was found that shows a textile
imprint on its back and can be dated precisely to the 990–92, providing a date for the enclosure of the
textile in the shrine. The cloth measures roughly one meter in both hight and width.
110
Hildesheim Domschatz Inv. Nr. DS 61. On this manuscript see Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von
Hildesheim, cat. no. VIII–29, 2:568—70.
111
Schorta, “The Textiles Found in the Shrine of the Patron Saints of Hildesheim Cathedral,” 48.
33
the image of the emperor on horseback. The tiny silk piece from Maastricht is a fragment of a
textile that was originally much larger and likely served a similar function as background pattern
in a more complex repeat [fig. 9]. If Annemarie Stauffer is correct, the fragment preserves a
fraction of a pattern that once filled the spaces between larger geometric repeat motifs.112 An
eleventh-century silk from Byzantium or the eastern Mediterranean now at the Abegg Stiftung
shows such large medallions that are superimposed on a small-scale background pattern [fig.
13].113
The lozenge-and-flower background in the Bernward Gospel miniature functions in
similar terms. The individual flower motif in a lozenge frame that characterizes the pattern is
much smaller in scale compared to the large initials that the image displays on the ornamented
ground. In the manuscript page, the major motif of the miniature is the initial “I” and the
remaining letters, while the lozenge-and-flower pattern serves as background decoration. The
same hierarchical relation between a superior motif and a secondary background pattern was the
case in the textile fragment in Maastricht (presumably), and is clearly apparent in the Abegg-
Stiftung silk. The manner in which the letters in the manuscript page are superimposed on a
small-scale patterned ground is comparable, therefore, to the repeat of a woven silk in which the
principal medallions are accompanied by a small-scale fill motif. The similarities between the
ornamental composition of the Bernward Gospels miniature and the Abegg-Stiftung silk might
have repercussions on the way we perceive the relationship between manuscript images and
possible textile models. If the Hildesheim book illuminator used the flower-bud pattern as
background-ornamentation for a text-image deliberately, the question arises whether he got this
idea from a Byzantine medallion silk. The composition of the miniature suggests that the
Hildesheim painter understood how fill-patterns work in woven silk and perhaps borrowed this
typical design motif for his own composition. If this were the case, we would have to assume
that the artist had access to Byzantine silk and used it as model for some features of his work.
112
Stauffer, Die Mittelalterlichen Textilien von St. Servatius, 110–11.
113
Abegg Stiftung, Inv. Nr. 98. Karel Otavsky and Muḥammad ‘Abbās Muḥammad Salīm,
Mittelalterliche Textilien I: Ägypten, Persien und Mesopotamien, Spanien und Nordafrika (Riggisberg:
Abegg-Stiftung, 1995), cat. no 81, 137–38.
34
However, no textile from Hildeshiem that shows features similar to the Abegg-Stiftung
silk survives. Furthermore, conclusions drawn from one textile page in one single manuscript
need not apply to other miniatures in the same manuscript, nor to textile pages in different
books.114 As we will see, in numerous cases it is far more difficult to draw a clear connection
between an extant silk and painted textile patterns. On the contrary, some manuscript pages
clearly show that textiles were but one of several visual sources that generated the design of
textile pages.
An artist who channeled several sources of inspiration into the creation of magnificent
textile patterns was the maker of the Codex Aureus Epternacensis in Nuremberg. This
manuscript is equipped with four double-page textile openings that each show a different motif.
The textile pages appear at the beginning of each Gospel on fols. 17v—18r, 51v—52r, 75v—76r,
and 109v—110r. The medallion pattern on fols. 17v—18r has been compared frequently to
surviving Byzantine medallion silks [fig. 14].115 The manuscript page depicts large animals that
inhabit medallions and these are arranged in a three successive rows. None of the surviving
Byzantine textile repeats that have been mentioned in relation to this manuscript page, however,
resemble the design on the Echternach folio exactly. The same can be claimed for the striped
textile image on fols. 51v—52r [fig. 15]. The double-page is painted with a repeat-like pattern of
horizontal stripes that is composed in different colors and shows a range of motifs. Some of the
bands are filled with quadrupeds and birds, while others show floral ornaments. Striped
multicolored textiles that could have inspired the design of this page were produced in the
Middle Ages by Spanish textile workshops. However, most of the extant examples date from the
twelfth century.116 Perhaps contemporary with the mid-eleventh century Echternach page is a
striped Spanish silk from the caja de los marfiles, the shrine of St. John the Baptist and Pelagius
114
I was unable to find a matching textile for the designs on fol. 77r and 19v of the Bernward Gospels.
115
According to Grebe, this page, like the other three textile pages, is an imitation of a “Byzantine-
Sassanian silk.” Grebe, Codex Aureus, 50.
116
I thank Regula Schorta for this information. For examples of striped textiles from twelfth-century
Spain, see Abegg-Stiftung, Inv. Nr. 2640 a–d, Otavsky and Salīm, Mittelalterliche Textilien I, cat. no. 94,
132–34. Also ibid., Inv. Nr. 654, cat. no. 101, 182–83, and Inv. Nr. 9, cat. no. 70, 114–15.
35
from Léon [fig. 16].117 The silk fragment displays stripes of various colors, each of which is
decorated with a different pattern; one contains an Arabic inscription.118 Otto von Falke further
compared the striped textile page from the Codex Aureus to four fragments of a Persian silk with
birds that survive as veils in a ninth-century Gospel book from Tours.119 The colors red, green,
and yellow also appear on the Echternach textile page, but there is no inscription. The width of
the stripes further varies in the textile, whereas the horizontal bands in the manuscript page are
all roughly the same size. In addition, neither the quadrupeds nor floral motifs woven into the
silk fragment are identical with those in the textile page. While the color, the composition and
the motifs painted in the Echternach textile design resemble a real repeat, it is clear that the
details are not the same.
The Echternach Codex Aureus lion page: a pastiche

The lion pattern painted on fols. 75v—76r of the Codex Aureus Epternacensis further
suggests that textile ornament not only shares formal characteristics with Byzantine and Islamic
woven silk but also with other types of fabric [fig. 17]. The lion “repeat” of the Codex Aureus
closely resembles a printed and gilded pattern on a tenth to eleventh-century silk and cotton
(mulham) textile that was probably made in Iran and is now divided between the Cleveland
Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York [fig. 18].120 Although this particular
117
An inscription suggests that the silk was made before 1059. Regula Schorta, Monochrome
Seidengewebe des hohen Mittelalters: Untersuchungen zu Webtechnik und Musterung (Berlin: Deutscher
Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2001), 93–6.
118
Only two words can be deciphered: “God” and “kingdom.” Schorta, Monochrome Seidengewebe, 94.
119
Otto von Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei (Berlin: Wasmuth, 1921), 17. The manuscript is
now in Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf 16 Aug 2˚. The textile veils have been sewn
onto the incipit pages at the beginning of the four Gospels at an unspecific time after the completion of
the manuscript. That the veils are not contemporary with the manuscript is evident because the silver ink
of the recto rubbed off against the empty verso folio, which could not have happened had the veil been in
place immediately. On this manuscript see Krone und Schleier: Kunst aus mittelalterlichen
Frauenklöstern (Munich: Hirmer, 2005), cat. no. 130, 260, and chapter three.
120
New York, Metropolitan Museum, Accession no. 31.106.64, possibly from the Ghaznavid Period
(977—1186), silk and cotton, plain weave, printed and gilded. Maurice S. Dimand, “A Recent Gift of
Egypto-Arabic Textiles,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27 (1932): 92–6. Daniel Walker,
“Islamic” in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series 53 (1995—96): 15–6, 28–34, esp. 29.
Another fragment of the same textile is in the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio. The Cleveland Museum
36
textile cannot be connected with the Echternach scriptorium, we know that other printed cloths
survived in western church treasures, so that printed textiles in addition to woven silk must be
considered as a possible source of inspiration for manuscript painters. 121
A comparison between the rectangular “repeat” motif printed and painted on the mulham
cloth and the lion design painted on the double-folio 75v—76r of the Codex Aureus reveals
striking similarities. Both patterns show versions of a geometric design that consists of golden
lions encased in squares. Although both extensible patterns are very similar, there are also
obvious differences. The Echternach page displays not only lions, but also medallions in the
corners of each square. The medallions show profile portrait busts, such as are known from
Roman coins. Each of the lions is painted on purple ground. Their faces point in different
directions. The lions on the mulham cloth, however, all look to the left. Moreover, only every
second lion in the textile is painted on purple ground while the others appear on the white fabric
ground. Finally, the composition of the basic square-grid differs. In the Echternach page, the
lions inhabit a square shape that is constructed of thin golden lines, which evokes the illusion of
perspectival space. In this way, the inner frame connects to a “meta” grid-system that also
contains the coin-medallions and unites the surfaces of two facing folios in one continuous
geometric composition. In the textile, however, only the lions depicted on purple ground are
actually framed. These squares are defined by a border made of thin golden lines, which displays
an additional pearl-string motif. The lions printed on uncolored ground occupy the spaces in-
between these purple squares. In comparison to the geometric construction of the Echternach
dates the piece to Iran or Iraq, Seljuk Period, eleventh or twelfth century.
http://www.clevelandart.org/art/1950.558 (accessed 30.01.2014).
121
Leonie von Wilckens lists a tenth-century Egyptian textile printed in gold and black and embroidered
with colorful silk thread from a tomb in Quedlinburg, St. Servatius. Leonie von Wilckens, Die Textilen
Künste von der Spätantike bis um 1500 (Munich: Beck, 1991), 161–62. On printed textiles in general see
eadem, 159–172. Franz Kirchweger reads the entry “cortinae linteae depictae” in the Chronicon
Zwiefaltense as evidence for painted textiles. Franz Kirchweger, “’Nunc de vestibus altariis:’
Kirchentextilien in Schriftquellen des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 50
(1997): 75–109, 103. Printed medieval silk from China was also found at the Moščevaja Balka
excavations. Anna A. Ierusalimskaja and Birgitt Borkopp, Von China nach Byzanz: Frühmittelalterliche
Seiden aus der Staatlichen Ermitage Sankt Petersburg (Munich: Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, 1996),
cat. no. 112, 96.
37
pages where the pattern appears rigid, symmetric, and the individual motifs interconnected, the
individual ornaments on the mulham fabric appear to float loosely on the ground fabric. 122
The formal similarities between these two objects deserve yet more attention because the
ornament in both examples serves similar functions. In the Echternach textile page as well as in
the printed and painted mulham fabric, the ornament lends the objects the appearance of
patterned silk. In both objects, therefore, ornament causes a visual transformation and creates a
material surrogate for precious purple silk. 123 While the painted surfaces imitate the look of
purple silk, the objects themselves are made of cheaper and more readily accessible materials.
The silk and cotton piece in Cleveland and New York further demonstrates that creating such
silk imitations was not only the business of book illuminators but also a phenomenon of the
textile arts. Turning mulham into “fake” silk raises similar questions concerning the use and
availability of textiles models.124 I have been unable to find a silk that directly reflects the pattern
on the Cleveland and New York mulham fabric. The so-called Pegasus-Silk, a Syrian textile
from the early ninth century gives a rough idea of a repeat pattern that might have inspired the
ornament on the mulham fabric [fig. 19].125 The conclusions I drew above about the formal
differences between real silk repeats and patterns painted in illuminated manuscripts apply
likewise to the printed and painted mulham fabric. The imitation pattern was simplified and
122
The repeats of woven medieval silk are always extensible but not necessarily connected to each other.
Silk fabrics in which the repeat motifs are regular and geometric but similarly float on the surface without
being connected to each other by a meta-structure were found in the Moščevaja Balka excavations.
Ierusalimskaja and Borkopp, Von China nach Byzanz, cat. no. 9, 29–32.
123
Dimand also noted that “such elaborately stamped fabrics were probably substitutes for the more
costly cloths interwoven or tapestry-woven with gold threads.” Dimand, “A Recent Gift,” 96.
124
Maria Vittoria Fontana also compared the mulham textile from New York to the same page from the
Codex Aureus but failed to note that the pattern in the textile is not woven. She remained unaware of the
larger implications printed and/or painted cloth cause for the problem of textile imitation. Maria Vittoria
Fontana, “A Note on Some Illustrated Pages from [sic] Codex Aureus Epternacensis (1030 A.D. ca) in the
Nuremberg Germanisches Nationalmuseum,” in La Persia e Bisanzio: Convegno internazionale, Roma,
14—18 ottobre 2002 (Rome: Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, 2004), 935–51.
125
Vatican, Monumenti, Musei et Gallerie Pontificie (T 117). Silk samite, Syria, early ninth century. It
has been suggested that this silk was used for a pillow that supported the enamel cross of Pope Paschal I
(817–24). Wilckens, Die textilen Künste, 41–43, pl. 38. Christoph Stiegemann and Matthias Wemhoff,
799: Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit, Karl der Große und Papst Leo III. in Paderborn (Mainz: von
Zabern, 1999), cat. no. IX.37, 2:656–57. Similar but not identical is further a silk from Berlin that shows
various animals in pearl-string medallions. Falke, Seidenweberei, fig. 171, 24.
38
altered when it was adapted for a different medium so that it is difficult to be specific about the
model used. Of course, the silk that might have inspired the artist of the mulham cloth could be
lost. But the unlikely use of textile models for extensible ornament and likewise for textile
patterns painted in different media raises the question how useful the hunt for possible models
really is.126
The scholarly literature has occasionally reflected critically on the notion that medieval
artists copied specific repeats wholesale and drawn attention to issues of appropriation and
invention instead.127 Grabar observed that not all painted textile designs are based on real repeats
but at times reflect imaginary patterns. 128 Nordenfalk further acknowledged textile ornament as
an artistic achievement. He appraised the hand-drawn textile patterns of the Codex Caesareus
Uppsaliensis as “personal creations” that deserve no less attention than initials or figurative
images.129 More recently, Stephen Wager re-evaluated ornament as the work of painters who
were artistically “inspired” by real repeats but used motifs borrowed from the textile arts to
create their individual textile-like patterns.130 The lion page from the Codex Aureus illustrates
that book illuminators created their own imaginary patterns. The coins represented on the textile
page are not a motif that is typical of medieval textile repeats. Instead, Roman coins are a
common detail in Carolingian book illumination and also appear in several miniatures that were
126
Cutler and North, “Word over Image,” 177, deemed the hunting for textile models a “wild goose
chase.”
127
The most important of these contributions is Cutler and North, “Word over Image,” 177.
128
André Grabar, “Le Rayonnement de l’Art Sassanide dans le Monde Chrétien,” in idem, L’art du
Moyen Âge en Occident: Influences Byzantines et Orientales (London: Variorum, 1980), previously
published in Atti del Convegno Internazionale sul tema: La Persia nel Medioevo (Rome: Acaedmia
Nazionale dei Lincei, 1971), ch. XII, 679–707.
129
In particular the fact that the ornaments are drawn free-hand prompted Nordenfalk to comment on the
painters’ skill. “This method gives ornaments and animals the value of personal creations, to the same
degree as the initials or the pictorial miniatures. In fact, a double-page like the one starting the
illuminations of Gos [sic] stands out as one of the most ambitious undertakings of the Echternach school.”
Nordenfalk, Codex Caesareus, 102.
130
Wagner, “Silken Parchments,” 2, 4.
39
made by the Echternach workshop.131 This peculiar addition suggests that the artist invented the
ornament.132 The design is more likely a pastiche of motifs taken from diverse sources. Although
the book illuminator was likely inspired by Byzantine and Islamic silk textiles the coins suggest
that the medieval artists who produced textile pages were flexible in their use of models. This
observation leads to the question of what media, in addition to silk, might have inspired the
designs of textile pages in medieval manuscripts.
Sources for textile ornament in other media

The printed and painted mulham cloth in New York is one example of a textile that
displays an extensible repeat-like pattern that was not woven. In addition, a fair number of early
medieval textiles with embroidered ornamentation survive.133 The base fabric of these
embroideries is silk as well as linen, and the application is often made of silk and other
materials.134 Textiles embroidered with extensible ornament make clear that the list of textile
objects that could have transmitted extensible textile-like ornament to early medieval book
illumination ateliers has to be extended beyond the woven silk models that have been the focus
of most previous comparisons. Textiles are by no means the only medium that displays
extensible geometric patterns.135 A transenna panel from northern Italy dated to the tenth or
131
See the manuscripts discussed by Henry Maguire in “Magic and Money in the Early Middle Ages,”
Speculum 72 (1997): 1037–54. For another Ottonian manuscript with coins see the late tenth-century
Saint-Chapelle Gospels from Reichenau, as in Henry Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination, 2:194,
plate XVII.
132
Grebe and I came to similar conclusions on the motif of the coins as a sign of artistic creativity rather
than copying; I am grateful to her for sharing an early version of her essay “Ornament, Zitat, Symbol,”
which discussed this motif at greater length than the published version.
133
To name but one example for many early medieval embroidered silks with extensible patterns, the
casual of Saints Harlindis and Relindis, silk and linen, probably England, early ninth century, now in
Maaseik, St. Catherine Cathedral, inv. no. 101, shows medallions filled with various animals and plants
that were embroidered in silk and gold thread made of gold leaf and horse hair. The textile was originally
also decorated with pearls, which are now lost. Krone und Schleier, cat. no. 118, 246—49.
134
For a white linen cloth embroidered with an extensible geometric pattern from the tomb of Saint
Ludmilla in Prague see Alfried Wieczorek and Hans-Martin Hinz, Europas Mitte um 1000 (Stuttgart:
Theiss, 2000), cat. no. 10.03.01 b.
135
Some scholars also considered a range of media in their analyses of textile ornament. See especially
Nordenfalk, Codex Caesareus, 97–102; von Euw, “Ikonologie der Heiratsurkunde,” 184–86; and Hiltrud
40
eleventh century, for instance, is covered in extensible interlace ornament [fig. 20].136 The
medallions and quatrefoil frames enclose rosettes, stars, acanthus leaves, swastikas and other
motifs that frequently appear in textiles and ornamented textile pages [fig. 2, 21, 22].137 Outside
of Italy and Byzantium, where extensible ornament carved in stone appears to have been
especially frequent, examples also survived north of the Alps, for instance in ambos and choir
screens from Romainmôtier, Disentis, and Schänis in Switzerland [fig. 23].138 Numerous insular
stone monuments further show extensible designs. The pattern in the lower section of the shaft of
the North cross at Ahenny from the eighth century, for instance, resembles the ornamented
background in the image of Gregory the Great from a sacramentary made at Corvey in the tenth
Westermann-Angerhausen, “Spuren der Theophanu in der ottonischen Schatzkunst?” in Kaiserin

Theophanu: Begegnung des Ostens und Westens um die Wende des ersten Jahrtausends. Gedenkschrift
des Kölner Schnütgen-Museums zum 1000. Todesjahr der Kaiserin, ed. Anton von Euw and Peter
Schreiner (Cologne: Schnütgen Museum, 1991), 2: 193–218, esp. 196. George Henderson further
proposed that insular “carpet pages” were inspired by late antique geometric floor mosaics, which were
still extant in Britain at the time when books like the Lindisfarne Gospels were made. Although perhaps
no longer in pristine condition, he suggested that these mosaic inspired insular book illuminators to create
geometric pages of their own design. George Henderson, Early Medieval (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1993), 97–100.
136
For the transenna barrier see Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom, Glory of Byzantium: art and
culture of the Middle Byzantine era (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), cat. no. 292,
452. For another stone slab from the ninth century with similar extensible ornament, see Brandt and
Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, cat. no. V–12, 2: 268. Also Christoph Stiegemann and Matthias
Wemhoff, 799: Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit, Karl der Große und Papst Leo III. in Paderborn
(Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1999), cat. no. IX.13, 2: 627–28.
137
Reliquary pouch with embroidered swastikas, Islamic, eleventh century. Stauffer, Die Mittelalterlichen
Textilien, cat. no. 61. Von Falke lists a late-antique silk with swastikas in Seidenweberei, fig. 9. Swastikas
appear further on fol. 59v of Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 426 Helmst. On this
manuscript see note 2 and chapter two. Another textile page with swastika motif can be found in the so-
called Petershausen Sacramentary, a manuscript from Reichenau, c. 980, fol. 106r. See Labusiak,
Ruodprechtgruppe, 271–81, and chapter three.
138
Fig. 23 shows two stone slabs from a fragmented choir screen or transenna barrier in Schänis,
Stiftskirche St. Sebastian, ca. 820. Guido Faccani, “‘Geflecht mit Gewürm:’ Karolingische Bauplastik
und ihr Dekor,” in Die Zeit Karls des Grossen in der Schweiz, ed. by Markus Riek, Jürg Goll and Georges
Descœudres (Sulgen: Benteli, 2013), 128–45. Katrin Roth-Rubi, “Die Flechtwerkskulptur Churrätiens –
Müstair, Chur, Schänis,” Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 67 (2010): 9–
28. Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels, 319 and fig. 144, connected the ambo from Romainmôtier directly
to insular cross-carpet pages.
41
century [fig. 24 and 25].139 Extensible geometric ornament further decorates numerous book
covers from the early medieval period, such as the late seventh-century tooled leather binding of
the Cuthbert Gospels, or a late ninth-century ivory cover from St. Gall [figs. 26, 27].140 The
lozenge floral pattern that covers a stucco column from the northern section of the choir screen in
Hildesheim cathedral further compares to the previously mentioned textile page from Corvey
[fig. 6, 28].141 Finally, extensible geometric ornament is a staple in late antique and early
medieval floor mosaics, such as the geometric stone floor from Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire [fig.
29].142 A floor mosaic with flower bud motif from Antioch further resembles closely the repeats
of the Maastricht silk fragment and the Gunthertuch, as well as the textile page on fol. 179r of
the Bernward Gospels [fig. 30, 9, 10, 8].143 These examples demonstrate the ubiquity of
extensible ornament in medieval art and suggest possible non-textile sources that book
illuminators might have explored in search of ornamental motifs. The common appearance of
similar ornamental motifs in diverse media and their frequent use make clear that ornament
constructed of basic geometric shapes—crosses, lozenges, swastikas, medallions or other
139
Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels, fig. 16. The image of Gregory appears in Leipzig,
Universitätsbibliothek, Rep. I 57 on fol. 2r opposite a depiction of the crucifixion with monochrome
purple ground. On this manuscript see Ulrich Kuder, “Sakramentarfragment in Reichenauer
Evangelistar,” in Brand and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, cat. no. VI–68, 2: 407–10, and
chapter three below.
140
Michelle Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels, 28, and fig. 17. For more ornamented book covers see John
Lowden, “The Word Made Visible: The Exterior of the Early Christian Book as Visual Argument,” in
The Early Christian Book, ed. William E. Klingshirn and Linda Safran (Washington DC: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2007), 13–47, and Frauke Steenbock, Der kirchliche Prachteinband im
frühen Mittelalter: Von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Gotik (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für
Kunstwissenschaft, 1965). On the St. Gallen ivory cover see Johannes Duft and Rudolf Schnyder, Die
Elfenbein-Einbände der Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen (Beuron: Beuroner Kunstverlag, 1984), 33–53.
Compare also von Euw, “Ikonologie der Heiratsurkunde,” 184–86, on these extensible patterns and their
impact on textile ornament.
141
Michael Brandt (ed.), Der vergrabene Engel: Die Chorschranken der Hildesheimer Michaeliskirche.
Funde und Befunde (Hildesheim: Dom- und Diözesanmuseum, 1995).
142
Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, cat. no. V–36, 2:300. Compare also the mosaic
floors from the palace at Aachen, in Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit, cat.
no. II.67–68, 1: 107–10. Nordenfalk, Codex Caesareus, 100, also mentioned floor mosaic in relation to
textile ornament.
143
Grabar, “Le rayonnement de l’art sassanide dans le monde chrétien,” 641.
42
common forms—was a highly flexible phenomenon. Extensible ornament is part of a visual
vocabulary that appears simultaneously in various cultural regions throughout the antique and
medieval worlds and is neither bound to a specific period nor restricted to one artistic medium.
Since extensible ornament is such a ubiquitous phenomenon, claims that textiles were the
carriers that initially transmitted extensible ornament into other media rather overestimates
textiles as a medium for artistic influence.144 It is undeniable that silk played a significant role in
the formation of textile ornament in medieval book illumination, but from a formal point of view
extensible ornament is a much more complex phenomenon.
Book illumination as source for textile ornament

Another medium that needs to be considered in an analysis of extensible ornament and its
sources is drawings and paintings on parchment. A comparison with illuminations and drawings
seems especially worthwhile because these media are of the same “family” as the Ottonian
manuscripts in which textile ornament appears. Two types of manuscript models are of particular
144
Grabar, “Le rayonnement de l’art sassanide dans le monde chrétien,” 684 and 707, suggested that
textiles, in addition to metalwork, were a major agent in the transfer of ornamental forms from east to
west. Von Euw, “Ikonologie der Heiratsurkunde,” 190, 184–86, further intimated that textiles transmitted
Byzantine ornamental forms to the West and that from the textile arts these migrated into other media
such as illuminated manuscripts. He made this claim despite the fact that his analysis of the marriage
charter clearly suggests that the textile pattern also resembles ornament carved in ivory and other media.
Eva Hoffman, “Pathways of Portability: Islamic and Christian interchange from the tenth to the twelfth
century,” Art History 24 (2001): 17–50, esp. 34, claimed more recently that it “is hardly possible to
overestimate” the role textiles played in the dissemination of ornament in the medieval court culture
context. Fontana, “A Note on Some Illustrated Pages,” 947, further states that the pages of the Codex
Aureus are “of clear and close derivation from textiles.” The frame of a tenth-century Italian ivory book
cover showing a cruciform pattern exemplifies how difficult it is to be specific about the transfer of a
generic geometric ornamental motif from one medium to another. Compare the book cover illustrated in
Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, cat. no. V–11, 2: 266, with a medieval silk textile that
displays a repeat composed of cruciform motifs from Lyon, Musée Historique des Tissus, inv. no. 891 III
9 (Marielle Martiniani-Reber, Lyon: Musée historique des tussus. Soieries sassanides, coptes et
byzantines, Ve–XIe siècles, Paris: Edition de la réunion des musées nationaux, 1986, cat. no. 36). The
textile from Lyon was dated broadly to the medieval period. It may come from Egypt or Byzantium. Also
compare these objects to a late tenth-century miniature from Prüm, where the cross-shaped design frames
a full-page miniature of the women at the tomb on fol. 33r (Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar, 48, and
Susanne Wittekind, “Bild–Text–Gesang: Überlegungen zum Prümer Tropar-Sequentiar, Paris,
Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. lat. 9448,” in Bild und Text im Mittelalter, ed. Barbara Schellewald and
Karin Krause, Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 2011, 99–124). The generic nature of the cruciform
ornament and its near-identical appearance in all three media poses great difficulties for deciding whether
the book illuminator copied the cruciform pattern from silk, or from an ivory book cover, or vice versa.
On such issues of transfer see further Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, 294–95.
43
interest. First, pattern books in which artists recorded ornamental forms, presumably for later use
in other works, circulated in the illuminator’s workshops and were easily available for copying.
Second, illuminated manuscripts with textile pages were shared among distant workshops or
handed down from previous generations of artists and were copied for new work.
The pen and ink drawings on two leaves from a late-tenth century pattern book now in
Paris show various ornaments from antique and Carolingian sources that a medieval artist, who
worked at a later time, considered worth recording [fig. 31].145 The pattern book, of which only
fragments survive, suggests that this collection was made to conserve and perhaps study certain
ornamental forms by drawing them out and documenting them for later occasions.146 The
repeating pattern in the lower right corner of what is now fol. 64v is of particular interest because
it resembles a wicker-basket motif that a late-tenth or early-eleventh century artist, who likely
worked in Trier, applied in two textile pages for a Gospel book now in Koblenz.147 The textile
ornament on fol. 85r is composed of interlocking u-shapes, lozenges and other angular forms that
resemble the wicker-basket motif from the pattern book [fig. 32]. The textile pattern on fol. 56r
is also similar, except for the shape of a large X that cuts through the image [fig. 33]. It is
possible that the patterns in the Koblenz textile pages were inspired by textile models, perhaps
woven ribbons such as the two bands from the tomb of Saint Balthild in Chelles from the seventh
century [fig. 34].148 I am not aware, however, of a silk model that can be traced back to
eleventh-century St. Maximin in Trier, where the Koblenz Gospel book was likely painted.149 As
145
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. lat. 8318, fol. 64v. Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von
Hildesheim, cat. no. V–6, and fig. V–6a, 2: 258. See also Wieczorek and Hinz, Europas Mitte um 1000,
cat. no. 02.02.02 and 02.02.03, 2: 23.
146
It is unclear how long these drawings remained in use, if they were used at all at a later point. Eliane
Vergnolle, “Musterbuchfragmente aus Saint-Benôit-sur-Loire,” in Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von
Hildesheim, 2: 260.
147
Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 56r and 85r. Another textile page appears on fol.
128r. On this manuscript see Christina Meckelnborg, Die nichtarchivischen Handschriften der
Signaturengruppe Best. 701 Nr. 1—190 ergänzt durch die im Görres-Gymnasium Koblenz aufbewahrten
Handschriften A, B, und C (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), 72–78. I discuss the textile pages of this
manuscript in chapter two below.
148
Krone und Schleier, cat. no. 117a–b, 246.
149
The book was written by two scribes in the late tenth or early eleventh century either in St. Maximin in
Trier, at Echternach, or an unknown workshop in the mid-Rhine region. The illuminations appear to have
44
in the examples given above, it is further possible that braided or woven objects like mats and
bags made of non-textile material inspired the ornamental repertoire of the artist who painted the
Koblenz Gospels. A pattern book like the one in Paris is another possible source, especially if we
consider that drawings were a medium that circulated in book illumination workshops. In fact,
copying drawings and miniatures for new work was a frequent practice in medieval scriptoria.150
Ottonian book illuminators at Reichenau, where textile ornament was so popular in the later
tenth century, certainly copied work of their predecessors, including the ornamental designs of
textile pages.151 The scriptorium at Reichenau further copied books from St. Gallen, where the
earliest extant textile pages, two folios in the so-called Lindau Gospels, were made.152 Moreover,
books with textile ornament were sent from Reichenau elsewhere, for instance to the Bavarian
monastery of Seeon, where artists produced illuminated manuscripts in the eleventh century
been made by the second scribe. An entry concerning the dedication of an altar by archbishop Poppo
(1016–1047) allowed Hoffmann to show that the book was used in the monastery St. Maria ad Martyrem
near Trier in the first quarter of the eleventh century. Hoffmann took this early record as an indication that
the book might have been made close by, likely in St. Maximin. Hoffmann, Buchkunst und Königtum, 1:
500–1.
150
See for instance the extensive influence the Utrecht Psalter exercised on medieval book illumination.
Koert van der Horst, William Noel and Wilhelmina C. M. Wüstefeld, The Utrecht Psalter in Medieval
Art: Picturing the Psalms of David (Utrecht: HES, 1996). Thomas A. Heslop, “The Implication of the
Utrecht Psalter in English Romanesque Art,” in Romanesque Art and Thought in the Twelfth Century:
Essays in Honor of Walter Cahn, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton NJ: Index of Christian Art, 2008),
267–90. See also Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
151
Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, illustrates extensively how the painter Ruodprecht continued to use the
same textile ornamentation that his predecessor Anno also favored. See also Florentine Mütherich,
“Ausstattung und Schmuck der Handschrift,” in Das Evangeliar Ottos III.: Clm 4453 der Bayerischen
Staatsbibliothek München, ed. Florentine Mütherich and Karl Dachs (Munich, London, and New York:
Prestel, 2001), 27–31, esp. 28–30. Anton von Euw, “Der Einfluss des Ostens auf die abendländische
Buchkunst,” in Kunst im Zeitalter der Kaiserin Theophanu, ed. Anton von Euw and Peter Schreiner
(Cologne: Locher, 1993), 177–99, esp. 184–86.
152
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M1. Von Euw, Die St. Galler Buchkunst, cat. no. 99, 2:408–
11. Anton von Euw, “Das Sakramentar von St. Paul,” in Die Abtei Reichenau: Neue Beiträge zur
Geschichte und Kultur des Inselklosters, ed. By. Helmut Maurer (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1974), 363—
87.
45
likely based on Reichenau models.153 Gude Suckale-Redlefsen focused on the Reichenau models
that Seeon artists used for figurative images, but similar conclusions can be drawn concerning
the textile pages. Sometime between 1007—1014, Henry II commissioned a Gospel lectionary
from the Seeon scriptorium, which he donated to Bamberg cathedral.154 This manuscript contains
three textile pages, one of which displays a repeating geometric pattern of crosses that are
intertwined with a grid-like latticework [fig. 35]. The points where the crosses intersect are
marked with rosettes. The same type of textile ornament appears in several Reichenau and some
Trier manuscripts, such as the image of Liutwinus in the Egbert Psalter, fol. 151v—152r [fig.
36], the portrait of John in the Egbert Codex fol. 6r [fig. 37], the Vere Dignum miniatures of the
Petershausen Sacramentary fol. 43r [fig. 38], and the Florence Sacramentary, fol. 3r [fig. 39].155
The ornament in all of these miniatures is almost identical, although in some, such as in the
Egbert Psalter, the rosettes are enlarged and gilded. The artistic relations between Trier and
Reichenau are well known. The collaboration between both places was in fact so close that the
attribution of manuscripts caused a severe scholarly dispute.156 The artists working at Reichenau
and Trier further had access to late antique models.157 Perhaps it is not coincidental, therefore,
153
Gude Suckale-Redlefsen, “Die Buchmalerei in Seeon zur Zeit Kaiser Heinrichs II,” in Kloster Seeon:
Beiträge zur Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur der ehemaligen Benediktinerabtei, ed. Hans von Malottki
(Weissenhorn: Konrad, 1993), 177–204.
154
Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, fol. 15r. On this manuscript see Gude Suckale-Redlefsen,
Die Handschriften des 8.–11. Jahrhunderts der Staatsbibliothek Bamberg (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
2004), cat. no. 68, 1.1:108–11. Hartmut Hoffmann, Bamberger Handschriften des 10. und des 11.
Jahrhunderts (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1995), 114, dated the manuscript to 1007–1014. Also
idem, Buchkunst und Königtum, 39, 403, 406, 412, 415. Josef Kirmeier, Alois Schütz and Evamaria
Brockhoff, Schreibkunst: Mittelalterliche Buchmalerei aus dem Kloster Seeon (Regensburg: Friedrich
Pustet, 1994), cat. no. 19, and my chapter three.
155
On the Egbert Psalter, Cividale del Friuli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Ms. 136, see Labusiak,
Ruodprechtgruppe, 231–34 and cat. no. 1, 320–28. For the Egbert Codex, Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 24,
ibid., cat. no. 5, 342—51. For the Petershausen Sacramentary, Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod.
Sal. IX b, ibid., 271–81. For the Sacramentary in Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, ibid.
249–58, and cat. no. 6, 352–55.
156
C. R. Dodwell and D. H. Turner, Reichenau Reconsidered: A Re-assessment of the Place of Reichenau
in Ottonian Art (London: The Warburg Institute, 1965).
157
See for instance Florentine Mütherich, “Der neutestamentliche Zyklus,” in Das Evangeliar Ottos III,
46–75. Albert Boeckler further traced ornamental forms used at Reichenau back to various Byzantine
manuscripts, which he thought were influential for book illumination at Reichenau. Boeckler,
46
that late antique and early Byzantine manuscripts such British Museum Add. 5111 display
similar textile ornament [fig. 40].158 It is possible that such late-antique manuscripts inspired
textile ornament production first in St. Gallen in the later ninth century and in the tenth in
Reichenau. Almost certain is that textile-ornamented manuscripts from Reichenau were shared
with Seeon. The textile pages in the Egbert Psalter, Egbert Codex, Petershausen Sacramentary,
and Florence Sacramentary demonstrate that Reichenau and Trier painters closely collaborated in
their use of textile ornament. One detail that all of the textile pages in these books have in
common further demonstrates that illuminations were a form of model that played a major role in
transmitting ornamental designs from one workshop to another. None of the textile-ornamented
pages in these manuscripts is particularly close to existing repeats. Instead, they resemble textile
patterns in late antique manuscripts and the ornamental work of contemporary painters. Margaret
Goehring has shown that manuscripts were still a major source of influence for textile-like
patterns in book illuminations of the fifteenth century.159 This is surprising because at the time
silken textiles from abroad and from domestic production were traded on a broad scale and easily
available.160 Goehring has demonstrated, however, that even the book illuminators who worked
“Bildvorlagen der Reichenau,” 20, and n. 58. Gunther Franz and Franz Ronig, Codex Egberti der
Stadtbibliothek Trier: Entstehung und Geschichte der Handschrift (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1984).
158
Add. 5111 is a gospel book from Constantinople and was dated to the seventh-century London. Textile
ornament appears in the arch of the page that illustrates the prologue on fol. 10v. Carl Nordenfalk, Die
Spätantiken Kanontafeln: Kunstgeschichtliche Studien über die eusebianische Evangelien-Konkordanz in
den vier ersten Jahrhunderten ihrer Geschichte (Göteborg: O. Isacsons, 1983), 127—46. The Syriac
Rabbula Gospels dating from 586, Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, Pluteus I, no. 56, displays cruciform
textile ornament that is even closer to the textile patterns in the Trier, Reichenau, and Seeon manuscripts.
Nordenfalk, Spätantike Kanontafeln, plates 130—142. On this manuscript see David Wright, “The Date
and Arrangement of the Illustrations in the Rabbula Gospels,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 27 (1973): 199–
208. In the Syriac manuscript textile ornament appears in the arcades of the canon tables. The colors of
the patterns vary between red, blue and green, while in the Ottonian manuscripts these are consistently
painted in two different shades of purple.
159
Goehring, “The Representation and Meaning of Luxurious Textiles in Franco-Flemish Manuscript
Illumination.”
160
See, for example, Donald and Monique King, “Silk Weaves of Lucca in 1376,” in Opera Textilia
Variorum Temporum: To Honour Agnes Geijer on Her Nintieth Birthday 26th October 1988, ed. Inger
Estham and Margareta Nockert (Stockholm: Statens Historiska Museum, 1988), 67—76.
47
for the court and certainly had access to precious silk did not copy woven repeats but the earlier
work of different manuscript illuminators.161 Painters in general appear to have traded patterns in
this manner. Michael Peter recently suggested that early modern painters did not copy real
textiles but the depictions of precious silk from famous earlier panel paintings.162 If early modern
artists relied on the work of their colleagues rather than imitating new silken models, medieval
painters are even less likely to have copied silk wholesale. Such considerations invite a closer
look at why textile ornament in medieval manuscripts nonetheless appears textile-like.
Most of the textile ornament painted in early medieval illuminated manuscripts is highly
stylized. The individual ornamental motifs are repeated in a continuous manner, and hence evoke
the look of an extensible repeat, but the size of the individual designs is significantly enlarged
compared to the proportions of real repeats in early medieval silk. If motifs from medieval textile
pages were woven according to the ratio in which they appear on the pages, these textiles would
have gigantic dimensions. It appears that what mattered to the medieval artists was not to imitate
silk wholesale, but to create an ornamented surface that appeared textile-like. They achieved this
by imitating the compositional logic of a woven repeat. The manuscript pages show continuous
extensible patterns that are constructed by repeating identical motifs again and again, just as
woven textiles typically do. Some manuscript pages suggest that it mattered little what these
individual ornamental motifs looked like, as long as the overall composition of the ornamented
page was recognizably textile-like. This implies, in turn, that the models that inspired the artist
were not necessarily textiles. On the contrary, the tenth-century Egbert Psalter demonstrates that
the genre of the model from which the individual motifs were copied was practically
161
Goehring, “The Representation and Meaning of Luxurious Textiles in Franco-Flemish Manuscript
Illumination,” 124, noted that, “[…] manuscript painters, particularly those associated with the courts,
were repeatedly exposed to these materials so that they need not have copied actual textiles, but would
have been fully able to create their own variations.”
162
Michael Peter, “Textilien auf den Bildern des Meisters von Flémalle und Rogier van der Weyden,”
unpublished lecture given on 16 April 2009 on the occasion of the exhibition “The Master of Flémalle
and Rogier van der Weyden,” Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, 20 March–21 June 2009.
48
irrelevant.163 Motifs that book illuminators turned into textile patterns could be borrowed from
any source, non-textile media included.
The background in a representation of Bishop Maternus from the Egbert Psalter shows a
motif of two interlocking arrows that was repeated multiple times so that the extensible pattern
covers the surface of the entire miniature in ornament [fig. 41]. Double-ended arrows are a
popular motif that Franco-Saxon and Carolingian book illuminators frequently used in the frames
of their miniatures. Such double-ended arrows appear on the bottom left and top right corners of
the inner frame on fol. 18v of the Lorsch Gospels, and in the top right corner of the frame on fol.
4r of the Godescalc Gospel lectionary [fig. 42 and 43].164 The Carolingian painters used these
arrows as one ornamental detail among others in a narrow strip of the frame. Ruodprecht, the
illuminator of the Ottonian Egbert Psalter, however, multiplied the arrow motif twenty-eight
times and in this way constructed an extensible pattern that resembles the repetitive logic of a
woven repeat.165 This textile-like pattern fills the large flat surface behind the figure. Some silk
textiles display the double-ended arrow in a similar form. An eleventh- or twelfth-century silk
from Persia or Mesopotamia and now in the Abegg-Stiftung shows the arrow in combination
with crosses. [fig. 44].166 Although this might indicate that the artist of the Egbert Psalter copied
this motif from a silk, I argue that it is more likely that he borrowed the motif instead from the
frames of Carolingian miniatures and transformed the double-ended arrow into a textile-like
ornamental surface.
163
Cividale, Museo Archaeologico Nazionale, Ms. 136, fol. 52v–53r. On the Egbert Psalter see Labusiak,
Ruodprechtgruppe, 323–26, 231–34, and cat. no. 1, 320–28. On Egbert of Trier and his patronage of the
arts see Head, “Art and Artifice.”
164
The Lorsch Gospels are now divided between Budapest and Rome. Hermann Schefers (ed.), Das
Lorscher Evangeliar: Biblioteca Documentară Batthyáneum, Alba Iulia, Ms R II I, Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana, Codex Vaticanus Palatinus Latinus 50 (Luzern: Faksimile Verlag, 2000). For the Godescalc
Gospel lectionary (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale MS nouv. acq. lat. 1203) see Fabrizio Crivello, Charlotte
Denoël, and Peter Orth (eds.), Das Godescalc-Evangelistar: eine Prachthandschrift für Karl den Grossen
(Darmstadt: Primus, 2011), and Bruno Reudenbach, Das Godescalc-Evangelistar: Ein Buch für die
Reformpolitik Karls des Grossen (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1998).
165
The painter represented himself on fol 16v and inscribed the image with his name “Ruodpreht.”
166
Abegg-Stiftung, Inv. no. 655. Otavsky and Salīm, Die mittelalterlichen Textilien I, cat. no. 79, 132–34.
49
That Ruodprecht modified individual ornamental motifs in a creative way for his own
purposes is suggested by another image in the same book. Fol. 173v shows an image of Bishop
Magnericus, who appears before an ornamented purple background that is composed of interlace
knots [fig. 45]. Knots are not a common motif in eastern silk, and the pointed, angular form of
the interlace knot from the Magnericus page especially has no parallel in Byzantine or Islamic
textiles.167 However, numerous comparable interlace motifs appear in Carolingian book
illumination. The manuscripts from the court school of Charlemagne offer countless examples,
as do almost all Franco-Saxon books in addition to the insular manuscripts that predate
Carolingian book production.168 Interlace knots further decorate objects made of metalwork,
wood, ivory, as well as tooled leather book-covers.169 A book illuminator working in tenth-
century Trier or Reichenau could have encountered the type of interlace that the Magnericus
page displays almost anywhere. Labusiak compared the interlace motif from the Magnericus
miniature to an ivory book cover from the early tenth century.170 I cannot exclude that an ivory
book cover or a textile model inspired the design of this miniature, but earlier book illumination
seems the most likely source. Books were the most easily available models in a manuscript
atelier, and the long-standing tradition of copying styles and designs from older manuscripts
presumably made Ruodprecht look there first. This is suggested not least by the textile pattern in
the image of Bishop Liutwinus from the Egbert Psalter that belongs to a larger group of
miniatures, which all show that the same textile design was shared by various masters [fig. 36].
167
The Victoria and Albert Museum owns a Byzantine silk fragment of the eleventh or twelfth century, in
which a simple round knot intersects with a lozenge-shaped pattern. Cyril Bunt, Byzantine Fabrics
(Leigh-on-Sea: Lewis, 1967), fig. 47. Falke, Seidenweberei, does not reproduce a single textile that would
in any way be comparable to the pattern on the Magnericus page.
168
For comparanda see, for instance, the manuscripts published in Marie-Pierre Laffitte and Charlotte
Denoël (eds.), Trésors carolingiens: Livres manuscrits de Charlemagne à Charles the Chauve (Paris:
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2007), and Nancy Netzer, Cultural Interplay in the Eighth Century: the
Trier Gospels and the Making of a Scriptorium at Echternach (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1994).
169
To name but a few examples, see two metalwork pectoral crosses from late tenth or early-eleventh
century Scandinavia and a filigree fibula display interlace knots, reproduced in Brandt and Eggebrecht,
Bernward von Hildesheim, cat. no. VI–27, 2: 353, and cat. no. VI–26, 2: 352.
170
Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, 296, figs. 401, 402.
50
As the examples discussed so far have shown, the formal pedigree of textile ornament is complex
and involves a range of possible sources, including the artists’ creative imagination.
Definition of textile-like
If textile ornament is not the result of copying oriental silk and obviously differs from
existing repeats, why should these pages be called textile-like? A closer look at the
compositional and formal characteristics of textile ornament helps to define the formal
parameters that constitute textile-likeness and explain why these patterns represent a form of
textile iconography. Three key principles are at work in textile ornament. The first is
extensibility. This term describes the symmetric repetition of an individual ornamental motif that
spreads in horizontal and vertical direction likewise. The second principle is a combination of
geometry and symmetry. The third principle is purple color. With the exception of color, which
varies in early medieval silk, draw-loom woven repeats demonstrate these compositional
principles. Because textile ornament imitates these textile features, a parchment folio painted
with extensible ornament composed of symmetrically arranged motifs reminds the viewer of
such patterned textiles. The formal analogy between patterned silk and textile ornament is the
reason why an image like the portrait of Magnericus in the Egbert Codex appears textile-like in
spite of the fact that the interlace knot was borrowed from an ivory book cover or an earlier
manuscript. Important is not the motif itself but that the extensible pattern evokes the
compositional features of a repeat in a convincing manner. It seems futile, therefore, to scan
textile ornament for information about the origin and make of silk fabrics generally, or to analyze
painted textile images in order to illuminate specific material and technical characteristics of real
textiles.171 Medieval textile ornament does not display enough detail to provide such information.
On the contrary, the stylized textile patterns indicate that textile ornament is a generic form of
textile iconography, or, in other words, an iconographic formula that aims at representing textiles
in the most general sense.
171
Fontana, “A Note on Some Illustrated Pages,” 937, 941, suggested along such lines that the textile
pages of the Codex Aureus are derived from a Byzantine silk, which in turn imitates an earlier Sassanian
silk model. In my view, it is impossible to draw such conclusions from a painting. See further the
comparison of a Byzantine Pegasus silk with an altar cloth painted in the Uta Codex in Kirchweger,
“Nunc de vestibus altariis,” 105. On the Uta Codex in general, see Adam S. Cohen, The Uta Codex: Art,
Philosophy, and Reform in Eleventh-Century Germany (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2000).
51
In addition to extensibility and symmetry, color plays a crucial role in this form of textile
iconography. Most textile pages are purple. Usually, the textile pattern is painted in two
contrasting shades of purple. However, extant medieval silk displays a range of different colors,
motivating us to ask what meaning the purple color in textile ornament transmitted to the viewer.
One explanation for the frequent use of purple in textile pages is that purple itself functions as a
visual code for textile material. Few materials other than textiles are purple. Except for porphyry
and certain precious stones, the only purple materials in medieval art are purple stained
parchment, and perhaps leather, and textiles. Unless stones were integrated in larger geometric
pavements, porphyry and precious gems do not display extensible geometric ornament. Textiles,
however, were associated with both features. Many of the textiles mentioned in medieval written
sources are described as purple, although at least some must have been made of different colors.
It appears that the color purple was used as topos. It is well known that the color purple had
specific meaning in Byzantine society as well as in the Ottonian circles that produced textile
ornament.172 In particular, the significance of Byzantine murex-dyed silk can hardly be over-
estimated.173 The frequent occurrence of purple textiles in church inventories and other sources
appears to reflect the social and political, and perhaps also symbolic, meaning associated with
purple textiles.174 In addition to the political and social privilege that the use and possession of
172
Andreas Petzold, “Of the Significance of Colors: The Iconography of Color in Romanesque and Early
Gothic Book Illumination,” in Image and Belief: Studies in Celebration of the Eightieth Anniversary of
the Index of Christian Art, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton NJ: Index of Christian Art, 1999), 126–34.
Christel Meier and Rudolf Suntrup, “Zum Lexikon der Farbenbedeutungen im Mittelalter: Einführung zu
Gegenstand und Methoden sowie Probeartikel aus dem Farbenbereich ‘Rot,’” Frühmittelalterliche
Studien 21 (1987): 390–478.
173
Anna Muthesius, “Silken Diplomacy,” in Byzantine Diplomacy: Papers from the Twenty-Fourth
Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Cambridge March 1990, ed. Jonathan Shepard and Simon
Franklin (Aldershot: Variorum, 1992), 237–48. The travel report by Liudprand of Cremona further
reveals how prestigious and valuable purple silk appeared in the eyes of western patrons. “Liudprand’s
Gesandtschaft an den Kaiser Nikephoros Phokas in Konstantinopel,” in Quellen zur Geschichte der
sächsischen Kaiserzeit, ed. Albert Bauer and Reinhold Rau (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 525–89, esp. 573–77. Henry Mayr-Harting, “Liudprand of Cremona’s Account
of his Legation to Constantinople (968) and Ottonian Imperial Strategy,” English Historical Review 116
(2001): 539–56. Jon N. Sutherland, “The Mission to Constantinople in 968 and Liudprand of Cremona,”
Traditio 31 (1975): 54–81.
174
Bernhard Bischoff, Mittelalterliche Schatzverzeichnisse: Erster Teil. Von der Zeit Karls des Grossen
bis zur Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Prestel, 1967). Among the entries indexed under “Purpureus”
and “Rubeus,” see for instance the inventory from the Benedictine nunnery in Milz, dated to 799 or 800,
52
purple silk implied, purple textiles were also invested with allegoric meaning, as the following
chapters will show. Significant biblical textiles such as the temple veil were purple.175 The color
purple further relates to vital theological concepts like the “purple” blood of Christ that was
spilled on the cross for the redemption of sin. This concept was well known to early medieval
book illuminators, as the dedicatory poem of the Godescalc Gospel lectionary demonstrates.176
That almost all textile pages in medieval manuscripts are purple is, therefore, probably not
accidental. For a formal reading of textile-like ornament, purple is further crucial because it
generates textile associations in the viewer’s mind. In combination with an extensible symmetric
pattern, the color purple is an important index for textile-likeness. In addition to composition, the
color of the ornament therefore contributes to the legibility of these ornamented pages as textile
iconography. In sum, the formal, iconological, and material connotations that textile ornament
no. 56, 63–4 (casulae purpureae duae; Altarium vestimenta purpurea; Manicae purpureae x); the record
of a donation to Bishop Burchard of Passau in 903, no. 117a, 120 (pluviale purpureum […], casulam
purpuream siricam de sirico precioso); and the inventory from Strassbourg Munster, dated 1181, no. 87,
92–3 (Casule preciose […], septem purpuree, una rubea). Kirchweger, “Nunc de vestibus altariis,” lists
several examples. The eleventh-century Gesta abbatum Trudonensium from Trond knows of “pallio
purpurei coloris” (104–5, n. 238), and two eleventh-century inventories from Abdinghof abbey in
Paderborn list “offertoriola coccinea duo” (81, n. 46), and a “coopertorium analogii coccineum,” (90, n.
122). “Coccinea velamina altarium” are further mentioned in a source from Wörth (90, n. 119), “pallia
altarium coccinea XIIII, e quibus quattuor deaureate” in St. Emmeram, Regensburg (94, n. 147). The
Chronicon Zwiefaltense honors Hadewic for having woven “pallam altaris rubeam” (103, n. 226). On
coccineus, purpureus, and other denominations of the color purple in literary sources see Helmut Gipper,
“Purpur,” Glotta 42 (1964): 39–69, esp. 60–63. More entries on purple textiles (purpureus and rubeus) in
Otto Lehmann-Brockhaus, Schriftquellen zur Kunstgeschichte des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts für
Deutschland, Lothringen und Italien (Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1938), esp. nos.
2716, 2784, 2841, 2844–45. See further, “Liudprand’s Gesandtschaft,” 573–77, and Stephan Beissel,
ersten Hälfte des IX. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst 12 (1894): col. 358–74, esp. 369–70.
175
Herbert Kessler, “Through the Temple Veil: The Holy Image in Judaism and Christianity,” Kairos
32/33 (1990/1991): 53–77.
176
Bruno Reudenbach, Das Godescalc-Evangelistar. On purple-stained vellum as an allegory of the
incarnation see Herbert Kessler, “‘Hoc visibile imaginatum figurat illud invisibile verum’: Imagining God
in Pictures of Christ,” in Seeing the Invisible in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, ed. Giselle de
Nie, Karl F. Morrison, and Marco Mostert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 293–328. Beat Brenk,
“Schriftlichkeit und Bildlichkeit in der Hofschule Karls d. Gr.,” in Testo e imagine nell’alto medioevo,
Settimane, 41 (Spoleto: Presso la Sede del Centro, 1994), 631–82, and chapters three and four below.
53
combines explain not only why most of the painted textile pages are purple, but also why they
appear textile-like even if the individual motifs were borrowed from non-textile models.
Stylized and non-symmetrical patterns

Book illuminators produced a considerable number of textile pages between the late ninth
and eleventh centuries. It is worth considering especially those examples that have previously
received little attention to clarify how textile iconography works. The ornament in many of these
textile pages is highly formulaic. One such pattern appears in the background of an image of
Matthew in an early eleventh-century Gospel book now in Mainz [fig. 46].177 The miniature
displays a basic pattern of squares that are filled with quatrefoil flowers. As is the case in many
other textile backgrounds, the design was painted in two different shades of purple; one is
opaque and the other nearly translucent. The quatrefoil design is a common motif. Although the
artistic quality of this miniature is not excellent, the pattern is clearly recognizable as textile
iconography because it displays the three textile principles: extensibility, symmetry, and purple
color. However, defining textile ornament as textile-like is not always so easy because not all
textile pages adhere to all three principles. A textile page in a different eleventh-century Gospel
book perhaps from lower Saxony demonstrates some limitations [fig. 47].178 The image on fol.
15r shows extensible ornament composed of rosettes, but only the upper three rows are regular
and symmetrical. The rosettes in the lower half of the image are awkwardly pressed into the
frame and each of the medallions varies in size. Such irregularities are atypical of woven repeats
where the regular design is mechanically produced. Medieval book illuminators, of course, did
not work with the same precision as a mechanical draw-loom. Even the medallions painted on
the marriage charter, despite their excellent planning and sophisticated execution, are not all
wholly identical [fig. 2 and 57]. In some cases, artists also appear to have worked deliberate
177
Mainz, Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum, Inv. Kautzsch Nr. 1 (=Nr. 974), fol. 16v. Brandt
and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, cat. no. IV–5, 2:155–156.
178
Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 9475, fol. 15r. Elisabeth Klemm, Die Ottonischen und
Frühromanischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004), cat. no.
226, 1:248–50. Béatrice Hernad, “Evangeliar aus Niederalteich,” in Fabian and Lange, Pracht auf
Pergament, cat. no. 48, 222–25.
54
“mistakes” into the pattern, perhaps as a gesture of humility.179 In the lower Saxon manuscript
from Munich it is more likely, however, that the artist miscalculated the dimensions of the frame
in relation to the rosettes and, when noticing that there was not enough space for three regular
rows, solved the problem by changing the subsequent medallions into an offset pattern and
reducing the medallions’ sizes. Therefore, the rosette pattern is strictly speaking not symmetrical.
Nonetheless, the pattern is legible as textile iconography because the ornament is purple and
extensible, at least to a large extent. As long as textile ornament is purple and extends
significantly in both directions it is usually not problematic to identify ornament as textile
iconography. The case is different if the ornament is purple, geometric and symmetric but not
extensible. Problematic are also patterns in which the motif extends only in one direction, as in
the frames of the Carolingian manuscripts mentioned above [fig. 42, 43]. Although most of these
geometric patterns are hypothetically extensible, they are not necessarily textile-like. This is
because the ornament lacks a clear context that defines how either its iconography or meaning
relates to textiles. Symmetric purple ornament that lacks extensibility makes clear that the
classification of textile ornament raises questions beyond style, form, and iconography.
Identifying ornament as textile iconography is also a matter of context.
The importance of context
179
This has been suggested by Michelle Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels, 305, and Nancy Netzer, “The
Origin of the Beast Canon Table Reconsidered,” in The Book of Kells: Proceedings of a Conference at
Trinity College Dublin, 6–9 Sept. 1992, ed. by Felicity O’Mahony (Aldershot: Scholar Press, 1994), 322–
32. For an example of a deliberately altered pattern see fol. 84v of an early-twelfth century manuscript
from Helmarshausen now in Trier (Domschatz, Ms. 138/64). The image of Luke depicts the evangelist
seated in front of a wall hanging. The textile shows regular rosettes that are fitted into rectangular
compartments. It is composed of red flowers that are outlined against a black background. At the center of
each rosette appears a circle. However, in one flower positioned just above the book that the evangelist
holds in his left hand, the circle in the center was filled in with black paint. In addition, a thin black line
was drawn in each of the petals, making this flower stand out among all others. Since the rest of the
pattern is perfectly regular, it seems that the artist deliberately added these details, perhaps to express his
humble inferiority compared to God’s creation, which was considered perfect. On the manuscript see
Elisabeth Klemm, “Die Anfänge der romanischen Buchmalerei von Helmarshausen bis zur Mitte des 12.
Jahrhunderts,” 465–81, and cat. no. 501, 2: 412–13 (Elisabeth Klemm) in Christoph Stiegemann and
Matthias Wemhoff, Canossa 1077: Erschütterung der Welt. Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur am Aufgang
der Romanik, 2 vols. (Munich: Hirmer, 2006).
55
James Trilling noted once that “there is no one meaning for ornament. It all depends on
the context, the culture, the function of the object.”180 Trilling came to this conclusion in a study
of ornament that included material from a wide chronological scope and diverse cultural regions.
Although all textile pages treated in this chapter come roughly from the same cultural context,
Trilling’s general observation applies to textile ornament in early medieval manuscripts just the
same. The context in which textile ornament appears is crucial. Context, however, is a paradigm
that demands an explanation of its own. In the following, I discuss in detail different definitions
of context in relation to textile ornament based on specific case studies.
Context is an important aspect in textile ornament because it helps to decide whether
ornament is textile-like or not, regardless of the style or artistic quality of a textile page. Vital for
context is the ornament’s iconographic function within a given image. If ornament, for instance,
appears on a tablecloth, garment, or some other textile object that can be identified by means of
traditional iconography, it is clear that the textile-like ornament indicates that the object was
made of patterned cloth. Such indications usually imply that the textile object was made of a
precious material, likely silk. In these cases it is easy to read textile ornament as textile
iconography, because the ornament appears in a specific iconographic context. Medieval
miniatures usually also tie into certain iconographic conventions that help to contextualize the
ornament. In images of the evangelists, for instance, curtains, hangings, and pillows appear
frequently and, as I show in the following chapter, these objects have explicit iconological
meaning. Finally, the manuscript itself is a key factor for the assessment of textile ornament. The
codicological structure and iconographic content of a manuscript can help to identify the
function of ornament because it allows us to read textile ornament in one image in relation to
other images within the same book. If a textile-patterned background in one image represents a
textile curtain, it is likely that textile ornament in another image that appears in a similar
iconographic and codicological context in the same book has similar meaning. Studying book
illumination in relation to the codicological structure of the book in which it appears is an
approach that John Lowden called “applied codicology.”181 In addition to applied codicology—
180
James Trilling, The Language of Ornament (London: Thames & Hudson, 2001), 90.
181
John Lowden, The Octateuchs: A Study in Byzantine Manuscript Illustration (Pennsylvania: The
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 10. Also Idem, The Making of the Bibles Moralisées
(Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 8, and “The Word Made Visible,” 16.
56
or the codicological context of the manuscript as I also refer to this principle— helpful concepts
are the iconographic context and iconographic conventions. The combination of all three
methods into one manuscript context helps not only to identify ornament as textile iconography
but also reveals its function and meaning.
Iconographic Context
The eleventh-century Bernward Gospels from Hildesheim provide an excellent
opportunity to investigate each of these criteria for manuscript context: iconography,
iconographic conventions, and codicology.182 Like few manuscripts, the Bernward Gospels
displays a rich ornamental variety. The book includes excellent examples for various types of
textile ornament that can be read in different ways depending on the manuscript context.
The evangelist portrait of Matthew on fol. 19r shows in the background a curtain that is
designed of v-shaped elements painted in two shades of blue and purple, which are arranged in
diagonal lines [fig. 48]. Stylized golden flowers with white petals are sprinkled across the surface
of the purple-colored field. On the one hand, the flowers evoke the idea of a woven repeat. On
the other, their application is unsystematic and contradicts the rigid symmetry one would expect
in a woven pattern. Moreover, the composition of the fabric is stylized to such an extent that it
would be impossible to decipher the pattern as textile-like, or read the ornamented background as
a curtain, if the pattern did not display additional iconographic details that provide the necessary
context. First, the scalloped upper border that lines the purple fabric indicates that the cloth was
attached to a support in six places, although hooks or similar fastening devices were not
represented. The image, therefore, shows a purple fabric that falls to the ground in v-shaped
diagonal folds, such as curtains often do.183 In addition, white fringes line the bottom border of
the ornament in the left and right corners of the image. In addition to the folds and the scalloped
182
Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 61. Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar. Kingsley, “The Bernward
Gospels.”
183
Elisabeth Klemm also observed that the ornamented backgrounds in other Saxon evangelist portraits
are only recognizable as textiles because of the way they are shown to be hanging against a wall.
Elisabeth Klemm, “Beobachtungen zur Buchmalerei von Helmarshausen am Beispiel des
Evangelistenbildes,” in Helmarshausen und das Evangeliar Heinrichs des Löwen. Bericht über ein
wissenschaftliches Symposion in Braunschweig und Helmarshausen vom 9. Oktober–11. Oktober 1985,
ed. Martin Gosebruch und Frank Steigerwald (Göttingen: Goltze, 1992), 133–64, esp. 136.
57
upper seam, which is further decorated with a blue and white ornamental border, the fringes are
typical features of textiles. In sum, these iconographic details allow the viewer to identify the
rather abstract ornament as a textile curtain. We can conclude from the curtain in the image of
Matthew that stylized and formulaic representations of textiles pose no problems, so long as they
are embedded in a meaningful iconographic context. What is never possible in such images,
however, is to identify the quality of the cloth. While the evocation of a repeat and the purple
color suggest that the curtain in the image of Matthew was supposed to represent a precious
cloth, it remains an open question whether the artist had an embroidered linen in mind, a
Byzantine silk, or any other patterned textile.
Similar issues are raised by the depiction of garments, tablecloths, curtains, and other
textiles in narrative miniatures. In most of these depictions, the textile pattern is highly formulaic
and all but vaguely resembles the repeat of a real silk. Examples from the Bernward Gospels are
Bernward’s liturgical garments and the mantles of the three magi in the miniatures on fols. 16v
and 18r [figs. 49 and 50].184 An earlier example for a highly stylized textile dress is the garment
of the Virgin in the Gellone Sacramentary [fig. 51].185 In all three cases the ornament can be
recognized as textile-like because it is contextualized in the image’s iconographic context. In
both miniatures, the formulaic depictions bear only a few clues concerning the quality of the
cloths depicted. In early medieval book illumination, embroidered linen, ornamented wool, and
woven silk all look the same. In addition, almost all textiles represented in these images magnify
the proportions of the repeat in relation to the size of the object. This is especially clear in the
image from the Gellone Sacramentary. A repeat as gigantic as the one represented in Mary’s
garment is not common in real textiles from the early Middle Ages. It appears that the book
illuminator enlarged the repeat motif in order to draw attention to the precious character of the
cloth.
184
Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar, 5, 6.
185
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 12084, fol. 1v. Laffitte and Denoël, Trésors
carolingiens, cat. no. 7, 79–83, esp. 79. Compare also the tunic of Charles the Bald in the Codex Aureus
of Saint Emmeram, fol. 16v; the temple curtain in fol. 331 of the Bible of San Paolo fuori le mura in
Florentine Mütherich and Joachim Gaehde, Carolingian Painting (New York: Braziller, 1976), pls. 36,
45, and the dress of St. Margaret in a late twelfth-century manuscript from Cologne, now in the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in Ornamenta Ecclesia: Kunst und Künstler der Romanik, ed. Anton
Legner (Cologne: Schnütgen-Museum, 1985), cat. no. E 89, 2:313. The same arrow pattern appears in the
image of Maternus in the Egbert Psalter. See fig. 41.
58
Iconographic Tradition
Not all textile ornament is contextualized in an iconographic context as easily identifiable
as with the garment of the Virgin in the Gellone Sacramentary or the curtain in the image of
Mark in the Berward Gospels. The evangelist portrait of John, fol. 175v of the Bernward Gospels
shows a different pattern in the background [fig. 52]. John is seated in the lower register, beneath
an image of the Ascension. 186 The medallion ornament behind his back is characterized by
extensibility, symmetry and purple color. These features suggest that the ornament represents a
curtain or wall hanging. However, the image lacks additional iconographic details that clearly
support this identification. Nonetheless, it is possible to read the ornament as a textile because
the image can be placed into a larger context. Additional images in the same manuscript, such as
the portrait of Matthew, as well as iconographic conventions concerning evangelist portraits
more broadly, help to identify the medallion ornament as a curtain or wall hanging.
A look at evangelist portraits clarifies how the context provided by iconographic
conventions helps to identify ornament as textile iconography. Curtains and textiles more
generally are a common iconographic theme in evangelist portraits throughout the Middle
Ages.187 Usually, the evangelist is shown between two parted curtains, as in the Pericopes of
Henry II [fig. 53].188 One reason for the popularity of textile motifs in evangelist iconography is
that these curtains have specific symbolic meaning, which I discuss in chapter two. Pictorial
conventions such as the curtain in evangelist images provide useful guidelines for identifying
textile ornament in images that lack a clear iconographic context. Because evangelist portraits
usually include textile themes, it is likely that the extensible purple medallion pattern in the
image of John in the Bernward Gospels also represents a sort of curtain or wall hanging. If
certain motifs are characteristic of a specific iconographic genre, the context generated by
186
On the motif of the “disappearing Christ” in this image see Robert Deshman, “Another Look at the
Disappearing Christ: Corporeal and Spiritual Vision in Early Medieval Images” Art Bulletin 79 (1997):
518–46.
187
Johann Konrad Eberlein, Apparitio regis – revelatio veritatis: Studien zur Darstellung des Vorhangs in
der bildenden Kunst von der Spätantike bis zum Ende des Mittelalters (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1982).
188
Munich. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4452, fol. 3v. Fabian and Lange, Pracht auf Pergament, cat.
no. 36, 176—80, with further bibliography.
59
iconographic conventions further facilitates the identification of textile patterns that are
extensible, but not purple. Non-purple textile pages in early medieval manuscripts are rare, but
there are some examples, such as the evangelist portrait of Luke in a mid-eleventh century
Gospel book from Hildesheim or Paderborn now in Berlin [fig. 54].189 The image is an
evangelist portrait and because textile curtains are a typical attribute in this iconographic genre,
the extensible pattern behind the figure of Luke must allude to one such curtain even though the
flat geometric design shows neither hooks nor a scalloped border and lacks purple color.
Manuscript Context
In some cases, however, the textile character of the ornament remains ambiguous,
because it is unclear how the ornament relates to an iconographic context and because there is no
apparent link to iconographic conventions either. These images can be tested against the context
that is supplied by the manuscript itself and can be read in relation to ornament used in similar
ways in other miniatures in the same book. The Bernward Gospels illustrates this point as well.
We have already seen that a curtain is depicted in the portrait of Matthew [fig. 48]. The
evangelist Luke on fol. 118v is seated in a similar interior space and the background of the image
is equally covered with a purple cloth [fig. 55]. In both miniatures, the formulaic ornamental
design can be identified as a stylized depiction of a curtain because the artist indicated the
hanging mechanisms, painted borders and drapery folds. The case was different in the image of
John [fig. 52]. Also the portrait of Mark on fol. 76r lacks clear indications that the pattern
painted behind the evangelist’s back represents a curtain [fig. 56]. Mark is shown in the lower
register of the miniature in front of a background design that is composed of horizontal stripes in
blue, purple, and minium with additional black contour lines. Of all the evangelist portraits in the
Bernward Gospels, Mark’s poses the most problems in terms of identifying the background of
the image as textile-like. Although the striped pattern displays the principles of extensibility,
symmetry and purple color, its design is so generic that textile iconography is not immediately
apparent. Some striped medieval textiles are extant, but as a pictorial code for textile
189
Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett 78 A 1, fol. 77v. The evangelist is seated in front of a turquoise pattern
composed of vertical rows of lozenges and circles that are peppered with minium colored flowers and
dots. On this manuscript see Elisabeth Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa, cat. no. 448, 2:340–41
(Elisabeth Klemm). Hartmut Hoffmann, “Die Paderborner Schreibschule im 11. Jahrhundert” in
ibid.,1:449–64.
60
iconography the striped pattern is not as clear as, for example, a medallion design.190 However,
comparing the image of Mark with the other evangelist portraits in the Bernward Gospels, all of
which show textile curtains in the background, suggests that the striped pattern in Mark has the
same iconographic meaning. In addition to the iconographic context provided by the manuscript
itself, iconographic conventions of evangelist imagery more generally also imply such a reading.
One problem remains, however. The portrait of Mark is not the only image in the Bernward
Gospels that shows a striped background. Other miniatures display the same motif, but it is
unclear what the motif means in each of these cases.191 While it is not certain, therefore, that the
striped design in the image of Mark represents a curtain, the manuscript context still supports
such a reading. Since all other evangelist images in the Bernward Gospels are equipped with
patterned backgrounds that represent textile curtains, it is unlikely that the striped ornament in
the portrait of Mark represents something different.
The difficulties with classifying the striped textile design in the miniature of Mark raise
larger questions concerning the perception of ornament now and during the medieval period. A
medieval viewer may not have had the same difficulties identifying the iconography of the
striped ornament as textile-like as I do. How the medieval audience perceived and read textile
ornament has not previously been an issue in the scholarship. On the contrary, formal analysis of
textile ornament and the comparisons between painted ornament and existing silk fragments have
been guided by modern definitions of mimesis and implied notions of copying that are not
consonant with medieval ideas of likeness. Because textile ornament is essentially a pictorial
code characterized by the three principles of extensibility, symmetry, and purple color, I argue
that a medieval audience easily recognized any formulaic textile page as textile-like, not just the
“naturalistic” ones. If we want to understand what textile ornament does and how it functions it
is less important what textile ornament looks like in the eyes of modern viewers. The question is,
rather, why an illuminated manuscript page would appear textile-like to the medieval audience.
190
For a striped textile see the twelfth or thirteenth-century Egyptian or Spanish silk that survived in an
eleventh-century manuscript from Salzburg. Karl-Georg Pfändtner, “Salzburger Perikopenbuch
(Evangelistar), in Fabian and Lange, Pracht auf Pergament, 106–110, esp. 110.
191
On the meaning and function of ornament in the Bernward Gospels in general see Kingsley, “The
Bernward Gospels.”
61
Medieval concepts of likeness
In order to reconstruct how medieval viewers approached textile ornament, it is useful to
remember that medieval painterly conventions and especially the medieval idea of copying differ
considerably from modern notions of likeness. In his Stilfragen, first published in 1893, Alois
Riegl demonstrated that the genesis of new oramental forms—in his case the acanthus leaf—is
192
not initiated by “copying nature more or less mindlessly.” Instead, Riegl showed that
ornament follows its own artistic principles. The creative and innovative combination of forms is
193 194
one crucial factor in the development of ornament. Another is stylization, and finally he
showed that artists in the premodern era copied the ornamental repertoire of earlier masters
195
rather than copying from nature. While Riegl’s observations were based on ancient,
Byzantine, and Islamic art, his conclusions also apply to ornament made in the tenth and
eleventh-century West. Western Medieval artists likewise did not define the relationship between
prototype and copy according to the same naturalistic standards of representation that influenced
the modern idea of mimesis. The medieval concept of copying rather relies on a system of
codified signs.196 Richard Krautheimer demonstrated in a seminal essay that instead of copying
the tomb rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre wholesale—as would be expected of a modern copy—
the mark of a good medieval replica were few codified formal elements like columns and a
central ground plan.197 While few of the replicas of the Holy Sepulchre would look like good
192
“Das ornamentale Kunstschaffen in der Antike ging ganz andere, wesentlich künstlerischere Wege, als
ein mehr oder minder geistloses Abschreiben der Natur.” Alois Riegl, Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer
Geschichte der Ornamentik (Munich: Mäander Kunstverlag, 1985), 230—33, cit. 232.
193
See for instance Riegl’s discussion of Mycenaean art, 112—150, esp. 118—19, 133.
194
Riegl, Stilfragen, 44, 208—33, 267. Riegl notes, however, 261, that stylized ornament often preserves
remnants of the motif that inspired its form. See also James Trilling, “Late Antique and Sub-Antique, or
the ‘Decline of Form’ Reconsidered,” in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987): 469–76. John Onians,
“Abstraction and Imagination in Late Antiquity,” Art History 3 (1980): 1–23.
195
Riegl, Stilfragen, 45.
196
See the essays by Jonathan J. G. Alexander, “Facsimiles, Copies, and Variations: The Relationship to
the Model in Medieval and Renaissance European Illuminated Manuscripts,” 61–72, and Gary Vikan,
“Ruminations on Edible Icons: Originals and Copies in the Art of Byzantium,” 47–59 in Retaining the
Original: Multiple Originals, Copies, and Reproductions, ed. Kathleen Preciado (Washington, 1989).
197
Richard Krautheimer, “Introduction to an ‘Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture,’” Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 1–33. On replicas of the Holy Sepulchre and the more recent
reception of Krautheimer’s essay see Robert Ousterhout, “The Church of Santo Stefano: A ‘Jerusalem’ in
62
copies to us, they were certainly considered successful replicas in the Middle Ages. Moreover,
recent scholarship has drawn attention to different modes of perception that distinguish our
modern ways of seeing from pre-modern concepts of visuality.198 Trilling, for instance, argued
that the medieval audience was not only used to, but also expected to mentally fill in those
mimetic details that the artist deliberately omitted from their images.199 Especially in the early
Middle Ages, schematic and formulaic representations were the norm.200 This is not to say that
medieval artists were incapable of making decent copies. On the contrary, Ottonian imitations of
Carolingian manuscripts show that medieval artists were capable of imitating a prototype with
considerable accuracy so that some of these copies appear “truthful” even in the eyes of modern
viewers.201 However, creating a mimetically “correct” image according to Greco-Roman
standards of mimesis was not usually a concern to medieval artists. What mattered was that the
copy enabled the viewer to recognize the prototype. For a model-copy relationship defined in
this way it is not important that the replica looked exactly like its prototype, but that certain key
Bologna,” Gesta 20 (1981): 311–21, and idem, “Flexible Geography and Transportable Topography,” in
The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art: Studies in Honour of Bezalel Narkiss
on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. Bianca Kühnel, Special Issue of Jewish Art, 23/24 (1997–
1998): 393–404. Catherine Carver McCurrach, “‘Renovatio’ Reconsidered: Richard Krautheimer and the
Iconography of Architecture,” Gesta 50 (2011): 41–69.
198
Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History
of Pictorial Style (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). John Onians, Neuroarthistory:
From Aristotle and Pliny to Baxandall and Zeki (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). Whitney
Davis, “Neurovisuality,” Nonsite.org, no. 2 (2011). Robert S. Nelson (ed.), Visuality before and beyond
the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
199
James Trilling, “Medieval Art without Style? Plato’s Loophole and a Modern Detour,” Gesta 34
(1995): 57–62, esp. 60. Onians, “Abstraction and Imagination in Late Antiquity.”
200
Madeline H. Caviness, “Images of Divine Order and the Third Mode of Seeing,” Gesta 22 (1983), 99–
120.
201
The image of Christ from the Carolingian Lorsch Gospels were copied by three different tenth-century
artists for the Gero Codex, the Guntbald Gospels, and the Petershausen Sacramentary. In all three cases
the copy clearly identifies its prototype. I discuss some of these books again in chapter three. Matthias
Exner, Das Guntbald-Evangeliar: Ein ottonischer Bilderzyklus und sein Zeugniswert für die
Rezeptionsgeschichte des Lorscher Evangeliars (Regensburg: Schnell&Steiner, 2008). On copying in the
Ottonian period see further Kahsnitz, “Frühottonische Buchmalerei.”
63
signs identified an object or an image as what it was supposed to represent. In addition to Riegl’s
reading of the evolution of ornamental forms as a creative process of artistic imagination, in
which the imitation of nature plays only a minor role, such a medieval notion of likeness
explains why most painted textile ornament in medieval manuscripts is schematic. To the eyes of
a medieval viewer schematic textile patterns evoked the designs of real silk repeats. The three
key principles, extensibility, symmetry, and purple color, were enough to identify ornament as
textile iconography. As the following example will show, only in rare cases was mimesis a factor
in the creation of a textile pattern.
A distinct form of appropriation and iconological interpretation of ornament: the marriage

charter
My analysis of textile ornament so far has excluded one important piece of evidence, the
marriage charter that Otto II had drawn up for his Byzantine bride, Theophanu [figs. 2 and
57].202 This object deserves special attention because it shows not only how textile ornament was
conceived in the Ottonian period, but also how its iconography was shaped by function. The
marriage charter was made of several pieces of parchment that were glued together and painted.
This official court document is one of the most sophisticated examples of textile ornament from
the Ottonian period in terms of the design, painterly execution, and conceptual intention. I
conclude this chapter with a discussion of the marriage charter because this object combines
issues concerning the model-copy relationship with the iconology of individual textile-like
motifs, a problem that I have not yet discussed.
The marriage charter was painted on the occasion of the imperial wedding in 972 in a
workshop that remains to be identified.203 It is beyond question that the purple medallion pattern
202
Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel, 6 Urk. 11. Schulze, Die Heiratsurkunde der Kaiserin Theophanu.
203
On a discussion of the charter’s date see Cutler and North, “Word over Image,” 180–81. It is unclear
where the marriage charter was made. Florentine Mütherich and Hermann Fillitz argued for Rome as a
possible place of origin. Hermann Fillitz, “Die Europäischen Wurzeln der Ottonischen Kunst in Sachsen,”
in Ottonische Neuanfänge: Symposion zur Ausstellung “Otto der Grosse: Magdeburg und Europa,” ed.
Bernd Schneidmüller and Stefan Weinfurter (Mainz: von Zabern, 2001), 321–43, esp. 329–30, with
reference to the previous literature. Hartmut Hoffmann, Buchkunst und Königtum, 1:10–11, 73, 103–16,
proposed that the charter was illuminated north of the Alps, perhaps by the Master of the Registrum
Gregorii.
64
resembles the look of roughly contemporary Byzantine medallion silks. As Anton von Euw and
others have shown, however, the medallions that are inhabited with animals entangled in combat
are not unique to Byzantine silk but also appear in different media, such as ivory.204 Hiltrud
Westermann-Angerhausen’s proposition that the medallion design is not the copy of a silk repeat
at all but a genuine Ottonian invention is especially important.205 Westermann-Angerhausen
acknowledged that the specific animal motif displayed on the charter was “not imported from
afar” but created by an Ottonian artist.206 She considered the Ottonian style variable and the
illuminators flexible enough to forge their own version of a “foreign idiom.”207 Thinking of the
marriage charter as the product of an Ottonian atelier usefully steered research on the marriage
charter away from the model-copy question that dominated much of the previous scholarship.
Anthony Cutler and William North in particular expanded Westermann-Angerhausen’s initial
idea and offered a convincing iconological reading of the charter’s medallion design. They noted
that the drawings of intertwined animals in the medallions “bore some resemblance to the
representation of beasts found on Eastern silks, [but] the drawings in the Heiratsurkunde
diverged from such models in that the animals (lions and griffins) seemed to be holding their
victims affectionately rather than attacking them, and their victims likewise seemed to offer
themselves to their captors” [fig. 57].208 Contrary to earlier scholarship that focused on Ottonian
anti-Byzantine polemics, Cutler and North read the embracing animals on the marriage charter as
“alterations in the traditional motifs of animal combat [which] were designed to evoke the new,
204
See for instance Anton von Euw, “Ikonologie der Heiratsurkunde.”
205
Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen, “Spuren der Theophanu,” 196, 200. Also Dieter Matthes, Die
Heiratsurkunde der Kaiserin Theophanu, Veröffentlichungen der niedersächsischen Archivverwaltung
Beiheft 16 (Wolfenbüttel, 1972), 49.
206
Westermann-Angerhausen concluded that “not a member of the ‘invasion of Greek artists of
Theophanu’s entourage’ was at work here [on the charter], but an Ottonian painter who was perhaps
trained in Trier and had knowledge of Carolingian models.” Westermann-Angerhausen, “Spuren der
Theophanu,” 200.
207
“Hier geschieht keine passive Überfremdung durch von aussen kommende Vorbilder, sondern die
eigene Stilsprache erweist sich als so elastisch und ausbaufähig, dass sie mit ihren eigenen Mitteln ein
fremdes Idiom gleichsam simulieren kann.” Ibid., 200.
208
Westermann-Angerhausen, “Spuren der Theophanu,”173. Compare further Dieter Matthes, Die
Heiratsurkunde der Kaiserin Theophanu 972 April 14 (Stuttgart: Müller & Schindler, 1980), 10–11.
65
amicable relationship between the two empires that was ushered in by the union of Theophanu
and Otto II.”209
As important as the ramifications that such an iconological reading has for our
understanding of Ottonian-Byzantine relations, Cutler and North’s recent re-evaluation affirms
that textile ornament made by Ottonian artists is not an imitation of Byzantine luxury silk. On the
contrary, Cutler and North’s analysis shows that the “driving artistic impulses” that generated the
marriage charter’s design “though perhaps distantly inspired by Eastern objects, were thoroughly
Ottonian rather than essentially Byzantine.”210 Cutler and North’s reading of the iconology of the
medallion design implies that the makers of the charter never intended to copy the repeat of a
Byzantine silk. On the contrary, while clearly alluding to Byzantine aesthetics and a Byzantine
luxury product, the marriage charter is perhaps the best illustration that Ottonian artists, though
inspired by artistic products made in foreign lands, were not interested in copying these sources
wholesale.
It is also noteworthy that Cutler and North kept the object’s function in mind when re-
assessing the textile design of the marriage charter.211 By linking the meaning of the ornament
with political intentions, the authors demonstrated that textile ornament is not merely a matter of
decoration (although the authors use this term), but serves more complex functions.212 The
marriage charter demonstrates that ornament generates specific meaning and conveys conceptual
messages.213 In accordance with Westermann-Angerhausen, Cutler and North state that “the
origin of the charter’s unique decorative scheme lay not, as had long been assumed, in the slavish
imitation of exotic motifs and materials from the East but rather in the imaginative and creative
209
Cutler and North, “Word over Image,” 173.
210
Ibid., 175.
211
On the charter’s function as visual propaganda see Cutler and North, “Word over Image,” 180–85.
212
“Décor,” 176. “Decorative program,” 175.
213
In terms of the function of ornament, the marriage charter is an unusual example, not least because its
textile ornament was so clearly created with a specific intention in mind. I am not aware of any another
case where the iconography of the design of the textile motif itself bears comparable political meaning. It
is only because the document was produced within unusually clear historic parameters that such a reading
of the animal combat motif is possible at all.
66
use, alteration, and combination by Ottonian artists of patterns and imagery drawn from a broad
range of objects inherited from and produced by craftsmen and artists of the Later Roman and
Byzantine Empires, […] and the Muslim East.”214 The medallion design of the marriage charter
evokes the look of Byzantine luxury silk but appropriates the textile pattern in an intelligent way
to satisfy a political agenda.215
Naturalism, painterly execution and iconological meaning

As Florentine Mütherich observed long ago, the medallion pattern of the charter exhibits
great iconographic detail and reveals the painter’s extraordinary skill.216 The exquisitely painted
medallions outweigh by far such crude formulaic compositions as those made at Mainz, Corvey,
or elsewhere, and contrast further with the workmanship of the Echternach illuminators who
made the Codex Aureus. The sophisticated execution of the charter was probably not only due to
the artist’s unusual skill, but also appears to have served a specific function. In order to convey a
specific political message to the court, the details of the animal motif needed to be legible. In
contrast to the stylized textile pages produced elsewhere, textile iconography on the marriage
214
Cutler and North, “Word Over Image,” 173.
215
Cutler and North suggest that the marriage charter legitimized and authorized the union between Otto
II and Theophanu despite Theophanu’s disappointing pedigree, since she was not the promised purple-
born princess. The authors argue that the marriage charter was already painted but text-less by the time
Theophanu arrived. This somewhat contradicts their reading of the animal motif in the medallions as
particularly suggestive of a “loving relationship,” a point that needed to be stressed, they argue, when the
true identity of the bride was revealed at her arrival and Ottonian voices demanded her rejection. The
authors suggest that the text was written in Rome, posterior to the bride’s arrival and after it was clear that
she was not the desired princess (181). However, this scenario implies that the meaning of the medallion
design, according to Cuther and North’s argument, was already fixed prior to the circumstances that
supposedly inspired its iconology. In this case, the medallion pattern was designed with the purple-born
princess Anna in mind and not made specifically for the union with Theophanu that needed special
legitimation. According to this interpretation, the visual program of the charter that demonstrates
harmony between the Byzantine and Ottonian empires has nothing to do with Theophanu being the wrong
bride. For the purposes of this chapter, however, it is not relevant whether the design was made with
Anna in mind or Theophanu. Important is that the textile ornament is an Ottonian adaptation of Byzantine
aesthetics and that the medallion motif was created by an Ottonian artist and imbued with specific
meaning. Compare Cutler and North, “Word Over Image,” 179–82.
216
“The style of the purple leaf in Wolfenbüttel is, however, different from that of the manuscripts in our
group; all details are finer, more delicate and elaborate.” Florentine Mütherich, “Ottonian Art: Changing
Aspects,” in Studies in Western Art: Acts of the 20th International Congress of the History of Art, ed. Ida
E. Rubin (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 1:27–39, esp. 38.
67
charter is not a general allusion to precious textile material, but the pattern conveys specific
iconological meaning. The animal embrace encoded in the medallions infuses the textile pattern
with political propaganda. This implies that textile ornament on the marriage charter would not
work if it were formulaic or non-figural. On the contrary, the transmission of a political message
depended on the naturalistic design of the animal motif and its excellent artistic execution. The
design had to be specific enough that the viewers were able to make out the subtle differences
that distinguish the Ottonian beasts from Byzantine animal combat motifs. No other Ottonian
artist produced textile ornament that displays comparable iconographic detail. Occasionally,
artists depicted lions, griffins and other animals in textile patterns, but none of these
compositions appear to generate specific iconological meaning and such interpretations should
be treated with caution unless they can be contextualized convincingly.
Conclusion
That individual motifs in textile ornament usually lack iconological significance is not to
say that textile ornament in general lacks iconological meaning. As I stated in the introduction, it
is the purpose of this dissertation to show that textile ornament has meaning beyond its apparent
decorative function. Before turning to specific case studies in chapters two to four that addresses
the meaning and function of textile ornament in greater detail, several conclusions can be drawn
from the present chapter. While some unusual textile-ornamented objects like the marriage
charter and the initial page from the Bernward Gospels [fig. 8] suggest that medieval painters
closely studied the repeats of Byzantine and Islamic silk, the bulk of the material demonstrates
that textile iconography in medieval manuscripts is no more naturalistic and no less schematic
than any other iconographic motif. Depending on the conceptual program, artists appropriated
repeats, invented their own “repeat” patterns, and painted formulaic textile-like ornaments that
evoke the visual quality of precious cloth in the most stylized terms. That most textile pages
employ the color purple can be explained by the social, political, economic, and allegoric
significance of purple textiles in medieval secular and religious society. The embracing animals
of the marriage charter have shown that some patterns have meaning beyond a general textile
evocation, but in most cases textile ornament is an iconographic code. Finally, defining the
meaning and function of textile iconography depends on context. The ornament’s iconographic
context, its correspondence with iconographic conventions and its placement within the
codicological structure of a manuscript shed light on the function and allegoric meaning of
68
individual textile pages. One form of allegoric meaning is the notion that scripture is a veil of
revelation, and how textile pages at the beginning of each of the four Gospels relate to this
concept will be the focus of the following chapter.
69
Chapter 2 : Textile Ornament as a Veil of Revelation
Introduction: Ornament as threshold symbol

While the previous chapter was concerned with textile iconography, the following considerations
investigate the function and meaning of textile ornament in specific manuscript contexts of early
medieval liturgical books. This chapter argues that textile ornament serves three major functions
in early medieval Gospel books. First, textile ornament, especially at the beginning of
manuscripts and in evangelist portraits, visually marks a threshold that reminds the readers to
approach scripture in a spiritual sense. I argue that textile ornament in the context of evangelist
portraits and Gospel openings address the issue of a literal versus allegorical reading of scripture.
Second, textile pages address the anxiety of picturing God. Reading textile pages and textile
backgrounds in evangelist portraits as metaphoric veils, I propose that textile-ornament in
medieval Gospel books visualizes the problem of making visible the invisible Divine. Finally,
textile-ornamented folios evoke the metaphor of a veil of revelation not only through visual
ornamentation but also in a physical and material sense. Therefore, I suggest further that textile
ornament turns parchment pages in medieval Gospel books into a form of physical curtain that
function as a material prop, which facilitates the readers’ contemplative approach to scripture.
How the faithful may approach the immaterial and invisible divine was one of the most
fundamental theological problems in medieval Christianity. Medieval artists devised a range of
pictorial and artistic strategies that addressed the issue of visualizing God’s invisibility through
art.217 Among a wide range of pictorial solutions, non-figurative ornamentation is one approach
217
The following suggested readings are a small selection from the vast literature. Herbert Kessler,
Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God’s Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2000). Eric Thunø, Image and Relic: Mediating the Sacred in Early Medieval Rome (Rome:
L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2002). Beate Fricke, Ecce fides: Die Statue von Conques, Götzendienst und
Bildkultur im Westen (Paderborn: W. Fink, 2007). Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Anne-Marie Bouché (eds.),
The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2006). Jeffrey F. Hamburger, The Rothschild Canticles: Art and Mysticism in Flanders and the
Rhineland circa 1300 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990). Idem, The Visual and the
Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York: Zone Books, 1998). David
Ganz, Medien der Offenbarung: Visionsdarstellungen im Mittelalter (Berlin: Reimer, 2008). Robert
Ousterhout (ed.), The Blessings of Pilgrimage (Urbana and Chicago: 1990). Cynthia Hahn, Portrayed on
the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of Saints from the Tenth through the Thirteenth Century
70
that is useful to explore in order to explain the function of textile ornament in medieval Gospel
books. In chapter one I analyzed textile ornament from an iconographic perspective and noted
that textile iconography shares formal features with non-figurative extensible ornamentation that
also occurs on book covers, church portals, choirs screens, floor mosaics, and other objects.
Textile pages share not only formal characteristics with these objects but also relate conceptually
to portals, chancel barriers, and other threshold markers. Architectural elements covered in
extensible ornament were frequently placed in spaces where people passed between spaces.218
The ornamented marble transenna panels from Schänis in Switzerland, for example, were
situated before the choir and marked the space where the clergy physically transitioned between
the profane and the sacred zones of the church [fig. 58].219 Ornamented book covers similarly
mark a threshold where the reader crosses from an external space into the interior realm of the
book, as do textile-ornamented folios [fig. 59 and 60].220 As I argue in what follows, passing
through such a threshold is not only a matter of physical movement but also entails a cognitive
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Eadem, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and
Meaning of Reliquaries, 400–circa 1204 (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2012).
218
Sharon E. J. Gerstel (ed.), Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and
Theological Perspectives on Religious Screens, East and West (Cambridge,MA: Dumbarton
Oaks/Harvard University Press, 2007).
219
Schänis, Stiftskirche St. Sebastian, ca. 820. Guido Faccani, “‘Geflecht mit Gewürm:’ Karolingische
Bauplastik und ihr Dekor,” in Die Zeit Karls des Grossen in der Schweiz, ed. Markus Riek, Jürg Goll and
Georges Descœudres (Sulgen: Benteli, 2013), 128–45. Katrin Roth-Rubi, “Die Flechtwerkskulptur
Churrätiens – Müstair, Chur, Schänis,” Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte
67 (2010): 9–28.
220
One leaf from a pair of book covers from the Sion treasure, likely made at Constantinople in the third
quarter of the sixth century, Dumbarton Oaks Collection, BZ 1963.36.9. Ernst Kitzinger, “A Pair of Silver
Book Covers in the Sion Treasure,” in Gatherings in Honor of Dorothy E. Miner, ed. Ursula E.
McCracken, Lilian M. C. Randall, and Richard H. Randall (Baltimore: The Walters Art Gallery, 1974),
3–17. Michelle P. Brown (ed.), In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000, Exhibition catalogue,
Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC, October 21, 2006—January 7, 2007 (Washington DC: Freer
Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 2006), cat. no. 66, 303–4, with more literature. London,
British Library, Cotton Ms Nero D.IV (Lindisfarne Gospels), fol. 2v, prefatory cross-carpet page.
Michelle Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality, and the Scribe (Toronto and Buffalo:
University of Toronto Press, 2003).
71
and affective transformation. Accessing spiritual space and seeing with the eyes of the mind
requires the reader to change modes of perception. In order to investigate the role ornament plays
in this transformation, it is useful to take a closer look at the formal and functional parallels
between architectural ornament and textile pages.
Ornamented thresholds in medieval art

The early medieval tradition of distinguishing thresholds by marking them with ornament
appears to have roots in antique artistic and folkloristic practice. Evil spirits were thought to live
in alleyways, doors, and other passages so that these liminal spaces needed protection.221
Intricate ornamentation distracted and captured the spirits.222 Floor mosaics, therefore, were
frequently ornamented with non-figurative geometric patterns, often including magical knots that
served apotropaic functions. Writing on the fifth-century floor mosaics in the church of the
Nativity at Bethlehem, Ernst Kitzinger noted that the ancient fear of the evil eye survived well
into the Christian era.223 Taking note of the antique custom of trapping evil spirits in magical
knots, Kitzinger read a geometric floor panel with an Ichthys formula and a Solomon’s knot as
an apotropaic device that was mounted in the space where people passed in and out of the grotto
[fig. 61].224 The object demonstrates that not only the architectural passage to the sacred place of
Christ’s birth needed special protection, but also the people who transitioned through it.
James Trilling has made a similar apotropaic argument for interlace ornament, which
appears in diverse cultural contexts throughout the Middle Ages on mosaic floors, portals of
medieval churches, tomb stones, and—as we saw in chapter one—in textile pages. Trilling read
221
Katherine M. D. Dunbabin, Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999), 312–13.
222
E. Douglas van Buren, “The Guardians of the Gate in the Akkadian Period,” Orientalia, n.s. 16 (1947):
312–32. Josef Engemann, “Zur Verbreitung magischer Übelabwehr in der nichtchristlichen und
christlichen Spätantike,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 18 (1975): 28–48, esp. 42.
223
On apotropaic knots in Christian late antiquity also Henry Maguire “Garments Pleasing to God: The
Significance of Domestic Textile Designs in the Early Byzantine Period,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44
(1990): 215—224.
224
Ernst Kitzinger, “The Threshold of the Holy Shrine: Observations on Floor Mosaics at Antioch and
Bethlehem,” in Kyriakon: Festschrift für Johannes Quasten (Münster: Aschendorff, 1970), ed. Patrick
Grünfeld and Josef A. Jungmann, 2:639–647.
72
interlace ornamentation, especially if it appears in liminal locations on frames or doors, as an
efficacious symbol that repels evil spirits. 225 While such apotropaic readings of ornament widen
our understanding of the function and meaning of non-figurative ornament, it is worth noting that
Trilling and Kitzinger applied these ideas not only to architectural settings but also to medieval
manuscripts, which they characterized as objects that demarcate or incorporate thresholds.
Trilling read ornamented frontispieces as “doorways” that need protection, which artists
provided by painting interlace ornamentation on the pages at the beginning and end of a
manuscript, such as in the Lindisfarne Gospels [fig. 60].226
Victor Elbern noted that the tree of life is a common ornamental motif that appears on
liminal objects, and he read it as a threshold symbol.227 The tree of life appears not only on
medieval book covers but also on doors, tombstones, transenna panels, and ambo frontals. In
addition to numerous examples surviving from Byzantium and Italy, stone slabs carved with the
tree of life are extant north of the Alps, for example in Switzerland at Schänis, Dissentis,
Romainmôutier, and on the seventh or eighth-century ambo fragment from the Abbey of Saint
Maurice [fig. 62].228 Elbern argued that early medieval transenna panels and cancelli ornamented
with the symbol of the tree of life drew attention not only to the architectural function these
building parts served as barriers, but also highlighted their conceptual intention to mediate
between the sacred and the profane.229 The conclusions Elbern drew from the use of this symbol
225
James Trilling, “Medieval Interlace Ornament: The Making of a Cross-Cultural Idiom,” Arte
Medievale 9 (1995): 59–86.
226
Trilling, “Interlace,” 74–75. For the Lindisfarne Gospels (London, British Library, Cott. Nero D IV)
see also Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels.
227
Victor H. Elbern, “Zierseiten in Handschriften des frühen Mittelalters als Zeichen sakraler
Abgrenzung,” in Der Begriff der repraesentatio im Mittelalter: Stellvertretung, Symbol, Zeichen, Bild, ed.
Albert Zimmermann (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1971), 340–356, esp. 342.
228
Lower part of an ambo frontal, Klosterkirche St. Maurice, Markus Riek, Jürg Goll, and Georges
Descœudres (eds.), Die Zeit Karls des Grossen in der Schweiz (Bern: Benteli, 2013), 143. Faccani,
“‘Geflecht mit Gewürm.” Roth-Rubi, “Die Flechtwerkskulptur Churrätiens.”
229
Elbern, “Zierseiten,” 346. For other approaches to the function and meaning of ornament see idem,
“Das Engerer Bursenreliquiar und die Zierkunst des frühen Mittelalters,” Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur
Kunstgeschichte 10 (1971): 41–102. Also idem, “Bildstruktur–Sinnzeichen–Bildaussage:
Zusammenfassende Studie zur unfigürlichen Ikonographie im frühen Mittelalter,” Arte medievale 1
(1983): 17–37.
73
on both architectural decoration and medieval manuscripts, and his thoughts on ornament as a
threshold marker more generally, are also useful for the material that I discuss in this chapter.
Symbolizing eternal life, the foliated cross was a particularly apt motif to be placed at the
threshold that leads into the sanctuary. On the cover of a medieval manuscript, the tree of life
identifies the book as a liminal object. Kitzinger, for example, interpreted the ornamented silver
covers of a medieval manuscript from the Sion treasure and now at Dumbarton Oaks as
gateways, in particular because they show the symbol of the tree of life [fig. 59].230 He further
likened the threshold function of this cover to such other liminal objects as doors.231 Elbern
further demonstrated that artists highlighted the thresholds that open inside the books with
ornamentation. In addition to book covers, he compared illuminated frontispieces of medieval
manuscripts to ornamented transenna panels and argued that ornamentation serves a similar
function in both cases. The ornament indicates to the viewers that they are about to transition
from their own worldly space into a spiritual sphere.232 Recent literature has taken up the idea
that illuminated manuscripts are spatial objects and that opening a book leads the readers
physically and conceptually into a different space.233 It is worth noting that Elbern defined the
230
Kitzinger, “A Pair of Silver Book Covers in the Sion Treasure,” 13.
231
Kitzinger did not illustrate any comparanda, but examples for ornamented doors can be found in
Elbern, “Zierseiten.” See also Marc Waelkens, Die kleinasiatischen Türsteine: typologische und
epigraphische Untersuchungen der kleinasiatischen Grabreliefs mit Scheintür (Mainz: von Zabern,
1986). Romuald Bauerreis, Das Lebenszeichen: Studien zur Frühgeschichte des griechischen Kreuzes und
zur Ikonographie des frühen Kirchenportals (Munich: Birkenverlag, 1961), esp. 19—21 and 51—23.
Idem, Arbor vitae: der “Lebensbaum” und seine Verwendung in Liturgie, Kunst und Brauchtum des
Abendlandes (Munich: Neuer Filser-Verlag, 1938). Kitzinger further mentioned the frontispieces of the
Leo Bible (Vatican Library, Ms. Reg. gr. 1, fol. 2r–3v), which also show the tree of life, but he illustrates
these primarily for drawing an iconographic parallel between ornamental motifs on the covers and
ornamented frontispieces inside a manuscript. He suggested, 17, that this ornamental motif first appeared
on the outside of books and was later copied for frontispieces. For a similar interpretation of the book
cover as “gateway to the Word of God,” see Frauke Steenbock, Der kirchliche Prachteinband im frühen
Mittelalter: Von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Gotik (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für
Kunstwissenschaft, 1965), 58.
232
Elbern, “Zierseiten,” 345–46. It is this passageway into a sacred space that, according to Trilling,
needed special protection. Trilling, “Interlace,” 75, 77.
233
Bruno Reudenbach, “Heilsräume: Die künstlerische Vergegenwärtigung des Jenseits im Mittelalter,”
in Raum und Raumvorstellungen im Mittelalter, ed. Jan A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer (Berlin and New
York: de Gruyter, 1998), 628–40. Lieselotte Saurma-Jeltsch, “Der Codex als Bühne: Zum Szenenwandel
beim Blättern in der Handschrift,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 58 (2009): 76–93, has drawn
74
threshold function ornament serves in architectural decoration and manuscripts as simultaneously
limiting (begrenzend) and revealing (eröffnend).234 As ornamented manuscript pages that are
designed to look like textile curtains show, textile ornament in medieval Gospel books operates
in a similar way. The material that I present in the following has never been analyzed
comprehensively, but it has been noted occasionally that textile-ornamented pages conceptually
evoke a curtain that can be read allegorically as a veil that mediates between the corporeal and
the spiritual realms.235 Discussing ornamented “carpet pages” in medieval Hebrew biblical
manuscripts, Christopher de Hamel noted for example that “turning a group of carpet pages is
like lifting layers of precious textile before revealing the sacred text.”236 Robert Calkins further
noted that textile pages “also recall the pair of curtains pulled aside to reveal the seated
Evangelists within their architectural settings in each of their portraits. When these pages are
attention to the way in which the spaces of various illuminated pages in one book connect with one
another. Jeffrey F. Hamburger, “Openings,” in Imagination, Books and Community in Medieval Europe:
Papers of a Conference Held at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, 29–31 May, 2008 (Victoria:
Macmillan, 2009), 51–129. See also my discussion of David Ganz’s and Wolfgang Christian Schneider’s
contributions below.
234
Elbern, “Zierseiten,” 344.
235
The most noteworthy contribution is Christine Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain: On the Use of Textiles in
Manuscripts,” in Weaving, Veiling, and Dressing: Textiles and their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages,
ed. Kathryn M. Rudy and Barbara Baert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 161–89, esp. 164–166. In the older
literature the notion of textile pages as veils occurs, for example, in Peter Metz, Das Goldene
Evangelienbuch von Echternach im Germanischen National-Museum zu Nürnberg: Codex Aureus
Epternacensis (Munich: Prestel, 1956), 50. More recently, see also Anja Grebe, “Ornament, Zitat,
Symbol: Die sogenannten ‘Teppichseiten’ des Codex aureus von Echternach im Kontext von Buchmalerei
und Textilkunst,” in Beziehungsreiche Gewebe: Textilien im Mittelalter, ed. Kristin Böse and Silke
Tammen (Frankfurt, Berlin and Bern: Peter Lang, 2012), 55–74. Laura Kendrick, Animating the Letter:
The Figurative Embodiment of Writing from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (Columbus, OH: Ohio
State University Press, 1999), 91–94, read the ornamented pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels as veils.
Eberlein’s important study on the curtain in medieval art contributes useful ideas for the interpretation of
textile pages, but does not cover this material. Johann Konrad Eberlein, Apparitio regis–revelatio
veritatis: Studien zur Darstellung des Vorhangs in der bildenden Kunst von der Spätantike bis zum Ende
des Mittelalters (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1982).
236
Christopher de Hamel, The Book: A History of the Bible (London: Phaidon, 2001), 45.
75
turned, the Word of God is similarly unveiled.”237 Calkins also observed that “textile or ‘curtain’
pages serve as introductory shrouds or ‘covers’ to each of the Gospels.”238
The previous literature, however, did not analyze any further this veiling function that
textile ornament appears to take. A brief survey of various types of textile pages and the different
iconographic and manuscript contexts in which they appear helps to clarify where the textile
pages are situated in the books and prepares the ground for an interpretation of what these pages
do.
Textile ornament in the context of the early medieval Gospel book: five types
In many of the Ottonian manuscripts with textile ornamentation, textile patterns appear
either in the background of evangelist images, or take the form of textile pages that face the
author portraits. In some manuscripts, textile pages precede the evangelist portrait or they follow
on the next page. Others exhibit textile ornament on the initial or incipit pages. Most important in
all cases is that textile ornament draws attention to the beginnings of each of the four Gospels.
The material can be grouped into five types. A representative example for textile ornament of the
first group is fol. 16v of a little-known eleventh-century Gospel book now in Mainz. 239 The
evangelist portrait shows Matthew seated in front of a textile hanging or curtain that covers most
of the background [fig. 63]. The key feature of this first group of images is the combination of
textile motif and evangelist portrait in one miniature. A variant of such textile-ornamented
evangelist portraits appear in the so-called Egbert Codex, a Gospel lectionary made for bishop
Egbert of Trier 977—93 (fols. 3v—4r, and 5v—6r) [figs. 64—67].240 In these folios, the ground
237
Calkins, Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages (London: Thames and Hudson, 1983), 147.
238
Calkins, 147, further noted that this function also applies to the ornamented pages in insular Gospel
books. In addition to the liminal objects I mentioned above, this suggests that ornament may take similar
functions in diverse cultural contexts.
239
Mainz, Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum, Inv. Kautzsch Nr. 1 (=Nr. 974). The evangelist
portraits appear on fols. 16v, 75v, 113r, 171v (see also fig. 31–33). On this manuscript see Michael
Brandt and Arne Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim und das Zeitalter der Ottonen (Hildesheim: Dom
und Diözesanmuseum, 1993), cat. no. IV–5, 2: 155–56.
240
Codex Egberti, Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Ms. 24, fols. 3v–4r, and 5v–6r. The evangelists are preceded by
a decorated text page with facing dedication miniature on fols. 1v–2r. Gunther Franz and Franz Ronig,
Codex Egberti: Teilfaksimile des Ms. 24 der Stadtbibliothek Trier (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1983). Thomas
Labusiak, Die Ruodprechtgruppe der ottonischen Reichenauer Buchmalerei: Bildquellen, Ornamentik,
76
of the entire image is covered in textile ornament. Similar, but with a different textile motif, is a
late-tenth century lectionary from Corvey now in New York, Ms Astor 1 [fig. 68].241
Characteristic of a lectionary is the chronological organization of the Gospel accounts according
to the cycle of the liturgical year, whereas Gospel books sort the texts by author. The textual
structure of a lectionary explains why the evangelists in the Egbert Codex and Astor 1 appear en
bloc at the beginning of the book and not one before each Gospel, as in the Gospel book from
Mainz.
The second group of textile images includes miniatures that show textile patterns on a
separate folio, so-called textile pages. These textile images are usually part of the same gathering
that also contains the evangelist portrait but occupy an entire page. In a Gospel book now in
Darmstadt, for example, one purple-colored textile page was placed at the beginning of the
Gospels of Mark on the verso of fol. 21 next to the evangelist portrait [fig. 69 and 70]. A second
textile page in the same manuscript appears on fol. 190, which faces John on the verso [fig. 71
and 72].242 A similar example is a mid-eleventh century Gospel book now in Munich [fig. 73—
stilgeschichtliche Voraussetzungen (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2009), 246–49, cat.
no. 5, 342–51.
241
New York, Public Library, Ms. Astor 1, Corvey, ca. 950. The evangelists are depicted on pages 2, 3, 4,
5. Jonathan J. G. Alexander, James H. Marrow and Lucy Freeman Sandler (eds.), The Splendor of the
World: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at the New York Public Library (London:
Harvey Miller, 2005), cat. no. 27 (Jacqueline Ann Frank), 143–47. Rainer Kahsnitz, “Frühottonische
Buchmalerei,” in Otto der Große: Magdeburg und Europa, ed. Matthias Puhle (Mainz: Zabern, 2001), 1:
234–36. Elisabeth Klemm, “Beobachtungen zur Buchmalerei von Helmarshausen am Beispiel des
Evangelistenbildes,” in Martin Gosebruch und Frank Steigerwald. Helmarshausen und das Evangeliar
Heinrichs des Löwen. Bericht über ein wissenschaftliches Symposion in Braunschweig und
Helmarshausen vom 9. Oktober- 11. Oktober 1985 [Series: Schriftenreihe der Kommission für
Niedersächsische Bau- und Kunstgeschichte bei der Braunschweigischen wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft
4] (Göttingen: Goltze, 1992), 133–164, esp. 139. Tilmann Buddensieg, “Zur ottonischen Buchmalerei und
Goldschmiedekunst des Mittelalters,” in Festschrift für Karl Hermann Usener, ed. Frieda Dettweiler,
Herbert Köllner and Peter Anselm Riedl (Marburg a. d. Lahn: Verlag des Kunstgeschichtlichen Seminars
der Universität, 1967), 93–114, esp. 93–101
242
Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Inv. AE 679. Peter Märker, Gold und Purpur: der
Bilderschmuck der früh- und hochmittelalterlichen Handschriften aus der Samlung Hüpsch im
Hessischen Landesmuseum Darmstadt (Darmstadt: Hessisches Landesmuseum, 2001), 27–37. The book
further includes two ornamented pages that face the images of Mark (fol. 83r) and Luke (fol. 126v).
Instead of purple textile designs, these pages show a blue pattern reminiscent of the ethereal skies that
were often depicted by Carolingian illuminators. Herbert Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art, 173, read these
77
81].243 In this book, the evangelist portraits were painted on the reverse of four textile-
ornamented folios that were inserted into each of the four Gospel openings; Mark (fol. 66v) has
an extra textile page on fol. 67r [fig. 77].244
In addition to textile ornament, some of the textile pages that were painted on separate
folios also present text. These textile-text pages constitute the third group. Usually the first verse
of the Gospel account was written on top of a continuously ornamented textile ground, such as in
the textile pages of a manuscript now in Koblenz [fig. 82].245 A variant among the manuscripts of
group three are openings that pair a textile-ornamented incipit page with an initial page with
monochrome ground. This combination occurs, for example, in a Gospel book from Corvey now
pages christologically and related them to “the temple curtain/flesh of Christ [that] was understood as the
firmament, the visible sky beyond which lies heaven.” Kessler mentions only to the frontispiece to Luke,
but not the other ornamented pages in this book. I think that the composition of the decorative program
makes a point about the two natures of Christ. The two purple pages in Matthew and John were placed
nearer the covers of the book towards the outside, and enclose the blue ethereal pages in Mark and Luke. I
would argue that this organization illustrates the notion that the body of Christ, which is often described
as a purple textile (see chs. 3 and 4), resembles a veil that hides the immaterial, ethereal Godhead within.
243
Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 9475, fols. 15r–15v, 66r–66v, 110r–110v, 174r–174v.
Elisabeth Klemm, Die ottonischen und frühromanischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek
(Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004), cat. no. 226, 1:248–50. Béatrice Hernad, “Evangeliar aus Niederalteich,” in
Fabian et al., Pracht auf Pergament, cat. no. 48, 222–25.
244
The four textile pages appear on fols. 15r, 66r, 110r, and 174r. It is unclear why the additional page in
Mark appears in this specific place. The evangelist was venerated especially at Reichenau, where many of
the Ottonian textile pages were made. Perhaps the manuscript from Munich, which was used in the
Middle Ages at Bremen, reflects a Reichenau model, in which Mark was distinguished from the other
evangelists.
245
Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81. Textile-ornamented are the folios 56r, 85r (image), and
128r. On this manuscript see Christina Meckelnborg, Die nichtarchivischen Handschriften der
Signaturengruppe Best. 701 Nr. 1—190 ergänzt durch die im Görres-Gymnasium Koblenz aufbewahrten
Handschriften A, B, und C (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), 72–78. Franz J. Ronig (ed.), Egbert:
Erzbischof von Trier 977–993. Gedenkschrift der Diözese Trier zum 1000. Todestag (Trier, 1993), cat.
no. 22, 30, figs. 103–12. According to Hoffmann, the book was written in the first quarter of the eleventh
century. Hartmut Hoffmann, Buchkunst und Königtum im ottonischen und frühsalischen Reich (Stuttgart:
Hiersemann, 1986), 1:500–1. Von Euw dated the book to the late-tenth century. Anton von Euw, Vor dem
Jahr 1000: Abendländische Buchkunst zur Zeit der Kaiserin Theophanu (Cologne: Schnütgen-Museum,
1991), cat. no. 40, 146. Meckelnborg, 72, dates late tenth to early eleventh century.
78
in Oxford [fig. 83].246 A manuscript from the same workshop now in Wolfenbüttel (Helmst. 426)
is one of the most elaborate examples of a textile-ornamented Gospel book. In this manuscript,
the first three pages of each individual Gospel, including incipit, initial, and text pages, are
ornamented [fig. 84—86].247
The fourth group includes variations of the textile-and-text pages of the third group.
These miniatures depict text and textile ornament on one page, but distinct from one another. In
the eleventh-century Uta Codex, a Gospel lectionary from Regensburg, four ornamented text
pages introduce the readings, which are not structured in calendrical order as in most
lectionaries, but according to author.248 The four folios display horizontal bands of textile
ornament that alternate with golden inscriptions [fig. 87—90].249 One miniature in the Bernward
Gospels from Hildesheim shows a similar combination of a textile-and-text-pattern [fig. 91].250
The letters are written on horizontal bands that alternate with textile ornament. The so-called
Guntbald Gospels, another Hildesheim manuscript from the eleventh century shows a different
variation of the textile-and-text page. 251 Golden ornate letters were superimposed on a
246
Bodleian Library, Mss. Laud. lat. 27. Textile pages appear on fols. 17v, 73, 116, 176. The manuscript
was dated to the second half of the tenth century. Otto Pächt and Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Illuminated
manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), cat. no. 24, 1:2.
Hanns Swarzenski, “Die deutschen Miniaturen des frühen Mittelalters in amerikanischem Besitz,”
Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 63 (1929–30): 193–200, esp. 194.
247
Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. Helmst. 426, fols. 17v–18r, 59v–61v, 86v–88v, 128v–129v.
On this manuscript see Müller, “Evangeliar aus Helmstedt,” 276–78. Michael Peter, “Evangeliar aus
Helmstedt,” in Otto der Große: Magdeburg und Europa, ed. Matthias Puhle (Mainz: Zabern, 2001), cat.
no. IV.14, 2:189–92. Also Gerd Bauer, “Corvey oder Hildesheim: Zur ottonischen Buchmalerei in
Norddeutschland” (Ph.D dissertation, University of Hamburg, 1977), 2:145–160.
248
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 13601. Adam S. Cohen, The Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy,
and Reform in Eleventh-Century Germany (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2000), 4.
249
Fols. 6v, 42v, 60v, 90v. For a description of the codicology and structure see Cohen, Uta Codex, 4—5.
250
Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, fol. 20r. Jennifer P. Kingsley, “The Bernward Gospels: Structuring
Memoria in Eleventh-Century Germany,” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2007). Michael Brandt,
Das Kostbare Evangeliar des heiligen Bernward (Munich: Prestel, 1993).
251
Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 33, fols. 22v, 88v, 133v, 205v. The manuscript was dated to the year
1011 and fol. 269v names Guntbald as the scribe. Matthias Exner, Das Guntbald-Evangeliar: Ein
Ottonischer Bilderzyklus und sein Zeugniswert für die Rezeptionsgeschichte des Lorscher Evangeliars
(Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2008), 11.
79
continuous textile-patterned ground, but the text is still distinguished by rectangular frames [figs.
92—95]. These textile-ornamented pages appear at each Gospel beginning, inserted between the
initial page and another text page, both of which display decorative letters on monochrome
purple grounds.
Finally, the fifth type of textile page is an ornamented folio that lacks text but appears not
at the beginning of each Gospel or in evangelist portraits but in the context of the canon tables.
The only manuscript belonging to this category is the so-called Lindau Gospels, a book made in
St. Gallen in the third quarter of the ninth century and now in New York.252 The book contains
two textile pages with blue patterns [figs. 96 and 97]. 253 Each of the ornamented pages frame the
quire that includes the canon tables on either end so that the ornamented folios coincide with the
first and last folio of the quire. In chapter four I return to this quire, when I consider textile
ornament as a form of metaphoric vestment for the book.
As this brief overview shows, and as has been noted by others, textile pages in Ottonian
manuscripts most frequently appear at the beginnings of the four individual Gospels and most
often occur in the immediate iconographic context of an evangelist portrait.254 There is usually
just one textile page in these openings, but some have more. Equipping the canon tables with
full-folio textile pages, as in the Lindau Gospels, seems to be an exception. Because so many
textile pages appear in the iconographic context of evangelist images, and because this context
must be meaningful, medieval evangelist iconography seems a useful place to begin an
investigation of the function and meaning of textile ornament.
Curtains in evangelist portraits: iconographic diversity

Evangelist images like the ones in the Gospel book from Mainz, where textile ornament
and author portraits coincide, suggest a symbolic connection between the textile motif and the
252
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 1., dated 883—890. Anton von Euw, Die St. Galler
Buchkunst vom 8. bis zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (St. Gall: Verlag am Klosterhof, 2008), cat.
no. 99, 1: 408–11. For the codicological organization of the manuscript I rely on William Voelkle’s
diagram of the quire structure available on Corsair.
http://corsair.morganlibrary.org/msdescr/BBM0001.htm [accessed 29.10.2013], 20.
253
Fols. 5v and 12r, the textile pages, are the first and last pages of the second quire of the book.
254
For example, Calkins, Illuminated Books, 147.
80
iconographic subject of the evangelist [fig. 63, 98—100]. As Johann Konrad Eberlein has shown
in a seminal study on the curtain in medieval art, textiles are a staple in evangelist portrait
iconography.255 Medieval artists, for example the illuminator of the Ada Gospels, adopted for
evangelist portraits various textile themes that are common in ancient ruler iconography, such as
the draped cathedra velata [fig. 101].256 As Eberlein’s study shows, the curtain is the most
frequent among these textile motifs.257 In the majority of evangelist images that Eberlein
discussed, these curtains are either parted in the middle so that one shawl frames the evangelist
on either side, or the curtains are draped around columns and other architectural details. Such
shawls are depicted in the image of Mark in the so-called Soissons Gospels from the early ninth
century [fig. 102], and also in the evangelist portrait of Matthew in an eleventh century textile-
ornamented Gospel book from Echternach [fig. 103].258 Eberlein distinguished different curtain
motifs, but he only mentioned in passing some wall hangings and closed curtains
(“Hinterhänge”), such as those in the Mainz Gospel book.259 Eberlein also passed over textile
255
Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 2, 15–21, 29, 108–122, noted that curtains in evangelist portraits reflect an
iconographic tradition that is grounded in antique ruler iconography, where textiles in the background
underline the exalted status of the person depicted. For medieval ruler images with curtains see ibid.,
113–15. Moreover, Eberlein argued that medieval evangelist portraits developed this iconographic
convention further and channeled the curtain motif into a Christian interpretation that existed parallel to
the iconological meaning curtains carried in traditional ruler images.
256
Ada Gospels, Trier Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 22. Fols. 15v, 59v, 85v, 127v. The image shows fol. 85v. On
this manuscript see Wilhelm Köhler, Die karolingischen Miniaturen (Berlin: Deutscher Verein für
Kunstwissenschaft, 1958), 2:34–41. Michael Embach, Das Ada-Evangeliar (StB Trier, Hs 22): Die
karolingische Bilderhandschrift (Trier: Paulinus, 2010). Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 132.
257
Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 25–33.
258
Gospels of Saint Medard of Soissons (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France lat. 8850). Marie-Pierre
Laffitte and Charlotte Denoël, Trésors carolingiens: Livres manuscrits de Charlemagne à Charles the
Chauve (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2007), cat. no. 10, 97–100. On the Echternach
manuscript, London, British Library, Harley 2821 see Canossa 1077: Erschütterung der Welt, ed.
Christoph Stiegemann and Matthias Wemhoff (Munich: Hirmer, 2006), cat. no. 475, 2:378. The
evangelist portraits of Matthew, fol. 21v, and Mark, fol. 67v show curtains. Compare also Eberlein,
Apparitio regis, 2.
259
Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 132, explains “Hinterhang” as an alternative (“Ersatzform”) for the cortina
motif. He further mentions some closed curtains, 80, and notes, “Das Cortina-Motiv ist hier zu einem
durchgehenden Tuch abgewandelt. Verkleinert sind die äusseren Interkolumnien der vier Säulen auf dem
Lukasbild eines Evangeliars in Brüssel (Kat. 42973), ebenso im Cod. 140 des Trierer Domschatzes hinter
Matthäus (Kat. 47771). Der Vorhang des Brüsseler Evangeliars ist wieder als durchgehendes Tuch
gebildet, während in Trier das Cortina-Motiv in üblicher Form vorkommt.”
81
pages aside from a brief note on “Teppichseiten.”260 Textile hangings appear in medieval
evangelist portraits at least since the ninth century, for example in the gold and brown ink
drawing of Luke from a Gospel book that was perhaps made at Reims in the ninth century and is
now in New York [fig. 104].261 The evangelist bending over his lectern is placed before a
patterned textile that was draped over a rod. Evangelist portraits with flat stylized textile
backgrounds like the patterns in Mainz seem to have been unknown in the Carolingian period.
In Ottonian manuscripts, however, these textile backgrounds appear infrequently and in great
variety. A Gospel book made at Corvey in the later tenth century, of which only a fragment in
Helsinki now exists, depicts the Calling of Matthew against a textile-ornamented background in
the lower half of the image [fig. 105]. 262 In addition to the textile codes of purple color and
extensibility, the pattern can be read as textile-like because a comparison with ornament in
similar iconographic contexts suggests such an interpretation. For example, the pattern recalls the
floral design in the images of Mark and John in Mainz [fig. 98 and 100]. Floral textile patterns
further appear in the four evangelist portraits of Astor 1 in New York, which was made in the
same workshop that also produced the Helsinki leaf [fig. 68 and 106].263 An evangelist portrait
from a manuscript fragment now in Leipzig shows a form of stylized textile ornament in the
background that resembles the image of Mark from the Mainz Gospel book [fig. 107 and 99].264
260
Eberlein mentions “Teppichseiten” in a footnote, but does not cover this material elsewhere in his
book. Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 133, note 1112.
261
New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 640, fol. 100v. On this manuscript see Melanie
Holcomb, Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages, exhibition catalogue, Metropolitan Museum
New York (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), cat. no. 2, 39–41. Eberlein did not
include this manuscript in his book.
262
Helsinki, Suomen Kansallismuseo, Inv. no. 53131, single leaf. On this fragment see Rainer Kahsnitz,
“Berufung des Evangelisten Matthäus,” in Otto der Große: Magdeburg und Europa, ed. Matthias Puhle
(Mainz: Zabern, 2001), cat. no. IV.12, 2: 186–87, with further literature.
263
New York, Public Library, Ms. Astor 1, pages 2, 3, 4, 5. On the manuscript see n. 25 above.
264
Leipzig Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Rep. I 4° 57. On this manuscript fragment see Gerhard Karpp,
“Der Evangelist Lukas,” in Otto der Große: Magdeburg und Europa, ed. Matthias Puhle (Mainz: Zabern,
2001), cat. no. IV.13, 2:187–89. Ulrich Kuder, “Einzelblätter eines Evangeliars in Helsinki und Leipzig,”
in Bernward von Hildesheim, ed. Brandt and Eggebrecht, cat. no. VI–73, 2:415—16. Also Rainer
Kahsnitz, “Die Ornamentik,” in Kötzsche (ed.), Das Evangeliar Heinrichs des Löwen, Kommentarband,
2: 244–87, esp. 259. This leaf also preserved an ornamented incipit on the verso. The highly-ornamented
letters are contained in circular text fields that are arranged in a geometric manner across the page. The
82
As in Mainz, and also in the Helsinki miniature, the lower half of the evangelist portrait is
covered in extensible textile ornament. Typical of the Ottonian miniatures, in opposition to the
Carolingian drawing from the Pierpont Morgan Library, is that the textile-like background fills
the space inside the frame continuously and shows few or no signs of hanging devices and
drapery folds. Also, while Carolingian evangelist portraits often display textile motifs, they do
not usually include textile pages. The only pair of textile pages known to me that predate the
Ottonian period are the two textile-ornamented folios in the Lindau Gospels, which appear,
however, in a different context [fig. 96 and 97]. For reasons that are yet unknown, evangelist
portraits with textile backgrounds and especially the number of textile pages increases
substantially in the late tenth century.265 While I can only speculate on this sudden growth, what
I can say is that textile ornament in the context of evangelist portraits has meaning.
An iconological reading of the curtain in evangelist portraits

Eberlein already made the observation that textile motifs in evangelist portraits are not
meaningless iconographic details that were added for the sake of decoration, but that the curtain
motif has iconological meaning. First, he noted that curtains continued to exist in evangelist
portraits although medieval artists began to omit architectural details such as rods and columns
that supported such curtains in the late antique models.266 From this evidence Eberlein concluded
that the function of curtains in medieval evangelist imagery had changed from a symbol of
distinction, which—among other functions—textiles served in antique ruler iconography, and
developed into an independent iconographic theme that now carried a distinct Christian
writing resembles embroidered letters such as can be found in the so-called “Sternenmantel” of Henry II
at Bamberg, Diözesanmuseum. On this textile see Warren Woodfin, “Presents Given and Presence
Subverted: The Cunegunda Chormantel in Bamberg and the Ideology of Byzantine Textiles,” Gesta 47
(2008): 33–50, esp. 38, with references to the older literature.
265
See the conclusion below for thoughts on the matter.
266
“Die Tatsache, daß bemerkenswerterweise dem Evangelisten auch beim Verlust der Architektur die
Vorhänge erhalten bleiben, beweist ihre enge Verbindung, die—da kein sachlicher, bildlogischer Grund
mehr gegeben ist—auf inhaltlicher Relation beruht.” Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 127.
83
meaning.267 A similar iconographic shift can be observed in the Ottonian evangelist portraits that
show woven cloths as abstract ornamental forms in the backgrounds. The meaning of these
stylized curtains, however, remained the same as in Carolingian art: textiles depicted in medieval
evangelist portraits make an exegetical argument. First, the veil can be read as a metaphor of the
incarnation. I relate this metaphoric meaning to textile ornament in the next chapter. Second, the
curtain symbolizes the typological relationship between the Old and the New Testaments, and
finally, the argument that I pursue especially in this chapter, the curtain is a metaphor for the
sensus mysticus of biblical scripture that can be revealed through a spiritual reading of the text.268
The curtain: a typological reading

The notion of the Gospels as a vehicle for spiritual illumination is grounded in the
typological relationship between the New Testament and the old Judaic Law. One characteristic
feature of curtains is their ability simultaneously to veil and unveil. Hence, the curtain is a fitting
metaphor to illustrate the typological relationship between the Old and New Testaments and was
explored for this reason in art and exegesis.269 The frontispiece to the book of Leviticus in the
Bible of San Paolo (ca. 870), for example, shows objects from the Jewish cult—the menorah,
altar, and ark—crowned by a curtain that is patterned with crosses. This curtain has been read as
267
Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 31–32, 43, 108–22.
268
Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 33, observed that textile themes serve more than one function in images and
convey diverse meanings depending on the iconographic context in which they appear. I discuss some of
these interpretations in the present chapter. For an overview of the diverse metaphoric readings of the veil
in the context of medieval image theory, see further Klaus Krüger, Das Bild als Schleier des
Unsichtbaren: Ästhetische Illusion in der Kunst der frühen Neuzeit in Italien (Munich: Fink, 2001), 11–
26.
269
Friedrich Ohly, “Vom geistigen Sinn des Wortes im Mittelalter,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum
und deutsche Literatur 89 (1958/59): 1–23. On typological interpretations of the curtain in Carolingian art
see Herbert Kessler, “‘Facies Bibliothecae Revelata’: Carolingian Art as Spiritual Seeing,” in idem,
Press, 2000), 149–89. Idem, “Through the Temple Veil: The Holy Image in Judaism and Christianity,”
Kairos 32/33 (1990–91): 53–77. Joachim Gaehde, “Carolingian Interpretations of an Early Christian
Picture Cycle to the Octateuch in the Bible of San Paolo Fuori Le Mura in Rome,” Frühmittelalterliche
Studien 8 (1974): 351–384. For a typological reading of curtains in wall painting see Martina Bagnoli,
“‘Ut Domus Tali Ornetur Decore:’ Metamorphosis of Ornamental Motifs in Anagni and Rome,” in Roma
Felix: Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome, ed. Éamonn Ó Carragáin and Carol Neuman de
Vegvar (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 207–233, esp. 223–25.
84
a visualization of the Old Testament tabernacle that prefigured the Christian church [fig. 108].270
Similarly, the final miniature in the Grandval Bible shows the book on the throne from Rev
5;1—6 on a curtained altar in front of a veil [fig. 109].271 A veil also appears over the head of a
figure that Herbert Kessler read as a conjunction of Moses, Paul, and John, all of whom
experienced divine revelations.272 Kessler suggested that the curtains in this miniature depict the
shadow of the Old Testament that was taken away by Christ.273 Some of the actual textile veils,
curtains, and coverings that were used in the church had similar typological meaning.274
In evangelist images, curtains illustrate the notion that a shadow lay over the Old Testament and
was taken away by the New.275 Medieval commentaries often refer to the temple veil as an
allegory of the sensus mysticus that lies hidden beneath the literal sense of scripture.276 While in
the era of the Law the eyes of Moses were covered with a veil so that he could not see the
spiritual sense of scripture, this veil was lifted from the New Testament in the Incarnation. In II
Corinthians 3:13—16 Paul comments on the veil that cloaks the Jews’ understanding of the Law,
arguing that spiritual sight is granted to Christians only.
270
Rome, monastery of San Paolo fuori le mura, fol. 32v. Kessler, “Facies Bibliothecae Revelata,” 155.
271
London, British Library Add. Ms. 10546, fol. 449r.
272
Kessler, “Facies Bibliothecae Revelata,” 184.
273
Ibid.
274
See especially Durandus of Mende, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum 3.35—37. Timothy M.
Thibodeau, The Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of William Durand of Mende: A New Translation of the
Prologue and Book One (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 43—44. Jörg Richter,
“Linteamina: Leinen als Bedeutungsträger,” in Beziehungsreiche Gewebe: Textilien im Mittelalter, ed.
Kristin Böse and Silke Tammen (Frankfurt, Berlin and Bern: Peter Lang, 2012), 303—445. Franz
Kirchweger, “Nunc de vestibus altariis:” Kirchentextilien in Schriftquellen des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts,
Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 50 (1997): 75–109, 103. Joseph Braun, Der christliche Altar in
seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Hildesheim: Olms, 1973).
275
Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 90. Metz, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch, 54, read textile ornament as
symbolic of the truth that was hidden from the Jews but revealed through the Gospels.
276
See for example Bruno of Segni, Expositio in Exodum, XXVI, PL 164:32B. Ohly, “Vom geistigen
Sinn des Wortes.” Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 32, noted on the curtain metaphor in the context of scripture:
“Die Gläubigen warden aufgefordert, nach dem Vorbild Christi den Vorhang–gemeint ist der
Tempelvorhang– zu durchschreiten, um an jenen Ort zu gelangen, der mit Himmel, Paradies, Verheißung
zu umschreiben ist. Da Christus den Weg durch seinen Opfertod gebahnt hat, ist die Vorhangerklärung
zweiseitig: velum= caro Christi und velum = coelum.”
85
And not as Moses put a veil upon his face, that the children of Israel might not steadfastly
look on the face of that which is made void. But their senses were made dull. For, until this
present day, the selfsame veil, in the reading of the old testament, remaineth not taken
away (because in Christ it is made void). But even until this day, when Moses is read, the
veil is upon their heart. But when they shall be converted to the Lord, the veil shall be
taken away.277
Moreover, John and Paul were seers blessed with spiritual sight and able to discern the true
meaning of scripture.278 The eighth-century commentary on the Apocalypse by Ambrosius
Autpertus explains:
Because Paul understood the law of Moses not carnally and according to the letter, which
outside promised only temporal things, but spiritually and according to its meaning, he
discerned the Gospels hidden within the law, which promised eternal and not temporal
things. … Therefore, the book written inside displays an allegory, outside, however,
history. Inside through intellectual spirit, outside truly through the simple sense of letters,
fitting for the weak. Inside, because it promises invisible things, outside because it rightly
disposes visible things in its teaching. For that reason, the Old and New Testaments are
called one book, because the New cannot be separated from the Old, nor, on the other
hand, the Old from the New. For the Old Testament is the messenger and veil of the New.
The New, truly, is the fulfillment and revelation of the Old.279
This excerpt from Autpertus’s commentary shows that the notion of the veil of the Law is closely
intertwined with the allegorical reading of scripture and the sensus spiritalis that needs to be
detected within the literal sense of the letter.
The curtain: an exegetical reading
277
All biblical citations are from the Douay Rheims edition of the Bible.
278
Ibid.
279
Ambrosius Autpertus, In Apocalypsin, III, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 27, ed.
Robert Weber (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975), 231. Trans. Kessler, “Facies Bibliothecae Revelata,” 182.
86
Evangelist portraits with curtains or textile ornament in the background bring several of
these exegetical strings together.280 As Eberlein noted, curtains in evangelist portraits comment
especially on the dual meaning of scripture, the literal and the spiritual sense of the Word.281 The
sensus spiritalis had to be uncovered through meditation and contemplation. Augustine defined
this spiritual approach to scripture as a three-step model, first, physical perception (i.e. reading),
second, interpretation, and third, intellectual vision, which describes a form of insight into divine
matters that is unmediated by any props or aids.282 The Augustinian concept of spiritual sight
helps to explain the frequent occurrence of textile patterns in the context of evangelist portraits.
Textile-ornamented pages can be read as allegoric veils that covered the eyes of Moses and his
people but made spiritual truth accessible to Christians.283 Textile-ornamented folios are a
curtain metaphor. Like curtains in evangelist portraits, textile pages visualize the allegorical veil
that mediates between literal and spiritual sight. In evangelist portraits, the curtain further
identifies the evangelists as the messengers of divine truth. They appear as interlocutors, who
280
For a similar allegorical reading of painted textile curtains in twelfth-century church decoration, see
Thomas E. A. Dale, Relics, Prayers, and Polemics in Medieval Venetia: Romanesque Painting in the
Crypt of Aquileia Cathedral (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), esp. ch. 7, 66–76.
281
Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 82–92.
282
Henri de Lubac, Typologie, Allegorie, geistiger Sinn: Studien zur Geschichte der christlichen
Schriftauslegung, übers. und eingel. von Rudolf Voderholzer (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1999).
Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 228–262, esp. 232–3,
239. In the words of Kessler, “Facies Bibliothecae Revelata,” 174, who has written extensively on the
issue of spiritual seeing in medieval art and theology, the basic mode of reading is akin to Augustine’s
lowest category of sight, corporeal seeing implies a form of “purely physical apprehension, as when one
sees words on a page but does not comprehend their meaning or when Pharaoh dreamed of sheaves and
cattle but did not understand the significance. Spiritual seeing is interpretation, the infusion of meaning
that may be dependent on the physical stimulus but involves some sort of inspired interlocutor, Joseph,
for instance, who understood what Pharaoh’s images meant because he saw them with spiritual eyes.
Spiritual vision was particularly important when reading the Old Testament where the events and words
have hidden meanings that could be disclosed when read with the knowledge of the New; the
demonstration that a common inspiration underlies both testaments is, indeed, precisely the goal of
spiritual reading. Finally, there is true intellectual vision, which is purely of the mind and through which
one ‘sees’ God. It requires no sensual aids, no ‘outlines, colors, sounds, odors, or tastes’ as Augustine put
it; nonetheless it can be approached through spiritual vision, which mediates between corporeal and
intellectual understanding.”
283
Metz, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch, 54. Although Metz’s approach to the meaning of textile ornament
in this manuscript is only suggestive and entirely unsystematic, some of his interpretations are useful.
87
have access to spiritual truth and are therefore able to guide the viewer towards it.284 In addition,
reading textile pages as metaphors of revelation makes clear that the books in which these textile
images are contained also take part in the spiritual exchange between scripture and its reader.
How this relationship between text, ornament, the viewer, and the book functions will concern us
next.
Reading textile ornament in context: Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Hs. 78 A 1

The textile-ornamented miniatures of a mid-eleventh century Gospel book now in Berlin
(Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett, Hs. 78 A 1) exemplify the function and meaning of
textile ornament in unusually clear terms.285 This book is a good place to investigate how textile
ornament mediates between scripture and the reader. The Berlin Gospel book preserves, in its
present state, three evangelist portraits, Mark, Luke, and John [figs. 110—111, 114]. The image
of Matthew was lost.286 In order to understand how textile ornament works in this book, it is
useful to go through the pages in sequence, like a viewer who would look at this book from
beginning to end. The first extant miniature after the canon tables on folios 5r—12v is the image
of Mark on fol. 50v, the verso of a blank leaf. The evangelist holds his utensils and is ready to
write down the words that his symbol, the lion, brings to him [fig. 110]. Mark appears in front of
284
Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 82.
285
Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett, 78 A 1. Paul Wescher, Beschreibendes Verzeichnins
der Miniaturen, Handschriften und Einzelblätter des Kupferstichkabinetts der Staatlichen Museen Berlin
(Leipzig: Verlagsbuchhandlung J.J. Weber, 1931), 1–2. Elisabeth Klemm, “Evangeliar,” in Stiegemann
and Wemhoff, Canossa, cat. no. 448, 2:340–41. Hartmut Hoffmann, “Die Paderborner Schreibschule im
11. Jahrhundert,” in Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa, 2:449–64, esp. 455, recently recognized the
scribe of the Berlin Gospel book as a Paderborn hand and this attribution has been accepted in the
literature. Elisabeth Klemm, “Die Anfänge der romanischen Buchmalerei von Helmarshausen,” in
Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa, 1:465–481, esp. 467, and eadem, “Evangeliar,” 341.
286
The miniature was presumably cut out of the book. Two connecting tabs between fols. 16v–17r are the
remains of a bifolium that presumably contained the evangelist portrait. All other evangelist portraits and
two additional miniatures at the beginning of the Gospels of John were painted on singletons, as the tabs
that are clearly visible between fols. 52–53, 74–75, and 117–118 show. The parchment of the
illuminations is much thicker than the material used for the text pages. In all Gospel openings the
transition from image to initial to text is seamless and without irregularities. Passages were neither
repeated nor omitted. I think it is possible that the book was written at Paderborn, as Hoffmann suggested,
but that the miniatures were painted elsewhere, perhaps at Hildesheim, and custom made to be inserted
into the text body.
88
a brownish-purple textile pattern that fills the entire miniature with textile ornament. The pattern
shows medallions that contain various quadrupeds, birds, and trees. On the facing leaf, fol. 51r,
the Gospels of Mark begin with a small colored initial that highlights the beginning of verse one.
The text continues on fol. 51v and ends on 71r. Folios 71v and 72r are empty leaves. On the next
page, fol. 72v begins the argumentum of the Gospels of Luke followed by the capitula, which
ends on 76r. Fol. 76v is another empty leaf. The next page, fol. 77 was painted on either side. It
shows a crucifixion on the recto, and the evangelist Luke on the verso [fig. 111]. Like Mark’s,
the image of Luke is textile-ornamented. The pattern behind the figure displays green circles and
lozenges in vertical rows. Minium-colored highlights add detail to the otherwise simple pattern.
On the facing page, the Gospels of Luke begin with a small colored initial and continue without
noteworthy peculiarities to the end. The opening to the Gospels of John is more complex
compared to the previous Gospel beginnings. It starts off with an empty page on fol. 110r. The
argumentum begins on the following page and ends on fol. 111r. Fols. 111v—113r are also
empty. The next page, fol. 113v shows an image of Christ enthroned [fig. 112]. In addition to a
figure-eight mandorla carried by five angels, Christ is surrounded by the symbols of the
evangelists. Each symbol occupies one corner of the image. In accordance with Rev 5:1—6,
Christ holds a closed book in his left hand and supports a lamb encircled in a medallion on his
thigh.287 The Majestas Domini miniature faces a purple-colored textile page on fol. 114r [fig.
287
What the three circles beneath the mandorla and to the left and right signify is unclear. A similar image
of the apocalyptic Christ appears in the Bernward Gospels, fol. 174r. See Brandt, Kostbares Evangeliar,
26. In this image the closed book is clearly marked as the liber vitae by an inscription “VITA.” As in the
Berlin Gospels, Christ holds a medallion with the lamb in his right hand. There are only two angels, one
on each side of Christ, however. Two medallions, which are clearly marked as stars in the Bernward
Gospels, might be an explanation where the circles in the Berlin Gospels came from. Another possibility
is that the painter of the Berlin Gospels misunderstood an image like fol. 7r of the Hitda Codex
(Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt, Hs. 1640) where the figure of Christ enthroned in a
similar eight-shaped mandorla is accompanied by the four rotae (Ez 1:15) on the left and right. On the
Hitda Codex see Klaus Gereon Beuckers, Äbtissin Hitda und der Hitda-Codex: (Universitäts- und
Landesbibliothek Darmstadt, Hs. 1640). Forschungen zu einem Hauptwerk der ottonischen Kölner
Buchmalerei (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2013). Katrin Boskamp-Priever, Das
Evangeliar der Äbtissin Hitda: Eine ottonische Prachthandschrift aus Köln. Miniaturen, Bilder und
Zierseiten aus der Handschrift 1640 der Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt (Darmstadt.
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010), with bibliography. A useful comparison is also Berlin,
Staatsbibliothek, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, theol. lat. fol. 733 (Evangeliar Kaiser Lothars), fol. 17v. The
image of the Majestas Domini in this manuscript is set in a rectangular frame decorated with four golden
rosettes. The rosettes are another possible source that the painter of the Berlin Gospels might have
interpreted in a different way. For an image see Boskamp-Priever, Das Evangeliar der Äbtissin Hitda, fig.
20, 39.
89
113]. The textile image displays four large rosettes that are framed by medallions and encased by
studded cross bars, which divide the image into four compartments. The following two leaves are
empty (fols. 114v—115r). Traces of an adhesive visible on the parchment indicate that these two
empty folios were glued together at one point, so that the blank pages were not apparent.288 This
detail is worth noting because fol. 115v shows an image of John [fig. 114]. Like the other two
evangelists, John is shown in front of a textile-ornamented ground. If leaf 114 and 115 were
glued together, this image was the “verso” of the textile page. This notion deserves further
consideration, because the pattern in John closely resembles the rosette motif from the previous
folio. It depicts a version of the medallion pattern that was shown on the textile page. With the
exception of few alterations, the ornament in John appears like a close-up version of the textile
page. The vertical cross bar was duplicated and additional minium-colored dots were dabbed on
the purple ground in the upper portion of the image. The repetition of the purple rosette pattern in
this opening is significant, because it generates an optical illusion. Despite the fact that the
patterns are not wholly identical, the textile motif links John on fol. 115v with Christ on folio
114r. If we read the pattern as a curtain, both images show the same curtain but from different
sides.
The sequence of images in the Gospels of John raises several questions. First, it is
unusual that the Majestas miniature appears in John. In most medieval Gospel books the
Majestas miniature appears at the very beginning of the book.289 In the Berlin manuscript, the
288
The empty leafs in the quires at the beginning of the Gospels of Mark, Luke, and John can be
explained by the fact that the miniatures were clearly produced separate from the text pages. This is
evident from the fact that all illuminated folios are singletons ending in tabs. Having been glued together,
as is evident from the traces of an adhesive still visible on fols. 114v–115r, the empty leafs before the
image of John would have disappeared. Elisabeth Klemm further noticed the use of an adhesive on fol.
50r, the page that precedes the image of Mark. Elisabeth Klemm, “Evangeliar,” in Stiegemann and
Wemhoff, Canossa, cat. no. 448, 2:340.
289
See for example the First Bible of Charles the Bald, where the frontispiece to the New Testament, fol.
329r, shows the Maiestas Domini. Paul E. Dutton and Herbert L. Kessler, The Poetry and Paintings of the
First Bible of Charles the Bald (Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press, 1997). Also
Herbert L. Kessler, “‘Hoc Visibile Imaginatum Figurat Illud Invisibile Verum’: Imagining God in
Pictures of Christ,” in Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Papers from
“Verbal and Pictorial Imaging. Representing and Accessing Experience of the Invisible, 400–1000,”
Utrecht, 11–13 December 2003, ed. Giselle de Nie, Karl F. Morrison, and Marco Mostert (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2005), 291–325, esp. 293. For a Gospel book with the Maiestas Domini at the front of the book
see the Carolingian Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, or the Ottonian Hitda Codex. Georg Leidinger, Der
Codex Aureus der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München, 6 vols. (Munich: Schmidt, 1921—25).
90
uncommon organization of images appears to have been informed by the artist’s intention to
characterize John not only as an evangelist but also as a visionary. The program of this opening
presents John the author of the Gospels simultaneously as a visionary and a prophet, as he is
characterized in Rev. 1:3.290 According to medieval tradition, John the evangelist and John the
author of the Book of Revelations were one and the same figure.291 If we read the textile pattern
in John’s image as a curtain of revelation, the image of Christ on fol. 114r shows the vision that
John perceives. It is worth noting that the four evangelists in the Berlin Gospel book are not all
shown in the same manner. While Mark looks up at his symbol and Luke’s eyes focus on a spot
somewhere between his book and the lectern, John is shown frontally and directly faces the
viewer [fig. 110, 111, and 114]. A distinct feature of John’s face are the wide-open eyes that look
out at the viewer. Other evangelist portraits from the Ottonian period show the authors of the
Gospels with similar wide-open eyes. In the so-called Gospels of Otto III in Munich each of the
four evangelists face the viewer [fig. 115]. 292 However, their gaze has been read as an internal
sort of seeing and not as addressing the viewer. The dynamic convolution of clouds, angels,
prophets, and biblical figures that are shown above their heads make clear that the evangelists’
gaze in the Gospels of Otto III is not directed at an external focus but rather that the evangelists’
eyes are turned inside and symbolize the eyes of the mind.293 What the viewer sees painted in the
Wilhelm Köhler and Florentine Mütherich, Die karolingischen Miniaturen 5, Die Hofschule Karls des
Kahlen (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1982), 175—98. Katrin Boskamp-Priever, Das
Evangeliar der Äbtissin Hitda. Christoph Winterer, Das Evangeliar der Äbtissin Hitda: eine ottonische
Prachthandschrift aus Köln; Miniaturen, Bilder und Zierseiten aus der Handschrift 1640 der
Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010).
290
Because of his spiritual sight, Kessler “Facies Bibliothecae Revelata,” 180, likens John to Moses and
Paul, who equally perceived God in theophanic visions.
291
Jeffrey F. Hamburger, St. John the Divine: The Deified Evangelist in Medieval Art and Theology
(Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002).
292
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4453, fol. 139v (Luke).
293
Hubert Schrade, Vor- und frühromanische Malerei: Die karolingische, ottonische und frühsalische
Zeit (Cologne, Dumont Schauberg, 1958), 231. Also Berhard Bischoff, “Das biblische Thema der
Reichenauer ‘Visionären Evangelisten,’ in idem, Mittelalterliche Studien: Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur
Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1967), 2: 304–11. Florentine Mütherich and
91
images above the evangelists’ heads is, therefore, a version of the evangelists’ own internal
vision.
In the Berlin Gospel Book the relationship between internal and external seeing was
made clear by means of ornament. The textile curtains behind the evangelists designate them as
inspired authors, who have access to divine knowledge, Mark and Luke through dialogue with
their symbols, and John also through spiritual contemplation. The veils painted behind their
backs symbolize this connection between heaven and earth. The spiritual space that opens behind
these veils is especially clear in the image of John. Instead of showing his vision above his head
like the painter of the Otto Gospels, the Berlin artist represented John’s vision on the other side
of the folio—behind a textile curtain.294 By making the curtain visible from either side, the artist
showed that the textile pattern symbolizes a metaphoric veil that separates heavenly from non-
visionary space. Textile ornament thus illustrates the notion that corporeal sight is limited. John,
however, who was gifted with spiritual sight, lifted the veil from his physical eyes and was able
to see Christ through the eyes of the mind.
John as role model for the viewer

John’s gift of spiritual sight leads back to John’s eyes. The Lindisfarne Gospels, a book
from a completely different cultural context but one that shares important details with many of
the Ottonian Gospel books discussed in this chapter, shows John with similar open eyes.295 Of
the four evangelists, John is the only one who looks at the viewer [fig. 116]. Michelle Brown
read John’s gaze as an invitation to “the onlooker to participate in the inspiration of the Gospel
Karl Dachs (eds.), Das Evangeliar Ottos III: Clm 4453 der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek (Munich,
London and New York: Prestel, 2001), 40–45.
294
In the Otto Gospels the evangelists further appear against gold ground to indicate that the sphere that
the evangelists gaze into is otherworldly. In the Berlin manuscript, the grounds are either purple, fol.
113v, or textile-ornamented. Both forms of ornamentation serve a similar purpose. Gold ground evokes
heavenly space. A textile pattern illustrates the means that gives access to this non-corporeal world.
295
Lindisfarne Gospels, British Library, Cotton MS Nero D.iv, fol. 209v.
92
and thereby to ensure their claim to divine mercy before the Judgement seat.”296 This idea also
applies to the Berlin Gospels. John’s large eyes that capture the viewer signify not only John’s
internal vision, but also engage the viewer in a dialogue. Sitting before the curtain, John takes an
intermediary position between the heavenly space represented by the Majestas miniature and the
viewer. On the one hand, this intercessory relationship is defined by the textile-curtain painted
behind John’s back, which reminds the viewer that the spiritual nature of Christ is not visible to
corporeal eyes. On the other, John’s large eyes make clear to the viewer that the curtain is
permeable because Christ can be seen through the eyes of the mind.
John, the visionary and prophet (Rev. 1.3), is predestined to take this role as intercessor.
His gift of spiritual sight further distinguished him from Matthew, Mark, and Luke.297 Therefore
the beginning of the Gospels of John is a suitable place for an image of Christ’s second coming.
Moreover, John’s spiritual abilities made him a perfect role model that Christians could
emulate.298 Therefore, the evangelist’s position before the curtain was also inspired by John’s
relationship with the viewer. The eye contact that John offers is an invitation to the reader of the
Gospels to switch into a meditative mode of seeing. Taking John’s wide-open eyes as a cue, the
viewer himself may see with the eyes of the mind and look behind the curtain.
John as door and persona Christi

The studded cross bars in the image of John suggest an alternative reading of John’s role
as threshold figure. The textile pattern also resembles the wings of a double-door.299 If we read
296
Brown, Lindisfarne Gospels, 369.
297
Rainer Kahsnitz, ‘“Matheus ex ore Christi scripsit”: Zum Bild der Berufung und Inspiration der
Evangelisten,” in Byzantine East, Latin West: Art Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann, ed.
Doula Mouriki, Christopher Moss and Katherine Kiefer (Princeton NJ: Department of Art and
Archaeology, 1995), 169–80.
298
On John as exemplar for spiritual seeing, see Jennifer O’Reilly, “St. John as a Figure of the
Contemplative Life: Text and Image in the Art of the Anglo-Saxon Benedictine Reform,” in Nigel
Ramsay, Margaret Sparks and Tim Tatton-Brown (eds.), St. Dunstan: His Life, Times and Cult
(Woodbridge, 1992), 165–85, esp. 170. Also Hamburger, St. John the Divine. For an interpretation of
John as prophet according to Rev. 1:3, see Kessler, “Facies Bibliothecae Revelata,” 180–82.
299
Linda Safran and Warren Woodfin have brought to my attention that the medallion pattern, which
appears hard and rigid especially because of the massive central bar, resembles a book cover or door. The
circle pattern painted on the cross bar further evokes the look of embossed wood or ring-patterns that
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the purple pattern as such a door, John appears to be seated in front of the gates that open onto a
vision of Christ enthroned in heaven.300 In fact, John himself can be interpreted as an allegorical
personification of the gates of heaven. John 20:19—24 relate how Christ appeared to the
Apostles who had gathered together in a house after the resurrection. Although the doors were
locked, Christ appeared to the group. Augustine read the account of Christ’s apparition as
confirmation that the Godhead has power over physical matter and transcends the limitations of
material confinement.301 An Ivory plaque from the Museo Diocesano in Salerno depicts the
Incredulity of Thomas [fig. 117]. This event follows immediately after the account of Christ’s
appearance to the Apostles. The ivory shows a closed door with two identical wings that are
decorated with concentric circles in rectangular compartments. The ornamented door in the ivory
resembles the door/curtain-page in the Berlin Gospel book. Eric Thunø read the scene as an
exegetical image that visualizes Christ’s power to open the doors that lead the faithful to
salvation.302 The ornamented folio in the Berlin Gospel book shows a similar door, but one that
is more textile-like. By showing a door that evokes a curtain at the same time, the Berlin artist
devised an iconographic formula that is dense in allegoric content. While the curtain/door is a
barrier, cloth is a particular flexible material and by alluding to this flexibility the artist
were often carved on Byzantine ivory caskets. Book covers were discussed in chapter one, while an image
of an ivory casket (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. no. 216–1865) can be found in Christoph
Stiegemann (ed.), Byzanz—Das Licht aus dem Osten: Kult und Alltag im Byzantinischen Reich vom 4. bis
15. Jahrhundert (Mainz: von Zabern, 2001), fig. 8, p. 8. In addition, doors with rectangular compartments
are known from Aachen and Hildesheim. Tombs were also closed with stone slabs that often show
medallion and square designs similar to the rosettes on the Berlin textile page (fol. 113v).
300
Beat Brenk, “Schriftlichkeit und Bildlichkeit in der Hofschule Karls d. Gr.,” in Testo e immagine
nell’alto medioevo (Spoleto: Presso la Sede del Centro, 1994), 631–82, esp. 671–72, read the curtain in a
miniature showing the Adoration of the Lamb, fol. 1b, of the Soissons Gospels similarly as the door into
heaven that was opened before the eyes of John.
301
“But where divinity was present, shut doors did not obstruct the mass of the body. For indeed he could
enter even though they were not opened at whose birth the virginity of his mother remained inviolate.”
Augustine, In Iohannis evangelium tractatus, Corpus Christianorum 121, ed. Radbodus Willems
(Turnhout: Brepols, 1954), 667. Trans. John W. Rettig, Tractates on the Gospels of John: St. Augustine,
The Fathers of the Church 92, 60. Augustine further interpreted Christ appearing to the Apostles as
mediator between the corporeal and the spirit worlds. See further Thunø, Image and Relic, 89–92.
302
Eric Thunø, Image and Relic, 110–112.
94
underlined the permeability of this barrier. The reader was clearly encouraged to access the
divine sphere on the other side. The textile curtains in the evangelist images, and especially the
curtain in John, showed the reader a way to see through the veil.303
The Hitda Codex and the problem of corporeal sight

Although the curtain that separates the viewer from the vision of Christ visually evokes
the flexible material of cloth, the textile page is not a mere metaphoric division but a physical
barrier.304 When the viewer looks at the image of John, the picture of Christ on fol. 113v is
veiled because the Majestas miniature is not visible through the opaque parchment folio. Of
course, the viewer can turn the page and look at the picture of Christ. But, as medieval image
theory explained, seeing a painted image is not the same as having spiritual vision.305 For
example, Theodulf of Orléans noted, “God is to be sought not in visible things, not in
manufactured things, but in the heart; he is to be beheld not with the eyes of the flesh but only
with the eye of the mind.”306 Similarly, Angobard of Lyon stated that, “we look at a picture only
303
The cross pattern behind John might further allude to John as a persona Christi. John 10:7–10
identifies Christ as a door that leads to heaven. “Amen, amen I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. I
am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved. […] I am come that they may have life, and
may have it more abundantly.” If the textile pattern intended to identify John with a door, his role model
function would become even more apparent if he also appeared as a figure for Christ. Kessler, “Facies
Bibliothecae Revelata,” 179–80, has shown that other Gospel books likewise portray John as a persona
Christi. In addition, John can be read as an embodiment of scripture (compare Kessler, “Facies
Bibliothecae Revelata,” 182).
304
Christine Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain,” 186, noted that “curtains might also act as a protective barrier
between the viewer and a particularly powerful or disturbing image. This is especially true in the case of
scenes drawn from the Apocalypse, itself based on the concept of revelation.” This suggests that the
Berlin textile page functions not unlike a real textile curtain.
305
Rudolf Berliner, “The Freedom of Medieval Art” und andere Studien zum christlichen Bild, ed. Robert
Suckale, (Munich: Lukas, 2003), 60–75. Herbert Kessler, “Gregory the Great and Image Theory in
Northern Europe During the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in A Companion to Medieval Art:
Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2006),
151—72; Kessler, “’Hoc Visibile Imaginatum.’”
306
“Unde datur intellegi, quod non in rebus visibilius, non in manufactis, sed in corde Deus est
quaerendus; nec carnalibus oculis, sed mentis solummodo oculo aspiciendus (4.2),” Opus Caroli regis
contra synodum (Libri Carolini), Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Concilia, 2: supplementum, ed. Ann
Freeman (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1998), 473. Trans. Herbert Kessler, “Real Absence: Early
Medieval Art and the Metamorphosis of Vision,” in idem, Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God’s Invisibility in
Medieval Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 104–48, esp. 119. On Theodulf’s
95
as a picture, devoid of life, feeling, and reason. It feeds only the eye; but God is worshipped by
the spirit.”307 Other sources, both textual and visual, point out the problem of representing the
divine in material form.308 Importantly, the problem of corporeal versus spiritual sight not only
had an effect on how pictures were perceived, but also on how images of Christ were presented
in various manuscript contexts. A Gospel book made for Abbess Hitda in Cologne between
948—1042 comments on the impossibility of picturing Christ.309 The artist showed Christ
nonetheless, but in a setting that was designed to control the viewers’ approach to the physical
image [fig. 118]. Placed on the folio that faces the Majestas miniature, an inscription on fol. 6v
counsels the viewer not to mistake the image on the recto for a spiritual vision of Christ. Written
in gold on monochrome purple ground the text states: “This visible product of the imagination
represents the invisible truth / Whose splendor penetrates the world through the two-times-two
lights of the new doctrine.”310 The inscription makes clear that the figure depicted shows an
artistic representation of the Son of God, but not of his divine nature, which no man-made
picture can represent. In the Berlin Gospel book, the viewer’s approach to the image of Christ is
not guided by verbal instructions. Instead, the problem of God’s invisibility was addressed in the
textile-ornamented pages.311 They remind the reader that spiritual things are visible only to the
critique of images see Karl F. Morrison, “Anthropology and the Use of Religious Images in the Opus
Caroli Regis (Libri Carolini)” in Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Anne-Marie Bouché (eds.), The Mind’s Eye:
Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 32–
45.
307
Angobard of Lyon, De picturis et imaginibus, 31, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 52,
ed. Lieven van Acker (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981), 179. Trans. Kessler, “Real Absence,” 120.
308
Kessler, Herbert. Neither God nor Man: Words, Images, and the Medieval Anxiety about Art
(Freiburg: Rombach Verlag, 2007).
309
Darmstadt, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Hs. 1640. Beuckers, Äbtissin Hitda und der Hitda-
Codex. Boskamp-Priever, Das Evangeliar der Äbtissin Hitda.
310
“Hoc visibile imaginatum figurat illud invisibile veru(m), cuius splendor penetrat mundu(m), cum bis
binis candelabris, ipsius novi sermonis,” cit. and transl. Kessler, “‘Hoc Visibile Imaginatum,’” 292.
311
It is worth noting in this respect that the Hitda Codex Majestas shows Christ against a purple-colored
ground sprinkled with golden stars that recalls the form and color of the rosette pattern from the Berlin
96
inner eyes of the mind, as the Libri Carolini also stated. “To contemplate Christ, who is the
power and wisdom of God, or to contemplate those virtues that are derived from him in his
saints, it is necessary to have not corporeal sight, which we have in common with irrational
animals, but spiritual vision, for this the Prophet prayed when he said, ‘Take the veil from my
eyes that I may see the marvels that spring from thy law.’”312
Because the contemplative state that Herbert Kessler has called “spiritual seeing” was not
easily achieved, and intellectual vision—the third and highest mode of seeing according to
Augustine’s three-step of contemplation—was a skill that only few mastered, most Christians
depended on images for worship and contemplation.313 Images guided the gaze and mentored
thoughts while contemplating higher things. The Hitda Codex and the Berlin Gospel books
demonstrate that images, although they were ambiguous and needed to be controlled, also helped
viewers to transcend corporeal sight. Pope Hadrian I deemed images of Christ useful because
“by a spiritual force our mind is carried up through the visible face to the invisible majesty of
divinity, through the contemplation of the image depicted in human form, which the son of God
deigned to assume for our salvation.”314 Painted images thus stimulated the viewers’ imagination
Gospels textile page. Kessler further observed that the mandorla of Christ in the Hitda Codex looks like
cloth. Kessler, “‘Hoc Visibile Imaginatum,’” 295.
312
Opus Caroli regis contra synodum (Libri Carolini), ed. Ann Freeman, 2.22, 275–76. Trans. Kessler,
“Facies Bibliothecae Revelata,” 150.
313
Even the critical Bernhard of Clairvaux recognized the need for showing art at least in some churches.
“We know that since they [the bishops] are responsible for both the wise and the foolish, they stimulate
the devotion of a carnal people with material ornaments because they cannot do so with spiritual ones.”
Conrad Rudolph, “The Things of Greater Importance”: Bernhard of Clairveaux’s Apologia and the
Medieval Attitude Towards Art (Philadelphia, 1990), 279–81. Compare also Augustine, “Sed multis finis
est humana delectatio, nec volunt tendere ad superiora, ut judicent cur ista visibilia placeant. At ego virum
intrinsecus oculatum, et invisibiliter videntem non desinam commonere cur ista placeant, ut judex esse
audeat ipsius delectationis humanae.” Augustine, De vera religione, 32, 59, PL 34:148. Kessler, “Facies
Bibliothecae Revelata.”
314
Per visibilem vultum ad invisibilem divinitatis maiestam men’s nostra rapiatur spiritali affectu per
contemplationem figurate imaginis secundum carnem, quam filius Dei pro nostra salute suscipere
dignatus est. Hadrianum 25, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae Karolini Aevi 3, ed. Karl
Hampe, Berlin, 1898–99, (repr. Berlin: Weidmann, 1974), 56. David Appleby, “Instruction and
Inspiration through Images in the Carolingian Period,” in Word, Image, Number: Communication in the
97
and helped to generate in peoples’ minds a mental picture of immaterial things.315 In Kessler’s
words, “pictures are useful, then, not because they actually represent God, but because—
‘imaginariam operationem’—they engage viewers in a dynamic, mental process analogous to
that needed to contemplate the invisible Deity.”316 The illuminated opening to the Gospels of
John in the Berlin manuscript is such a visual aid that helps the viewer to enter a contemplative
state and see with the eyes of the mind. When looking at the image of Christ facing the textile
page, the medieval readers of this Gospel book were asked to change their modes of seeing and
lift the veil of literal sight from their inner eyes.
The textile-curtain page as a material device for contemplation

As we have seen in chapter one, textile ornament has the ability to transform an ordinary
parchment page into a curtain page. Looking at a parchment page covered in textile ornament
triggers in the viewer’s mind the memory of patterned textiles. Klaus Krüger advanced the
notion that images are another form of veil because they simultaneously show and obscure
reality.317 The Berlin textile page is a veil not only because the iconography makes it cloth-like,
but also because the physical properties make the parchment page function like a curtain. By
Middle Ages, ed. John J. Contreni and S. Casciani (Florence: SISMEL edizioni del Galluzzo, 2002), 85–
111, esp. 91.
315
Augustine explains: “If then, we seek at any time to distinguish interior and spiritual things more aptly,
and to intimate them more easily, we must take examples of likeness from external and corporeal things.
[…] Let us, therefore, rely principally on the testimony of the eyes, for this sense of the body far excels
the rest, and comes closer to mental vision, though differs from it in kind.” Augustine, De trinitate, book
11, ch. 1. transl. by Stephen McKenna in Augustine, On the Trinity, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002), 61. On mental images see Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric and
the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 5, 10. Also Herbert
Kessler, “Turning a Blind Eye: Medieval Art and the Dynamics of Contemplation” in Jeffrey F.
Hamburger and Anne-Marie Bouché (eds.), The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle
Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 413–439. Kessler noted, 413, “to avoid confusing
what they [the medieval viewers] see with God’s invisible divinity, they must transform the sensual
impressions derived from looking at artistic representations into mental contemplations.”
316
Kessler “‘Hoc Visibile Imaginatum,’” 305.
317
Krüger, Das Bild als Schleier, 19.
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turning the page, this “curtain” can be opened and closed. The costly materials that were used in
the making of these curtains play a significant role in this process of mediation. Recent work on
materiality and sensual approaches to medieval art has shown that precious materials increase the
sacredness of objects used in the cult and cause an affective viewer response.318 As Eric Palazzo
suggested, precious ornamentation activated liturgical manuscripts because costly material
heightened sensory experience.319 Moreover, in Kessler’s view, “art attracts the earthly mind
because it appeals to the senses […] however, it can also begin a spiritual ascent by inducing the
power to contemplate higher, internal images.”320 Two aspects, therefore, seem to have
stimulated the use of precious matter in religious art: sensual attraction and contemplative needs.
Already in the sixth century Hypathius of Ephesus noted that the splendor of precious materials
is especially suited for bridging the gap between the worldly and heavenly spheres.
318
The following titles are only some useful contribution from the vast literature on the subject. Eric
Palazzo, “Art, Liturgy, and the Five Senses in the Early Middle Ages,” Viator 41 (2010): 25–56. Caroline
Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: an Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone
Books, 2011). Beate Fricke, Ecce fides: Die Statue von Conques, Götzendienst und Bildkultur im Westen
(Paderborn: W. Fink, 2007). Herbert Kessler, “Image and Object: Christ’s Dual Nature and the Crisis of
Early Medieval Art,” in The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Medieval Studies, ed.
Jennifer R. Davies and Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 290–326. Kristin Böse, “Spürbar
und Unvergänglich: Zur Visualität, Ikonologie und Medialität von Textilien und textilen Reliquiaren im
mittelalterlichen Reliquienkult,” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 33 (2006): 7—27. Eric
Thunø, “The Golden Altar of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan: Image and Materiality,” in Decorating the Lord’s
Table: On the dynamics between image and altar in the Middle Ages, ed. Søren Kaspersen and Eric
Thunø (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2006), 63–78. Idem, “Materializing the Invisible in
Early Medieval Art: The Mosaic of Santa Maria in Dominica in Rome,” in Seeing the Invisible in Late
Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Papers from “Verbal and Pictorial Imaging. Representing and
Accessing Experience of the Invisible, 400–1000,” Utrecht, 11–13 December 2003, ed. Giselle de Nie,
Karl F. Morrison, and Marco Mostert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 265—89. Bruno Reudenbach, “Gold ist
Schlamm: Anmerkungen zur Materialbewertung im Mittelalter,” in Material in Kunst und Alltag, ed.
Monika Wagner und Dietmar Rübel (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), 1–12. Idem, “Reliquie als
Heiligkeitsbeweis und Echtheitszeugnis: Grundzüge einer problematischen Gattung,” in Vorträge aus
dem Warburg-Haus 4, ed. Wolfgang Kemp (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000), 1–36. Cynthia Hahn,
“Seeing and Believing: The Construction of Sanctity in Early-Medieval Saint’s Shrines,” in Approaches
to Early-Medieval Art, ed. Lawrence Nees (Cambridge, MA: The Medieval Academy of America, 1998),
121–48.
319
Palazzo, “Art, Liturgy, and the Five Senses,” 39. See also Adam S. Cohen, “Magnificence in
Miniature: The Case of Early Medieval Manuscripts,” in Stephen Jaeger (ed.), Magnificence and the
Sublime in Medieval Aesthetics: Art, Architecture, Literature, Music (New York: 2010), 79–101. Felix
Heinzer, “Die Inszenierung des Evangelienbuchs in der Liturgie,” in Codex und Raum, ed. Stephan
Müller and Lieselotte Saurma-Jeltsch (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2009), 43–58.
320
Kessler, “Real Absence,” 104–48, esp. 116.
99
For these reasons we, too, permit material adornment in the sanctuaries, not because
God considers gold and silver, silken vestments and vessels encrusted with gems to
be precious and holy, but because we allow every order of the faithful to be guided in
a suitable manner and to be led up to the Godhead, inasmuch as some men are guided
even by such things towards the intelligible beauty, and from the abundant light of
the sanctuaries to the intelligible and immaterial light... 321
Because they appealed to the corporeal senses, precious materials like gems and gold, and also
sumptuous textiles, could be used as tools for bridging the gap between sensory perception and
spiritual vision.
Textile curtains were especially suited for this purpose. In addition to precious fabric, the
veiling and unveiling function that characterizes curtains predisposed textile veils for a
metaphoric use in manuscripts. Painted textile pages are akin to the real silken curtains that, as
Christine Sciacca has shown, were frequently sewn onto the parchment pages of medieval
manuscripts.322 The resemblance between silken veils and textile pages in manuscripts is based
on physical as well as metaphoric characteristics. Sciacca has argued that these curtains, which
were often made of costly silk, had no protective function but veiled painted images in order to
control their power.323 Further, as Sciacca has shown, textile veils in manuscripts served a
contemplative purpose. The veils increased the image’s aura and made it “more didactically
321
Hypathius of Ephesus, Patristica Orientalia Christiana Analecta 117 (1938), 127–29, trans. Cyril
Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 117. A
similar commentary inspired by Pseudo-Dionysian thought on spiritual ascent from the visible to the
invisible pertaining to the material splendour of textile curtains occurs in William Durandus in the
thirteenth century. Durandus acknowledged in his Rationale divinorum officiorum, 3.39, that sumptuous
textiles served religious purposes not only because they are decorative, but also because they make the
divine visible. “On fest days the curtains are spread out in churches to decorate them, so that through
visible ornaments, we will be moved to the invisible ones.” Timothy M. Thibodeau, The Rationale
Divinorum Officiorum of William Durand of Mende: A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 44. Also Kristin Faupel-Drevs, “Bildraum als Kultraum?
Symbolische und liturgische Raumgestaltung im ‘Rationale divinorum officiorum’ des Durandus von
Mende,” in Raum und Raumvorstellungen im Mittelalter, ed.. Jan A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer (Berlin
and New York: de Gruyter, 1998), 665–84, esp. 678–83.
322
Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain.” For other manuscripts with textile curtains see Regula Schorta, “Les
rideaux du lectionnaire G. 44 de la Pierpont Morgan Library, New York,” CIETA Bulletin 73 (1995–96):
54–62. Micheline Viseux, “Les tissus de la Bible de Theodulf,” CIETA Bulletin 71 (1993): 19–25.
323
Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain,” 186.
100
effective.”324 A late-Carolingian Gospel book from Tours and now in Wolfenbüttel preserves
four silken veils.325 These curtains do not veil and unveil an image but are placed over initial
pages in order to facilitate the reader’s spiritual approach to scripture.326
The date of the curtains is unclear [fig. 119—122].327 They might have been made in
central Asia and perhaps date from the ninth century like the manuscript itself, but the curtains
were clearly inserted into the book some time after the illuminations had been completed.328 The
veils were cut from a piece of eastern imported silk that shows a repeat of birds between
horizontal stripes. Four such curtains, one slightly shorter than the others, were sewn onto the
initial pages of the Gospel book [fig. 122 and 123]. The manuscript contains no evangelist
portraits, only decorated text pages at the beginnings of the Gospels. Instead of a painted textile
page, real silk curtains stage the “entrances” into each of the four Gospels in this manuscript.
Replacing the metaphoric veils that were usually shown in this place in the Gospel book in
evangelist images, these silken curtains are “real” veils of revelation. When the readers touch and
raise the silken veils to look at the initial page beneath it [fig. 123], the mystery of unveiling
324
Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain,” 188.
325
Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek Cod. Guelf. 16 Aug. 2°. The manuscript was dated to the
ninth century. Otto von Heinemann, Die Augusteischen Handschriften (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio
Klostermann, 1965–1966), 2:201–4. Helmar Haertel, “Evangeliar aus Tours,” in Wolfenbütteler Cimelien:
Das Evangeliar Heinrichs des Löwen in der Herzog August Bibliothek (Weinheim: VCH, Acta
Humaniora, 1989), 53–56. Patrizia Carmassi, Divina officia: Liturgie und Frömmigkeit im Mittelalter
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004), 210. Hedwig Röckelein, “Touroner Evangeliar mit Schatzverzeichnis
aus dem Kloster Erstein,” in Krone und Schleier: Kunst aus mittelalterlichen Frauenklöstern (Munich:
Hirmer, 2005), cat. no. 130, 260.
326
Sciacca, 184—85, also mentioned these curtains and noted that textiles “added further importance and
value to manuscript images, as did the use of gold or other precious pigments in miniatures themselves.”
At the beginning of her essay, 165, she further notes that “simulated textile pages become appropriately
splendid ‘bearers’ of the Word of God,” and cites Calkin’s notion that textile pages unveil the Word of
God. The focus of her investigation of textile veils in images, however, is on their function of revealing
images rather than scripture.
327
Röckelein, “Touroner Evangeliar mit Schatzverzeichnis aus dem Kloster Erstein,” 260.
328
An imprint on fol. 47v caused by paint that rubbed off from the facing folio demonstrates that the
curtains must have been inserted at a later time, because the veils would have prevented the paint from
transferring onto the facing page.
101
scripture manifests itself in a physical act.329 As Sciacca has shown, in addition to the use of
awe-inspiring precious material, silken veils in manuscripts were so effective because they
involved the readers in a physical act of revelation. 330 The curtains suggest, therefore, that touch
was a stronger motor for setting an affective response in motion than sight. The process of
revelation that the silk veils in this Touronian manuscript trigger ultimately aimed to steer the
readers away from earthly sensations and unveil to them the mystical sense of scripture. This is
made clear by the fact that the silk veils do not unveil an image but reveal the Gospel text.
Textile pages in medieval Gospel books function in a very similar way. They also combine the
visual aura of precious material with physical action and spiritual aims. In order to read the
Gospel text, and spiritually engage with scripture, textile-ornamented pages must be touched and
physically turned.
Scripture as pathway into the realm of the spirit

The opening to the Gospels of John in the Berlin Gospel demonstrates that textile
ornament prepares the readers’ approach to scripture. Turning the page with the image of John
[fig. 114] leads the reader to a small colored initial on a text page that indicates the place where
the first verse of John’s Gospels begins.331 If we recapitulate the opening in total, the image of
329
Leonie von Wilckens, “Zur Verwendung von Seidengeweben des 10. bis 14. Jahrhunderts in
Bucheinbänden,”Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 53 (1990): 425—442, esp. 434, observed that many of
the silk pieces preserved in medieval manuscript covers show birds or pairs of birds. Without venturing
an explanation she wondered if this motif is coincidental or might have meaning. Cynthia Robinson,
“Towers, Birds and Divine Light: The Contested Territory of Nasrid and ‘Mudjéhar’Ornament,”Medieval
Encounters 17 (2010): 27—79, esp. 78, noted that the bird in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam likewise
“signifies mystical transformation.” The birds on the veils in the Touronian manuscript might be a similar
symbol of the spirit rising to heaven in anagogical ascent, or allude to John’s eagle.
330
“Raising the brightly coloured silk curtains that cover each full-page miniature […] reveals the path to
salvation to the reader in an increasingly dramatic way. […] Because the reader must physically interact
with the book in order to gain access to its images, the fairly passive act of reading is transformed into
active participation, and this focuses attention on the image itself in a more concentrated way.” Sciacca,
“Raising the Curtain,” 188–89.
331
Cynthia Hahn, “Letter and Spirit: The Power of the Letter—the Enlivenment of the Word in Medieval
Art,” in Visible Writings: Cultures, Forms, Readings, ed. Marija Dalbello and Mary Shaw (New
Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 2011), 55–76, esp. 61, intimated that “such letters announce
what one can only call the momentous entrance of the reader into the text.” On initials see also Laura
Kendrick, Animating the Letter, 5, 158. Otto Pächt, Buchmalerei des Mittelalters: eine Einführung
(Munich: Prestel, 1984), 68, observed “als magisches Zeichen vertritt das Wort das Bild, wird es Bild.” In
102
Christ [fig. 112], the textile page [fig. 113] and the curtain in John stage a threshold that leads
from physical-visual to allegorical-spiritual space. According to John Cassian’s Conferences, the
contemplation of scripture should begin with an image of Christ in mind.332 Seeing a vision of
the Saviour’s face was also the “ultimate aim of reading.”333 The Berlin opening can be read in
both directions, beginning with Christ on fol. 113v [fig.112] or John on fol. 115v [fig. 114]. In
either case, the textile page between these two images makes clear that the Divine cannot be
accessed by corporeal senses. Instead, the opening directs the reader on a path to the spiritual
realm that begins with reading and meditation.334 The Libri Carolini, for example, stated that
meditating on the Word of God was the highest form of spiritual ascent, because scripture comes
closer to spiritual truth than do images:
While on the island of Patmos, John saw and heard many mysteries revealed by God,
but he was commanded not to make paintings of them but rather to write them in a
book … From this, we understand that we are to acquire knowledge of our faith from
Scripture and not from pictures.335
Reading scripture was paramount in medieval religious culture and was practiced as a form of
meditation especially in monastic contexts.336 Lectio, the silent reading, and ruminatio, the
Jonathan J. G. Alexander’s view, The Decorated Letter (New York: Braziller, 1978), 9, initials convey
“the mystery of the Divine Word by their very complexity.”
332
As Mary Carruthers noted, according to John Cassian’s Conferences, which was well known in
monastic contexts, “meditation begins with a mental picture, some seeing Christ glorified, some Christ in
his earthly form, in order to stir up the emotions for meditation.” Carruthers, Craft of Thought, 168. On
Cassian’s Conferences, see ibid, 61.
333
Kendrick, Animating the Letter, 66.
334
On meditative reading see Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 60–69, 91, 116.
335
Opus Caroli regis contra synodum (Libri Carolini), ed. Ann Freeman, 1.19, 310–11. Trans. Kessler,
“Facies Bibliothecae Revelata,” 150.
336
According to Hugh of St. Victor, the “art of learning, thus, lies in reading, but its consumation lies in
meditation. […] This especially it is, which takes the soul away from the noise of earthly business and
makes it have even in this life a kind of foretaste of the sweetness of the eternal quiet.” Hugh of St.
Victor, Didascalion, Preface and book 3, ch. 10. Trans. Jerome Taylor, The Didascalion of Hugh of St.
Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1961), 93. On
103
contemplation of scriptural passages, at times accompanied by silent movements of the mouth,
aimed at opening cognitive and affective avenues in the readers’ minds and hearts that were
necessary for a spiritual understanding of scripture.337 Ruminating on scriptural passages was
meant to unveil the spiritual sense hidden beneath the biblical words.338 Scriptural exegesis,
essentially a form of spiritual interpretation, and meditation also nurtured an anagogical
approach to scripture.339
The contemplative approach to scripture was sometimes described in textile terms. For
Bruno of Segni (1045—1123), the exegetical explication of scripture was a sort of veil.
This velum then which preaches thus, admonishes thus, teaches thus, or persuades thus, is
the preaching of the gospel. And whence, it is said to hang before the four columns, by
which we understand the four evangelists.... Before them, then, hangs this velum, since
by them it is embroidered [pingitur], by them variously related, by them preached, by
them sustained and carried.340
meditation and Contemplation, see especially Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 23 and O’Reilly, “St.
John as a Figure of the Contemplative Life.”
337
Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 155–161, on the medieval practice of meditation and contemplation
more generally. On the monastic practice of ruminatio see Carruthers, The Book of Memory: a Study of
Memory in Medieval Culture, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 202–12. Philip J.
West, “Rumination in Bede’s Account of Caedmon,” Monastic Studies 12 (1976): 217–26.
338
O’Reilly, “St. John as a Figure of the Contemplative Life.” On reading as spiritual thought
progression, see also Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 125. Kessler, “Real Absence,” 118. Ohly, “Vom
geistigen Sinn des Wortes im Mittelalter,” 14–16. Eberlein, 89, explains: “ans Licht kommen die
‘fundamenta scriptuarum’ (Bruno von Segni [A.B. comm. In Math. IV, cap. XXVIII, 165, 307A]),
enthüllt wird die ‘veritas Evangelii’ (Beda [A.B. de temple Sal. Lib. Cap. XV, PL 91, col. 771A],
Hrabanus [A.B. comm. In paralip. Lib. III, PL 109, col. 432C]).”
339
Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000).
340
Bruno Episcopus Sigiensis, Expositio in Exodum, XXVI, PL 164: 326B. Trans. Thomas E. A. Dale,
Relics, Prayer, and Politics in Medieval Venetia: Romanesque Painting in the Crypt of Aquileia
Cathedral (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 74.
104
Meditating on scripture effected a transformation in the readers, which Jennifer O’Reilly likened
to the appearance of the High Priest who enters the Holy of Holies vested in purple robes.341
Michelle Brown read the making rather than reading of a Gospel book as an exercise in scriptural
contemplation that has a transformative effect. She noted that “the scribe, who meditates on the
Law day and night (in the sustained, focused scribal campaign witnessed in the Lindisfarne
Gospels, for example) and who lives and teaches the Gospels, becomes himself a tabernacle or
dwelling-place of the Lord.”342 Contemplating the Word was a way for the readers to enter
behind the veil and “make of themselves God’s sanctuary.”343
Textile-text veils
Textile pages make the process of unveiling scripture and accessing the divine in reading
and meditation visible and tangible. As Ganz, Kessler, and others have shown, art sustains
vision.344 Textile veils and textile pages in medieval manuscripts demonstrate that visual beauty
and physical matter play an important role in generating spiritual sight.345 Few medieval texts
make this clearer than Pseudo-Dionysius.
For it is quite impossible that we humans should, in any immaterial way, rise up to imitate
and to contemplate the heavenly hierarchies without the aid of those material means
capable of guiding us as our nature requires. Hence, any thinking person realizes that the
appearances of beauty are signs of an invisible loveliness. […] Material lights are images
of the outpouring of an immaterial gift of light. […] The source of spiritual perfection
provided us with perceptible images of these heavenly minds. He did so out of concern for
us and because he wanted us to be made godlike. He made the heavenly hierarchies known
341
O’Reilly, “The Library of Scripture: Views from Vivarium and Wearmouth-Jarrow,” in New
Offerings—Ancient treasures: Studies in Medieval Art for George Henderson, ed. Paul Binski and
William Noel (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2001), 3–39, esp. 20.
342
Brown, Lindisfarne Gospels, 361. On the making of the book as a form of meditative prayer see ibid.,
324–25.
343
Brown, Lindisfarne Gospels, 361.
344
Kessler, “Real Absence,” 165–80; Ganz, Medien der Offenbarung.
345
See also the literature cited in n. 118.
105
to us. […] 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 the sacred shapes and
symbols to the simple peaks of the hierarchies of heaven.346
In addition to iconography and materiality, the anagogical process that textile pages trigger is
cued by the combination of curtain metaphor and the allegoric notion of the Word of God as a
veil of revelation.347 Those textile pages that show text superimposed on textile ground
especially highlight the relationship between immaterial scripture and the material metaphor of
the textile-parchment veil. These pages illustrate how textile ornament mediates between the four
Gospels and the reader, who seeks to unveil the sensus spiritalis in contemplation.
An eleventh-century manuscript of unknown provenance now in Koblenz contains three
textile-and-text veils that merge text with textile ornament.348 The textile pages face the
evangelist portraits, except in the case of Matthew [fig. 82, 124, 127].349 Each Gospel begins
346
Pseudo-Dionysius, De coelesti hierarchia. Trans. Colm Luibheid, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete
Works (London: SPCK, 1987), 146–47. On the circulation of Pseudo-Dionysius’ works in the Middle
Ages and the reception of the text in art see Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts
and an Introduction to Their Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 16, 79. See further
Thunø, Image and Relic, 149.
347
On allegory see Erich Auerbach, “Figura,” in Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Romanischen Philologie, ed.
Gustav Konrad and Fritz Schalk (Bern and Munich: Francke, 1967), 55–92. Christian Kiening and
Katharina Mertens Fleury (eds.), Figura: Dynamiken der Zeiten und Zeichen im Mittelalter (Würzburg:
Königshausen & Neumann, 2013).
348
Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81. On this manuscript see Meckelnborg, Die nichtarchivischen
Handschriften, 72–78. According to Meckelnborg, 74, the scribe worked in an atelier in the middle or
lower Rhine region. Shortly after the book was made (before 1017) it was used in St. Maria ad Martyres.
An entry on fol. 169r documents the dedication of an altar at said church through Poppo von Babenberg,
archbishop of Trier. The date 1017 was partially erased but can be verified in other documents. Fol. 3r
further includes an inventory that was edited by Bernhard Bischoff in Mittelalterliche
Schatzverzeichnisse, Teil 1, 98 Nr. 93. On the miniatures and the manuscript in general see further Franz
J. Ronig (ed.), Egbert: Erzbischof von Trier 977–993. Gedenkschrift der Diözese Trier zum 1000.
Todestag (Trier: Selbstverlag des Rheinischen Landesmuseums Trier, 1993), cat. no. 22, 30, figs. 103–12.
According to Hoffmann, the book was written in the first quarter of the eleventh century. Hoffmann,
Buchkunst, 500f. Anton Von Euw, Vor dem Jahr 1000: Abendländische Buchkunst zur Zeit der Kaiserin
Theophanu (Cologne: Schnütgen-Museum, 1991), cat. no. 40, 146, dated the book to the late-tenth
century.
349
Textile-ornamented are folios 56r, 85r, and 128r. There is no textile page before Matthew but only an
initial painted on monochrome purple ground. The Gospel book is complete. There is no evidence that it
lost a folio or a quire, so that we must conclude that Matthew never had a textile page.
106
with a colorful initial on a purple textile-patterned ground. The combination of text with textile
ornament brings scripture and the metaphor of the veil of revelation very closely together on one
page. The ornamented openings draw attention to the Gospel beginnings and to the allegoric
space that scripture opens to the reader. As in the Berlin Gospel book, these ornamented
thresholds lead to an image of Christ in the opening of John on fol. 127r [fig. 125]. Compared to
the Berlin manuscript, the relationship between John and Christ in the Koblenz Gospel book is
similarly close. Christ was depicted on the same folio that shows the evangelist on the verso [fig.
126]. However, there is no curtain in John’s image that separates him from Christ. On the
contrary, the mandorla from the image of Christ is clearly visible through the parchment page on
fol. 127v. In sharing the same parchment leaf, Christ and John appear to share a physical space.
Only a thin veil of monochrome purple paint and the blue color of the mandorla set them apart.
The viewer and reader may participate in this intimate relationship if he makes use of the curtain
page on fol. 128r that guides him into the spiritual realm of scripture [fig. 127]. The textile
ornament behind the text makes clear that the veil of scripture means to be unveiled in reading
and meditation. In contrast to the Berlin Gospel book, John is not distinguished as clearly as seer
in the visual program of the Koblenz manuscript. Luke (fol. 84v) also looks at the viewer [fig.
128], while Matthew (fol. 16v) and Mark (fol. 55v) peer down into their books [fig. 129 and
130].350 These evangelists’ role as intercessors is less apparent in this manuscript because there
are no textile veils in their images. The purple color in the background of the evangelist
miniatures, however, recalls the purple globe on which Christ rests his feet [fig. 125]. The
repetition of this color on the globe of the earth seems to suggest to the viewer that the
evangelists nonetheless occupy a location in between heaven and earth. The evangelists’ golden
halos further visualize the divine inspiration that the readers may share if they engage like them
in a spiritual exchange with the divine. While the evangelists engage in a dialogue with the
Divine via their symbols, the road to spiritual sight for the readers of the manuscript is reading
and contemplation.351
350
The figures show fols. 16v, and 84v.
351
Eberlein, 89, characterized the evangelists as prophets of thruth. “Der Evangelist ist Verkünder der
‘veritas Evangelii’. Seine Aufgabe hat nicht nur zeitlich, sondern auch inhaltlich mit dem Übergang vom
alten zum neuen Glauben zu tun. Gekennnzeichnet wird sie aber auch dadurch, daß das Christentum die
Erfüllung des Judentums ist, weswegen das Alte Testament nicht dem Vergessen anheim fällt, sondern
nur neu – ‘revelato obtutu’ – gesehen werden muß.”
107
Textile pages in manuscripts without evangelist portraits
A Gospel book made at Corvey in the second half of the tenth century shows a similar
form of textile-text-veil in the Gospel openings.352 Because the manuscript lacks evangelist
images that would portray the authors of the Gospels as intermediaries, the textile pages in this
book receive even more attention. Fol. 17v, 73v, and 176v are textile-ornamented incipit pages
[fig. 83, 131—133]. The text on fol. 116r says “multi conati sunt …,” as verse one of the
Gospels of Luke continues after the initial “Quoniam quidem” [fig. 132].353 In addition to the
textile-text veils, the initial pages showcase the Gospel beginnings and make clear where the
entrance into the realm of scripture begins. Another tenth-century manuscript from Corvey
(Wolfenbüttel, Cod. Guelf. Helmst. 426) displays even more elaborate triple-page gospel
beginnings.354 In addition to the incipit and facing initial pages of all four Gospels, the text on
the following verso pages also was written on textile ground [figs. 84—86, 134—136, 137—139,
140—142]. It suffices to look at one of the openings in detail in order to illustrate how all of
them work. On fol. 59v the Gospel of Mark begins with an initial page written on a textile-
352
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Mss. Laud. lat. 27; textile pages on fols. 17v, 73v, 116r, 176v. On this
manuscript see Pächt and Jonathan Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, cat. no.
24. Swarzenski, “Die deutschen Miniaturen,” 194. Nigel F. Palmer, Zisterzienser und ihre Bücher: Die
mittelalterliche Bibliotheksgeschichte von Kloster Eberbach im Rheingau unter besonderer
Berücksichtigung der in Oxford und London aufbewahrten Handschriften (Regensburg: Schnell &
Steiner, 1998), 284, suggests the book was made either at Corvey or Hildesheim in the second half of the
tenth century. He further noted an exlibris, 261–62, which shows that the manuscript was at Eberbach
since at least the twelfth century. I thank Adam S. Cohen for this reference.
353
The alternating placement of the textile page on the verso and recto is not the only irregularity in the
structure of this manuscript. In the openings of Matthew, Mark, and Luke portions of the first Gospel
verse are missing, which were added in red ink on the reverse of the initial, or, in case of Luke, on the
reverse of the textile-ornamented folio. The text written in red ink on textile page in Luke, as opposed to
gold in the remaining openings, continues verse one following the “Quoniam quidem” initial, but the
corrector nonetheless added the incipit and verse one on the verso of this page again. The text on fol. 117r
begins “ordinare narrationem,” so that verse one appears three times in different versions. I thank Adam
S. Cohen for information on this manuscript. Similar repetitions and gaps in the text have been observed
in other Ottonian manuscripts. Florentine Mütherich, “Ottonian Art: Changing Aspects,” Studies in
Western Art: Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art (Princeton NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1963), 1:27–39.
354
Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. Helmst. 426. On this manuscript see Müller, “Evangeliar aus
Helmstedt,” 276–78. Puhle, Otto der Große, 2: 189–92. Also Bauer, “Corvey oder Hildesheim,” 2: 145–
160.
108
patterned ground that shows a complicated pattern made of rectangles, circles and swastikas [fig.
134]. Fol. 60r is the Initial page with the first word of the Gospels of Mark “Initium” written on
top of a peacock pattern that was painted in two shades of purple [fig. 135]. The sentence
continues on the following page, fol. 61v, “evangelii Iesv Christi Filii Dei” [fig. 136]. This
textile-text page shows yet another type of ornament, concentric circles superimposed on
latticework. Each of the other three Gospels in this book is introduced by an equally elaborate
triple-page opening in which all three folios at the beginning of the Gospels are textile
ornamented. The variety of ornamental designs in each opening combined with the gold, and the
rich and unusually dark purple color, causes a moment of awe that makes the reader pause. As
Anne-Marie Bouché and Mary Carruthers have shown, anomaly generates enigma, which in turn
stimulates interpretation.355 The opulent openings of Helmst. 426 cause a moment of surprise
that provokes cognitive activity. The reader is faced with metaphoric figure that wants to be
deciphered just as a riddle is solved by turning it over in one’s mind. As Carruthers has shown,
ornament is such an allegoric “secret” that triggers mental activation.356 In the Gospel beginnings
of Helmst. 426, the iconography evokes the metaphoric figure of the curtain, which makes the
reader think about scripture. Furthermore, the visual force of ornamentation adds power to these
pages that makes unmistakably clear that the reader is about to cross a threshold.357
Transforming pages
I conclude this chapter with more thoughts on the function of ornament and its ability to
trigger spiritual transformation. I propose that, by bringing these functions together with the
performative nature of manuscript pages, the textile pages in early medieval Gospel books were
an especially successful concept because such pages merge visual and material splendor with
355
Anne-Marie Bouché, “Vox Imaginis: Anomaly and Enigma in Romanesque Art,” in Jeffrey F.
Hamburger and Anne-Marie Bouché (eds.), The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle
Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 306–335. Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 165–
68.
356
Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 168–70.
357
On medieval records on experiencing opulent ornamentation see Cohen, “Magnificence in Miniature.”
Hahn, “Letter and Spirit,” 61–62, remarked on the ornamented pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels that these
lead “the reader with gorgeous theme and variation into the body of the text. […] This genesis of
elaborate initial ornamentation […] is indeed all about entrances and exits.”
109
physical action and also with cognitive stimulants such as material metaphors and allegory. The
visually and metaphorically loaded textile openings of Helmst. 426 suggest that all of these
aspects catered simultaneously to the corporeal-sensual and cognitive-spiritual needs of its
readers. In her discussion of cognitive images, meditation, and ornament, Carruthers noted that
interlace ornament in the Lindisfarne Gospels “offers an act of reading all in itself, and is a
fitting ornament of abbreviation to initiate and orient the reading of the gospel.”358 Ornamented
pages in the Lindisfarne Gospels have places within the codicological organization of the
manuscripts similar to Ottonian Gospel books. They appear at the opening of the book and at the
Gospel beginnings.359 Although the designs of the Ottonian textile folios are far less intricate
than the insular interlace pages, ornament in both types of books serves a similar function.
Textile ornament is a sort of abbreviation, an allegoric code, which condenses complex
exegetical ideas into a simple iconographic formula. The function of textile ornament resembles
that of diagrams.360 The readers activate the textile code when they decipher its allegoric
meaning and use the page as a tool for meditation. In this way, textile ornament reveals many
layers of metaphoric meaning and simultaneously triggers a contemplative response. Therefore,
to use Carruther’s term, ornamented pages are “initiators.”361 Like etymology, allegory, and
other enigmas, textile ornament sets a mental process in motion. As Carruthers noted, “allegoria
isn’t a ‘category of thought’ but a machine for thinking. […] Allegory operates like a kind of
builder’s host, a machina, so that by its means we may be lifted up to God.”362 Textile pages in
358
Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 169. For a reading of the ornamented pages in the Lindisfarne
Gospels as veils, see also Kendrick, Animating the Letter, 91–94.
359
Note also that the ornamented pages in the Lindisfarne Gospels take the same places in the
codicological organization of the book, at the beginning of the four individual Gospels, like in the
Ottonian manuscripts. Brown, Lindisfarne Gospels.
360
On the function and efficacy of diagrams, diagrammatic and allegorical images, see Jeffrey F.
Hamburger, “Haec Figura Demonstrat: Diagrams in an Early-Thirteenth Century Parisian Copy of Lothar
de Segni’s De Missarum Mysteriis,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 58 (2009): 7–75. Madeline H.
Caviness, “Images of Divine Order and the Third Mode of Seeing,” Gesta 22 (1993): 99–120. On the
concept of ornament as abbreviation see Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 167.
361
Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 169.
362
Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 167–78. On metaphor and allegory in the Middle Ages see also
Auerbach, “Figura.” Kiening and Mertens Fleury, Figura.
110
medieval Gospel books are such thinking machines that set in motion a mental process.363 This
process is triggered by textile iconography. It has been suggested that an allegorical image is
more efficacious if its iconography is abstract.364 Many textile pages show highly abstracted
patterns, but textile pages are not abstract. On the contrary, the iconography clearly shows a
figurative motif, a curtain. In his De pictura, Isidore of Seville stated that “a painting expresses
the appearance of a thing which, when seen, recalls that thing to the mind,” and thus, the storage
of memory could bring a painted textile curtain to life.365 While visually compelling
ornamentation and textile metaphors are important motors that activate textile pages, the physical
and material make of the book is another impetus.
Recent scholarship has shown an increased interest in books as multi-sensorial and multi-
dimensional objects.366 Opening a book is a form of accessing the non-physical space that opens
up inside the pages of a book. The viewer is led through the veil of images into a different
world.367 Some of these images are not only mirrors of another reality but were also designed to
be activated by the reader.368 As Wolfgang Christian Schneider, David Ganz, and others have
363
For a similar reading of manuscript pages with diagrams and other images see Adam S. Cohen,
“Making Memories in a Medieval Miscellany,” Gesta 48 (2009): 135–152.
364
Kessler, “Real Absence,” 113. Caviness, “Images of Divine Order.”
365
Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX, chap. 16. 1–2; PL 82:676. Trans. Kessler, “Turning a Blind
Eye,” 413. See also Pascal Weitmann, Sukzession und Gegenwart; Zu theoretischen Äusserungen über
bildende Künste und Musik von Basileios bis Hrabanus Maurus (Wiesbaden, 1997). Carruthers, The Craft
of Thought, 200. For images coming alive see also Fricke, Ecce Fides.
366
For a spatial reading of manuscripts see Reudenbach, “Heilsräume;” Saurma-Jeltsch, “Der Codex als
Bühne.” For an approach to the tactility of books see Peter Schmidt, “Der Finger in der Handschrift. Vom
Öffnen, Blättern und Schliessen von Codices auf spätmittelalterlichen Bildern,” in Codex und Raum, ed.
Stephan Müller and Lieselotte Saurma-Jeltsch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009), 85–125.
367
See Krüger, Das Bild als Schleier.
368
Wolfgang Christian Schneider, “Geschlossene Bücher–offene Bücher: Das Öffnen von Sinnräumen im
Schließen der Codices,” Historische Zeitschrift 271 (2000): 561–92. David Ganz, “Doppelbilder: Die
innere Schau als Bildmontage im Frühmittelalter,” in Bilder, Räume, Betrachter: Festschrift für Wolfgang
Kemp zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Steffen Bogen, Wolfgang Brassat, and David Ganz (Berlin: Reimer, 2006),
36–53. Idem, Medien der Offenbarung. In his essay “Openings,” Jeffrey analyses numerous openings of
medieval manuscripts and notes narrative, typological, and compositional cross-references that bridge the
two folios of one opening and make them correspond to one another. Although he brings the reader into
the discussion of openings, 111, he pays no attention to the implications of the images’ physical
activation that is often apparent in double pages.
111
shown, medieval artists often planned miniatures with the readers in mind.369 In the Gospels of
Otto III from Reichenau, personifications of the provinces depicted on the verso make offerings
to the emperor, who is shown on the facing recto [fig. 143].370 Turning the pages over, the
readers of the books complete the process of donation that the artist shows on two separate
pages. When the reader turns the page, the offerings meet their intended destination in the
emperor’s lap.371 Sciacca’s work on textile veils has shown that the reader’s active participation
is a crucial aspect of the spiritual functions that medieval manuscripts serve.372 In other media
also, such as small-scale ivory diptychs, contemplative functions often go hand in hand with the
performative activation of an object, as Marius Rimmele and others have shown.373 Like the
silken veils in manuscripts, these objects share with textile pages the intention of combining
visual and physical stimulants with performative action in order to set in motion a thinking
machine that generates spiritual transformation. As Herbert Kessler noted, “trapped in a world of
sensual experience, humans need (or at least benefit from) material props” if they aspire to
contemplate the Divine.374 In the Hitda Codex the trappings of matter were addressed as a
problem, but the makers of the Berlin Gospel book turned the power of sensorial experience into
an advantage. Painting a textile page to make it look like a curtain captured the reader’s
369
Schneider, “Geschlossene Bücher–offene Bücher.” Ganz, Medien der Offenbarung.
370
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4453, fols. 23v–24r. Mütherich and Dachs, Das Evangeliar
Ottos III.
371
Ganz, Medien der Offenbarung, 165: “Das in der Anordnung auf zwei Seiten Getrennte wird im
Gebrauch des Kodex zusammengeführt.” Thomas Head, “Art and Artifice in Ottonian Trier,” Gesta 39
(1997): 65—82, esp. 73, propsed a similar reading for a four-page opening in the Psalter of Bishop Egbert
of Trier, where the book virtually passes from the scribe to Egbert, and from the Bishop to St. Peter as the
reader turns the pages. On the Egbert Psalter see also Franz J. Ronig, “Der Psalter des Erzbischofs Egbert
in Cividale,” in Egbert, Erzbischof von Trier 977–994: Gedenkschrift der Diözese zum 1000. Todestag,
ed. Franz J. Ronig (Trier: Selbstverlag des Rheinischen Landesmuseums Trier, 1993), 1:163–68.
372
Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain,” 188–89.
373
“Das Hantieren mit dem kleinformatigen Triptychon (34 cm hoch) stimuliert, leitet und
versinnbildlicht gleichzeitig einen gedanklichen Prozess,” Marius Rimmele, “(Ver-)führung durch
Scharniere: Zur Instrumentalisierung kleinformatiger Klappbilder in der Passionsmeditation,” in
Medialität des Heils im späten Mittelalter, ed. Carla Dauven-van Knippenberg, Cornelia Herberichs and
Christian Kiening (Zürich: Chronos, 2009), 111–130.
374
Kessler, “Turning a Blind Eye,” 413.
112
attention, and touching and turning such a folio page initiated a physical process that, in an ideal
situation, stimulated spiritual sight. “For all the emphasis upon the obscurity and hiddenness of
Scripture, it is the ornamental husk that first catches us, that orients us, that reminds us of the
meditative task at hand, and sends us on our way.”375 Carruther’s observation adequately
describes the function of textile pages in medieval Gospel books. Textile ornament attracts the
reader’s gaze, but uses sensorial vehicles to transcend the trappings of matter and sets the reader
off on a spiritual journey.
Conclusion
Pictures could instruct people how to interact with the Divine.376 Textile ornament in
early medieval manuscripts serves this function in a unique manner. It marks a threshold
between corporeal and spiritual space and identifies the evangelists as intercessors and role
models for those who seek to access the Divine. In a letter to Charlemagne, Pope Hadrian I
explained the purpose of images as follows.
With every effort you seek in your heart him whose image you desire to have before
your eyes, so that, every day, what your eyes see brings back to you the person
depicted, so that while you gaze at the picture your soul burns for him whose image
you carefully contemplate…. We know that you do not want an image of our savior in
order to worship it as though it were a god, but in order to recall the Son of God and
thus warm in love of him whose image you take care to behold. And certainly we do
not prostrate ourselves before that image as if before a deity, but we adore him whom
we remember through the image, at his birth or passion or seated on his throne.377
375
Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 168.
376
Kessler, “Turning a Blind Eye.”
377
Hadrian’s letter to Charlemagne is know as “Hadrianum,” Monumenta Germaniae Historica 3, ed.
Karl Hampe (Berlin: Weidmann, 1898–99), 5–57, esp. 24 (55.24–30). Trans. Celia Chazelle, “Memory,
Instruction, Worship: ‘Gregory’s’ Influence on Early Medieval Doctrines of the Artistic Image,” in
Gregory the Great: A Symposium, ed. John C. Cavadini [series: Notre Dame Studies in Theology 2]
(Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 181–215, esp. 184. On this text and its
meaning see also Appleby, “Instruction.”
113
The Berlin Gospel book shows that textile ornament was a means to control the use of images to
avoid such idol worship. The textile curtains in the Touronian manuscript from Wolfenbüttel in
particular have also demonstrated that some manuscripts invited and even provoked engagement
with the Divine by means of physical props. How fruitful the fusion between precious matter and
abstract allegoric textile codes could be if textile pages were designed as contemplative devices
becomes evident from the textile ornamented folios in Helmst. 426. Carruthers’s concept of
ornament as initiator and thinking machine bears especially on textile folios that operate not only
as visual allegory, but that also engage the viewer in physical action. Turning a textile page is a
form of activating scripture. This activation, in turn, has an effect on the readers, who allow
themselves to be transformed spiritually through meditation and contemplation. From such
readings of textile ornament in the specific context of medieval Gospel books, ornament emerges
as an allegorical device that facilitates and even triggers a spiritual approach to scripture. The
primary function of textile ornament in medieval Gospel book is to mediate between the material
and the heavenly sphere. As Kessler noted, “while God can not be seen with human eyes, he can
be contemplated by means of material things in a reciprocal process of corporal and mental
meditation.”378 Textile pages are an interpretation of the manuscript page as a threshold symbol
that turns the polarity between matter and spirit into an advantage for the reader.
378
Kessler, “’Hoc Visibile Imaginatum,’” 294. Hincmar of Reims, De diversa et multiplici animae
ratione ad Carolum Calvum regem, VIII, ed. PL 125, col. 947. Compare also Augustine, De civitate Dei
22, 29.
114
Chapter 3 : The habitus of the Body and the Veil of the
Incarnation
The previous chapter demonstrated that in the context of biblical scripture, textile ornament
could function as a veil of revelation. While the Gospel manuscripts discussed in chapter two
functioned most likely in the meditative context of private contemplation, the sacramentaries,
graduals, evangelistaries, and Gospel books at the focus of this chapter are probably liturgical
books that were used during mass.379 If they functioned in the liturgy, most of these manuscripts
380
would have their place on the lectern and altar. The texts and the iconography of the images
that accompany textile ornament in these books suggest that the ornament was meant to
comment on the Incarnation and the dual nature of Christ. As I argue first, textile ornament
located in the context of the Christmas and Easter liturgies in any type of manuscript visually
comments on the significance of Christ’s incarnate body as an instrument of salvation that is
celebrated and commemorated during mass, especially on the feasts of Christmas and Easter.
Second, textile ornament placed at the opening of sacramentaries, especially at the very
beginning of the Canon, addressed the celebrant who used the book in the liturgy and served as a
contemplative aid for the priest who prepared himself spiritually for the sacrifice that he was
about to perform at the altar.
As in the previous chapter, the manuscript context is crucial for the interpretation of
textile ornament. Text and images play an equal role in specifying this context. First, textile
ornament highlights in particular the biblical readings and prayers that were said during the
379
For an explanation of the various liturgical books see Jeanne E. Krochalis and E. Ann Matter,
“Manuscripts of the Liturgy,” in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. Thomas J. Heffernan and E.
Ann Matter (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications Western Michigan University, 2005), 433—472.
Martin Klöckener and Angelus A. Häußling, “Liturgische Bücher,” in Divina Officia: Liturgie und
Frömmigkeit im Mittelalter, ed. Patricia Carmassi (Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 2004),
341—72, with extensive bibliography. Virgil Fiala and Wolfgang Irtenkauf, “Versuch einer liturgischen
Nomenklatur,” in Zur Katalogisierung mittelalterlicher und neuerer Handschriften, Zeitschrift für
Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie, Sonderheft 1 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1963), 105—37.
380
For the difficult and often unclear distinction between liturgical and other manuscripts see John
Lowden, “Illuminated Books and the Liturgy: Some Observations,” in Objects, Images, and the Word:
Art in the Service of the Liturgy, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton NJ: Index of Christian Art, 2003), 17—
53.
115
Christmas and Easter liturgies. These texts are often accompanied by narrative images that
illustrate the Gospel accounts. Second, textile ornament appears in the pages that show the Vere
dignum and Te igitur: the prefatio and the Canon of the mass. Either the prayers, incantations,
and liturgical formulae said during these liturgical moments were written directly on textile-
ornamented ground or separate textile images highlight these texts. In addition to the
iconographic and textual framework, I argue that the liturgical context in which these
manuscripts were used also has a bearing on the meaning of the ornament. The liturgy further
reflects basic theological dogmata that have a bearing on the meaning of textile ornament. The
theological focal point of the liturgies is the body of Christ. At Christmas, Christians celebrate
the Incarnation of the Son of God and give thanks to Christ for coming into this world in the
form of a human being. Easter is the feast at which Christians recollect the death of Jesus Christ
and remember that the Son sacrificed his body on the cross for the redemption of sin. Easter is
also the feast of the resurrection and the day Christians celebrate Christ’s triumph over death.
The feasts of Christmas and Easter, which are each preceded by a prepatory season–Advent and
Lent–mark the beginning and liturgical climax of the catholic church year.381 The calendrical
structure of the church year reflects the chronological narrative of the life of Christ, and in
highlighting the Christmas and Easter feasts liturgically, the church reminded the faithful that
salvation was granted to humankind because God became man and died on the cross. The textual
arrangement of the pericopes in Gospel lectionaries reflects the liturgical structure of the church
year. Most evangelaries begin with the readings for Advent, the liturgical season that prepares
Christians for the feast of the Nativity.382 After the Christmas pericopes and those for the
Sundays of the Christmas season, which lasts until Septuagesima, follow the readings for Easter,
beginning with Lent. Easter, the feast of the Resurrection, is the highlight in the liturgical year.
383
The Easter season extends to the feasts of the Ascension and ends with Pentecost. The Marian
feasts of the Purification and Annunciation have their places in between these celebrations, while
381
Stephan Borgehammar, “A Monastic Conception of the Liturgical Year,” in Heffernan and Matter The
Liturgy of the Medieval Church, 13—40, with further readings.
382
For a manuscript that begins with the season of Advent see the Egbert Codex, reproduced in Gunther
Franz and Franz Ronig, Codex Egberti: Teilfaksimile des Ms. 24 der Stadtbibliothek Trier (Wiesbaden:
Reichert, 1983). See also Borgehammar, “A Monastic Conception of the Liturgical Year,” 23.
383
Borgehammar, “A Monastic Conception of the Liturgical Year,” 31—32.
116
the Assumption and the Birth of Mary, in addition to various saints’ days, round off the liturgical
texts gathered in the manuscripts. Within this structure of liturgical readings, purple-colored
textile ornament visually draws attention to the Christmas and Easter feasts. The ornamented
pages comment on the theological significance that characterizes the liturgy of these feast days:
the Incarnation, Resurrection, and the dual nature of Christ.
One example of a textile-ornamented manuscript that highlights the Christmas and Easter
feasts in this manner is a Gospel lectionary made at Seeon before 1012.384 The manuscript
contains images of the four evangelist on fols. 5v—7r, in the order Matthew, John, Mark, and
Luke [fig. 144—147]. A two-page dedication image on fols. 7v—8r shows Henry II, the patron
of the manuscript, who hands the book to the Virgin Mary [fig. 148—149]. There are three
further textile pages on fols. 9r, 15r, and 60r [fig. 151, 153, 156].385 A look at the textual and
iconographic structure of the manuscript illuminates the meaning of these textile images. The
first textile image appears next to an image of Joseph’s dream [fig. 150]. The miniature on fol.
8v shows Joseph lying on a bed while an Angel visits him in his sleep. The miniature illustrates
Math. 1:19—25, in which an angel announces the birth of Jesus and assures Joseph that the
conception of this child was immaculate, in spite of the fact that Joseph is not the father. The
facing textile page on fol. 9r shows inscribed in gold on the textile pattern the titulus “In vigilia
384
Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95. On this manuscript see Gude Suckale-Redlefsen, Die
Handschriften des 8. Bis 11. Jahrhunderts der Staatsbibliothek Bamberg (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
2004), no. 68, 108–111. Eadem, “Die Buchmalerei in Seeon zur Zeit Kaiser Heinrichs II,” in Kloster
Seeon: Beiträge zur Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur der ehemaligen Benediktinerabtei, ed. Hans von
Malottki (Weissenhorn: Konrad, 1993), 177–204. Hartmut Hoffmann dated the manuscript more
generally to 1007—1014. Hartmut Hoffmann, Bamberger Handschriften des 10. Und des 11.
Jahrhunderts (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1995), 114f. Idem, Buchkunst und Königtum im
ottonischen und frühsalischen Reich (Stuttgart, Hiersemann, 1986), 39, 403, 406, 412, 415. See also Josef
Kirmeier, Alois Schütz and Evamaria Brockhoff, Schreibkunst: Mittelalterliche Buchmalerei aus dem
Kloster Seeon (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1994), no. 19 and 75–79, 104–5. The lectionary is bound in
a late tenth-century silk possibly from Constantinople. See Regula Schorta, “Der Seideneinband des
Bamberger Evangelistars (Msc. Bibl. 95),” in Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln: Die Bamberger Apokalypse,
ed. Gude Suckale-Redlefsen and Bernhard Schemmel (Luzern: Faksimile Verlag, 2000), 175—76. Leonie
von Wilckens, “Zur Verwendung von Seidengeweben des 10. Bis 14. Jahrhunderts in Bucheinbänden,”
Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 53 (1990): 425—442.
385
Matthew is shown on fol. 5v, followed by John (6r), Mark (6v), and Luke (7r). The dedication image
on fol. 7v contains an inscription naming king Henry II (HEINRICV REX PIVS) as patron of the book.
Henry donates the codex to Mary, the mother of God (SCA MARIA TEOTOCOS), who is depicted on
fol. 8r.
117
natalis Domini” [fig. 151]. The text is the beginning of Math. 1:18, the pericope for the
Christmas Vigil. The combination of textile pattern and Christmas pericope suggests that the
meaning of the textile image alludes to theological issues pertaining to the Christmas feast. This
notion is supported by the fact that the second textile image appears in the iconographic context
of the Adoration of the Magi, which is shown on fol. 14v [fig. 152]. The textile page on fol. 15r,
displays the beginning of the pericope for Christmas day, which was also written on textile-
ornamented ground [fig. 153]. The cycle of images in this manuscript continues with a
Crucifixion on fol. 53v [fig. 154], which is followed a few pages later, on fol. 59v, by an image
of the Women at the Tomb [fig. 155]. The miniature of the Resurrection faces the third textile
page on fol. 60r [fig. 156]. The iconography of the Crucifixion and the women, who visit the
tomb on Easter morning and find out that Christ has risen, suggests that this textile page—
contrary to the previous ones—relates to the liturgical context of the Easter feast. The text
written in gold on the textile ground verifies this suggestion, because it was taken from Mark
16:1, the pericope that was read on Easter Sunday. The Gospel account relates how Mary
Magdalen, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought aromatic oils to the tomb to anoint
the body of Christ. The scene depicted on fol. 59v, however, displays an iconographic formula
that is closer to Matthew (28:1), who relates that two women instead of three visited the tomb.
For a reading of textile ornament, the iconographic details of the resurrection image make no
difference, but rather it is the narrative context in which textile ornament appears that is
important. On the one hand, the Crucifixion and the Women at the Tomb locate textile ornament
in the context of Easter, on the other, images illustrating the events before and after the birth of
Christ contextualize textile ornament in the Christmas season. In addition to the iconography, the
pericopes written on the textile pages make clear that textile ornament bears a relation to the
Christmas and Easter feasts. By highlighting these feasts visually, textile pages draw attention to
scriptural contexts in which Christ’s body and his dual nature play a special role. The first textile
page appears in the context of Joseph’s dream, in which the Incarnation is announced. The
second accompanies the Magi who were the first to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and the third
textile page appears next to the Women at the tomb, who were the earliest witnesses of the
resurrection.386 The placement of textile pages in the Bamberg Gospel lectionary, therefore,
386
On images of the Magi, see Gary Vikan, “Pilgrims in Magi’s Clothing: The Impact of Mimesis on
Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art,” in Robert Ousterhout, ed., The Blessings of Pilgrimage (Urbana:
118
highlights essential passages in the Gospels that mark Christ’s birth, his recognition by the
people, as well as his exit from this world. In all three accounts, God’s appearance in human
form is the major theological focus. Therefore, the ornamental program of the Bamberg
evangelistary raises the question of the extent to which textile ornament bears a symbolic relation
to the body of Christ. Such use of textile images in the Bamberg Gospel lectionary invites a
closer look at textile ornament in other manuscripts and calls for an investigation of textile
metaphors in exegetical texts that focus on the dual nature of Christ. In addition to the biblical
accounts of the Incarnation and Resurrection, to which textile ornament draws attention, the
body of Christ plays the central role during mass, where the Eucharistic bread and wine signify
the sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood. Therefore, in addition to Gospel books and Gospel
lectionaries, sacramentaries and some graduals will also be considered here.
The textile-body of the Virgin

In order to shed light on the function and meaning of textile ornament in the contexts of
the Christmas and Easter liturgies, it is useful to take a closer look at textile metaphors and their
significance concerning the human body of Christ. A precondition for Christ’s sacrifice on the
cross was the Incarnation. God became man in order to free the world from sin by sacrificing his
human body on the cross. The two major participants in the Incarnation of the Son of God are the
Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. By making her immaculate human body available to the Spirit,
the Virgin contributed the physical substance to the body that the Son needed in order to become
materially visible in the world. Seeking solutions for describing the Incarnation as a physical
and, at the same time, immaterial act, medieval exegetes often likened Mary’s body to a cloud, in
which the Holy Spirit implanted his immaterial seed at the Annunciation.387 Mary’s womb,
University of Illinois Press, 1990), 97—107. On the Resurrection, see Britta Dümpelmann, “Non est hic,
surrexit: Das Grablinnen als Medium inszenierter Abwesenheit in Osterfeier und —bild,” in Medialität
des Heils im späten Mittelalter, ed. Carla Dauven-van Knippenberg, Cornelia Herberichs, and Christian
Kiening (Zürich: Chronos, 2009), 131–164.
387
Robert Deshman, The Benedictional of Aethelwold (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995),
9—19, esp. 11. For Byzantine exegesis on the Annunciation and the cloud as metaphor for immaculate
119
which proved permeable to the heavenly Father but remained otherwise untouched, gave birth to
Christ’s human form. In addition to the symbol of the cloud and other similar images, early
medieval exegetes employed textile motifs, especially wool and silk, to describe the body of the
dual-natured Christ that the Virgin bore into the world.388 In an influential sermon, which Proclus
of Constantinople (d. 446) preached—not surprisingly—sometime during the Christmas season
of 430, Proclus likened the Virgin to the “fleece of Gideon drenched with the dew of heaven.”389
The dew that collected on the fleece while the ground remained dry, and vice versa (Judges
6:36—40), was taken as a manifestation of “heavenly blessings upon mankind” and was,
therefore, an apt typological figure for the Incarnation.390 An inscription in a Carolingian Psalter
now in Stuttgart casts Mary’s body in similar textile terms by comparing the Annunciation to
rain falling on the fleece, by which is meant the Virgin’s womb.391 In an interpretation of John
19:23—24, Proclus further read the coat that “was without seam, woven from the top
throughout” (John 19:23) as a symbol of the Virgin’s immaculate body, which, as Proclus
conception see Proclus of Constantinople, cited in Nicolas P. Constas, “Weaving the Body of God:
Proclus of Constantinople, the Theotocos, and the Loom of the Flesh,” in Journal of Early Christian
Studies 3 (1995): 169–194, esp. 177.
388
On textile curtains in the context of the Annunciation and some interpretations see Johann Konrad
Eberlein, Apparitio regis–revelatio veritatis: Studien zur Darstellung des Vorhangs in der bildenden
Kunst von der Spätantike bis zum Ende des Mittelalters (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1982), 145—47.
389
Constas, “Weaving,” 177.
390
Deshman, Benedictional, 13. See also Ambrose on the fleece of Gideon as a type of the Incarnation, in
De Spiritu Sancto, Prologue, 5—9, PL 16, col. 705A—706B.
391
Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Ms. Bibl. Fol. 23. Deshman, Benedictional, 13, cites the
inscription on fol. 83v, which mentions that the “rain in the fleece” is “God in the womb of holy Mary.”
Andrew Prescott, The Benedictional of St Æthelwold: A masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon art. A facsimile
(London: British Library, 2002). Der Stuttgarter Bilderpsalter: Bibl. fol. 23. Facsimile (Stuttgart:
Schreiber, 1965—1968). Felix Heinzer, Wörtliche Bilder: zur Funktion der Literal-Illustration im
Stuttgarter Psalter, um 830 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005). For a digital facsimile see http://digital.wlb-
stuttgart.de/digitale-
sammlungen/seitenansicht/?no_cache=1&tx_dlf[id]=1517&tx_dlf[page]=1&cHash=a60b54c1ec3937ca3
9171c430bedbb2b (accessed 2014/02/07).
120
implied, was itself not made by humans but un-sewn, that is, not made by hands.392 The element
of the un-sewn translates into textile-terms the notion that Christ was made by the immaterial
spirit and not with the help of a man.393 As we have seen in chapter one, textile metaphors are
particularly suited to describe both the conflict and the conflation between physicality and
immateriality and are an apt image for merging the spiritual with the material and vice versa. In
addition to the Stuttgart Psalter, Alcuin’s treatise on the Trinity described the Virgin’s body in
allegoric textile terms:
She [the Virgin] was the purest wool, most glorious in her virginity, with whom
none of all the virgins on earth can be compared, of such quality and greatness
that she alone was worthy to receive into herself the divinity of the Son of God.
For as wool receives the blood of the purple snail, so that from the same wool
may be made the purple that is worthy of the imperial majesty […] so has also the
Holy Spirit, coming over the blessed Virgin, overshadowed her […] that the wool
might be made purple by the Divinity.394
This passage, which might have been inspired by Proclus, touches on several important points.395
First is the notion that Mary is pure like undyed wool, which turned purple when it received the
Son from the Spirit. Second, Alcuin implies that the Virgin made her body available as raw
material for the weaving of another one, the body of Christ. Therefore, the white wool mentioned
in Alcuin is the Virgin’s body, but the purple wool into which God turned her womb can be read
as the flesh and blood of Christ, from which the Son’s body was made.396
392
Compare Constas, “Weaving,” 181, and n. 37.
393
The notion that Christ’s body was a “perfect tabernacle not made with hands” also appears in Hebr.
9:11. See also Constas, “Weaving,” 181.
394
Alcuin, De fide sanctae et individuae Trinitatis, III.14, PL 101, col. 46. Trans. Hilda Graef, Mary: A
History of Doctrine and Devotion, vol. 1, From the Beginnings to the Eve of the Reformation (London
and New York: Sheed & Ward, 1963), 173.
395
Suzanne Lewis, “A Byzantine ‘Virgo Militans’ at Charlemagne’s Court,” Viator 11 (1980): 71—109,
esp. note 11.
396
For exegetical interpretations of the color purple as indication for the body of Christ see Christel Meier
and Rudolf Suntrup, Lexikon der Farbenbedeutungen im Mittelalter (Vienna, Cologne, and Weimar:
Böhlau, 2011), “Ruber, Rubeus,” 640—91, esp. 654—51, 658—59.
121
Mary’s womb as loom
Christ’s dual-natured body also appears cast in textile terms in exegetical texts that
comment on the crucifixion. Such readings of the body of the passion as textile-like were in part
inspired by the epistle to the Hebrews (10:20), where Paul interpreted the temple curtain that tore
apart when Christ died as a figure for his dual nature.397 Mary likewise plays a role in the textile
connection between the temple curtain and Christ’s human body on the cross. Proclus, Alcuin,
and others likened the Mother of God not only to wool, the raw material used for some forms of
weaving, but also to a textile worker. While exegetes primarily saw Mary as the one who spun
and wove the body of Christ from her own woolen body, the apocryphal Gospels also relate that
the Virgin was involved in the weaving of the temple curtain. The apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-
Matthew informs us that Mary, during her maidenhood, “did many wonders in weaving and
other skills which the older ones could not do.”398 The apocryphal Protoevangelium of James
also alludes to the Virgin’s skill in the textile crafts, because Mary was one of the virgins chosen
to spin the purple wool for the weaving of the temple curtain.399 The appraisal of Mary’s skill in
the textile arts is a topos that highlights her female virtues and implies that the Virgin qualifies
for the role as virginal mother of God.400 These notions come together in another text by Proclus,
397
For textile metaphors in Paul see Erik Peterson, “Theologie des Kleides,” Benediktinische
Monatsschrift 14 (1934): 347—56. Jun Hoon Kim, The Significance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline
Corpus (London and New York: T & A Clark International, 2004). Also Mateusz Kapustka, “Per
velamen, id est, carmen suam: Die textile Dimension des Christuskörpers als Bildparadox,” in
Christusbild: Icon+Ikone. Wege zur Theorie und Theologie des Bildes, ed. Peter Hofmann and Andreas
Matena (Paderborn and Munich: Schöningh, 2010), 117–136.
398
Mary Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England, Studies in Anglo-Saxon England
2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 213—17, esp. 216.
399
Wilhelm Schneemelcher, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen (Tübingen: J. C. Mohr, 1959), 1: 277—290,
esp. 284. Harm R. Smid, Protoevangelium Jacobi: A Commenatry (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1965), 75—80.
James K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament: a collection of apocryphal literature in an English
translation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 48—67, esp. 61. See also Constas, “Weaving,” 181.
400
For excellence in textile work as a topos and symbol of female virtue in the West see Hedwig
Röckelein, “Vom webenden Hagiographen zum hagiographischen Text,” in Textus im Mittelalter:
Komponenten und Situationen des Wortgebrauchs im Schriftsemantischen Feld, ed. Ludolf Kuchenbuch
und Uta Kleine; Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, 2006, 77–110. Maria Evangelatou, “Pursuing
Salvation Through a Body of Parchment: Books and Their Significance in the Illustrated Homilies of
122
a homily delivered on the feast of the Nativity, in which he makes reference to the cloth that
dressed the body of Christ and the Virgin as its loom and weaver.
Strange is this garment, and stranger still the loom on which it was woven, for its
fabrication had no share in human artifice. O Virgin who knew not man, and
mother who knew not pain! Where did you find the flax for the robe which today
has clothed the Lord of creation?401
Elsewhere, Proclus makes the image of Mary’s body as a loom even clearer. He explains Mary’s
womb as the
workshop in which the unity of divine and human nature was fashioned. […]
Within her is the awesome loom of the divine economy on which the robe of
union was ineffably woven. The loom worker was the Holy Spirit, assisted by the
overshadowing power from on high. The wool was the ancient fleece of Adam.
The interlocking warp thread was the pure flesh of the Virgin. The weaver’s
shuttle was moved by the limitless grace of the divine artisan who entered
through her sense of hearing. Therefore, do not sunder the robe of the divine
economy which was woven from above.402
In likening the raw material from which Christ’s textile-body was woven to the “fleece of
Adam,” Proclus further alludes to Mary’s role in the history of salvation. God established the
New Covenant through the Incarnation, to which Mary contributed by weaving her child’s textile
body. Also, Mary participates in the weaving of the temple curtain, which, according to Paul’s
typological reading in Hebr. 10:20, symbolizes the sacrifice that ended the era of the Old Law
and the beginning of the New. A similar notion appears in John of Damascus, who refers to the
Iakobos of Kokkinobaphos,” Mediaeval Studies 68 (2006), 239—84, esp. 242 and n. 10 with more
literature on Byzantine sources.
401
PG 65.712D—713A, trans. Constas, “Weaving,” 182.
402
Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, ed. Johannes Straub (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1914), 1.1: 103.18—21
and 106.23—4, trans. Constas, “Weaving,” 182. The notion that the Christ child was conceived through
Mary’s ear was also common in medieval Latin sources. A hymn for the day of the Ascension from
Winchester indicates that “the Virgin conceived through her ear.” Deshman, Benedictional, 13.
123
human body of Christ as “the garment of incorruptibility.” 403 In contrast to the sons of Adam,
Christ was conceived immaculately, and thus his body could serve as the veil that re-opened the
gates of heaven.
In likening the human body to textile material, Proclus and other early medieval Christian
writers promulgated an ancient tradition that described the physical substance from which the
human body was made as cloth.404 As we will see again in chapter four, the allegorical image of
the body as garment frequently appears in late-antique and early medieval Christian sources.
Augustine gives this notion of Christ’s human body as a material garment another twist.
Commenting on Phil. 2:7, where it says that Christ was “in habit found as a man,” Augustine
explains that the human body of Christ and bodies in general are a “‘habit’ (habitus) which is
fitted onto us externally, in respect to which say that one is clothed, shod, armored, and other
such things.”405 Therefore, Christ “was found with the [bodily] habit (habitus), of a man,” and
because he was clothed in humanity, he appeared in the form of a man.406 In Augustinian terms,
the bodily habitus is something that is “added to us,” much like clothing is added to a body for
the sake of dressing.407 But in the case of Christ, the habitus of the body is yet more complex
because Christ
took up humanity in such a way that it was transformed for the better, and it was
filled out by him in a manner more inexpressibly excellent and intimate than is a
garment when put on by a man. Therefore, by this name habit (habitus), the
Apostle has adequately indicated what he meant by saying, ‘having been made
403
John of Damascus, In Dormitionem Sanctae Dei Genitricis Mariae Orationes, ed. Bonifatius Kotter,
Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskus, Patristische Texte und Studien 5 (Berlin and New York: De
Gruyter, 1969—88), vol. 5. Trans. Andrew Louth, “John of Damascus on the Mother of God as a Link
Between Humanity and God,” in The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium: Texts and Images, ed.
Leslie Brubaker and Mary B. Cunningham (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 153—61, esp. 161.
404
Constas, “Weaving,” esp. 183—85. John Scheid and Jesper Svenbro, The Craft of Zeus: Myths of
Weaving and Fabric (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1996). See also chapter 4.
405
Augustine, Eigthy-Three Different Questions, trans. David L. Mosher (Washington: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1982), question 73, “On the Scripture: ‘And Having Been Found in the
[Bodily] Habit (Habitus) of a Man,’” 186—89, esp. 186.
406
Augustine, Questions, trans. David L. Mosher, 188. Text in brackets addition Mosher.
407
Augustine, Questions, trans. David L. Mosher, 187.
124
into the likeness of men,’ because he became a man not by way of a
transformation, but by way of a habit (habitus) when he was clothed with a
humanity which he, in some way uniting and adapting to himself, joined to [his]
immortality and eternity.408
In sum, these late antique and medieval sources point out three textile themes that are
particularly relevant for a reading of textile ornament as an allegory of the Incarnation. Proclus
and Alcuin focused on Mary’s body as a textile medium (pure white wool turned purple) that
clothed the immaterial Divine in physical substance. Proclus’ notion of Mary’s womb as a loom
concentrates on the material making of the body and the bodily robe that was produced by the
Holy Spirit, who moved the shuttle.409 The Virgin provided, therefore, not only the substantial
physical raw material for the making of Christ’s humanity, but Mary’s womb was also the
“technical” instrument that allowed God to craft the textile-like body of the Son. Finally, John of
Damascus and Augustine referred to this textile-like body as a habit, a piece of clothing that
Christ put on in order to appear in the shape of man and by which Christ restored Adam’s fallen
body into a garment of incorruptibility.410 The textile metaphor describes the dual nature of the
bodily habit that Christ put in the Incarnation. His bodily garment was made of earthly material,
but the shuttle that wove the cloth was powered by a divine craftsman. According to John of
Damascus, Christ’s divinity could be perceived in the “rustling within the folds of this divinely
fabricated” textile from which the body of Christ was woven.411 In addition to antique concepts
of the human body as textile material, the canonical and apocryphal Gospels appear to have
fuelled such textile readings of the Incarnation. As Elizabeth Coatsworth and others have noted,
the Protoevangelium of James especially seems to have influenced the iconography of the Virgin
408
Augustine, Questions, trans. David L. Mosher, 188. The emphasis and addition are Mosher’s.
409
Constas, “Weaving,” 180—83.
410
See also Peterson, “Theologie des Kleides,” and Kim, Clothing Imagery.
411
Cit. Constas, “Weaving,” 182. The rustling of fabric as an audible sign of the workings of heavenly
virtus appears also in early-medieval western sources, for example in Reginald of Durham’s report on the
opening of the coffin of St. Cuthbert. Meyer Schapiro, “On the Aesthetic Attitude in Romanesque Art,” in
idem, Romanesque Art: Selected Papers (New York: Braziller, 1977), 1–27, esp. 12.
125
in medieval art in this regard. 412 Textile objects and spinning utensils depicted in images of the
Annunciation are another way to express the dual nature of Christ’s body in textile terms.
Textile iconography and the Virgin

Since the fifth century, artists depicted Mary with such spinning utensils as wool and
distaff in her hands.413 The iconographic tradition of the Mother of God as a textile worker has
been especially well researched in the Byzantine material.414 But Mary also appears in early
Christian works from Italy and the domains north of the Alps with textile attributes, for example
in the fifth-century mosaics of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome [fig. 157].415 Adolph Goldschmidt
and Suzanne Lewis also read the attributes of the Virgin in an ivory carved by one of the
Carolingian so-called Ada-school artists in the early ninth century as “spinning implements” [fig.
158].416 The Stuttgart Psalter, which likened the Virgin’s womb to fleece, further shows that
Mary had been engrossed in spinning before the archangel Gabriel appeared at her side [fig.
159].417
412
Elizabeth Coatsworth, “Cloth-Making and the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Art,” in
Medieval Art: Recent Perspectives. A Memorial Tribute to C. R. Dodwell, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker and
Timothy Graham (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1998), 8—25, esp. 10.
Constas, “Weaving,” 188—90 suggested, however, that Proclus’s image of the Virgin’s womb as a loom
may have been inspired by Proclus’s contact with Empress Pulcheria and other noble women of
Constantinople, among whom textile work was considered especially honorable work and an occupation
that was especially connected to the female sphere.
413
Gertrud Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, vol. 1 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus
Mohn, 1966), 34—35.
414
Maria Evangelatou, “The Purple Thread of the Flesh: The Theological Connotations of a Narrative
Iconographic Element in Byzantine images of the Annunciation,” in Icon and Word: the Power of Images
in Byzantium. Studies Presented to Robin Cormack, ed. Antony Eastmond and Liz James (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2003), 261—79.
415
Lewis, “A Byzantine ‘Virgo Militans,’” esp. 74, and 73 for additional examples. See also Coatsworth,
“Cloth-Making and the Virgin Mary,” 10, with other examples.
416
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Inv. no. 17.190.49. Lewis, “A Byzantine ‘Virgo
Militans,’” 73. Adolph Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der karolingischen und
sächsischen Kaiser VIII.-XI. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1914), 1: 13.
417
Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Ms. Bibl. Fol. 23, fol. 83v.
126
In addition to wool and distaff, the curtain in images of the Annunciation is an
iconographic detail that, as Johann Konrad Eberlein suggested, invites symbolic interpretation as
the body of Christ.418 In a recent reading of the Annunciation in the late sixth- or early seventh-
century Armenian Codex Etschmiadzin, Henry Maguire focused on the depiction of the Virgin’s
belt and tunic, which were also venerated as textile relics in Constantinople [fig. 160].419
Maguire argued that “in the early Byzantine period the robe and garment of the Virgin, both the
relics themselves and their depictions in art, were manifest evidence of the Incarnation.”420 As
Maguire noted, in light of exegetical readings of textiles as a symbol of the Incarnation, the
textile relics of the Virgin gain an additional layer of significance that runs deeper than the usual
efficacy attributed to contact relics.421 Garments that clothed the Virgin recall the bodily garment
that the Virgin wove for her son. It is surprising, then, that Maguire makes no mention of the
textile pattern depicted behind the Virgin in the Etschmiadzin Annunciation in the arch above
Mary’s head. Taking into consideration interpretations of the curtain and spinning utensils in
Annunciation images as symbols of the incarnation, as well as exegetical readings of the Virgin’s
womb as a loom and her body as wool, suggests that the textile pattern depicted directly above
Mary’s head could also be read as an allegory of Christ’s dual body.
418
Eberlein, Apparitio Regis, 145—47.
419
Erevan, Matanadaran, Cod. 2734 (Etschmiadzin Gospels), ca. 989, southern Armenia, fol. 228v. Henry
Maguire, “Body, Clothing, Metaphor: The Virgin in Early Byzantine Art,” in The Cult of the Mother of
God in Byzantium, ed. Leslie Brubaker and Mary B. Cunningham (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 39–51. On
this manuscript see also Heide and Helmut Buschhausen, Codex Etschmiadzin: vollständige Faksimile-
Ausgabe von Codex 2374 des Matenadaran Mesrop Maštocʾ in Erevan (Graz: Akademische Druck- u.
Verlagsanstalt, 2001), esp. 111.
420
Maguire, “Body, Clothing, Metaphor,” 47.
421
This becomes clear from a homily on the belt of Mary by patriarch Germanos, De translatione cinguli
dei genetricis, which Maguire, “Body, Clothing, Metaphor,” 47, cites “Let us venerate the clothing of her
who covered the heavens with her admirable virtue, and covered the earth with the immensity of her
grace! Let us venerate the belt of her who girdled our nature with justice, fortitude and truth […] O truly
precious and most excellent belt, which wrapped around the loins of her who was pregnant with the
Emmanuel […]!” Trans. Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Threads of Authority: the Virgin Mary’s Veil in the
Middle Ages,” in Robes and Honor: the Medieval World of Investiture, ed. S. Gordon (New York:
Palgrave, 2001), 59—93, esp. 62, n. 21.
127
A lectionary from the turn of the eleventh-century from Cluny further illustrates the
Virgin’s cloth-giving role in the Incarnation.422 The manuscript applies textile ornament to
explain Christ’s dual nature. It is difficult to reconstruct the program of the illuminations because
several pages are fragmented, and those presumably contained more miniatures. Preserved are
images of the Annunciation on fol. 6r [fig. 161], Crucifixion on fol. 42r [fig. 162], Ascension on
fol. 64 [fig. 163], and a half-figure image of Mark (fol. 70v). Further extant are a miniature that
shows the descent of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost on fol. 79r [fig. 164], a small image of
Peter in prison (fol. 113v), and the Assumption of the Virgin on fol. 122v [fig. 165]. For the
issue of textile ornament, the images of the Annunciation, Pentecost, and the Ascension are the
most revealing. In the Annunciation miniature, the archangel Gabriel enters the frame in which
the Virgin is seated [fig. 161]. Parts of his clothing and a slender wing extend beyond the
image’s frame, thus suggesting the angel’s swift and weightless entrance. In addition, the purple
color of the Virgin’s undergarment, which resembles the color of the angel’s wing, appears to
emphasize the process of “spirit coming into matter.”423 In the image of Pentecost, the Apostles
are seated on a bench that is covered in a light blue textile [fig. 164]. It is difficult to interpret the
fabric in this iconographic context. Perhaps it may be read as a symbol of Christ, who was made
422
The manuscript is now divided between Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cod. nouv. acqu. lat.
2246 and the Musée National du Moyen Âge—Thermes de Cluny, Inv. Nr. Cl. 23757. Danielle Gaborit-
Chopin (ed.), La France Romane: Au Temps des premiers Capétiens, 987—1152 (Paris: Musée du
Louvre, 2005), 168 (François Avril). Fabrizio Crivello, “Bemerkungen zur Buchmalerei der Frühromanik
in Italien und Frankreich: Erneuerung und Rückblick,” in Christoph Stiegemann and Matthias Wemhoff
(eds.), Canossa 1077: Erschütterung der Welt (Munich: Hirmer, 2006), 1: 333—341 esp. 339—41. For a
digital facsimile with more information on the manuscript see
http://gallica.bnf.fr/Search?ArianeWireIndex=index&p=1&lang=DE&q=nal+2246&x=0&y=0 (accessed
2013/12/09).
423
Herbert L. Kessler, “‘Hoc Visibile Imaginatum Figurat Illud Invisibile Verum’: Imagining God in
Pictures of Christ,” in Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Papers from
“Verbal and Pictorial Imaging. Representing and Accessing Experience of the Invisible, 400–1000,”
Utrecht, 11–13 December 2003, ed. by. Giselle de Nie, Karl F. Morrison, and Marco Mostert (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2005), 291–325, esp. 302, read the coloring of white parchment ground with purple paint in
medieval book illumination as a symbol of the Spirit’s manifestation in physical matter. The fact that the
Annuncation scene is placed against a monochrome purple ground does not necessarily support a reading
of the color purple as symbol of the Incarnation, because the same purple ground appears in all other
miniatures in the book and also behind the initials. Furthermore, the pastel-purple color of Mary’s
undergarment was also used for the clothes of figures in other miniatures in the book. This does not
exclude the possibility that in the miniature of the Annunciation the artist aimed at linking the angel’s
feathery-ethereal wing with the Virgin’s womb through color-coding these “fabrics” in like manner.
128
both of spirit and of earthly matter, and belief in whom united the Apostles and inspired their
mission to carry Christ’s evangelical message into the world.
Most apparent is the meaning of textile ornament in the image of the Ascension [fig.
163]. Folio 64 is now divided between two Parisian institutions. Half the page remained with the
book in the Bibliothèque Nationale, while the miniature is now at the Musée Cluny. Beneath a
large mandorla, in which Christ rises to heaven, the Apostles are gathered around Mary, whose
name is written on the purple ground above her head. Like the Apostles, Mary looks up to
heaven holding her hands in a gesture of prayer. As Robert Deshman has shown, the moment in
which Christ’s human body left the earth was a crucial turning point in the history of the
Christian church. 424 It was significant that the Apostles witnessed how Christ rose up to heaven
with his full human body, because at this very moment the Apostles realized that Jesus, with
whom they had lived, was not only man but also God. Augustine commented on this biblical
event: It was necessary, then, that the form of a servant should be taken away from their eyes,
because, through gazing upon it, they thought that alone which they saw to be Christ. “It was
necessary, then, that the form of a servant [Christ’s human body] should be taken away from
their [the Apostles’] eyes, because, through gazing upon it, they thought that alone which they
saw to be Christ ... But the ‘ascension to the Father’ meant, so to appear as He is equal to the
Father, that the limit of the sight which sufficeth us might be attained there.”425 The theological
ramifications of the Apostles recognizing Christ as God stimulated medieval artists to visually
interpret the Ascension in the iconographic form that has become known as the “disappearing
Christ.”426 Deshman explained further that the Virgin played a significant role in making this
revelation possible; because Mary conceived her divine child immaculately, Christ’s body was
never touched by carnality but remained pure. The absence of sin from Christ’s conception
424
Robert Deshman, “Another Look at the Disappearing Christ: Corporeal and Spiritual Vision in Early
Medieval Images” Art Bulletin 79 (1997): 518–46.
425
Augustine, De Trinitate, I. IX, 18, ed. Philip Schaff, St. Augustin: On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal
Treatises, Moral Treatises, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (T&T Clark:
Edinburgh, 1988), 3:27.
426
Meyer Schapiro, “The Image of the Disappearing Christ: The Ascension in English Art Around the
Year 1000,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, ser. 6, 23 (1943): 133—52 (repr. in Schapiro, Selected Papers, vol.
3: Late Antique, Early Christian, and Mediaeval Art (New York: Braziller, 1979), 267—87), first coined
this term.
129
allowed him to rise into heaven with his human body fully intact.427 This miracle, in turn, opened
the Apostles’ eyes and made them believe.428 The artist of the Cluny manuscript made Mary’s
participation in this mystery visible by painting her figure against purple colored textile
ornament. The arch-shaped textile pattern surrounds the Virgin’s body like an aureole. In
medieval book illuminations, the mandorla was sometimes transferred to the Virgin, or Mary
even shares a mandorla with her son. The common mandorla visualizes Mary’s partaking in the
Incarnation and in the history of salvation.429 The textile pattern around the Virgin in the Cluny
Ascension, however, differs from Christ’s mandorla depicted in the upper half of the image. The
monochrome blue background of Christ’s mandorla is littered with stars that allude to the
ethereal heavens, but the “mandorla” around the Virgin is made of patterned purple cloth. The
textile ornament explicitly relates the mandorla to a tactile material and thus draws attention to
the physical part that Mary played in the Incarnation. The Annunciation in the Benedictional of
Aethelwold also shows Mary beneath a textile pattern, which is visible in the baldachin above
her head [fig. 166].430 Deshman did not comment on the textile ornament specifically but
observed that a blessing in the Benedictional suggests that this baldachin stands for the “temple
of the virginal womb.”431 He further related the baldachin to an altar covering and noted that the
liturgy of the “mass for Annunciation day compared the Holy Ghost investing the altar (with the
427
Deshman, “Disappearing Christ.” The concept of the unburdened body was expressed, for example, by
Jerome, “the Lord ascends upon a light cloud, the body of the Virgin Mary, which was not burdened with
the weight of any human seed,” cited by Deshman, Benedictional, 11.
428
Deshman, “Disappearing Christ.”
429
Deshman, “Disappearing Christ,” 523, 525. Compare the Utrecht Psalter, ibid. fig. 10 and the
Annunciation in the Missal of Robert of Jumiège, ibid. fig. 3. Deshman cites a titulus from the Ascension
in the Codex Aureus Epternacensis, a manuscript that makes specific use of textile ornament, as we will
see in the following chapter. “God has received this man to himself, whom he had taken from the Virgin.”
See also Rainer Kahsnitz and Elisabeth Rücker, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch von Echternach: Codex
Aureus Epternacensis HS 156142 aus dem Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, Faks.-Ausg.
(Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 1982), 93. The Ascension image in the Codex Aureus shows no textile
ornament however.
430
Deshman, Benedictional, 17.
431
Ibid. Deshman further read the baldachin as an altar covering and the Virgin herself as a symbol of the
altar.
130
Eucharist on it) to the Spirit filling the womb of the Virgin.”432 If the textile baldachin above the
Virgin in the Benedictional is read in this way, Mary appears as a “symbolic altar.”433 The textile
roof of the baldachin further evokes medieval interpretations of the sky and heaven as a tent.434
In this case, as in the Etschmiadzin Annunciation [fig. 160], the textile curtain would draw
attention especially to the symbol of the virginal womb as a loom, on which the Spirit wove
Christ’s habitus in order to reopen the path of salvation that leads from earth to heaven. This is
also suggested by the way the forms and ornamental patterns of the mandorlas in the Cluny
Ascension differ. Around Christ we see the traditional almond-shaped aureole, which is filled
with stars that indicate Christ’s divine descent [fig. 163]. The shape around the virgin, however,
is made of textile fabric and resembles an arch or a gate. This arch recalls a passage in John
10:7—10:
Amen, amen I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. I am the door. By me, if any
man enter in, he shall be saved. […] I am come that they may have life, and may
have it more abundantly.
Therefore, the door-shaped textile around the virgin symbolizes the body of Christ, as well as the
body of the Virgin, both of which are textile-like and both of which are metaphoric gates of
heaven. Mary is also associated with the door in other early medieval manuscripts, for example
in the recto of the double-page dedication miniature in the Bernward Gospels [fig. 167].435 An
inscription in the arcades above Mary identify the Mother of God as the porta dei, God’s door,
432
Deshman, Benedictional, 17.
433
Ibid.
434
For various medieval texts that read heaven as a textile see Eberlein, 32—33. Krüger, Bild as Schleier.
John Chrysostom brings heaven together with the body of Christ and ties it with the tabernacle in Homily
15.4: “See how he calls the body tabernacle and veil heaven. The heaven is a veil, for as a veil it walls off
the Holy of Holies; the flesh is a veil hiding the Godhead, and the tabernacle likewise holding the
Godhead. Again, Heaven is a tabernacle, for the Priest is there within.” Cit. Herbert Kessler, “Medieval
Art as Argument,” in Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God’s Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 53—63, esp. 58—59.
435
Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, fol. 17r. Michael Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar des heiligen
Bernward (Munich: Prestel, 1993). On this image see also Jennifer P. Kingsley, “To Touch the Image:
Embodying Christ in the Bernward Gospels,” Peregrinations 3 (2010): 138—173.
131
which stood wide ajar for the Holy Spirit, but was closed after Christ’s birth forever. 436 This is
shown to Mary’s left, where the porta paradisi is closed.437 The inscription on this golden door
continues on the wing of the portal on the opposite side of the image, which is shown wide open.
The text tells the reader that the doors to paradise, which Eve’s disobedience shut, were reopened
by holy Mary.438 Thus, to Mary’s right, the doors are shown ajar, opened by the cross that
appears inside them. Mary is further shown against a purple-colored textile curtain and the
garments of the child on her lap are clearly made of the same gold and silver textiles that also
clothe the Virgin. This color combination was often understood by medieval authors, and
presumably Bernward himself, as symbolic of Christ’s dual nature.439 In addition to the
inscriptions that allude to the Incarnation, these textile motifs thus draw attention to Mary’s
motherhood and the role Christ’s textile-like body played in the history of salvation.
Textile ornament in the context of the Christmas liturgy

Purple textile ornament as a symbol of the Incarnation is particularly meaningful if it
appears in the context of the Christmas liturgy. Several manuscripts display textile ornament on
the pages that contain the liturgical readings for the Christmas season. Cod. Eins. 88 (964), a
lectionary that Anton von Euw dated between 980—90, is one of several Einsiedeln manuscripts
436
On the inscription of the doors see Michael Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar des heiligen Bernward
(Munich: Prestel, 1993), 27. “Ave stella maris karismate lvcida p(ro)lis / Ave spiritvi s(an)c(t)o
templv(m) reservatv(m)/ Ave porta D(e)i post partv(m) clavsa p(er) evv(m).” Also Kingsley, “Vt Cernis,”
178.
437
“Porta paradisi primeva(m) clavsa per aevam/ Nunc est per s(an)c(t)am cvnctis patefacta Maria(m).”
438
439
Jennifer P. Kinglsey, “Vt Cernis and the Materiality of Bernwardian Art,” in Gerhard Lutz and Angela
Weyer, 1000 Jahre St. Michael in Hildesheim: Kirche, Kloster, Stifter (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag,
2012), 171—84, esp. 175. See also Herbert Kessler, “Image and Object: Christ’s Dual Nature and the
Crisis of Early Medieval Art,” in The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Medieval
Studies, ed. Jennifer R. Davies and Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 290–326. Bruno
Reudenbach, “Gold ist Schlamm: Anmerkungen zur Materialbewertung im Mittelalter,” in Material in
Kunst und Alltag, ed. Monika Wagner und Dietmar Rübel (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), 1–12, esp. 6.
132
that use textile ornament as visual commentary on the Incarnation.440 The book contains two
textile-ornamented title pages on p. 8 and p. 74, which, to my knowledge, have never been
discussed before regarding their function and meaning.441 The first of these purple textile images
announces the readings for Advent: “Incipiunt lectiones de adventu domini” [fig. 168]. The
inscription in gold was painted over a purple pattern that shows five medallions containing
rosettes; one large one in the middle and four smaller ones in each corner. The purple textile
image is framed by interlace in silver, black, gold and minium. On p. 9 the first of the lections
begins “Deus autem” with a large initial D. The remaining text was painted in gold between
green and purple stripes. On p. 74 a purple-colored textile page introduces the readings for the
fourth Sunday before Christmas, the last one in the season of Advent [fig. 169]. The folio is
inscribed in golden letters “Incipiunt orationes de adventu domini dominica IIII ante natale
domini.” The inscription appears on a lozenge pattern that consists of large purple flowers and
clover-leaf crosses, which are accompanied by small dotted petals that litter the lighter-colored
purple ground. The initial on the facing page was painted against a monochrome purple
background. In both textile pages in Cod. Eins. 88 the ornament can be contextualized in the
liturgy of the Advent season due to the inscriptions. Within this liturgical framework, the purple
patterns can only be read as allusions the body of Christ. The purple color and textile patterns
condense the notion that the human body was woven like cloth into an abbreviated allegoric sign
and remind the reader that such a textile habitus also clad the Son of God. 442 Therefore, these
textile pages function as a form of visual commentary on the mystery of the Incarnation, the
theological tenet that underlies the Christmas liturgy.
440
Anton von Euw, “Die Einsiedler Buchmalerei zur Zeit des Abtes Gregor (946—996),” in Odo Lange
(ed.), Festschrift zum tausendsten Todestag des seligen Abtes Gregor, des dritten Abtes von Einsiedeln,
996—1996 (St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 1996), 183—241, esp. 203—204. Von Euw, 203, noted a stylistic
connection with Reichenau manuscripts of the Anno and Ruodprecht groups, but located the manuscript
in Einsiedeln because the lections and orations highlight the feast of St. Mauritius, a local Einsiedeln
saint.
441
Christian Gelhaar, “Drei Einsiedler Handschriften aus der Zeit Abt Gregors (964—994), Zeitschrift für
Schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 26 (1969), 8—20, esp. 16, mentions a “background
patterned with crosses” in Cod. Eins. 167 (Msc. 140), p. 1, which he related to the Egbert Psalter in
Cividale and the Ruodprecht manuscripts, focusing especially on stylistic similarities.
442
On ornament as a form of abbreviation see Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation,
Rhetoric and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 167.
133
Several of the Reichenau manuscripts that belong to the so-called Ruodprecht group also
comment on the Christmas liturgy is this manner.443 An evangelistary now in Rome contains two
textile-ornamented double pages that were painted in purple colors.444 As in Codex Einsiedlensis
88, these folios are the only illuminations in the entire manuscript and specifically mark the
readings for the Christmas feast. Fols. 2v—3r introduce the Christmas Vigil with the titulus “In
vigilia natalis domini” [fig. 170a, and b]. Fols. 5v—6r are also ornamented with a purple-colored
textile pattern [fig. 171]. The verso of this double page shows the incipit “In die natalis Domini
sancti Evangelii secundam Johannem,” the recto an initial that emphasizes the beginning of John
1:1—14, “In principio erat verbum et verbum erat apud deum” (In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God).445 The first chapter of John’s Gospels is a
crucial passage in the New Testament because it addresses the mystery of the Incarnation. The
Logos (1:1) was first with God and took on the shape of man in the Incarnation of the Son (1:14),
“and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were
of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.” As Deshman has shown, medieval
artists often addressed Christ’s dual nature visually in the context of John. For example, the
Bernward Gospels show John beneath an image of Christ disappearing into heaven on fol. 175v
[fig. 52]. Deshman observed that this image differs from other Ascension images because it
shows John instead of all the Apostles who witnessed Christ’s ascension.446 The reason for this
unusual iconography is that “the Evangelist saw with his mental eyes the vision he recorded in
the opening of his Gospel prologue.”447 John’s gift of spiritual sight and his function as role
model for the viewer have been addressed in chapter two. Deshman brought these together with
the Ascension iconography and noted:
443
Thomas Labusiak, Die Ruodprechtgruppe der ottonischen Reichenauer Buchmalerei: Bildquellen,
Ornamentik, stilgeschichtliche Voraussetzungen (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2009).
444
Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Fondo Antico 1452, Reichenau circa 970, fol. 5v—6r. Labusiak,
Ruodprechtgruppe, 261—63, 358—61. I was unable to consult this manuscript but Labusiak provides an
excellent description of the structure of the manuscript and its illuminations including all the necessary
details on which my observations are based.
445
Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, 360.
446
Deshman, “Disappearing Christ,” 538.
447
Ibid.
134
In the Hildeseim miniature, the agent enabling the beholders of the picture to
acquire spiritual vision of Christ’s hidden divinity is John. […] The picture of John
and the disappearing Christ prepares beholders to emulate the exaltation of John’s
intellect to the Word in heaven when they read his Gospel prologue a few pages
later on in the manuscript.448
Deshman did not comment, however, on the textile pattern that draws additional attention to the
messages these two images convey to the reader. The textile curtain behind John implies that
spiritual sight is the only way for Christians to perceive Christ’s divine nature. Such sight can be
achieved through reading and the contemplation of scripture. The textile pattern is further a
visual commentary on the dual nature of Christ, which is the subject of the image shown above
John. The Anglo-Saxon artists who invented the disappearing Christ iconography illustrated this
point by showing Christ half in heaven and half on earth. Textile ornament appears to have been
unknown in England at the time. In Hildesheim, however, the painter of the Bernward Gospels
doubled up the Anglo-Saxon imagery with the iconographic formula for showing Christ’s dual
nature that was customary in his own local tradition. Artists like Ruodprecht, who made the
evangelistary in Rome, had used textile ornament as a symbol for Christ’s divinity and humanity
in the context of John’s Gospel several years before it was applied in Hildesheim. The potency of
textile ornament functioning as an exegetic commentary on Christ’s humanity becomes
especially clear when textile ornament is contextualized in the liturgy of the feast of the Nativity.
John 1:1—14 was the pericope for the service on Christmas day. Displayed on a purple textile
ground, the theological message concerning Christ’s humanity as the instrument of salvation,
which is implied in this text, was especially apparent.
Textile ornament in the Easter liturgy

The Gospel lectionary with which I began this chapter, Bamberg Msc. Bibl. 95, already
showed that Christmas is not the only liturgical context in which textile ornament makes
sense.449 The textile pages in several manuscripts comment on the Resurrection. In another
Reichenau manuscript, a sacramentary created by the painter Anno between 970—980 and
448
Ibid.
449
On the manuscript, see the literature cited in n. 2.
135
which entered the nearby monastery of Petershausen likely around 983, the texts for the
Christmas and Easter liturgies were introduced by textile ornament similar to the ornamented
pages in the Bamberg lectionary.450 In addition to a calendar and various later inclusions, the
Petershausen Sacramentary contains the prayers and liturgical formulae needed for mass on fols.
40v—172r. The part of the book that is illuminated contains a sequence of texts beginning with
the Christmas Vigil and ending with Advent.451 According to Hartmut Hoffmann, the book was
written by the same scribe who also wrote the Gero Codex, another Reichenau manuscript that
includes on fol. 5v a Maiestas miniature framed in a circular roundel that is very similar to the
image of Christ in the Petershausen Sacramentary, fol. 41r [fig. 172 and 173].452 The Gero
Codex, however, contains no textile pages, nor an image of the Virgin Mary, which faces Christ
in the Petershausen Sacramentary on fol. 40v [fig. 1]. In the Petershausen Sacramentary the
figures of Mary and Christ are both surrounded by an ornamented medallion and appear in front
of a deep blue background. Crown and cross-staff identify Mary as the queen of Heaven.453
Highly unusual among images of Mary enthroned is the book that she holds in her lap and which,
450
Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek Cod. Sal. IX b. Wilfried Werner, Cimelia Heidelbergensia: 30
illuminierte Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1975), 10—13.
Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, 271—74, 278—86. On this manuscript see Hoffmann, Buchkunst, 1:320.
Kristen Mary Collins, “Visualizing Mary: Innovation and Exegesis in Ottonian Manuscript Illumination”
(Ph. D. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2007), 119—26. Anton von Euw, “Das Sakramentar von St.
Paul,” in Die Abtei Reichenau: Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte und Kultur des Inselklosters, ed. By.
Helmut Maurer (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1974), 363—87. Kahsnitz, “Sakramentar aus Petershausen,” in
Matthias Puhle (ed.), Otto der Grosse: Magdeburg und Europa (Mainz: von Zabern, 2001), cat. no.
IV.33, 2: 237—39. A digital facsimile of the manuscript can be found at http://digi.ub.uni-
heidelberg.de/diglit/sal9b (accessed 2013/12/20). The Petershausen Sacramantary is the only one of the
so-called Anno group of manuscripts from Reichenau that includes ornamented backgrounds, such as we
find frequently in the later manuscripts of the Ruodprecht group from the same scriptorium. Labusiak,
Ruodprechtgruppe, 278, 285.
451
For a full description see Werner, Cimelia Heidelbergensia.
452
Hoffmann, Buchkunst und Königtum, 320. On the model-copy relationship between these Ottonian
images and the Carolingian Lorsch Gospels see Matthias Exner, Das Guntbald-Evangeliar: Ein
Ottonischer Bilderzyklus und sein Zeugniswert für die Rezeptionsgeschichte des Lorscher Evangeliars
(Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2008). For a digital facsimile of the Gero Codex, Darmstadt,
Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Hs 1948, see http://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/show/Hs-1948
(accessed 2013/12/20).
453
Werner, Cimelia Heidelbergensia, 10—13, esp. 10. Rainer Kahsnitz, “Sakramentar aus Petershausen,”
in Puhle, Otto der Grosse, 237.
136
as I propose below, can be read as a reference to Mary’s role as mother of the Logos.454 Christ is
shown on the facing folio also holding a book. The Petershausen Sacramentary includes an
additional eight miniatures that illustrate the canon of the mass (fols. 41v—45r). Fols. 41v—42r
are title pages with gold and silver script on monochrome purple ground (In nomine Domini
Incipit liber sacramentorum …), as are 43v—44r (et ivstum est …), 45r (Igitur clementissime …)
[fig. 174—175]. Especially significant are the five purple-colored textile ornamented folios, of
which the first one is fol. 42v [fig. 176]. This folio shows on a purple patterned ground the
incantation Dominus vobiscum and the response by the people et cum spiritu tuo with which the
celebrant introduces the praefatio, the Eucharistic part of the mass.455 The actual praefatio
begins with the mass preface Vere dignum on fol. 43r, which was painted on textile-ornamented
ground [fig. 177]. The praefatio is followed by the canon, beginning with the Te igitur on fol.
44v. The miniature shows the T in form of a tree of life that was placed beneath a double arch
[fig. 178]. The background of this miniature, stripes alternating in bright green and blue, was
probably not intended to appear textile like. The pattern differs significantly from the textile
pages. Two double-page compositions with textile ornament further emphasize the texts for the
Christmas and Easter offices. The first of these openings is fols. 54v—55r. The verso shows an
inscription “In die admissam” written on a textile pattern, and the recto displays a large initial C
on monochrome purple ground that introduces the collect for Christmas day, “concede
quaesumus omnipotens deus” [fig. 179 and 180]. The liturgical texts for the Easter office are
more pronounced because both folios are textile ornamented. The image on fol. 105v displays on
a rectangular purple textile background the inscription “Die dominico sancta passione” [fig.
181]. On the facing folio 106r, the textile background is framed by an arch and shows a large
initial D(eus qui hodierna die), the beginning of the collect for Easter Sunday [fig. 182]. In
addition to Christmas, the sequence of illuminations in the Petershausen Sacramantary shows
textile ornamentation in the context of the Canon of the mass and especially distinguishes the
Easter feast.
454
On similar readings of books as a sign of the Incarnation, see Evangelatou, “Pursuing Salvation.”
455
Willem C. van Unnik, “Dominus Vobiscum: The Background of a Liturgical Formula,” in New
Testament Essays: Studies in Memory of Thomas Walter Manson, ed. Angus J. B. Higgins (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1959), 270—305. See also Amalarius of Metz, De ecclesiasticis officiis III,
PL 101, col. 1107—13.
137
Visual programs that similarly emphasize the two major church feasts and the Canon
with textile ornament can be observed in other manuscripts. But the focus is not always equally
on both feast days. The so-called Sacramentary of Bernward of Hildesheim, for example, inserts
a textile page between the Vere dignum and the Te igitur (fols. 2v—3v) [fig. 183—185].456
Moreover, the collect “Concede” for Christmas on fol. 13r was written on a purple background
with a braided textile-pattern [fig. 186], compared to which the striped ground behind the text for
the Easter vigil and Easter day on fols. 85r and 87r is much simpler [fig. 186—188]. The initial
page for the Christmas vigil is also less elaborate compared to the textile pages, but the office for
Pentecost begins again with an ornate initial page [fig. 189—190].457 The ornamental programs
of the Bernward and Petershausen Sacramantaries suggest that, in addition to Christmas, the
contexts of Easter and the Canon also invite a reading of textile ornament as metaphor for the
body of Christ.
The so-called Poussay Evangelistary now in Paris and a Sacramentary in Florence, which
were both made at Reichenau, apply textile ornament to draw the viewer’s attention especially to
the Easter liturgy. The Poussay Evangelistary is a richly illuminated book with numerous initial
pages and miniatures showing scenes from the life of Christ.458 In addition to a dedication image
of an unknown patron handing the book to Christ on fols. 3v—4r [fig. 191—192], and evangelist
portraits on fols. 5v—8r [fig. 193—196], the manuscript contains the usual miniatures of the
Nativity, Epiphany, Candlemas, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost, all facing
an initial page with monochrome purple ground on the recto [fig. 197—205].459 Some feasts
received only an initial page. Among these narrative miniatures, an illumination of the Washing
of the Feet stands out on fol. 46v [fig. 201]. It is not quite clear why this scene follows the
456
Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19. Helmar Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz zu Hildesheim
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1984), “Domschatz Nr. 19: Sakramentar Bernwards,” 51—55 (Marlis Stähli).
457
Fols. 9r and 100r. The initial page for the Assumption on fol. 141r shows a gold initial on
monochrome red ground. For an image see Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz zu Hildesheim, 60.
458
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 10514. I was unable to consult this manuscript during
my visit to the BNF and base my analysis of textile ornament instead on the excellent description in
Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, 329—335.
459
Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, 332—34, fig. 24—38. For an iconographic analysis of all figurative
miniatures in the manuscript see idem, 173—230.
138
Crucifixion on fol. 35v, but in any case, the additional scene from the events before the
Resurrection, which is shown on fol. 50v, increases the viewer’s sensitivity for the Passion [fig.
203]. Moreover, a textile page placed on fol. 48v between these two scenes draws additional
attention to the Passion [fig. 202]. The text inscribed on the textile pattern, “In sabbato sancto
paschae / sequentia sancti evangelii secundum matheum,” indicates that the following text was
read on Saturday of Holy Week. Saturday is the last holiday of Holy Week and commemorates
the events of the Resurrection.460 According to the Roman rite there was no mass during the day.
Instead, the paschal vigil began after dark.461 The blessing of the fire and the distribution of the
Easter light to the people in particular symbolized Christ’s triumph over death and the light of
eternal life.462 The antiphon Christus resurgens, which was sung prior to the evening Vigil
during Lauds on Holy Saturday, proclaims that Christ died in order to give life to all.463 In the
specific context of the Easter liturgy, the purple textile page in the Poussay Evangelistary [fig.
202] draws attention to the body of Christ in order to emphasize that his sacrificial death washed
away all sin so that Christians may partake in the resurrection.
The ornamental program of a Sacramentary now in Florence was designed with the same
idea in mind.464 The book opens on fols. 1v—2r with two textile-ornamented purple frontispieces
that show animals and a floral pattern [fig. 206]. As I argued in chapter two, such threshold
pages are not “merely decorative” but have meaning because they evoke the metaphor of the
curtain of revelation.465 The manuscript further contains ten initial pages that are all textile-
460
O. B. Hardison, “The Lenten Agon: From Septuagesima to Good Friday,” 80—138, and “Christus
Viator: From Holy Saturday to Low Sunday,” 139—177, in idem, Christian Rite and Christian Drama in
the Middle Ages (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1965). Christoph Petersen, Ritual und Theater:
Messallegorese, Osterfeier und Osterspiel im Mittelalter (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2004).
461
Hardison, “Christus Viator,” 141.
462
Ibid., 145—49.
463
Ibid., 141—42.
464
Florenz, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Cod. Banco Rari 213 (olim cod. Magd. CLXXXVI.13). I was
unable to consult this manuscript. My interpretation of textile ornament is again based on Labusiak’s
excellent description. Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, 249—58, 352—55. See also Rainer Kahsnitz and
Thomas Labusiak, “Reichenauer Sakramentar,” in Puhle, Otto der Grosse, cat. no. IV. 34, 2: 240—42.
465
Kahsnitz and Labusiak insist that the pages are purely decorative. “Die Seiten sind rein dekorativ,
enthalten keine Texte und sind nicht mit Gold und Silber, sondern nur in unterschiedlichen Purpurtönen
139
ornamented. These textile pages highlight the Dominus vobiscum dialogue at the beginning of
the Canon, in addition to the praefatio (Vere dignum) and Canon (Te igitur) [fig. 207—209].
Also textile ornamented are the major feast days, which include—among the usual ones—
Christmas, Candlemas, Assumptio Mariae, All Saints, and Saturday of Holy Week [fig. 210—
218].466 The section for the Easter liturgy is especially worth noting because, in addition to the
initial pages on fol. 92r and 94r, Easter is emphasized by a curtain page on fol. 91v [fig. 212—
14]. As opposed to the Poussay Evangelistary, there are no figurative images in this
Sacramentary. Instead, the ornamental program shows the entire cycle of the church year as a
liturgy “vested” in textile metaphors. The curtain page on fol. 91v stands out in this program
because it is the only textile-ornamented folio that lacks an initial. This textile page makes clear
that the highlight in the liturgical calendar is the feast of the Resurrection. If we read textile
ornament as a symbol of the Incarnation, the ornamental program suggests that the liturgy
throughout the church year is informed by the theological significance of the Incarnation. Among
the high feast days, Easter is the most important, however, because it celebrates Christ’s triumph
over death. Moreover, the sacrifice on the cross has special meaning because it resonated in the
Eucharistic mass, which the clerics performed throughout the church year by using this book.
The church year that is cast in textile-metaphors in the Florence Sacramentary, therefore, also
symbolizes the history of the church and its Christian community that relives and commemorates
the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ at each and every service throughout the year. As we
have seen, especially during Christmas and Easter, textile ornament draws attention to these
aspects and comments visually on the theological significance of the Incarnation, Crucifixion
and Resurrection.
Textile ornament enhances liturgical action
gestaltet.” Kahsnitz and Labusiak, “Reichenauer Sakramentar,” 240. See also Labusiak,
Ruodprechtgruppe, 354, “Die Handschrift wird durch zwei einander gegenüberliegende, rein ornamentale
Zierseiten eingeleitet (fol. 1v/2r).”
466
140
A Gospel book made for Judith of Flanders in the eleventh century suggests for different
reasons that textile ornament had a special place in the Christmas and Easter liturgies. The
manuscript was made for the countess of Flanders between 1066—71, illuminated by a
workshop in Liège, and later used at the Weingarten Abbey in southern Germany.467 The textual
structure of the manuscript and markings in the margins imply that this book was custom-made
for use during the services at Christmas Eve and the Saturday of Holy week. In addition to four
evangelist portraits on fols. 3v, 35v, 51v, and 71v, the Gospel book includes at the beginning a
donor portrait with facing textile page. Once again, it is important to examine the manuscript as a
whole in order to discern the function and meaning of this textile page. The verso of fol. 2 shows
Judith presenting her book to Christ [fig. 219]. The figures are arranged in a space that is marked
as otherworldly by the golden ground and clouds. The iconography is rather unusual and shows a
mix of elements perhaps taken from an Ascension of Christ combined with more traditional
donor portraits.468 The recto of this double-page opening depicts a purple textile pattern with a
“repeat” made of lions that are boxed in by square-shaped frames [fig. 220]. Both miniatures are
framed by ornamented borders. Patrick McGurk and Jane Rosenthal noted that the textual
structure of the four Gospels compiled in this manuscript is highly unusual.469 The authors noted
that none of the four Gospels are complete. Except for the accounts of the Nativity, the Passion
and Resurrection, which are unabridged, the scribe omitted central portions of the texts in all
four Gospels.470 The omissions are especially significant in Luke and John, where they make up
fifty percent of the text in total, and twenty five percent in Matthew.471 McGurk and Rosenthal
467
Fulda, Hessische Landesbibliothek, Cod. Aa 21. Christine Jakobi-Mirwald, Die Illuminierten
Handschriften der Hessischen Landesbibliothek Fulda, Teil 1, Handschriften des 6. bis 13. Jahrhunderts,
Textband (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1993), cat. no. 22, 51—54. Hartmut Broszinski and Regina Haussmann
(eds.), Die Handschriften der Hessischen Landesbibliothek Fulda, vol. 1, Die theologischen
Handschriften der Hessischen Landesbibliothek Fulda bis zum Jahr 1600 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
1992), 1:59—61.
468
The miniature shows considerable traces of wear. Two drops of wax have fallen on the robe of Christ
and the paint has been rubbed away especially along the lower edge of the miniature.
469
Patrick McGurk and Jane Rosenthal, “The Anglo-Saxon Gospelbooks of Judith, countess of Flanders:
Their Text, Make-up and Function,” Anglo-Saxon England 24 (1995): 251–308.
470
McGurk and Rosenthal, “Gospelbooks,” 269.
471
141
further noted that any text missing in one Gospel was not included in another account.472 This
means that the book was practically useless for most days of the year except Christmas and
Easter.
The Gospels of Judith now in Fulda is not the only book made for the countess that was
fragmented in this way. McGurk and Rosenthal observed that other liturgical books made for
Judith show similar gaps in the text.473 From this peculiar evidence the authors concluded that
the manuscripts were never meant for actual reading but served a ceremonial purpose.
The books may have been made essentially for symbolic or ceremonial use for
members of a household or capella, and therefore not intended for daily or
weekly employment, and knowledge of this purpose may have led a careless
scribe to cut and occasionally mangle his sacred text.474
That the book was used despite these omissions, and served a purpose especially in the Easter
liturgy, is suggested by the fact that the four passion accounts “were marked out conventionally
by the original hand(s) in nearly all instances for reading by various voices.”475 The context of
such readings is the liturgy. In the Fulda manuscript, a small cross painted in the margins draws
attention to a detail from the passion narrative in John 19:39—40.476
And Nicodemus also came (he who at the first came to Jesus by night,) bringing a
mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight. They took therefore
the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths, with the spices, as the manner of
the Jews is to bury.
In another one of Judith’s Gospel books the cross appears next to Mark 15:42.477 This verse and
the following one read:
472
The gaps in the text cannot be explained by missing quires. It appears, that the Gospels were
deliberately fragmented. McGurk and Rosenthal, “Gospelbooks,” 269.
473
McGurk and Rosenthal, “Gospelbooks,” 251—75.
474
475
476
McGurk and Rosenthal, “Gospelbooks,” 256, n. 25.
477
McGurk and Rosenthal, “Gospelbooks,” 256, n. 25.
142
And when evening was now come, (because it was the Parasceve, that is, the day
before the sabbath), Joseph of Arimathea, a noble counsellor, who was also
himself looking for the kingdom of God, came and went in boldly to Pilate, and
begged the body of Jesus.
The passages highlighted by the marking in the margins indicate verses that are clearly about the
body of Christ. Here, then, is the connection to the textile page at the beginning of the
manuscript. McGurk and Rosenthal suggested that the book was used in Judith’s capella.478
Because the textile page faces a donor portrait of Judith who is shown in a spiritual dialogue with
Christ, I propose that Judith herself used this manuscript when she attended service on feast
days. The passages marked for reading in various voices and the cross painted in the margins
next to John 19:39 indicate that this was especially the case at Easter. The cross draws attention
to passages that mention the body of Christ and also the shroud in which it was wrapped. As I
have argued elsewhere, textile pages in the iconographic context of the Easter events sometimes
evoke the shroud in order to present the reader with visual evidence of the Resurrection.479 In a
twelfth-century Gospel book from Braunschweig, such a textile page function as a mnemonic
and contemplative tool that brings the passion narrative closer to the hearts of those reading the
sacred text. The iconographic context of the donor portrait suggests that in Judith’s Gospel book
the textile page addressed the countess herself. Following the Easter liturgy with her book, the
cross sketched out next to John 19:39 would guide Judith to a passage in the passion account that
reminded her that the body of Christ was wrapped in cloth. When Christ rose from the dead,
these textiles were left behind in the empty tomb as material tokens that testified to his
resurrection.480
The context of the Easter liturgy, in which this book clearly functioned, and the
codicological structure of the manuscript suggest that the textile page has yet more layers of
meaning. The focal point of the biblical accounts of the resurrection is the body of Christ. John
478
479
Anna Bücheler, “Veil and Shroud: Eastern References and Allegoric Functions in the Textile Imagery
of a Twelfth-Century Gospel Book from Braunschweig,” The Medieval History Journal 15 (2012): 269—
297.
480
Dümpelmann, “Non est hic.”
143
20:1—9 further mentions the linen cloths and the napkin lying in the empty tomb. The shroud,
like the body of Christ, is a form of veil that reveals the Divine. When Peter and the other
disciple see the textiles, they believe.481 The textile page is a similar token that that triggers faith
in the resurrection. If Judith used the book at Christmas, however, a different textile metaphor
comes to the fore: the Incarnation as the veil that reopened the gates of paradise. In either liturgy,
the textile page serves a similar purpose: it functions as a signpost that leads the viewer to the
threshold between heaven and earth. On the one hand, the illuminated opening unveils a
heavenly space where Judith can be with Christ—not literally as in the painted donor portrait
facing the textile page, but metaphorically as in a spiritual union.482 The clouds and the golden
background painted in the dedication image indicate to the viewer, Judith, that this image refers
to a future encounter, one that will not take place on earth but in Heaven. On the other hand, the
book that passes between the two figures indicates that there is also a way to “see” Christ before
death. Both Judith and Christ appear to hold the book. Christ’s sharing in the passing of the book
between them suggests that the codex is the means by which Judith may approach the Divine.
The manuscript context indicates how this device works. The textile image appears at the very
beginning of the Gospel book, in the place that frontispieces usually occupy. This placement
suggests that the curtain page is also a symbolic veil of revelation. It leads Judith to scripture,
which she can use as a vehicle for spiritual sight. The textile page in the Gospels of Judith of
Flanders, therefore, alludes to more than one textile metaphor. It evokes the shroud, the body of
Christ, and scripture as veils of revelation that function as spiritual pathways to the Divine.
That textile ornament is a visual code to indicate contact with Christ that is not
characterized by material touch but by a spiritual union is further suggested by two other Flemish
manuscripts of the eleventh century now in Bamberg and Munich. One is a sacramentary, the
other a breviary, and both manuscripts contain images of the Noli me tangere (John 20:14—16)
that are framed against a background of purple textile ornament [fig. 221 and 222]. The Bamberg
Sacramentary is dated to 1020, and a similar Noli me tangere miniature appears in Munich Clm
481
Ibid.
482
For the symbolism of dressing the dead see Dyan Elliot, “Dressing and Undressing the Clergy: rites of
ordination and degradation,” in E. Jane Burns, Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and
Other Cultural Imaginings (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 55—69.
144
23261, which was made between 1080—1125.483 The Bamberg manuscript contains, in addition
to a pen-and-ink drawing, illuminations for the praefatio and canon, and miniatures of the Lamb,
as well as scenes from the life of Christ.484 The Noli me tangere on fol. 62r is the only image
with textile ornament [fig. 221]. The encounter between Mary Magdalene and Christ is not
taking place in the garden but beneath two arcades that separate Christ from the Magdalene. The
scene is placed in front of a purple colored textile pattern. The miniaturist of fol. 69r in the
Munich Breviary, who appears to have copied the Bamberg image, gives the figures in the
arcades a little more room but otherwise follows the composition and also frames the miniature
in two arcades and textile ornament [fig. 222].485 The text beneath the image, “In die sancto
resvrrectionis Domini,” which is missing in Bamberg but visible in Munich, indicates that this
miniature accompanied the liturgical texts for the feast of the resurrection. Discussing the Noli
me tangere in the Bernward Gospels from Hildesheim, Jennifer Kingsley coined the term “non-
touching touch” to describe the contact between Christ and Mary Magdalene.486 While the artist
of the Bernward Gospels devised an unconventional iconographic formula—the Magdalene’s
body enters Christ’s mandorla—the Flemish artists of the Bamberg and Munich Noli me tangere
miniatures solved the problem by means of textile ornamentation.487 Framing the images in a
textile pattern makes clear to the reader that the body of the risen Christ is no longer physically
present on earth but instead, like a veil, escapes the Magdalene’s touch. After the resurrection,
483
Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Lit. 3. Gude Suckale-Redlefsen, Die Handschriften des 8. Bis 11.
Jahrhunderts der Staatsbibliothek Bamberg (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004), cat. no. 105, 163—68.
Friedrich Leitschuh und Hans Fischer, Katalog der Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu
Bamberg, vol. I, (Bamberg, 1887—1912, repr. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1966), 139—41. Karl Hermann
Usener, “Das Breviar Clm. 23261 der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek und die Anfänge der Romanischen
Buchmalerei in Lüttich,” in Münchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 3. Folge 1 (1950): 78—92, esp. 82.
Hoffmann, Bamberger Handschriften, 94, 143. Franz Ronig, “Einige Beobachtungen zum Lütticher
Sakramentar der Bamberger Dombibliothek,” in Hortulus floridus Bambergensis: Studien zur fränkischen
Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte, ed. Werner Taegert and Renate Baumgärtel-Fleischmann (Petersberg:
Imhof Verlag, 2004), 363—370.
484
Leitschuh und Fischer, Katalog der Handschriften 139—41.
485
Usener, “Das Brevier Clm. 23261.”
486
Kingsley, “To Touch the Image,” 150.
487
Kingsley, “To Touch the Image,” 149. See also Deshman, “Disappearing Christ.”
145
Christ was no longer tangible physically. Instead, for Mary Magdalene the encounter with Christ
generated a moment of spiritual sight as she recognized Christ’s Divinity. Textile ornament is
especially suited to illustrate such “non-touching touch,” because it alludes to cloth, which is by
nature an ambiguous material substance. On the one hand, fabric is close to the body, physically
and metaphorically, and textiles in particular are a tactile material.488 On the other hand, cloth
can also be of a veil-like, fleeting nature that invites metaphoric interpretation. Despite its
material nature, cloth as a metaphor always hovers on the edge of immateriality.489
The Noli me tangere miniatures in the Flemish manuscripts from Bamberg and Munich
relate to the textile page and facing image of Judith of Flanders and Christ because in all three
miniatures textile ornament functions as an indication for spiritual sight in a moment where the
viewers of the images are about to encounter Christ. Contact with the Divine in these contexts is
primarily a spiritual relationship, but because the Bamberg Sacramentary and Judith’s Gospel
book at least were used in the liturgy, the encounter with Christ also has a physical counterpart in
the Eucharist on the altar. The textile page in Judith’s Gospel book prepared the countess for her
own Eucharistic encounter with Christ during the Easter liturgy and at Christmas, if she
participated in communion.
The viewer of a sacramentary like the manuscript from Bamberg was not a woman who
rather passively followed mass, but a member of the clergy who was actively involved at the
altar. Two curious textile pages in the Petershausen and Florence Sacramentaries suggest that the
textile ornament painted in these liturgical books was meant to be viewed in particular by the
celebrant who said mass to help the priest prepare internally for the sacrament of the Eucharist.
The very first textile image in the illuminated portion of the Petershausen Sacramentary is a
488
Jane Schneider, “Cloth and Clothing,” in Christopher Tilley, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Michael
Rowlands and Patricia Spyer (eds.), Handbook of Material Culture (London, Thousand Oaks and New
Delhi: Sage, 2006), 203–20. Nina Zschocke, “Berühre mich! Textilrepräsentation als Aufforderung,” in
Metatextile: Identity and History of a Contemporary Art Medium, Textile Studies 2, ed. Tristan Weddigen
(Emsdetten and Berlin: Edition Imorde, 2010), 177—88.
489
Klaus Krüger, Das Bild als Schleier des Unsichtbaren: Ästhetische Illusion in der Kunst der frühen
Neuzeit in Italien (Munich: Fink, 2001). The dichotomy between textile material and immateriality has
been discussed recently especially in the context of the vera icon and the mandylion. Anna Rosa
Calderoni Masetti, Colette Dufour Bozzo, and Gerhard Wolf (eds.), Intorno al Sacro Volto: Genova,
Bisanzio e il Mediterraneo, secoli XI-XIV (Venezia: Marsilio, 2007). Gerhard Wolf, Schleier und Spiegel:
Traditionen des Christusbildes und die Bildkonzepte der Renaissance (Munich: Fink, 2001).
146
nearly full-page textile pattern with inscription framed by a blue rectangular border on fol. 41v
[fig. 176]. A similar pattern of diagonal crosses arranged in square-shaped latticework appears in
the Florence manuscript at the beginning of the book on fol. 2v [fig. 207]. The textile pattern in
the Florence Sacramentary is without inscription, but it shows the same text that also appears in
the Petershausen manuscript written beneath the rectangular textile design: “Per omnia saecula
saeculorum. Amen. Dominus vobiscum […].”490 The two pages suggest that there exists a
meaningful link between the textile motif and this text.
Both folios display the incantation Dominus vobiscum (the Lord be with you), to which
the congregation responds et cum spiritu tuo (and with thy spirit). The text continues in both
manuscripts with the words of the priest, sursum corda (lift up your hearts), to which the people
answer habemus ad Dominum (we lift them up to the Lord). The priest ends this dialogue
between himself and the congregation with gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro (let us give
thanks to the Lord our God), to which the people respond dignum et iustum est (it is right and
just). The dialogue Dominus vobiscum/et cum spiritu to is repeated several times during the
service, for example before the reading of the Gospels, but in combination with sursum corda it
typically inaugurates the Eucharistic prayer.491 Josef Jungmann suggested that the greeting
formula, which is still part of the Roman Catholic liturgy today, helps to create an aura of
“sacred closeness with God, in which the liturgy unfolds.”492 Others have suggested that the
dialogue intends to establish a relationship between the congregation and the priest, who is about
to perform the Eucharistic sacrifice on behalf of the assembled faithful.493 According to Willem
C. van Unnik, the greeting the Lord be with you is “rooted in the biblical revelation,” and is
490
In Petershausen this miniature is the very first textile image in the book and appears on fol. 41v.
491
Van Unnik, “Dominus Vobiscum.” Cornelius Adrianus Bouman, “Variants in the Introduction to the
Eucharistic Prayer,” Vigiliae Christianae 4 (1950), 94—115. Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church,
3rd edition, ed. Frank L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997),
1561.
492
Josef A. Jungmann, Missarum Solemnia: Eine genetische Erklärung der römischen Messe (Vienna and
Freiburg: Herder, 1962), 446.
493
Kurt Frör, “Salutationen, Benediktionen, Amen,” in Leiturgia: Handbuch des evangelischen
Gottesdienstes, ed. Karl F. Müller and Walter Blankenburg (Kassel: Stauda, 1955), 2: 578—81, esp. 573.
147
essentially a “declaration […] that the Spirit of God is really present.”494 Considering the
contemplative function that textile veils serve in Gospel books, both the real and the painted
curtains, it is very likely that the two peculiar folios in the Petershausen and Florence
Sacramentary served a similar purpose. When the priest addressed the congregation that was
gathered in the church before the altar and perhaps included co-celebrants standing beside him,
he verbally invited these Christians to lift their hearts to the Lord so that the faithful could
prepare themselves for partaking in the sacrament of the Eucharist. However, the textile image
painted in the book before the praefatio was probably visible only to the priest or perhaps to
those standing by closest, so that the visual “textile message” conveyed by the miniature was
above all communicated to the celebrant himself. Whether the priest knew the canon by heart
and used the text in the book merely as an aide memoire, or actually read from the book, no user
of the Florence and Petershausen Sacramentaries would miss the textile miniatures because the
textile pattern is visually compelling and also because it is meaningful. I interpret the allegorical
textile veil as an aid that assists in the spiritual dialogue that inaugurates the praefatio. The
textile pattern can be read as a summons for the priest to raise up his own heart to Heaven so that
he will be ready for the union with Christ when he performs the Eucharistic sacrifice on behalf of
all and prepares his heart for the reception of the host.
David Ganz understood a double page in the fragment of a sacramentary from Corvey
and now in Leipzig in very similar terms as an address to the clergy at the altar.495 The fragment
was made about the same time as the Petershausen and Florence Sacramentaries from
Reichenau.496 Noteworthy are especially folios 1v and 2r, which show on the verso a crucifixion
with Mary and John, and a serpent winding around the green wood at the foot of the cross, which
is showing signs of renewed life [fig. 223]. The scene is framed in blue and set against a
monochrome purple ground. The inscriptions in the frame refer to the lamb that was sacrificed
for the salvation of the world, to the cross as sign of forgiveness of sin, and the inscriptions
494
Van Unnik, “Dominus Vobiscum,” 293, 294.
495
David Ganz, Medien der Offenbarung: Visionsdarstellungen im Mittelalter (Berlin: Reimer Verlag,
2008), 173.
496
Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Rep. I 57. For a description of the manuscript that contains the
Sacramentary fragment see Rainer Kahsnitz, “Evangelistar und Sakramentarfragment,” in Puhle, Otto der
Grosse, cat. no. IV 15, 2: 192—98.
148
inside the image to Mary and John as intercessors in prayer.497 The facing page shows Gregory
the Great, who was considered in medieval times to have authored the text of the sacramentary
[fig. 224]. Gregory is crouched over a book, and from the inscription written on its pages we
discern that Gregory is writing what the “nourishing spirit dictates” to him.498 The scene of
Gregory’s inspiration by the Holy Spirit is placed in front of a textile-patterned ground. Ganz did
not consider the textile background in particular. A comparison with the ornamented Dominus
vobiscum pages in Florence and Petershausen suggest, however, that he was quite correct when
suggesting that this miniature was meant for the celebrant, “who found in Gregory’s vision a
manifestation of [the divine spirit] that was to emerge in his own action while celebrating
mass.”499
Codex Einsiedlensis 121 (1151), a liturgical manuscript from Einsiedeln that contains a
Gradual and sequences by Notker of St. Gall, the Liber hymnorum, was also intended for use by
a single clerical person.500 The book was made under Abbot Gregory between 964—996.501
Because the book is tiny (180 x 110 mm), von Euw suggested that it must have been intended as
a sort of pocket volume for Abbot Gregory himself. He argued that later Graduals are much
larger so that a group of singers could see the text, whereas this minute manuscript could have
been used by a single person only.502 The lower half of p. 29 shows a checkerboard pattern, a
rectangular field of squares that were painted in alternating shades of purple, which serve as
background for silver letters stating “In die admissam” [fig. 225]. The introitus “Puer natus,”
497
Kahsnitz, “Evangelistar und Sakramentarfragment,” 196, gives the full text in Latin and German.
498
Ibid., 196.
499
“Als Betrachter der Doppelseite ist in diesem Fall eher der Zelebrant intendiert, der in der Vision
Gregors eine Verbildlichung dessen vorfand, was sein eigenes Handeln während der Feier der Messe
gegenwärtig werden lassen sollte.” Ganz, Medien der Offenbarung, 173.
500
Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Codex Einsiedlensis 121 (1151). Von Euw, “Einsiedler Buchmalerei,”
204—6.
501
Reproduced in facsimile by Odo Lang, ed., Codex 121 Einsiedeln (Weinheim: VCH, Acta Humaniora,
1991).
502
Von Euw, “Einsiedler Buchmalerei,” 204.
149
which follows on the succeeding pages, situates the ornament in the Christmas liturgy.503 We
have seen that textile ornament in the context of the Christmas liturgy points to the body of
Christ and its significance for the history of salvation, but textile ornament in this tiny one-
person book also appears to have had a devotional function. Ganz noted that visual
differentiation between background patterns effects a distinction between exterior and interior
vision.504 Reading the textile pattern behind Gregory in the Leipzig Sacramentary by analogy to
the textile veils in the evangelist portraits discussed in chapter two suggests that textile ornament
visualizes Gregory’s ability to see spiritually into a non-material sphere. In the same way this
image of Gregory addressed the celebrant who used the Leipzig Sacramentary, textile ornament
in evangelist portraits were an invitation to the readers to emulate the evangelist’s spiritual sight,
especially John’s. Gregory’s figure in front of a textile veil, therefore, urges the priest likewise to
prepare his heart for the sacrifice on the altar. In the Petershausen and Florence Sacramentaries,
as well as in the Einsiedeln Gradual, the visual messages of the images differ because there are
no intermediaries like Gregory or John. In the liturgical scenario that was staged by these books,
the priest himself was the intermediary who interacted with God on behalf of the congregation.
The textile veils painted at the opening pages of the praefatio addressed this situation. Their
function was to help the priest prepare his heart for the Eucharistic sacrament and to keep his
mind focused on the connection with God while saying mass.
The crucifixion as a textile image

A crucifixion miniature from another sacramentary of the Ruodprecht group, which now
belongs to the abbey of St. Paul im Lavanttal in Austria, brings the different allegoric and
conceptual notions of textile ornament discussed so far together in one single image.505 The
manuscript contains several full-page initials painted on monochrome green or blue grounds, and
one textile-ornamented miniature, a crucifixion that takes the place of a Te igitur initial on fol.
503
Von Euw, “Einsiedler Buchmalerei,” 204.
504
Ganz, Medien der Offenbarung, 177.
505
Benediktinerstift St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.) The manuscript
dates from around 980. Anton von Euw, “Das Sakramentar von St. Paul.” I was unable to consult this
manuscript and follow Labusiak’s description of the manuscript, Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, 240—43,
335—40.
150
10v [fig. 226—230]. Figures of a celebrant standing before an altar appear on fol. 12r, 13v, and
15r. The pictures are not exactly marginal but inserted within the text, which flows around them
[fig. 231—233]. These miniature figures of a celebrant clearly indicate that the viewer of this
book was the priest who read mass. First, the male figure, who appears to be the same man in all
three images, is dressed in liturgical garments and his golden halo distinguishes him as a person
involved in liturgical action.506 The priest mirrored this behavior when using the St. Paul
Sacramentary on the altar during mass. Second, a scribe added liturgical instructions in the
margins of fols. 12v—14v that address the celebrant reading mass from this book.507 The images
of the nimbed priest standing before an altar illustrate some of these liturgical instructions like
the blessing of the chalice and the inclination before the altar.508 The collection of prayers
contained in the book opens further with the statement “here begin the prayers by which the
bishop should prepare himself for mass.”509 This indicates that the manuscript was meant to be
used specifically by a bishop. Some of these preparatory prayers are now fragmented, but their
intended function is clear nonetheless. They aim at creating a spiritual state of mind so that the
priest is worthy of the sacrament of the Eucharist.
O God […] who maketh of the unworthy the worthy, of sinners [water damage],
… of the unclean [presumably the clean, more water damage], make me a worthy
minister at your holy altar …510
The bishop’s spiritual preparation was not only mediated by such prayers, however, but this
process was also facilitated by images. The miniature of the crucifixion in the St. Paul
506
Halos appear frequently in Carolingian manuscripts and distinguish figures that represent clerical
offices. See Heinrich Volbert Sauerland and Arthur Haseloff, Der Psalter des Trierischen Erzbischofs
Egbert in Cividale (Trier: Gesellschaft für nützliche Forschungen, 1901), 51. Carmassi, Divina Officia,
lists a Touronian Gospel book from the ninth century, Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod.
Guelf. 16 Aug.°2, cat. no 38, 210—11, and the ninth-century Sacramentary of Ragnaldus in Autun,
Bibliothèque municipale S 19 (olim 19 bis), fig. 92, 219.
507
508
Ibid.
509
Fol. 1v, 6r and v, see Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book illumination, vol. II, 89. See further, ibid., 89–90.
Also Percy Ernst Schramm, Kaiser, Rom, und Renovatio (Leipzig: Teubner, 1929), 1:50–57.
510
Henry Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination: An Historical Study (London: Miller, 1999), 2: 89.
The translation, with additions in brackets and italics, is Mayr-Harting’s.
151
Sacramentary is an illustration of the Te igitur, the beginning of the Canon. It shows the pale
body of Christ’s on a silver cross with golden contours and minium outlines that appears against
a purple, red, and white textile pattern [fig. 227]. The color combination of gold and silver in the
cross as well as the textile pattern displayed behind it are visual symbols that allude to the dual
nature of Christ. The textile background especially encodes this miniature with various layers of
allegoric meaning. The colors purple, red, and white recall the temple curtain, which, as Bede
notes, was woven from yarn of three different colors, and its drawing back symbolizes the
opening of heaven through the Incarnation.
He also made a veil of violet, purple, scarlet and silk, and embroidered cherubim
on it. This, of course, was done for decorative effect so that the all-silk hanging
also might shimmer between the gilded walls, but with the same significance as
the little doors. It was hung between the ark and the entrance of the oracle so that,
as the little doors were opened at suitable hours, the veil too might be drawn back
as often as those who had come to enter the Holy of Holies arrived. Therefore, the
constant drawing back of this veil according to the law signifies the opening of
the heavenly kingdom which has been granted us through the incarnation of our
Lord and saviour.511
The textile pattern in the St. Paul crucifixion resembles other metaphoric veils in liturgical
manuscripts that reveal spiritual space. In the context of the Eucharist, which the St. Paul
miniature emphasizes by showing Christ on the cross, the purple and red colors also evoke the
blood and body of Christ. In his exegetical explication of the temple curtain, Bede brings these
colors together with the veil and the body of Christ.
Hence it is appropriately recorded that this veil under which one entered the
oracle was made of violet, purple, scarlet and silk and that cherubim were
wrought in it. For violet which imitates the color of the sky is aptly compared to
the desires of heavenly things [cf. Isidore, Etymol. 19.22.11; 28.1—4]. Purple,
which is made from the blood of shellfish and has even the appearance of blood is
justifiably taken as a figure of the mystery of the Lord’s passion in which we
511
Bede, On the Temple, transl. with notes by Seán Connolly and introd. by Jennifer O’Reilly (Liverpool:
Liverpool University Press, 1995), 57—8.
152
ought to be initiated and which we ought to imitate by carrying our cross. By
scarlet which is of a glowing red shade is expressed the virtue of love, of which
the disciples who had walked with the Lord said in wonder, Was not our heart
burning within us while he spoke on the way and opened to us the scriptures? [Lk
24:32] Silk, which is produced from a seed which springs green from the earth
and which, as a result of a lengthy process applied by silk-workers, sheds its
natural greenness and is given a bleached appearance, fittingly suggests the
chastening of our flesh.512
Textile ornament in the St. Paul miniature identifies the body of Christ as the purple, scarlet, and
white veil of the Incarnation. Moreover, the miniaturist emphasized the immaculate conception
of Christ’s human body by showing its skin in pale green and white, which stand out against the
saturated textile ground. The body shown on the cross is the one that was immaculately
conceived by the Virgin and never touched by original sin, and so it appears the color of
bleached silk, Bede’s metaphor for chastity. Bede’s readings of the color purple as Heaven,
scarlet as blood, and red as love reappear in later medieval sources, especially in Hrabanus
Maurus’ treatise on the cross, In honorem sanctae crucis.513 In the prose commentary to the
fourteenth poem, Hrabanus likens the colors purple and red to the temple curtain and the
vestments of the Old Testament High Priest.514 He explains these colors as symbols of the blood
of the passion (purpura, purple) and red (cocco) as love.515 In his De rerum naturis, Hrabanus
further states that images are painted in specific colors so that the artist may show the fire of love
512
Bede, On the Temple, trans. Connolly, 58—9.
513
Hrabanus Maurus, In honorem sanctae crucis, ed. Michel Perrin, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio
Mediaevalis 100 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997). Herrad Spilling, Opus Magnentii Hrabani Mauri in honorem
sanctae crucis conditum: Hrabans Beziehung zu seinem Werk (Frankfurt am Main: Knecht, 1992), 70–78.
514
Patrizia Carmassi, “Purpurismum in martyrio: Die Farbe des Blutes in mittelalterlichen
Handschriften,” in: Farbe im Mittelalter: Materialität, Medialität, Semantik, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz and
Andrea Schindler (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011), 251–273, esp. 256. Compare also Hrabanus, De
universo, PL 111, col. 397, 470.
515
“In purpura passionis sanguinem … in cocco quoque praecipuam et perfectam caritatem” Hrabanus, In
honorem, ed. Perrin, poem 16, 135. Compare also Hrabanus Maurus, De universo, PL 111, col. 392–93.
153
with the red color of sinopia or minium, and with purple the martyrdom that Christ suffered.516
Using just these colors, the textile pattern in the St. Paul Sacramentary alludes to the temple
curtain that was rent during the Crucifixion, symbolizing the newly opened gates of paradise and
which, as we have seen, also symbolizes the body that the Virgin Mary wove in her womb.
In the context of the Eucharist in which the St. Paul Sacramentary functioned, the textile-
ornamented Crucifixion evokes yet more textile associations. The painted purple veil relates also
to the various liturgical textiles that were used in the church. The visual allusion to the temple
curtain in the context of the Crucifixion evokes the textile veils that were apparent in the church
during the season of Lent. The twelfth-century exegete Honorius Augustodunensis (d. 1151)
explained the tradition of hanging liturgical curtains before the sanctuary during the Lenten
season and relates the liturgical veils to the temple curtain.517
And because the mystery of Scripture at this time [of Lent] is veiled from us,
therefore the velum is extended before our eyes in these days. And the priest and
few others enter behind the velum, because such mysteries of Scriptures are
opened to few teachers. At Easter, the velum is lifted ... because all things will be
laid bare and open at the Resurrection, where the blessed will see the King,
resplendent in his glory. ... Indeed, rising from the dead, he has pulled away the
curtain, and at the same time he has opened its sense so that they might know the
scriptures and he has revealed heaven to the believers.518
516
“ut ruborem sinopidis vel minii ostendat in ardore charitatis, et purpurismum in martyrio et
passionibus, pro Christi nomine expensis.” Hrabanus Maurus, De universo, PL 111, col. 563D.
517
The use of textile curtains is documented, for example, in the Liber Pontificalis. Stephan Beissel,
ersten Hälfte des IX. Jahrhunderts,” Zeitschrift für Christliche Kunst 12 (1894): col. 358–74. Among
other popes, Leo II provided St. Peter’s with “15 great all-silk veils with roundels and with a fringe and a
cross both of purple and of interwoven gold; forty-three great veils coated with fourfold-woven silk,
which hang in the arches; twenty small veils with roundels, adorned with fourfold-woven silk which hang
in the smaller arches; ten small veils of cross-adorned silk which hang in the arches, and ten more, three
of them with a gold studded fringe; four matching Alexandrian veils, a crimson veil with wheels on it,
with a fringe of wheels and fledglings on it, and in the middle a cross with chevrons and four matching
wheels of tyrian.” The Lives of the Eighth-Century Popes (Liber Pontificalis), trans. Raymond Davis
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1992), esp. 181.
518
Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma Animae, Part III, Book 3, Ch. XLVI: De velo quod suspenditur
Quadragesima (PL 172:656-57), trans. Thomas E. A. Dale, Relics, Prayer, and Politics in Medieval
154
In the context of the Eucharist, the textile veil painted in the St. Paul Sacramenatry further relates
to the altar, on which another form of body, the host, had its place. In the medieval church the
altar was dressed in silk coverings, some of which were red and purple. On the one hand, altar
coverings were connected allegorically to the purple un-sewn vestment that Christ wore at the
Passion and thus relate to his bodily habitus. On the other, the white linen cloths on which the
host was consecrated were likened to the pure linen textiles in which Christ’s body was wrapped
in the tomb.519 The white body of the crucified before a red and purple textile veil evokes the
image of an altar dressed in such textiles and further relates the body on the cross to the host, and
the altar to the tomb.
In addition to these allegoric references that contextualize the image in a framework of
textile metaphors, the Crucifixion miniature in the St. Paul Sacramentary served a contemplative
function. A comparison with textile ornament in the Dominus vobiscum/sursum corda pages of
the Petershausen and Florence Sacramentaries suggests that the Crucifixion miniature served a
similar purpose of helping the celebrant to prepare internally for mass.520 The image of the
celebrant painted on fol. 15r [fig. 233] depicts the bishop at the altar with the host in his hand.
Above the altar we see the Lamb of God eclipsed in a golden aureole. The lamb symbolizes
Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. In the context of the Eucharist, it is also a figure for the host,
which also accounts for its round medallion shape. Because it is framed by a golden medallion,
the image further appears like a vision, an internal image that the celebrant was asked to
Venetia: Romanesque Painting in the Crypt of Aquileia Cathedral (Princeton NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1997), 74.
519
Jörg Richter, “Linteamina: Leinen als Bedeutungsträger,” in Beziehungsreiche Gewebe: Textilien im
Mittelalter, ed. Kristin Böse and Silke Tammen (Frankfurt, Berlin and Bern: Peter Lang, 2012), 303—
445. Franz Kirchweger, “Nunc de vestibus altariis:” Kirchentextilien in Schriftquellen des 11. und 12.
Jahrhunderts,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 50 (1997): 75–109. Joseph Braun, Der christliche
Altar in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Munich: Widmann, 1924).
520
The Petershausen and Florence Sacramentaries are closely related to the St. Paul Sacramentary in
style, textual structure, and content. See the concordance of the Florence, Petershausen, and St. Paul
Sacramentaries in von Euw, “Das Sakramentar von St. Paul,” 366—70. Also Labusiak,
Ruodprechtgruppe, 336 and 339, who further notes iconographic similarities between the St. Paul
Sacramentary and the Egbert Psalter in Cividale.
155
visualize in his mind when consecrating the host. If we read the textile pattern in the Crucifixion
miniature as a veil of revelation, the image implies that the bishop who used the St. Paul
Sacramentary was also expected to see Christ spiritually in the body of the host. In addition to
Christ’s human bodily habitus, to which the textile pattern alludes, the Eucharistic bread was
another material metaphor for Christ’s divine presence made visible through the veil of earthly
matter.521 The red color of the ornament, in turn, evokes the Eucharistic wine and the symbolism
of Christ’s body as a grapevine, from which flowed the blood that washed away the world’s
sin.522
The theme of wine and blood brings me to a last point that can be made about the St. Paul
Crucifixion image. The miniature also appears to comment on the significance of baptism,
which, according to Bede, has another parallel in the temple curtain and the body of the Passion.
Hence on the one hand, the heavens were opened at his [Christ’s] baptism, to
show that it was through the baptism which he himself hallowed for us that we
must enter the door of our heavenly homeland, and on the other hand, at his death
on the cross this same veil was rent in two from top to bottom that it might be
clearly taught that the figures of the law thereupon came to an end and the truth of
the Gospel and the heavenly mysteries and the very entrance to heaven were no
longer a matter of prophecy or figurative meaning but were on the very point of
being opened to all who from the beginning of the world to that moment of time
had passed from the world in the true faith. […] But for us too who were still to
521
Josef Rupert Geiselmann, “Die Eucharistielehre der Vorscholastik,” Forschungen zur christlichen
Literatur- und Dogmengeschichte 15 (1926): 146—47. According to Paschasius Radbertus’s De Corpore
et sanguine domini, we “receive in the bread that which hung on the cross,” trans. Nathan Mitchell, Cult
and Controversy: The Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass (Collegeville Minn: The Liturgical Press,
1974), 77. Godefridus J.C. Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual
Interaction (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 201. For an Ottonian interpretation of the crucifix as a visual and
material manifestation of Christ’s body, see also Annika Elisabeth Fisher, “Cross Altar and Crucifix in
Ottonian Cologne,” in Søren Kaspersen and Erik Thunø (eds.) Decorating the Lord’s Table: On the
Dynamics between Image and Altar in the Middle Ages (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2006),
43—62. Celia Chazelle, “Figure, Character, and the Glorified Body in the Carolingian Eucharistic
Controversy, Traditio 47 (1992): 1—36.
522
A poem by Venantius Fortunatus from the second half of the sixth century evokes the idea that Christ
is the grapevine that hung on the cross and from which the cleansing blood flowed like wine. Venantius
Fortunatus, De cruce domini, II, 1. Trans. Wolfgang Fels, Venantius Fortunatus: Gelegentliche Gedichte.
(Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 2006), 27.
156
come, the entrance to that heavenly city and the house of our Father was unlocked
already at the same moment.523
The pale and chaste body of Christ on the cross, in contrast to the reddish pattern of the textile
ornament, recalls the body of the Resurrection, which according to medieval exegesis is neither
opaque nor made of blood and flesh but clear and translucent as crystal.524 Augustine connected
this heavenly Resurrection body to the redeeming habitus of Christ’s flesh and blood, in which
Christians partake in baptism. Commenting on Gal. 3:27, Augustine stated, “‘As many of you as
have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.’ But this will be perfected in us in truth only
when that which is animal in us by our birth shall have been made spiritual by our
resurrection.”525 This is why catechumens wore a white dress when they were baptized, to
symbolize that in “putting on” Christ their bodies would be freed from the stain of original sin,
and when they died, they would regain the “dress of glory” that also clothed Adam and Eve
before the Fall but was transformed into a carnal body when they were cast from Paradise.526
Therefore, baptism is a symbol for the reversion of the Fall.
And when ready for the garment of Christ, we have taken off the tunic of skin,
then we shall be clothed with a garment of linen, which has nothing of death in it,
but is wholly white so that, rising from baptism, we may gird our loins in truth
and the entire shame of our past sins may be covered.527
523
Bede, On the Temple, trans. Connolly, 58.
524
Arnold Angenendt, “Corpus incorruptum: Eine Leitidee der mittelalterlichen Heiligenverehrung,” in
Die Gegenwart von Heiligen und Reliquien, ed. Arnold Angenendt, Sebastian Eck und Hubertus
Lutterbach (Münster: Aschendorff, 2010), 109–144.
525
Augustine, City of God, XIII, 23. Trans. Robert W. Dyson, Augustine: The City of God Against the
Pagans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 573.
526
Erik Peterson, “Theologie des Kleides,” Benediktinische Monatsschrift 14 (1934): 347—56, esp. 351.
On the white garment donned during baptism see ibid, 353—55. Also Jun Hoon Kim, The Significance of
Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus (London and New York: T & A Clark International, 2004).
Rudolph Schnackenburg, Baptism in the Thought of St. Paul (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964).
527
Jerome, Epistle to Fabiola 77.19, Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi epistulae LXXI—CXX, Corpus Scriptorum
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 55, ed. Isidorus Hilberg (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1969), trans. Robin Scroggs and Kent I. Groff, “Baptism in Mark,” Journal of Biblical
Literature 92 (1973): 531—48, esp. 537. Stephen Lake, “Fabiola and the Sick: Jerome, epistula 77,” in
157
Ambrose further likened baptism to an imitation of Christ’s death on the cross, because the
catechumen will be reborn just as Christ was resurrected. To Ambrose, baptism is the sacrament
of the cross.528 Therefore, the proper liturgical moment for baptism was the Easter Vigil, the
liturgy that centered on the Resurrection.529 There is no evidence that the St. Paul Sacramentary
was specifically used for baptism, but the baptismal rite was included in the Florence
Sacramentary on the pages following the liturgical texts for the Saturday of Holy Week and
before the proprium de tempore for that feast day, which, we recall, was the only liturgical
moment emphasized by a full-page textile miniature [fig. 212].530
Conclusion
The manuscripts discussed in this chapter show that textile ornament has many meanings
depending on the context in which it appears. Purple-colored textile ornament evokes the habitus
of the Incarnation and the body that was sacrificed on the cross. Therefore, textile ornament
frequently appears in the context of the Christmas and Easter liturgies or that of the Canon of the
mass. The Te igitur miniature with the Crucifixion in the St. Paul Sacramentary has shown,
furthermore, that textile ornament may combine multiple layers of meaning. Textile ornament in
this miniature alludes not only to the body of the Incarnation as a veil of revelation, but also to
the temple curtain as a symbol of the sacrifice on the cross. Furthermore, the context of the
Die Christen und der Körper: Aspekte der Körperlichkeit in der Literatur der Spätantike, ed. Barbara
Feichtinger and Helmut Seng (Munich: Saur, 2004), 151—72.
528
Ambrose, De sacramentis PL 2, 23. William Ledwich, “Baptism, Sacrament of the Cross: Looking
Behind St. Ambrose,” in The Sacrifice of Praise: Studies on the Themes of Thanksgiving and Redemption
in the Central Prayers of the Eucharistic and Baptismal Liturgies in Honor of Arthur Hubert Couratin,
ed. Bryan D. Spinks (Rome: C.L.V.-Ed. Liturgiche, 1981), 199—211.
529
For a useful and brief summary see the entry “Taufe,” in Carmassi, Divina Officia, 280—85, esp. 281
and 283. Ildefons Herwegen, Taufe und Firmung nach dem römischen Missale, Rituale und Pontificale
(Bonn: Weber, 1920). Bryan D. Spinks, Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: from the
New Testament to the Council of Trent (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). Arnold Angenendt, “Der Taufritus im
frühen Mittelalter,” in Segni e riti nella chiesa altomedievale occidentale (Spoleto: Presso la Sede del
Centro, 1987), 275—321.
530
Von Euw, “Das Sakramentar von St. Paul,” 366.
158
Eucharist brings textile ornament together with the host as a material metaphor for Christ, and
the symbolic meaning of the coverings and textiles that dressed the altar. The theme of textile
ornament as a metaphor for the veil of scripture and for spiritual sight reappeared in the Gospels
of Judith of Flanders. The metaphor was given a different twist through a contextualization of the
textile image in the Christmas and especially the Easter liturgies, in which this manuscript had its
place. In addition, the Dominus vobiscum/sursum corda pages from the Petershausen and
Florence Saramentaries made clear that these images also served another contemplative function.
Like the textile veil in the St. Paul Crucifixion image, textile patterns in the Petershausen and
Florence Sacramentaries addressed the celebrant who performed the sacrament of the Eucharist
to help him raise his heart in order to perceive the true spiritual essence of Christ in the host.
The peculiar miniature in the Petershausen Sacramentary that shows Mary, or Mary-
Ecclesia, dressed in a spectacular garment and holding a book gives cause to think of these
531
textile-ornamented manuscripts in yet another way [fig. 1]. We have seen that the Virgin
Mary played a major role in the history of salvation, since it was she who wove the body of
Christ in her womb. Christ’s human body, his textile habitus, fulfilled its destiny at the cross
when it was sacrificed for the redemption of sin. In the context of the Christmas and Easter
liturgies, textile ornament comments on the theological significance that this textile-clothed
vessel of the Divine implied. Another form of containment, and another symbol for the
Incarnation as a veil for the Divinity, are the four Gospels themselves. For this reason, early
medieval artists sometimes depicted Mary holding a book in images of the Annunciation, for
example in a Carolingian ivory casket now in Braunschweig and in the Benedictional of
Aethelwold, fol. 5v [fig. 165].532 As Maria Evangelatou has shown, Byzantine artists also
531
The iconography of this figure, Mary, Ecclesia, or both, is disputed. Most recently, Kristen Mary
Collins proposed a reading of the female figure in imperial garb as Mary-Ecclesia. Collins, “Visualizing
Mary,” chapter 3, 116—57.
532
Michael Brandt and Arne Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim und das Zeitalter der Ottonen
(Hildesheim: Dom und Diözesanmuseum, 1993), cat. no. VI–63, 2: 400—402. Regine Marth, Die
Mittelalter-Abteilung des Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum im Knappensaal der Burg Dankwarderode
(Braunschweig: Herzog Anton-Ulrich Museum, 1997), 21—22. Victor H. Elbern, “Vier karolingische
Elfenbeinkästen,” Zeitschrift des deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 20 (1966): 11—16. Deshman,
Benedictional, 9—17, esp. 10, and fig. 1. Deshman analyses the iconographic parallels between the
Braunschweig ivory casket and the Benedictional closely, 262—66, esp. 264, but does not comment on
the book as a symbol of the incarnation. He notes, however, that the iconography of the Virgin with a
book goes back to a legend that Mary was reading the prophecy in Isaiah 14:7 when Gabriel visited her.
159
showed Mary with a book, perhaps in order to allude to her female virtues, but more likely
because the book is a metaphor for the Incarnation in which Mary plays a central role.533 In the
next chapter we will see that Gospel books, especially the eleventh-century Echternach
manuscripts in which the parchment folios are entirely covered in textile ornament from edge to
edge, can be read as such a metaphor. In the words of Herbert Kessler, images “must be
understood as instruments that serve the fundamental Christian mystery, namely that, in
assuming flesh, God had become visible and could be represented but his dual nature can be
perceived only through spiritual eyes.”534 The textile pages presented in this chapter demonstrate
that images have the capacity to reveal the invisible, but they also showed that textile images
operate as manifestations of Christ’s humanity, especially in the context of the Christmas and
Easter liturgy. The Bamberg Gospel lectionary with which I began this chapter demonstrates
even more clearly that textiles and textile images also have the ability to cast the immaterial in a
physical and tangible shape. The Bamberg Evangelistary is “dressed” in a highly unusual cover
[fig. 234].535 The codex was neither bound in leather, as is common in medieval books, nor were
the covers reinforced by wooden tablets. Instead, the covers were stiffened by an extra layer of
thick parchment, similar to the cardboard cover of a modern paperback, and on the outside the
volume was clad in silk. As we have seen, the manuscript contains three textile pages that draw
attention to the Christmas and Easter liturgies and to the body of Christ. The meaning of purple
and red as symbols of flesh and blood has been explained, as well as the textile metaphor of
Christ’s bodily habitus. In the next chapter we will see that another material that shares a close
Maria E. Gössmann, Die Verkündigung an Maria im dogmatischen Verständnis des Mittelalters (Munich:
Hueber, 1975), 94, 119.
533
Evangelatou, “Pursuing Salvation.”
534
Herbert Kessler, Neither God nor Man: Words, Images, and the Medieval Anxiety about Art (Freiburg:
Rombach Verlag, 2007), 137.
535
The Byzantine silk was dated to the tenth-century. Regula Schorta, “Der Seideneinband des
Bamberger Evangelistars (Msc. Bibl. 95), in Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln: Die Bamberger Apokalypse,
ed. Gude Suckale-Redlefsen and Bernhard Schemmel (Luzern: Faksimile Verlag, 2000), 175–76. The silk
cover is contemporary with the book-body. Regula Schorta, “Seidenstoff mit Vögeln,” in Puhle, Otto der
Grosse, cat. no. VI. 54, 2:479—80.
160
affinity with the body is parchment. Because the ornamental and figurative program of the
Bamberg Evangelistary is all about the body of Christ, the unusual materials used for the textile-
parchment cover of this book raise the question whether the Bamberg Lectionary itself can be
read as a material metaphor for the body of Christ. I propose that the parchment and silk
materials cloak this manuscript in a corporeal container that resembles the physicality of a
human body. If parchment is a metaphor for flesh, the silken cover can be read as the book’s
habitus. Dressing a book in such metaphoric materials evokes the dual nature of Christ. On the
one hand this book is material, and therefore visible and tangible, but on the other, its essence
remains a spiritual one. While the Bamberg Gospel lectionary uses real textiles to cast the life of
Christ in such an allegoric textile habitus, a look at some Echternach manuscripts in the eleventh
century will show more clearly that textile-ornament adds layers of metaphor and materiality to a
book in order to transform parchment pages and whole manuscripts into material symbols of the
Incarnation.
161
Chapter 4 : Scripture Embodied
The previous chapters demonstrated that the function and meaning of textile ornament depends
on context. I compared the ornament to textiles, brought textile patterns in relation with
iconographic conventions, contextualized ornament in the textual content of the manuscripts, and
considered the books’ liturgical function in my readings of function and meaning. In this chapter
I view textile ornament in the context of the physical manuscript itself, which I understand as a
form of book-body that was placed on the lectern and altar. I consider textile ornament especially
in the context of the books’ codicological structure and investigate how textile ornament changes
the manuscript’s materiality.536 The focus is on the unusual full-folio textile pages that were
produced by the Echternach scriptorium in the course of the eleventh century. I relate these pages
to medieval concepts of materiality and material symbolism in order to demonstrate that textile
ornament changes a book not only visually, but also has a bearing on the symbolic meaning of
the book-body and its function in the liturgy. Like most Gospel books, the Echternach
manuscripts discussed in this chapter contain the four Gospel accounts. However, I argue that
these books are more than collections of sacred texts. By reading textile ornament symbolically
as corporeal cladding for the book I propose that the textile-ornamented Echternach manuscripts
embody the Word of God in a tangible form. The book-body made of parchment and paint
effects a form of incarnation. In the context of the sacred drama of the medieval liturgy, this
book-body functions as a physical representative of Christ.537
536
In my use of materiality I follow Tim Ingold’s distinction between material understood as a physical
substance defined by the material properties of things (i.e. made of stone, wood, leather, etc.) and
materiality, a conceptual idea that is distinct from physical properties insofar as it places matter in a social
context. Tim Ingold, “Materials Against Materiality,” Archaeological Dialogues 14 (2007): 1—16, and
the responses to this article by Christopher Tilley and Carl Knappett, 16—23. Highly useful is further
Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: an Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New
York: Zone Books, 2011), esp. 25—36.
537
On the liturgy as drama see Thomas J. Heffernan and E. Ann Matter (eds.), The Liturgy of the
Medieval Church (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications Western Michigan University, 2005). O.
B. Hardison, Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages (Baltimore: The John Hopkins
Press, 1965).
162
As recent work on materiality and sense perception in the Middle Ages has shown, the
visual embellishment of objects played a major role in the experience of the sacred.538 Among
the various precious objects that were staged in the liturgical ritual, the Gospel book played one
of the leading roles. Seeing the Gospels pass through the church in procession and being placed
on the ambo for the day’s reading was a crucial moment in the liturgical experience.539 The
covers of many Gospel books were decorated with gems and precious metals that reflected light
and made the book visible from afar.540 In addition to the visual spectacle that such precious
manuscripts presented, gestures like carrying the book in veiled hands and kissing it
ostentatiously aimed at making visible the sanctity of the Word.541 Some medieval sources
suggest that perceiving the Word with the eyes was considered more powerful than hearing the
words spoken because visual perception was thought to have had a stronger and longer lasting
538
Bynum, Christian Materiality. Bruno Reudenbach, “Reliquie als Heiligkeitsbeweis und
Echtheitszeugnis: Grundzüge einer problematischen Gattung,” in Vorträge aus dem Warburg-Haus 4, ed.
Wolfgang Kemp et al. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000), 1—36. Cynthia Hahn, “Seeing and Believing:
The Construction of Sanctity in Early-Medieval Saint’s Shrines,” in Approaches to Medieval Art, ed.
Lawrence Nees (Cambridge, MA: The Medieval Academy of America, 1998), 121—48. Michele Ferrari,
“Gold und Asche: Reliquie und Reliquiare als Medien in Thiofrid von Echternachs Flores epytaphii
sanctorum,” in Reliquiare im Mittelalter, ed. Bruno Reudenbach and Gia Toussaint (Berlin: Akademie
Verlag, 2005), 61—74. Beate Fricke, Ecce fides: Die Statue von Conques, Götzendienst und Bildkultur im
Westen (Paderborn: W. Fink, 2007). Conrad Rudolph, The “Things of Greater Importance”: Bernard of
Clairvaux’s Apologia and the Medieval Attitude towards Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1990), 72. Eric Palazzo, “Art, Liturgy, and the Five Senses in the Early Middle Ages,” Viator 41
(2010): 25—56.
539
Felix Heinzer, “Die Inszenierung des Evangelienbuchs in der Liturgie,” in Codex und Raum, ed.
Stephan Müller and Lieselotte Saurma-Jeltsch (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2009), 43—58. Josef A.
Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia: Eine genetische Erklärung der römischen Messe (Vienna and Freiburg:
Herder, 1962), 86—89, 98—90.
540
Susannah Fischer, “Materializing the Word: Ottonian Treasury Bindings and Viewer Reception,” (PhD
Dissertation, Rutgers University, 2012). Frauke Steenbock, Der kirchliche Prachteinband im frühen
Mittelalter: Von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Gotik (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für
Kunstwissenschaft, 1965).
541
Heinzer, “Die Inszenierung des Evangelienbuchs,” 46.
163
emotional effect.542 Thus, the material appearance of the book was a key factor in the enactment
of the sacred drama of the liturgy.543
Books were not only decorated on the outside covers, however. A look inside the
illuminated manuscripts from Echternach reveals that textile ornament invested the manuscripts
with additional material meaning. This chapter investigates the metaphoric meaning of an
unusual form of full-folio textile ornamentation: textile pages that are entirely covered in
ornament from edge to edge, such as in a pericope book made for Henry III and now in Bremen
[fig. 235 and 236].544 This book belongs to a group of sumptuously illuminated manuscripts
made at Echternach in the eleventh century that contain the most frequently discussed and hence
best-known textile-like designs painted on parchment in the Ottonian period.545 While the
unusual stylistic and formal composition of the textile pages has been appreciated in the past as
an artistic achievement, the function and meaning of these pages has gone largely
542
David F. Appleby, “The Priority of Sight According to Peter the Venerable,” Mediaeval Studies 60
(1998): 123—57. Rachel Fulton, From Judgement to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin, 800—
1200 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 293—94, 334—38.
543
Fischer, “Materializing the Word.” David Ganz, “Kleider des nackten Christus: Zur
Oberflächensemantik sakraler Bildträger im Mittelalter (Prachteinbände und Schnitzretabel),” in Kleider
machen Bilder: Vormoderne Strategien vestimentärer Bildsprache, ed. David Ganz and Marius Rimmele
(Emsdetten and Berlin: Edition Imorde, 2012), Textile Studies 4, 67—91. Adam S. Cohen, “Magnificence
in Miniature: The Case of Early Medieval Manuscripts,” in Magnificence and the Sublime in Medieval
Aesthetics: Art, Architecture, Literature, Music, ed. Stephen Jaeger (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2010), 79—101. John Lowden, “The Word Made Visible: The Exterior of the Early Christian Book as
Visual Argument,” in The Early Christian Book, ed. William E. Klingshirn and Linda Safran
(Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 13—47 (esp. 45—46).
544
Bremen, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. b. 21. Gerhard Knoll (ed.), Das Evangelistar Kaiser Heinrichs
III.: Faksimile-Ausgabe des Ms. b. 21 der Universitätsbibliothek Bremen (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1981—
1993). Joachim Plotzek, Das Perikopenbuch Heinrichs III. in Bremen und seine Stellung innerhalb der
Echternacher Buchmalerei (Cologne: Walter Kleikamp, 1970).
545
For a list of all eleventh-century illuminated Echternach manuscripts see Anja Grebe, Codex Aureus:
Das goldene Evangelienbuch von Echternach (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2007),
143. See also the fundamental work by Carl Nordenfalk, Codex Caesareus Uppsaliensis: An Echternach
Gospel-Book of the Eleventh Century (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1971). More recently, see
Stephen Wagner, “Silken Parchments: Design, Context, Patronage, and Function of Textile-Inspired
Pages in Ottonian and Salian Manuscripts” (PhD diss., University of Delaware, 2004), and idem,
“Establishing a Connection to Illuminated Manuscripts made at Echternach in the Eighth and Eleventh
Centuries and Issues of Patronage, Monastic Reform and Splendor,” in Peregrinations 3 (2010): 49—82.
164
unexamined.546 In one of the earliest studies on the Codex Aureus, Peter Metz briefly related the
textile-ornamented pages to veils and to garments but did not take the idea further.547 Joachim
Plotzek ventured a reading of the two textile pages at the very beginning and end of the pericope
book of Henry III as an inner ornamental shell that takes a framing or protective function and
presents the Gospel readings framed in a “precious vessel.”548 More recently, some of these ideas
were revived by Anja Grebe but without adding new insight.549 The idea of textile ornament as a
veil of revelation has been discussed in chapter one. The aim of the following considerations is
to expand on Metz’s idea of textile pages as a garment that dresses the Gospel book. Focusing on
the Codex Aureus Epternacensis and the Codex Caesareus at Uppsala, I argue that the borderless
textile-like pages of the Echternach Gospel books transform the manuscripts into a physical text-
body that characterizes the Gospel book as a material representative of Christ.550 David Ganz has
made a similar argument for metal book covers, which he reads as a form of metaphoric clothing
that infuses the book with christological meaning, especially if the precious covers show images
546
See for instance Nordenfalk, Codex Caesareus, 102.
547
Peter Metz, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch von Echternach im Germanischen Nationalmuseum zu
Nürnberg (Munich: Prestel, 1956), 50—51, 63, 67.
548
Textile pages are fols. 1v—2r and 125v—126r. Plotzek, Das Perikopenbuch Heinrichs III, 66. “Wenn
Zierseiten als Rahmen dienen, als innere schützende Hülle, so bergen sie etwas, das kostbarer ist als sie
selbst, woraus man den (minderen) Grad an Bedeutung, die sie innerhalb des Buches besitzen, abzulesen
versucht ist, wenngleich sie andererseits in der materiellen und ideellen Kostbarkeit ihrer purpurfarbenen
und goldenen Ausführung im ornamentalen Bereich hinführende und steigernde (im Bremensis
ansteigende und ausklingende Zierde), eine schmückende Begleitung ohne unmittelbare inhaltliche
Beziehung zum Text sind. […] So läßt sich [im Codex Aureus Epternacensis] eine vom Ornament über
die figürlich-szenische Illustration, dem Bild des Autoren und zwei weiteren verzierten schriftlichen
Hinweisen zum Text eine in der Bedeutung ansteigende Linie verfolgen, die in der Prachtinitiale
kulminiert, welche unmittelbar das biblische Wort in sich birgt wie in einem kostbaren Gefäß.”
549
Grebe’s recent essay touches on the theme of textile ornament as velum and garment, without going
into depth, and defines the function of the textile pages in the Codex Aureus primarily in a traditional
manner as visual markers that subdivide and structure the text. Anja Grebe, “Ornament, Zitat, Symbol:
Die sogenannten ‘Teppichseiten’ des Codex aureus von Echternach im Kontext von Buchmalerei und
Textilkunst,” in Beziehungsreiche Gewebe: Textilien im Mittelalter, ed. Kristin Böse and Silke Tammen
(Frankfurt, Berlin and Bern: Peter Lang, 2012), 55—74, (esp. 67, 73, 74).
550
Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Hs 156 142 (manuscript), KG 1138 (manuscript cover).
Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek, Cod. C 93.
165
of Christ. 551 The aim of this chapter is to bring this notion of the Gospel book as a representative
of Christ together with the iconography, layout, and codicological structure of the two
Echternach manuscripts. Both liturgical books demonstrate in different ways that textile
ornament transforms the Gospel book into a material book-body that functions as a tactile
symbol of the Incarnation and as a veil of revelation.
Textile ornament in the Codex Aureus Epternacensis

The Codex Aureus Epternacensis preserves the visually most compelling set of textile
openings among the Echternach manuscript group, and its codicological structure is a
particularly articulate example for demonstrating the meaning of such textile pages.552 Each of
the four Gospels in this book is introduced by a textile-ornamented double-page. The first textile
opening on fols. 17v—18r shows a design of large medallions that enclose either birds in
lozenge-shaped frames or lozenges filled with a vegetal motif [fig. 237]. Rosettes occupy the
spaces between the medallions. The floral leaves in the spaces along the upper and lower borders
of fol. 17v were changed for half medallions on fol. 18r. Apart from this difference, the ornament
is almost perfectly symmetrical on either page of the double spread. The design on fols. 51v—
52r is more intricate in comparison to the large medallion pattern of the first textile-like opening.
It displays a striped pattern of horizontal bands in various colors, some of which are populated
with quadrupeds and birds, others decorated with floral motifs [fig. 238]. The third textile page
on fols. 75v—76r is composed of square-shaped frames on purple ground that are inhabited by
lions [fig. 239]. Depictions of antique coins are added to the corners of the squares.553 The fourth
551
Compare also David Ganz, “Das Kleid der Bücher: Vestimentäre Dimensionen frühmittelalterlicher
Prachteinbände,” in Clothing the Sacred, ed. Mateusz Kapustka and Warren Woodfin, Textile Studies, 6
(Emsdetten and Berlin: Edition Imorde, forthcoming). I thank David Ganz for making his essay available
to me prior to publication.
552
Most recently, Grebe “Ornament, Zitat, Symbol.” Rainer Kahsnitz, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch von
Echternach: Codex Aureus Epternacensis HS 156142 aus dem Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg,
Faks.-Ausg. (Frankfurt a. M.: S. Fischer, 1982).
553
As I discussed in chapter one, the coins are not particularly textile-like and show that artists creating
textile ornament were also inspired by non-textile sources. The lion repeat of this page demonstrates that
artists frequently combined various ornamental motifs into a textile-evoking pattern, rather than copying
Byzantine or Islamic silk wholesale.
166
and final textile page appears on fols. 109v—110r [fig. 240]. This opening is covered in a grid of
lozenge-shaped frames on purple ground that are filled with a floral motif.
Compared to textile-inspired ornament made outside Echternach, the textile pages of the
Codex Aureus and other Echternach manuscripts that I will discuss below stand out because they
show more detail in the designs than the usual stylized pages. The extent to which the textile-like
images were modeled on the repeat patterns of Byzantine, Islamic, and Central-Asian silks—or
rather differ from these—has been addressed in chapter one. I concluded that neither the painters
who created the illusionistic textile designs of the Codex Aureus, nor the numerous Ottonian
artists who painted highly stylized textile pages, intended to produce mimetic representations of
silk. Instead, textile ornament is a common form of textile iconography that is effective because
the combination of extensibility, symmetry, and color evokes in the viewers’ minds the look of
precious silk.
While the peculiar form, style, and iconography of textile ornament made at Echternach
has been addressed frequently, it has been overlooked that the unusual layout of the textile pages
can help establish the function and meaning of textile ornament in these manuscripts. The
ornamented folios of the Echternach Gospel books differ from textile ornament in manuscripts
made elsewhere because the textile patterns cover the pages fully in extensible ornament from
one edge of the page to the other. Usually two folios with identical ornamentation face one
another in a two-page opening. No other medieval scriptorium produced such borderless full-
folio textile designs.554 On the contrary, textile pages in Ottonian manuscripts show textile
ornament as a framed image, which is placed in the middle of a single page and surrounded by
554
The only exception known to me is a late medieval devotional book from England, dated to 1480—90,
British Library, Egerton MS 1821. The ornamented pages show drops of blood painted in red on red
ground. Nancy Thebaut, “Bleeding Pages, Bleeding Bodies: A Gendered Reading of British Library MS
Egerton 1821,” in Medieval Feminist Forum 45 (2009): 175—200, read the ornamented pages in the
context of medieval blood frenzy and related the visual and tactile perception of these pages to a pseudo
sacramental experience. Silke Tammen further related the ornament to Christ’s incarnate body that
becomes manifest in the book itself. These two aspects are also the primary function of purple-colored
textile ornament in the earlier Echternach Gospel books. Silke Tammen, “Blut ist ein ganz besoderer
‘Grund’: Bilder, Texte und die Farbe Rot in einem kartäusischen Andachtsbüchlein (British Library, Ms.
Egerton 1821),” in Bild und Text im Mittelalter, ed. Karin Krause and Barbara Schellewald (Cologne:
Weimar, and Wien, Böhlau, 2011), 229—251. Eadem, “Rot sehen—Blut berühren: blutige Seiten und
Passionsmemoria in einem spätmittelalterlcihen Andachtsbüchlein (Brit. Libr., Ms. Egerton 1821),” in
Die Farben imaginierter Welten: zur Kulturgeschichte ihrer Codierung in Literatur und Kunst vom
Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Monika Schausten (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2012), 303—322.
167
uncolored parchment. A representative example of such a textile page is fol. 15r from a Saxon
Gospel book of unknown provenance, now in Munich [fig. 47].555 The textile design is
surrounded by a substantial amount of uncolored parchment. The image’s placement in the
middle of the page makes clear that the ornamental composition can be read as a picture of a
patterned textile. In the textile pages of the Codex Aureus and its sister manuscripts, however, the
role of the ornament is no longer clearly that of a framed image. There is no “nude” parchment
border around the ornament that would designate the painted portion as an image and the
parchment folio as its support. Instead, the ornamented surface covers the entire opening from
edge to edge. Before turning to the function and meaning of these unusual textile pages it is
necessary to take a careful look at the composition of the full-folio designs in order to clarify that
the borderless layout was intentional and not a mere accident caused by the subsequent cropping
of the pages.
Planning a page with full-folio ornamentation

At one point in the production of any medieval manuscript, all the parchment pages
needed to be trimmed by the bookbinder to unify the sizes of the folios and generate a clean book
block. For the borderless textile pages of the Echternach manuscripts, the trimming of the pages
has unique ramifications that need to be considered in detail. The covers of medieval
manuscripts are often made to fit the dimensions of the book block, but in the case of the Codex
Aureus the still extant cover predates the manuscript itself [fig. 241].556 Kahsnitz proposed that
the cover was made around 985—87, perhaps in Trier, and was reused when the Codex Aureus
555
Munich Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475. Elisabeth Klemm, Die ottonischen und
frühromanischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2004), cat. no.
226, 1:248—50. I discuss the function and meaning of this manuscript page in chapter two.
556
An example where both instances occur in the same book is the front cover of the Lindau Gospels,
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M1 from St. Gallen, 880-899. While the upper cover was made
for the already existing book, the cover that is now on the back was reused. On the Lindau Gospels see
Anton von Euw, Die St. Galler Buchkunst vom 8. bis zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts (St. Gallen: Verlag
am Klosterhof, 2008), cat. no. 99, 1:408—11. Jeanne-Marie Musto, “John Scottus Eriugena and the
Upper Cover of the Lindau Gospels,” Gesta 40 (2001): 1—18.
168
was bound sometime in the 1030s.557 One might expect that the Echternach artists measured and
cut the parchment folios according to the dimensions of the pre-existing cover from the start, but
Kahsnitz noted that the textile pages were trimmed along the edges nonetheless.558 He thought
that this occurred when the book was bound shortly after its completion and that no additional
cutting was done thereafter because the pages are still concordant with the cover’s size.559 The
effects of the trimming are visible especially in places where the cutting interfered with the
painted textile patterns. Some of these interferences are useful to look at in more detail because
they tell us how the pages were planned.
All the textile pages in the Codex Aureus are framed by a narrow ornamental border that
perhaps deliberately evokes the look of selvage bands, such as are typical in Byzantine silk [fig.
242].560 In the first textile page on fols. 17v-18r, the painted selvage band decorated with
lozenges and circles at the top of the verso page was almost completely lost when the page was
trimmed [fig. 237]. At the bottom of the same opening, the ornamental border was cut, but most
of it is still visible.561 If there ever was a selvage-border on the left and right, it is no longer
possible to say. Since medieval bookbinders did not work with mechanical precision, it was
inevitable that those sections of textile ornament that were too close to the edge of the folio
557
Kahnsitz, Das goldene Evangelienbuch, 214, 215—16. On the date of the cover see further Gunther
Wolf, “Zur Datierung des Buchdeckels des Codex Aureus Epternacensis (Nürnberg, Germanisches
Nationalmuseum K.G. 1138),” Hémecht 4 (1990): 147—152.
558
Kahsnitz, Das goldene Evangelienbuch, 124—25, 217.
559
“So daß auch hier nicht mit einem nachträglichen Beschnitt des Buchblocks zu rechnen ist.” Kahsnitz,
Das goldene Evangelienbuch, 125.
560
The selvage is a narrow strip that runs along the left and right edges of flat-woven fabrics. It keeps the
textile from fraying or unraveling. In Byzantine silks these selvages were often decorated with simple
ornamental motifs like a pearl-string. Compare for instance Aachen, Munster treasury, silk from the
shrine of Charlemagne. The selvage of a tenth or eleventh-century silk with double-pearl string
ornamentation that particularly resembles the selvage-like band in fols. 51v—52r of the Codex Aureus
survives in Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum, Inv. Nr. 78, 462. The silk is of Byzantine origin and was dated
to the tenth or eleventh century. Leonie von Wilckens, Mittelalterliche Seidenstoffe (Berlin: Staatliche
Museen zu Berlin, 1992), cat. no. 47, 34. For another medieval silk with selvage see Anna Muthesius,
Byzantine Silk Weaving AD 400 — AD 1200 (Vienna: Fassbaender, 1997), cat. no. M58 and fig. 8a—9a.
561
Similarly, in fols. 51v—52r, remnants of the selvage band are visible on the right hand edge of the
opening.
169
would be cut off and portions of painted parchment lost. In addition to enhancing the folio’s
textile character, the selvage-like frame around the textile pattern provided a sort of buffer zone
between the textile pattern and folio edge that served to minimize such damage. The selvage
buffer itself might have been lost when the page was trimmed, but it prevented the blade from
cutting into the actual repeat-like design. In fols. 51v—52r the buffer zone consists of the purple
selvage border and a strip of green paint, some of which remained visible along the upper right
edge of folio 52r [fig. 238]. The makers of the Codex Aureus devised a different formula in the
third and fourth textile openings. In these pages, especially fol. 109v [fig. 240], the buffer zone is
not only much wider but also the space beyond the selvage-ribbon continues in the same purple
color as the textile pattern. Also, the textile patterns, but not the selvage buffer, use expensive
silver paint on the lion and lozenge-and-lily-pattern whereas the selvage is rather bland. If
sections of the buffer zone got cut away, no expensive paint was wasted. It appears that the one
purpose of this buffer zone was to “save” the textile pattern from damage when the page was
trimmed.
The Codex Caesareus now in Uppsala demonstrates more clearly that the Echternach
painters planned the textile pages as full-folio illuminations and that the borderless appearance is
not an accidental effect caused by subsequent trimming.562 For example, the white textile-like
pattern on fol. 2v—3r is framed by a purple border with eagle pattern that terminates along the
lower edge of the opening in a pearl-string motif [fig. 243]. The space beyond this pearl ribbon is
covered in purple paint. As in the third and fourth textile pages of the Codex Aureus, the
advantage of this composition is that the monochrome purple matches the colors of the
remaining textile ornament, so that the buffer zone is less apparent. In the upper portion of this
opening, however, trimming left a visible trace. Portions of the eagle-border were lost. The
irregular layout of the page may have contributed to the damage. The frame around the white
textile design is narrower on top than below. This irregular layout is consistent throughout the
manuscript. In all folios there is less space on top of the text block (or image in illuminated
pages) than beneath it. That the artist adapted the textile pattern to this layout in some pages
demonstrates that they were meant to be borderless. On fols. 125v—126r a textile pattern in
white, green, and purple frames the evangelist portrait of John and the facing initial page [fig.
562
On this manuscript see Nordenfalk, Codex Caesareus.
170
244]. The exterior purple frame shows anthropomorphic faces with swirling hair that resembles
the head of Medusa. Compared to the medallions below and on the left and right, the textile
pattern in the upper section of the frame is smaller. Moreover, not only was the size of the faces
reduced, but they were also squeezed into semi-circles instead of filling full medallions.
Especially toward the upper right corner of fol. 126r these adaptations are visible. Although the
faces in the top row were trimmed after completion, the adaptation to the layout demonstrates
that they were designed to fit this narrow space.563 In addition, the half medallions in the upper
part of the frame were arranged the wrong way round. According to the compositional logic of a
symmetrical repeat the half-medallions should face upwards. The painter, however, drew them
facing down. Similarly, on the left, the faces inside the three-quarter medallions are turned
sideways and the upper parts of the heads are cut off. While this might be an actual mistake, the
artist adapted the medallions in the top right corner to the irregular format of the layout. This
shows that the page was designed as a borderless composition from the start.
The borders in British Library Harley MS 2821, another Echternach Gospel book, are the
most practical solution for a full-folio design. The manuscript is now fragmented and the leaves
are no longer in the original order.564 The textile pages show two different patterns on the same
page. The folio that is now numbered 67 shows large medallions and octagons hemmed in by a
zig-zag border and framed by a pattern of cruciform floral shapes [fig. 245].565 The combination
563
That the artist adapted the ornament to the irregularly spaced layout confirms that the final size of the
folios in this book was fixed after fols. 2v—3r were painted (where a large section of the eagle pattern on
top was lost when the page was trimmed), but before the textile border in the opening of John was made.
Towards the end of the manuscript the painter knew how large the folio would eventually be and reduced
the size of the lion heads in the upper section accordingly. When the pages were finally trimmed in the
process of binding the book for the first time, or at any time thereafter, only a minimal portion of the
ornament was lost.
564
On this manuscript see Canossa 1077: Erschütterung der Welt, ed. Christoph Stiegemann and
Matthias Wemhoff (Munich: Hirmer, 2006), cat. no. 475, 2:378. Nordenfalk, Codex Caesareus, 80, 92—
93, 101—102, 115. Albert Boeckler, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch Heinrichs III (Berlin: Deutscher
Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1933), 44—46, 83—85. When the manuscript was rebound, some of the
double-folio textile pages were separated from each other and placed at the end of the book. See Christine
Sciacca, “Raising the Curtain: On the Use of Textiles in Manuscripts,” in Weaving, Veiling, and
Dressing: Textiles and their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Kathryn M. Rudy and Barbara Baert
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 161—89, n. 10. I was unable to examine this manuscript.
565
Fol. 99 differs from these pages. It shows one motif instead of two. On this page see Nordenfalk,
Codex Caesareus, 100—102.
171
of two different textile patterns adds a “patchwork” look to the page. When this folio was
trimmed, portions of the cruciform-patterned outer border were lost, but because this frame is
generously spaced, the fragmentation made no great difference. The interior textile motif clearly
remained intact. Folio 99v shows a similar “patchwork” pattern of two different motifs [fig.
246]. The green outer frame appears to buffer the purple pattern inside.566 The composition of
these pages indicates that extensible full-folio ornamentation was not an accident but a deliberate
effort of the Echternach painters. Full-folio textile ornament is an essential feature of these pages
and the Echternach painters made an effort to come up with different solutions. What purpose,
then, did this full-page ornamentation serve?
Textile ornament and material transformation

While most textile images are surrounded by empty parchment space and hence appear as
an image of a textile, the full-folio composition of the Echternach textile pages causes a visual
and material metamorphosis. The ornamented surface conveys the impression that the textile
pattern has merged with its parchment support. The manuscript page appears as if it was itself
made of cloth. The conflation of visual and material properties is a key characteristic of real
patterned textiles. In woven silk, the ornament is inseparable from its fabric support. It seems
that the illuminators of the full-folio designs of the Echternach scriptorium deliberately copied
this unique textile feature because they aimed at transforming parchment pages into cloth.
Manuscript folios painted in this way appear like something that, in truth, they are not.567
Although the folios still feel like parchment, from an optical point of view they seem
transformed into a piece of silk. This effect alters not only the visual perception of the page but it
also infuses the manuscript folio with metaphoric meaning.
566
Similar borders appear on fols. 21v, and 68v—69r around figurative images.
567
This is one of the definitions James Trilling proposed for the function of ornament. “The business of
ornament is to transform shapes and surfaces, by whatever means, into something other than what they
really are.” James Trilling, Ornament: A Modern Perspective (Seattle and London: University of
Washington Press, 2003), 38. The process of transformation from parchment to silk is, however, a mere
optical effect. The textile page neither smells like silk nor feels like it. In addition, none of the Echternach
textile pages are painted on both sides. In a real silk both sides would show the same colors and similar
patterns.
172
Text as textile
The virtual material change that borderless textile ornament causes has an effect on the
Echternach folios because it interconnects the parchment pages with allegoric conceptions of the
textile as a material and a medium. Hereafter I refer to this mixture of multi-layered textile
references as the textility of textile ornament.568 One such layer of the textility in the Echternach
manuscript pages is caused by the link between written text and the textile medium. Although
there is no writing on the ornamented pages themselves, the textile folios are part of a book that
contains important texts, the four Gospels. Ancient scribal culture knew a textile metaphor that is
particularly relevant for textile ornament in the Echternach manuscripts: the notion of text as a
woven structure.569 This conflation of textiles and text is grounded in the Latin verb texere,
which means both writing and weaving. Greek and Latin writers of Antiquity frequently likened
the process of writing and composing a text to weaving.570 As Hedwig Röckelein has shown, this
metaphor survived well into the Middle Ages.571 Medieval writers frequently referred to texts
through the terminology of textile manufacture and related the prose and syntax of the one
medium to the visual and material quality of the other. The better a text was written the more
beautifully composed was its fabric.572 Röckelein further showed that the idea of written text as a
woven garment is a metaphor that frequently appears in the writings of medieval hagiographers.
568
I use textility in analogy to materiality, as defined by the social, political, theological, material,
allegorical context of textiles and their metaphoric connotations. See note 531 above. On a different use
of the term textility see Ingold, “The Textility of Making,” in Cambridge Journal of Economics 34
(2010): 91—102.
569
See, for example, John Scheid and Jesper Svenbro, The Craft of Zeus: Myths of Weaving and Fabric
(Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 1996), esp. 131—155. Beate Wagner-Hasel, “Textus und
texere, hýphos und hyphaínein: Zur metaphorischen Bedeutung des Webens in der griechisch-römischen
Antike,” in Textus im Mittelalter: Komponenten und Situationen des Wortgebrauchs im
Schriftsemantischen Feld, ed. Ludolf Kuchenbuch und Uta Kleine (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Rupprecht, 2006), 15—42.
570
On the notion of weaving poetry in Homer, Ovid, Cicero, and others see Schied and Svenbro, Craft of
Zeus, 135—155. Wagner-Hasel, “Textus und texere,” 36—42, on Ovid, Cicero, Quintillian, and Luxurius.
571
Hedwig Röckelein, “Vom webenden Hagiographen zum hagiographischen Text”, in: Textus im
Mittelalter: Komponenten und Situationen des Wortgebrauchs im Schriftsemantischen Feld, ed. Ludolf
Kuchenbuch und Uta Kleine (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, 2006), 77—110.
572
Röckelein “Vom webenden Hagiographen,” esp. 98—99.
173
The life of a saint, for example, was considered analogous to a dress that clad the saint, and
therefore, the clearer and better organized the vita was the more finely woven was its text-
fabric.573 While Röckelein focused primarily on hagiographic sources, she mentions other
sources that indicate that the notion of weaving a text was equally applicable to the Bible.
According to Jerome, for example, scripture was a woven texture made of the deeds of saintly
men and women that were woven into the textus beati viri.574 Jerome’s notion of scripture as a
textile reappears in the context of an exegetical explication of the liturgical garments by Rupert
of Deutz, who identifies divine wisdom as its weaver (textrix) and relates the sapientia Dei, who
wove the Gospels, to a tunic that was first worn by Christ and later by the Apostles after the Holy
Spirit had been poured out over them.575 By means of this analogy, Rupert associates not only
the structure of a written text with the textile medium but also its verbal and spiritual content.
Considering scripture within the framework of such textile terms raises the question of the extent
to which textile ornament in the Echternach Gospel books also visualizes the well-woven fabric
of the Gospels. A look at the codicological structure of the Codex Aureus sheds light on the role
textile pages play in ‘dressing’ the book of scripture and how they add meaning to the text-
garment of scripture.
The textile garment of the Codex Aureus Epternacensis
573
Ibid.
574
Ibid., 89. The parallels between hagiographic texts and the Gospels is further apparent from Milo of St.
Amand, who divided the life of St. Amand into four parts, and related each of them to an evangelist, thus
linking his hagiographic text-fabric with the higher order of the four Gospels. Röckelein “Vom webenden
Hagiographen,” 96.
575
“‘Significat’ autem, ut Hieronymus ait, ‘rationem sublimium,’ quae non patet omnibus, sed maioribus
atque perfectis. […] Praecipe ergo hanc habuit tunicam evangelicae textrix doctrinae sapientia Dei,
Christus Dominus, et dedit illam apostolis suis.” “Die Tunika aber ‘bedeutet zeichenhaft,’ wie
Hieronymus sagt, ‘die Erkenntnis des Höheren, die nicht allen zugänglich ist, sondern nur würdigen und
vollkommenen Männern.’ […] Vornehmlich hat daher die Weberin der Lehre des Evangeliums diese
Tunika besessen, die Weisheit Gottes, Christus, der Herr, und er hat sie seinen Aposteln gegeben.” Rupert
von Deutz, De divinis Officiis, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, transl. Helmut und Ilse Deutz (Freiburg: Herder,
1999), ch. 1,23, “De tunica,” 199. Compare also “De evangelio,” 230—41. See also Thomas Lentes,
“Textus Evangelii: Materialität und Inszenierung des textus in der Liturgie,” in Textus im Mittelalter:
Komponenten und Situationen des Wortgebrauchs im schriftsemantischen Feld, ed. Ludolf Kuchenbuch
und Uta Kleine (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, 2006), 133—148, (esp. 138).
174
The codicological structure of the Codex Aureus in Nuremberg suggests that the
ornamented pages were conceived quite literally as a garment that wraps scripture in a textile
dress and, at the same time, interweaves the four Gospels into one harmonious unit. At the very
beginning of the Codex Aureus four folios painted in monochrome purple color stage the
entrance into the book. In the current binding, these purple pages appear as two double folios
[fig. 247—248]. Originally, the first page functioned as flyleaf and was pasted onto the front
cover facing fol. 1r.576 A Maiestas domini miniature with facing inscription follows on fols. 2v—
3r [fig. 249], after which comes more prefatory material and finally the canon tables on fols.
9v—14r [fig. 250—252]. On 14v begins the prologue to the Gospels of Mathew, which is
followed by the capitula ending on 17r [fig. 253—255]. The first textile-ornamented opening is
fols. 17v—18r [fig. 256]. Compared to the monochrome purple folios at the beginning of the
book, this ornamented double-page is far more compelling visually. The monochrome folios not
only lack ornament but are also painted in a watery shade of purple that contrasts with the
saturated colors of the four textile pages that follow later in the book.577 The arrangement of
colored and ornamented folios in combination with the Maiestas miniature and decorative text
pages in the first quires of the book suggest that the visual program of the codex was supposed to
progress gradually in a sort of visual “crescendo” from simpler to more stunning illuminations.578
The highlights in this choreography are the Maiestas miniature, which follows after the
576
The flyleaf that now appears as fol. 1v of the Nuremberg manuscript was removed by Carl Nordenfalk
in 1931—32, who discovered a Maiestas Domini drawing on its reverse. Carl Nordenfalk, “Neue
Dokumente zur Datierung des Echternacher Evangeliars in Gotha,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 1
(1932): 153—157. See also Kahsnitz 1982, Das goldene Evangelienbuch, 121—24, who counts the
flyleaf as fol. -1. My foliation follows the original binding as it is referred to in the current literature. I am
not counting the purple painted flyleaf that shows a drawing of Christ in Majesty on the reverse, but begin
with its facing folio 1r. For a digital facsimile see
http://www.gnm.de/fileadmin/redakteure/Sammlungen/swf/codex/ (accessed 2014/02/06).
577
Despite the deviation of the colors, these folios appear to be original to the book and were unlikely
added at a later point. Grebe, “Ornament, Zitat, Symbol,” 59. For a chemical analysis of the pigments and
materials of the Codex Aureus see Doris Oltrogge and Robert Fuchs, Die Maltechnik des Codex Aureus
aus Echternach: ein Meisterwerk im Wandel (Nuremberg: Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums,
2009).
578
Robert Calkins described the decorative program of the Drogo Sacramentary as a visual “crescendo” in
“Liturgical Sequence and Decorative Crescendo in the Drogo Sacramentary,” Gesta 25 (1986): 17—23.
For a similar argument about ascending decoration in the pericope book in Bremen, see Plotzek, Das
Perikopenbuch Heinrichs III, 66.
175
monochrome purple pages and before the prefatory material and the canon tables. The purple
textile page on fols. 17v—18r is the second highlight. This opening leads to scenes from the life
of Christ on fols. 18v—20r [fig. 257—258], and the portrait of Matthew with its facing
dedicatory page on fols. 20v—21r, as well as an incipit and initial page on fols. 21v—22r [fig.
259—260]. On fol. 22v the text begins, which is written in gold throughout [fig. 261]. The visual
choreography that is built into this sequence of figurative and ornamental miniatures is echoed in
the openings of the remaining Gospels. Each of the remaining Gospels is introduced by
decorative text pages that also include the argumentum, the name of the evangelist in a title page,
and the capitula. The three remaining double-folio textile pages [figs. 238—240] open onto
narrative images, after which follow the evangelist portraits, incipit and initial pages.579 A closer
look at the quire structure of the Codex Aureus further reveals that the visual choreography of the
ornamental program goes hand in hand with the codicological organization of the book. The
quire structure of the Codex Aureus follows a distinct plan in which the four textile pages play a
major role worth considering in detail.
Each of the two textile folios that face each other in the double-page textile openings of
the Codex Aureus belong to two separate gatherings that were connected only in the final
binding. The verso page is always the last folio of the previous quire, while the recto is the first
folio of the following gathering. These two textile pages were brought together when the quires
were bound back to front and merged the four parts of the Gospels into one volume.580 In a
bound book the codicological structure is perceptible only to a trained and carefully looking eye.
579
The structure of the Gospels of Mark contains the incipit of the argumentum on 49r, facing on fol. 49v
a decorative page showcasing the name MARCVS, which is painted in gold on purple ground, succeeded
by text that continues until 50r. Fols. 50v—51r contain the capitula with decorated incipit and visually
highlighted explicit. 51v—52r is the textile page, which is followed by two double folios with narrative
scenes from the life of Christ, the evangelist portrait on 54v and a facing inscription. Fol. 55v contains the
incipit for the Gospels proper, which begins on 56r with the initial I(nitivm). In Luke and John the
argumentum, a page with the evangelists name, and the capitula are placed equally immediately before
the textile pages. Scenes from the life of Christ, the evangelist portraits and incipit page facing the initial
pages follow in like manner. The only exception is that in John, on fol. 107v, where the incipit of the
argumentum and the name JOHN are drawn together on the same page, which is not the case in the
previous texts.
580
This codicological arrangement is also the reason why the ornament in most of the pages of the Codex
Aureus does not align perfectly. In the Codex Caesareus all openings with textile ornament are bifolia,
which made it easier to match the ornament on verso and recto pages.
176
However the continuous ornament visually unites the two quires. In fact, the ornament plays a
crucial role in this process of linking the four Gospel parts into one volume. Although from a
codicological point of view each page of the four openings belongs to a separate gathering, the
ornament displayed on the verso always mirrors the paintings on the facing recto so that the
openings visually link the quires together. In this way, the double-page textile openings clearly
mark the places in the book where the four Gospels intertwine.581 Looking at the ornamental
program in total shows that the textile pages serve another function in addition to linking the
Gospels. The role of the ornament is not only to bridge the gap between the individual quires, but
the textile folios also wrap each Gospel in a textile garb both at the beginning and the end. In
other words, the viewer accesses an individual part of the New Testament through an opening
covered in a particular textile design at the start, and then each of the Gospels concludes in a
folio that displays a different textile pattern, which connects the first book to the second and so
on.582 The way the codex is organized in total shows that the textile pages weave the four
Gospels into a single codicological “fabric” that manifests in both codicological and ornamental
terms the concept of the harmony of the Gospels.583 Although the book is divided into four
visually distinct parts the textile openings weave these together into one harmonious unit. The
text contained in this well-composed fabric-dress is not just any text, but the four Gospels, the
581
The textile opening before the Gospel of Matthew further connects with the two quires that contain the
Maiestas miniature, the prefatory material, and the canon tables. According to Kahsnitz’s codicological
analysis, the first quire is made of fols. -1—7, which contain the praefatio sancti Hieronymi, argumentum
Evangeliorum, Plures fuisse and beginning of epistola Eusebii ad Carpianum. The Eusebian letter
continues in the second gathering, fols. 8—17, and is followed by the canon tables, prologus in
Evangelium sancti Mathei, and capitula, which end on 17r. Fol. 17v is the verso of the first textile page.
Kahsnitz noted that the makers of the Codex Aureus paid particular attention to this structure. In order to
make sure all Gospels (except John’s) ended in a textile page, as the last folio of one quire, and begin with
another gathering, the regular quire structure had to be topped up with additional pages. The verso of the
textile page before Mark (fol. 51v) is the last folio in a gathering that comprises five bifolia rather than the
regular four. In the textile page in John, fol. 109v is the verso of an inserted bifolium, which follows after
an irregular gathering of three bifolia. For the quire structure, see the diagram in Kahsnitz, Das goldene
Evangelienbuch, 124, 126.
582
An exception are the Gospels of John that terminate in text. There is no additional textile page at the
end of the book. It is unclear whether this page is missing or never existed. The manuscript has possibly
lost one quire at the end, but, as Kahsnitz notes, the book’s current state no longer allows for a conclusive
determination. Kahsnitz, Das goldene Evangelienbuch, 124.
583
On the harmony of the Gospels see Paul A. Underwood, “The Fountain of Life in Manuscripts of the
Gospels,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 5 (1950): 43—138.
177
vita Christi, as the cycle of full-page miniatures illustrating scenes from the life of Christ make
clear. These were divided in four sections and placed within the textile wrapping at the beginning
of each Gospel unit.584 In this remarkable way, the ornamental and codicological program of the
Codex Aureus visualizes the idea that the life of Christ presented in the Gospels is not only a
beautifully woven narrative but is also analogous to the scriptural habitus of written vita. The
four Gospels are represented as a woven texture, and the book itself appears as a skillfully
crafted garment in which the life of Christ is wrapped. The four textile pages each show a
different design, perhaps to illustrate that each of the four Gospels is an individual account.
Combined in the textile fabric of the one volume, the woven text and its textile-ornamented dress
resonate in perfect harmony.
A similar case of covering the Gospels in a textile garment that both clads and unites the
four Gospels occurs in the Lindau Gospels.585 The book contains two bluish textile pages, which
appear on the first and last folio of the quire that contains the canon tables [figs. 262 and 263].
The purpose of canon tables is to index each Gospel account in a concordance that allows the
reader to find parallel texts in different Gospels. Because the canon tables summarize and
synthesize the contents of all four accounts, the canon tables can be considered a pars pro toto of
the evangelical Gospels.586 The form in which the Lindau Gospel artist clad the canon tables in
textile ornament resembles the textile garment of the Codex Aureus. The Echternach artist,
however, dressed each Gospel in different layers of fabric, which were united when the book was
bound. In the Lindau Gospels, the quire that contains the canon tables was dressed in two
different versions of textile ornament on the front and back. The first page of the quire, fol. 5v,
584
The exceptionally well-structured codicological program of the Codex Aureus becomes clear again in
comparison with the other Echternach codices. While the Codex Caesareus lacks a narrative cycle of the
life of Christ altogether, in the other Echternach manuscripts in Madrid and Paris the figurative images
are interspersed with the text. Only the Codex Aureus gathers the life of Christ miniatures together at the
beginning of each Gospel. See Henry Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination: An Historical Study
(London: Miller 1999), 2:188.
585
Von Euw, Die St. Galler Buchkunst, cat. no. 99, 1:408—11. The codicology was recorded by William
Voelkle and is available on Corsair. http://corsair.morganlibrary.org/msdescr/BBM0001.htm [accessed
29.10.2013], 20.
586
Carl Nordenfalk, “The Apostolic Canon Tables,” Gazette des Beaux Arts 62 (1963): 17—34.
Underwood, “The Fountain of Life.”
178
shows four quadrupeds surrounded by floral ornament [fig. 262]. On fol. 12r, a pattern of flowers
and stars concludes the gathering [fig. 263]. If we take the canon tables as a symbolic
representative of the book in total, dressing the quire that contains the concordance is equivalent
to cladding the entire volume. Furthermore, as was the case in the Codex Aureus, the textile
dress is not only a form of vestment but also symbolizes that all four Gospel accounts belong
together and form one harmonious unit. In this respect it is worth recalling that the Lindau
Gospels are dressed in an additional layer of real silken textiles that form part of its binding. Two
differnt silk pieces were pasted onto the inner front and back covers [figs. 264 and 265].587
Together with the textile pages inside the book, the silken covers vest the Lindau Gospels in a
precious and symbolically meaningful garment.588
Purple and textiles as metaphors for the human body

If we read these textile dresses of the Gospel books as a metaphoric garment for the life
of Christ, this text-and-textile structure also clads Christ himself, just as the hagiographic texts,
analyzed by Röckelein, appeared to vest the saints. The Gospel book, in turn, becomes a
metaphor for the body of Christ. Looking at the Codex Aureus and the Lindau Gospels in this
way brings to mind the notion of textiles as a metaphor for the body, which we already discussed
587
Herman A. Elsberg, “Two Mediaeval Woven Silk Fabrics in the Binding of the 9th Century Ms. ‘The
Four Gospels’ in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City,” The Bulletin of the Needle and Bobbin
Club 17 (1933): 2—11, esp. 7—11. Adèle Coulin Weibel, Two Thousand Years of Textiles: The Figured
Textiles of Europe and the Near East (New York, 1952), no. 62, 95. Von Euw, Die St. Galler Buchkunst,
1:411.
588
David Ganz is currently completing a book-length study on medieval manuscripts and their covers,
which he similarly reads as material and metaphoric investiture. See his essays on the subject, “Das Kleid
der Bücher,” and “Kleider des nackten Christus.” Furthermore, other manuscripts also display textile
ornament in the canon tables and the ornamentation might have similar meaning. Early Byzantine
manuscripts such British Museum Add. 5111, which I discussed in chapter one, show textile patterns in
the arcades of the canon tables, but not as full-page miniatures. For more examples see Carl Nordenfalk,
Die Spätantiken Kanontafeln: Kunstgeschichtliche Studien über die eusebianische Evangelien-
Konkordanz in den vier ersten Jahrhunderten ihrer Geschichte (Göteborg: O. Isacsons, 1983), esp. figs.
15, 25, 31—32, 34, 36, 130, 131, 132—142. In the Gospels of Henry the Lion, made in the twelfth
century, the intercolumnium of the canon tables are further equipped with textile-patterned grounds. Das
Evangeliar Heinrichs des Löwen: autorisiertes vollständiges Faksimile des Codex Guelf. 105 noviss. 2°
der Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, ed. Dietrich Kötzsche (Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1988).
Elisabeth Klemm, Das Evangeliar Heinrichs des Löwen (Frankfurt am Main: Insel-Verlag, 1988).
Eberlein, Apparitio regis, 99—100, mentioned some Ethiopian manuscripts that show curtains in the
canon tables.
179
in the previous chapter. One crucial aspect of textile ornament in the Echternach manuscripts—
color—helps to define the material nature of this textile garment further. The textile pages are
not only symbolic of the human body but also evoke Christ’s dual natures. The primary color of
the textile pages in the Echternach Gospel books is purple.589 Medieval interpretations of the
colors purple and red as blood suggest that the textile garment of the Codex Aureus is not only a
garment woven of text but also suggestive of a fabric that is made of flesh. Christel Meier and
Rudolf Suntrup’s Lexikon der Farbenbedeutungen im Mittelalter offers a plethora of textual
sources on medieval color symbolism that is highly useful for such an interpretation of textile-
meaning in the Codex Aureus. Allegorical readings of purple, purpureus, and most
denominations for pink and reddish colors like roseus, rubeus, rubicundus—which the sources
use largely interchangeably—appear primarily in exegetical texts and usually pertain to the
physical nature of the human body, especially Christ’s.590 Augustine, for example, likened the
red light of the setting sun to the blood that Christ shed on the cross.591 Similarly, for Isidore of
Seville, red is the color of the flesh that was sacrificed, and in an explication of the Song of
Songs, Hrabanus Maurus explains the color red more generally as signifying the Passion.592
Noteworthy in our context is a reading of purpureus in Alcuin’s exegesis on Hebr. 9:19, where
he relates the blood of the sacrificed animals that was soaked up by the wool to the blood of
Christ; as we have already seen, Alcuin further likens the Virgin Mary, who was overshadowed
by the Holy Spirit at the Annunciation, to white wool “made purple by the divinity.”593
589
Those pages that are multi-colored will concern us below.
590
Christel Meier and Rudolf Suntrup, Lexikon der Farbenbedeutungen im Mittelalter (Vienna, Cologne,
and Weimar: Böhlau, 2011).
591
“Serenum erit, ‘rubicundum est enim caelum’ [AB Mt 16,2], id est sanguine passionis Christi in primo
aduento indulgentia peccatorum datur.” Augustinus, Quaestiones evangeliorum, Corpus Christianorum,
Series Latina 44B, ed. Almut Mutzenbecher (Turnhout: Brepols, 1980), 18. Cf. Meier and Suntrup,
Farbenbedeutungen, 696.
592
“Caro … rosea sanguine passionis.” PL 83, col. 349B. Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 631.
“‘Rubor’ est passio Christi, ut in Cantico … (5.10), quod qui candet in gloria Deitatis, rubet in agustia
passionis.” PL 112, col. 1041A. Cf. Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 648.
593
Alcuin, De fide sanctae et individuae trinitatis, PL 101, col. 46D “Ita Spiritus sanctus superveniens in
beatam Virginem, [et] virtus Altissimi obumbravit eam, ut lana fieret divinitate purpurata, solummodo
aeterno imperatori indui dignissima.” Herbert Kessler, “‘Hoc Visibile Imaginatum Figurat Illud Invisibile
Verum’: Imagining God in Pictures of Christ,” in Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Early
180
Medieval exegetes likely adopted the metaphor of the body as a textile from antique Greek
and Latin texts.594 Not only the textile medium as metaphor for the body as such, but also in
particular the notion of purple-colored fabric as an index of flesh has its roots in antiquity. In
Porphyry’s treatise on the cave of the nymphs in the Odyssey (De antro nympharum), for
example, textile material and textile technology are combined with color meaning in the
metaphoric image of the purple garments that the nymphs are weaving and that Porphyry reads
as symbols for the human body.595
What symbol could be more appropriate than looms for souls descending to genesis and to
the creation of a body? […] And the sea-purple garments would obviously be the flesh
woven from blood. For woolen garments are sea-purple because of blood, since the wool is
dyed in the blood of animals; and similarly, it is by means of blood and from blood that
flesh is formed. And the body is the garment of the soul which it clothes, a really
wonderful sight, whether one considers its composition or the nature of the soul’s
connection with the body.596
This ancient allegory of purple fabric as a metaphor for the body further effected exegetical
readings of textiles mentioned in the Bible. The intimate conflation of red and purple color with
textile material is brought to bear, for example, on Hebr. 10:20. As we have seen in chapters two
and three, the temple curtain that was rent in half at the Crucifixion was frequently related to the
Middle Ages, ed.. Giselle de Nie, Karl F. Morrison, and Marco Mostert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 291—
325, esp. 301. On Alcuin’s explication of Heb. 9:19, see PL 100, col. 1074C—1075A. Meier and Suntrup,
Farbenbedeutungen, 339.
594
Wagner-Hasel, “Textus und texere.” For late antique sources see the compilation of sources in Nicolas
P. Constas, “Weaving the Body of God: Proclus of Constantinople, the Theotocos, and the Loom of the
Flesh,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 169—194, esp. 185. Also Henry Maguire, “Body,
Clothing, Metaphor: The Virgin in Early Byzantine Art,” in The Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium,
ed. Leslie Brubaker and Mary B. Cunningham (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 39—51.
595
Porphyry, The Cave of the Nymphs in the Odyssey, ed. John M. Duffy, Seminar Classics 609 (New
York: Arethusa, 1969). On this text see also Constas, “Weaving the Body of God,” 185.
596
Duffy (ed.), Porphyry: The Cave of the Nymphs in the Odyssey 14.3—5, 10—18. On weaving and
textiles metaphors in ancient texts more generally see also Scheid and Svenbro, The Craft of Zeus.
181
Savior’s human body.597 As the sources collected by Meier and Suntrup suggest, the Pauline
epistle is, however, not among the major biblical passages that fueled exegesis on the colors red
and purple and its interpretation as flesh; such readings are based on the Song of Songs, Is. 63:1,
and Apoc. 19:13. The red and white appearance of the beloved, and the garment stained red in
the winepress or reddened by blood in particular were related to Christ’s sacrificial human
body.598 Patrizia Carmassi has shown that medieval miniaturists frequently painted the cross red
in order to visually enhance the theological message implied by the symbol of Christ’s
martyrdom, the cross, on which the Savior’s blood was spilled.599 From such readings it becomes
clear that purple and red in medieval art and thought are frequently associated with the body,
with blood, and more specifically the blood of Christ. In the textile pages of the Codex Aureus
and its sister manuscripts the emphasis on the colors red and purple carries these associations
clearly across to the viewer. If we read the ornament within the subtext of ancient textile
metaphors and medieval color exegesis, the borderless textile-ornamented pages of the
Echternach manuscripts appear as parchment pages that are virtually stained purple with blood
and woven like a human body.
Before turning to the relation between textile ornament and the body of the Incarnation,
the fact that these purple pages appear in a book calls for a look at another metaphor for
597
On diverse medieval readings of the temple curtain in the context of Christ’s humanity see Constas,
“Weaving the Body of God.” Also Johann Konrad Eberlein, Apparitio regis, revelatio veritatis: Studien
zur Darstellung des Vorhangs in der bildenden Kunst von der Spätantike bis zum Ende des Mittelalters
(Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1982), esp. 85—86 and Mateusz Kapustka, “Per velamen, id est, carmen suam: Die
textile Dimension des Christuskörpers als Bildparadox,” in Christusbild: Icon+Ikone. Wege zur Theorie
und Theologie des Bildes, ed. Peter Hofmann and Andreas Matena (Paderborn, Munich, et. al: Schöningh,
2010), 117—136.
598
The purple colored threads of the temple curtain are usually interpreted as a symbol of love, not as
flesh. Rupert of Deutz speaks of the triple-colored velum in the context of the Easter liturgy and compares
it to the scarlet mantle Christ wore at the passion but reads the red color in both cases as a manifestation
of love. Rupert of Deutz, PL 169, col. 1166C, trans. Deutz and Deutz, in De divinis officiis ed. Haacke,
803—5. Meier and Suntrup further state: “Das blutgetränkte Gewand des Wortes Gottes gewinnt seine
Bedeutung durch den Bezug auf Cant. 5.10,” Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 696. See further
ibid., 606, 643, 663, 675. In relation to the Codex Aureus, Metz, Das Goldene Evangelienbuch, 41—42,
already connected red with blood and love, purple with Christ’s humanity without taking the idea any
further.
599
Patrizia Carmassi, “Purpurismum in martyrio: Die Farbe des Blutes in mittelalterlichen
Handschriften,” in Farbe im Mittelalter: Materialität, Medialität, Semantik, ed.. Ingrid Bennewitz and
Andrea Schindler (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011), 251—273.
182
corporeality that influenced medieval manuscript culture. The symbolic language of late-antique
scribal culture associated a book page in and of itself with physical corporeality, since parchment
pages are made of animal skin. One example that illustrates the late antique perception of
parchment as corporeal matter is Augustine, for whom stories written in books were made of
words that were “concealed in fleshly coverings.”600 This notion of parchment as a bodily
substance survived well into the Middle Ages. As Herbert Kessler noted, “no medieval scribe
would have forgotten that the parchment on which divine revelation is transcribed is literally
flesh, the skin of animals.”601 In the purple textile pages of the Echternach Gospel books, the
idea of a flesh-like parchment page is given a more subtle twist, however. Covering the surface
of a parchment folio fully in purple color and textile-like ornament adds an unusually dense
materiality to the page because it brings out multiple layers of body allegory. A textile-
ornamented book page is painted in purple flesh-color, appears woven like textile-flesh, and is
itself made of parchment-flesh. Each of these allegories adds a different corporeal aspect to the
materiality of the textile page. Visual and conceptual references to the physical properties of the
human body thus locate purple textile pages within a multi-layered system of metaphors that
references the human body and the corpus Christi in particular, to which I now turn.
The Echternach Gospel books as a form of incarnation

In the context of a manuscript that relates the life of Jesus Christ, the corporeal
associations conveyed through textile allegory and color symbolism pertain specifically to the
body of Christ. In a Gospel book such as the Codex Aureus, the notion of the book as a textile-
garment woven of words comes together with the blood-colored textile ornament in a powerful
material metaphor that can be read as a symbol of the Incarnation. The combination of material
600
“Of which we read in those books rolled up and concealed in fleshly coverings”. Augustine, De
catechizandis rudibus. Augustine, The First Catechetical Instruction, trans. Joseph P. Christopher,
Ancient Christian Writers 2 (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1946), ch. 13, 33. Compare also the sources
collected in Röckelein, “Vom webenden Hagiographen,” 77—110.
601
Herbert Kessler, “Facies Bibliothecae Revelata,” in Testo e Immagine Nell’Alto Medioevo (Spoleto:
Presso la Sede del Centro, 1994), 2:533—94, esp. 581. See also Dieter Richter, “Die Allegorie der
Pergamentbearbeitung: Beziehungen zwischen handwerklichen Vorgängen und der geistlichen
Bildersprache des Mittelalters,” in Fachliteratur des Mittelalters: Festschrift für Gerhard Eis, ed.
Gundolf Keil, Rainer Rudolf, Wolfram Schmitt et al. (Stuttgart: Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung,
1968), 83—92.
183
and textual metaphors generates a form of embodiment for the Word of God that substitutes for
the flesh-and-blood corpus of Christ. The notion that scripture has a corporeal dimension was not
new in eleventh-century Echternach. As Laura Kendrick has shown, the Gospel book was
understood as a form of embodiment in other medieval contexts as well.602 A text by a fifth-
century bishop of Lyon, for example, described the conceptual link between written text and the
book by stating that “the body of Holy Scripture is in its letters.”603 The specific relation between
the New Testament and the Incarnation is further apparent from the writings of the Church
Fathers and other early Christian writers. While Pseudo-Melito explained the corporeal
dimension of scripture as “the new testament, which Christ reddened with his blood,” Ambrose
and others related scripture more directly to the body of Christ.604 Origen further explained that
the book-body of scripture is made of matter and he defined the nature of its physicality in
relation to Christ’s humanity.
For the Word came into the world by Mary, clad in flesh, and seeing was not
understanding; all saw the flesh; knowledge of the divinity was given to a chosen
few. So when the Word was shown to men through the lawgiver and the prophets, it
was not shown them without suitable vesture. There it is covered by the veil of
flesh, here of the letter. The letter appears as flesh; but the spiritual sense within is
kown as divinity […]. Blessed are the eyes which see divine spirit through the
letter’s veil.605
602
Laura Kendrick, Animating the Letter: The Figurative Embodiment of Writing from Late Antiquity to
the Renaissance (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1999).
603
“Corpus ergo Scripturae sacrae, sicut traditur, in littera est.” Cited in Henri de Lubac, Exégèse
Médiévale: les quatre sens de l’écriture, 1:193. Trans. Kendrick, Animating the Letter, 66.
604
“Novi testamenti, quod Christi sanguine rubet.” Ps.-Melito Clavis, Spicilegium Solesmense, ed.
Johannes Baptista Pitra (Paris: 1855, repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1963), 3:304.
Johannes Niederhuber, Des heiligen Kirchenlehrers Ambrosius von Mailand Lukaskommentar mit
Ausschluss der Leidensgeschichte (Kempten and Munich: Köselsche Buchhandlung, 1915), 284, cites
Ambrose, “Sein Leib sind die überlieferten Schriften.” Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 646.
Compare further Origen, “Homiliae in Exodum,” in Origenes: Werke, ed. Wilhelm A. Baehrens (Leipzig:
Hinrichs, 1920, repr. De Gruyter, 2012, 4:145—279 (esp. 156—57).
605
Origen, In Leviticum I.1, PG 12, col. 405. Trans. Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle
Ages (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), 1. See also Kendrick, Animating the Letter, 66.
184
Origen likens the New Testament, thus, to a corporeal book-body whose exterior material layer
can be perceived through the physical senses, while knowledge of the Gospel’s mystical sense
requires spiritual sight.606 This notion brings the concept of the book of scripture together with
Christ’s human body that was physically present in the Incarnation. While Christ became visible
and tangible in his human form, the invisible and immaterial words of the New Testament can be
given shape by writing them down in a book.607 Medieval authors likewise understood the
Gospel book as a figure of the Incarnation. In the eighth-century Life of St. Wilfrid, for instance,
the author Fridegode described the four Gosples as a text-corpus.608 Medieval sources further
captured the concept of the Gospel book as a material metaphor for the incarnate Christ in the
term textus evangelii. 609 The designation textus or textus evangelii, which is attested since the
Carolingian period, refers to the liturgical Gospel book that was understood not as a mere
collection of writings but explicitly as a physical book-body and material representative of
Christ.610 The corporeal nature of the textus was intensified by cladding it in precious materials
on the exterior and interior of the books.611 According to Thomas Lentes, the use of the term
606
See also Otto Nussbaum, “Zur Gegenwart Gottes/Christi im Wort der Schriftlesung und zur
Auswirkung dieser Gegenwart auf das Buch der Schriftlesungen,” in Wort und Buch in der Liturgie.
Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zur Wirkmächtigkeit des Wortes und Zeichenhaftigkeit des Buches, ed. Hanns
Peter Neuhauser (St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 1995), 65—92.
607
“Wie dieses ausgesprochene Wort seiner eigenen Natur gemäß untastbar und unsichtbar ist, wenn es
aber in ein Buch geschrieben wird und [darin] gleichsam Fleisch annimmt, dann gesehen und angetastet
wird, so ist es mit dem unfleischlichen und unleiblichen WORTE Gottes: der Gottheit gemäß wird es
weder gesehen noch geschrieben, nimmt es aber Fleisch an, wo wird es gesehen und geschrieben. Darum
gibt es, sofern es Fleisch geworden ist, auch ein ‘Buch des Werdens Jesu Christi.’” Hans Urs von
Balthasar, Origenes: Geist und Feuer. Ein Aufbau aus seinen Schriften (Einsiedeln and Freiburg:
Johannes Verlag, 1991), 107. See also Origen, In Leviticum I.1, PG 12, col. 405. SC 286, 66.
608
“Codex aurato conseptus grammate scriptus/Auctus evangelicum servans in corpore textum.” Thomas
Wright, Biographia Britannica Literaria (London: John Parker, 1842—1846), no. 434,
http://www.archive.org/stream/biographiabritan01wriguoft/biographiabritan01wriguoft_djvu.txt
(accessed 07.02.2013). The text was edited by Johannes Mabillon, Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti
in Saeculorum Classes distributa, Saeculum III, pars prima (Paris, 1672), 171—196.
609
Lentes, “Textus Evangelii.”
610
Lentes, “Textus Evangelii.” Röckelein, “Vom webenden Hagiographen.” See further David Ganz,
“Das Kleid der Bücher.”
611
Lentes implied a direct connection between the decoration of the textus with precious materials and its
role as the materialized Word. Lentes, “Textus Evangelii,” 137—38. On the notion of “dressing” the
185
textus is limited to Gospel books that were used in the liturgy, for liturgical processions and relic
translations, and distinguishes these books from unadorned library volumes, which the sources
call liber.612 The Gospel book in its function as a material corpus Christi, therefore, represented
Christ in the liturgy, as well as during church councils, and at times the book-body of Christ even
performed miracles.613 Textile ornament in the Codex Aureus turns this Gospel book into such a
book body that represents Christ in the form of a material metaphor.
Extensible ornament from a viewer’s perspective
book-body in precious matter see further Ganz “Das Kleid der Bücher,” and Lowden, “Materializing the
Book.” Odilo of Soissons, for instance, mentions a textum sacrorum evangeliorum written in gold
“Textum deinceps sacrorum Evangeliorum aureis characteribus exaratum.” Odilo of Soissons, Translatio
S. Sebastiani, c. 19, Acta Sanctorum Jan. II (20th January), 293. Röckelein, “Vom webenden
Hagiographen,” 80, n. 17, and 82.
612
Lentes, “Textus Evangelii,” 142. Röckelein “Vom webenden Hagiographen,” 81, n. 24. Textus, thus,
designates a Gospel book or lectionary that was kept in the church treasure together with the other sacred
objects. Charles du Fresne du Cange, defined textus as follows: “Liber seu Codex Evangeliorum, qui inter
cimelia Ecclesiastica reponi solet, auro gemmisque ut plurimum exornatus, aureis etiam interdum
characteribus exaratus.” Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, éd. augm.,
Niort, Léopold Favre, 1883—1887, t. 8, col. 091b. http://ducange.enc.sorbonne.fr/TEXTUS1 (accessed
2014/02/06). Lentes, “Textus Evangelii,” 139, 144, 147, strictly distinguishes between the Gospel book
called textus and other liturgical books. He states, 146—47, that in opposition to the Gospel lectionary
(Evangelistar), only the Gospel book (Evangelienbuch) was called textus in the sources and, therefore,
only the Gospel book qualified as an embodiment of scripture and symbol of Christ. I think, the concept
of the textus was more fluid. I prefer to read any version of the New Testament, Gospel book or lectionary
as textus, as long as the book functioned in the liturgy. Both types of books were used in the church for
reading and both contained Christ’s vita, regardless of the order in which the texts were structured. As
Anton von Euw has shown, books of the New Testament, lectionaries and Gospel books likewise, served
additional purposes, such as functioning as “keepers” of inventory lists, charters, and privileges. Usually
there is no distinction made in these cases between Gospel book and book of pericopes. Anton von Euw,
“Früh- und hochmittelalterliche Evangelienbücher im Gebrauch,” in Der Codex im Gebrauch, ed. Christel
Meier, Dagmar Hüpper und Hagen Keller (Munich: Fink, 1996), 21—30.
613
Nikolaus Gussone, “Der Codex auf dem Thron. Zur Ehrung des Evangelienbuches in Liturgie und
Zeremoniell,” in Neuheuser, Wort und Buch in der Liturgie, 191—231, esp. 200—201. For the record of
a Gospel book performing a miracle during a relic translation see Röckelein, “Vom webenden
Hagiographen,” 81. On the relation of book and body in the liturgy see further Jeffrey Hamburger, “Body
vs. Book: The Trope of Visibility in Images of Christian-Jewish Polemic,” in Ästhetik des Unsichtbaren:
Bildtheorie und Bildgebrauch in der Vormoderne, ed. David Ganz and Thomas Lentes (Berlin: Reimer,
2004), 114—45.
186
Reading full-folio textile ornament in the Echternach Gospel books as a system of textile
references that designate the book as a multilayered material metaphor of the Incarnation further
raises the question of how such a book-body was perceived by the viewer. Despite the fact that
painted ornament in general operates by visual and not tactile means, I argue that textile
ornament not only implicates the viewer’s sense of sight, but that the full-folio textile pages of
the Echternach manuscripts also have a bearing on the sense of touch. The textile-ornamented
pages play a crucial role in the viewer’s tactile experience of the book precisely because the
ornament is borderless. Through the full-folio ornamentation the materiality of the pages comes
to bear more fully on the Echternach textile folios than any other Ottonian textile pages.
Ornament in general implies a relationship between the onlooker and the object.614 A fully
painted page covered in a textile pattern from edge to edge is especially striking to the viewer,
however, because in order to turn the vellum over the person handling the book is forced to touch
a painted surface. From a physical and tactile perspective, turning a fully ornamented page does
not feel very different from touching an unpainted vellum sheet, but the user’s emotional and
sensual response to the painted surface is unquestionably different. While the folios of medieval
illuminated manuscripts are usually surrounded by an empty parchment space—a neutral area
that the reader can touch to flip the page [fig. 241], none of the Echternach textile pages offer
such a neutral “exposure zone.” Instead, the entire page is covered in a textile pattern and the
folio can only be turned if the reader’s fingers make contact with the ornamented surface. Most
modern viewers examining the Echternach manuscripts will hesitate to touch the painted surfaces
of the parchment folios, if not resist altogether. Allowing oneself to touch a continuously painted
page requires a certain mental effort, and it is a privilege if the library grants such permission.615
We have no record of medieval viewers’ responses to the Echternach codices themselves but
Gerald of Wales gives us a good idea how generous ornamentation stunned the medieval viewer,
and because borderless textile ornament was as unusual and unprecedented then as it is today, we
614
Oleg Grabar, The Mediation of Ornament (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).
615
In Uppsala I used cotton gloves, but the Bibliothèque nationale de France graciously allowed me to
touch the pages of Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 2196 with bare hands. I could not consider this book for this
chapter. The tactile effect is noticeable also in the facsimiles of the manuscripts, although a facsimile is
always less impressive than the original and smells and feels different than a parchment codex.
187
can presume that the tactile effect of the Echternach textile pages did not go unnoticed.616 Laura
Kendrick has further shown that richly ornamented manuscript pages especially lend an
enigmatic aura to books and invest them with sacred power.617 This investiture of books is not
limited to visual means but also generates a physical aura, which Kendrick described as the
“‘embodiment’ of the divine” in writing, in accordance with how the Church Fathers regarded
the book of scripture.618 Moreover, that the liturgical Gospel book was brought out into the
medieval church in veiled hands by the acolyte and touched with bare fingers only by the deacon
who read the pericope shows that the touching of liturgical books was an entitlement.619 The
privilege of touching is, of course, not due primarily to the fact that books were often
sumptuously ornamented—although we know that colorful illuminations and ornamentation in
general had a strong effect on the medieval viewer—but because the liturgical Gospel book was
a sacred object.620 This leads to a last problem that needs to be considered. If we read purple
616
In his Topographia Hibernica Gerald mentions a richly ornamented medieval Gospel book he was
looking at in Ireland, perhaps the Book of Kells, and describes “the mystery of the art […] so delicate and
subtle, so dense and artful, so bound up in knots and links” in rich language as a work miraculously made
by angelic forces. “Sin autem ad perspicacius intuendum oculorum aciem invitaveris, et longe penitus ad
artis archana transpenetraveris tam delicatas et subtiles, tam arctas et artitas, tam nodosas et vinculatim
colligatas, tamque recentibus adhuc coloribus illustrates notare poteris intricaturas, ut vere hec omnia
potius angelica quam humana diligentia iam asseveraveris esse composita.” Topographia Hibernica 2,
transl. Cohen, “Magnificence,” 84. Although the account is topical, Gerald makes clear that he was
impressed by the aesthetic of the illuminated page, and if he was indeed looking at the Book of Kells, we
can deduce that the pages he described were not as completely covered in intricate patterns as the
Echternach pages, but nearly. The Echternach textile folios that saturate the pages fully with extensible
ornament evoke a sense of marvel that can certainly compete with the insular knot-work pages Gerald
described. On this text and the notion of marveling at books in the Middle Ages more generally, see
Cohen, “Magnificence,” 82—85.
617
Kendrick, Animating the Letter, esp. chs. 3, 65—109.
618
Ibid., 67—68.
619
On the Ordo that describes the use of the liturgical books in the service see Michel Andrieu, Les
ordines romani du haut moyen-âge (Louvain: Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, 1948), 2:73—77, 88—89.
See also Heinzer “Die Inszenierung des Evangelienbuchs,” 45. On the metaphoric implications of touch
in medieval books see Peter Schmidt, “Der Finger in der Handschrift. Vom Öffnen, Blättern und
Schliessen von Codices auf spätmittelalterlichen Bildern,” in Codex und Raum, ed. Stephan Müller and
Lieselotte Saurma-Jeltsch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009), 85—125.
620
In 735, Saint Boniface wrote to the abbess Eadburga asking for a copy of St. Peter’s Epistles written in
gold because he wanted “to impress honor and reverence for the Sacred Scriptures visibly upon the
carnally minded to whom” he was preaching. Ep. 35 of “S. Bonifacii et Lulli Epistolae,” in Epistolae
188
colored textile ornament as a metaphor for the Incarnation, the body that comes alive in the book
is of course Christ’s, and so my reading of a textile-ornamented Gospel book as a corporeal
incarnation intimates that touching such a book equals contact with the physical body of Christ,
who, metaphorically speaking, comes alive through the book materialiter. However, Christ was
not only human but also divine. Likewise, the liturgical book-body must equally reflect that the
Incarnation is not just a corporeal manifestation, but also an incarnation of the spirit. How did the
Echternach book illuminators address the issue of Christ’s dual nature?
Multicolored textile ornament and the dual nature of Christ

Not all textile pages in the Echternach Gospel books are purple. Some display a
combination of purple and green, or purple and white. The textile opening at the beginning of the
Codex Caesareus now in Uppsala sheds light on the meaning of these color combinations in
relation to Christ’s dual nature and the embodiment of scripture in the book-corpus. The textile
page on fols. 2v—3r of the Codex Caesareus is not all purple, but the exterior border encloses a
white textile-like pattern in the middle [fig. 243]. If the purple colored textile ornament is read as
a metaphor of the human body, what does the white ornament signify? Medieval exegetes
commenting on the Song of Songs, which was one of the primary contexts in which medieval
authors commented on the color purple, interpreted the red and white appearance of the beloved
as opposite poles. While red signified blood and corporeality, white was the color of purity,
clarity, and the divine.621 For Ambrose, white is the color of divine light and signifies the
Merowingici et Karolini Aevi, ed. Ernst Dümmler (Berlin: Weidmann, 1892), 1:285—86. Trans. Ephraim
Emerton, The Letters of Saint Boniface (New York, 1940; repr. New York: Columbia University Press,
2000), 42—43. On the significance of this letter with respect to illuminated manuscripts see also Cohen,
“Magnificence,” 82. The Echternach painters used mostly purple and green, occasionally silver, as for
example on the lion and coin pattern on fols. 75v—76r of the Codex Aureus. More important, the
Echternach manuscripts combine these two crucial aspects of book illumination, color and ornamentation,
in an unprecedented and unusually condensed manner.
621
See Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 266—322.
189
luminescence emanating from it.622 In Pseudo-Hrabanus white signifies the glory of God that
shines in Christ.623 According to the sources collected by Meier and Suntrup, the standard
reading of the verse “My beloved is white and ruddy” (Cant. 5:10) was to relate the colors red
and white alternately to Christ’s human and divine natures.624 The Son of God was whitened by
the luminescence of the Divine and reddened by the Incarnation and Passion. It is important to
note, however, that “the white of the generatio divina and the red of the generatio humana are
joined in Christ, not mixed.”625 Analogous to the dual natures united in one person, the textile
opening in the Codex Caesareus juxtaposes purple and white textile patterns in a patchwork
manner without mixing the colors. While the exterior border is saturated with purple, the interior
shines bright white. If we read the ornament on this page as a commentary on the dual nature of
Christ, the textile pattern shows the Son of God who “shone like the sun” (Math. 17:2) and yet
could be “seen with the eyes, touched with hands” (John 1:14).626
In addition to purple and white, another form of condensing the paradox of the two
natures of Christ into a color code is the juxtaposition of red or purple and green, for example in
fol. 67 and 99v of Harley 2821 [figs. 245 and 246].627 In addition to the codicological placement
in the book, the combination of purple and green appears meaningful in the Pericopes of Henry
622
Ambrose, Sancti Ambrosi Opera, pars V. Explanatio psalmi CXVIII, Corpus Scriptorum
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 62, ed. Michael Petschenig (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 1999), 86. Also PL 16, col. 201C. Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 280.
Compare Math. 17.2, “and his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow.”
623
“Qui candet in gloria Deitatis.” PL 112, col. 1041A. Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 280.
624
“Fraternus meus candidus et rubeus, candidus claritate diuina, rubeus specie coloris humani, quem
sacramento incarnationis adsumpsit.” Ambrose, Explanatio psalmi CXVIII, ed. Petschenig, 86. See also
Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 280.
625
“Das Weiß der generatio divina und das Rot der generatio humana sind in Jesus Christus vereint, nicht
vermischt.” Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 281.
626
Compare also the Byzantine sources collected in Constas, “Weaving the Body of God,” 190—191.
627
See, for instance, Ambrose, who relates red and green precious stones mentioned in Apoc. 4:3 to the
dual nature of Christ. “Quid enim per lapidem hyaspidem, nisi diuinitas Mediatoris nostri figuratur? Quid
uero per sardinem, nisi humanitas eiusdem exprimitur?” Ambrose Opera, “Expositionis in Apocalypsin
libri I—4, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 27, ed. Robert Weber (Turnhout: Brepols,
1975), 1:207. See also Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 658—59.
190
III in Bremen, in which the two textile pages clothe the book on either end.628 Fol. 1v—2r is a
purple double-page with a pattern of golden lions [fig. 235]. The textile at the very end of the
book, fol. 125v—126r, however, is green [fig. 236]. If we read the colors in both textile pages as
symbolic of Christ’s two natures, the textile pages characterize the body that materialized in this
book as an embodiment of spirit in matter. Yet another solution for expressing the duality of
matter and spirit is the pairing of orange and green, where the orange color of the carnelian—a
symbol of flesh—is juxtaposed with the green jasper that stands for the divine according to
medieval exegesis on Apoc. 4:3.629 The unusual striped textile opening on fols. 51v—52r of the
Codex Aureus seems to combine all of these colors at once. The page is painted in various hues
of green, purple, pink, and orange (minium) with white highlights sprinkled across the page [fig.
238]. If we assume that the clerics who used these books in the liturgy on the altar were versed in
color exegesis, this opening contains a treasure of abbreviated color-codes and textile allegories
that makes for a multi-medial and multi-allegorical commentary on the dual nature of Christ.630
It is meaningful, therefore, that the exterior textile border of the textile page in the Codex
Caesareus is painted purple like flesh and frames the white inside, rather than the other way
around [fig. 243]. It is precisely the purple outer frame where the reader’s hand touches the page
or, in other words, makes contact with the book. If we read the book as a material metaphor for
Christ, touching the book also implies touching a material version of Christ. The white interior
textile pattern makes clear how we must envision this form of touching. On the one hand, the
white color of the textile design evokes the luminescence of Christ’s divine nature that was
veiled beneath his human body. In this sense, the white textile motif can also be related to radiant
textiles mentioned in the Bible, such as Christ’s robe that appeared shining white during the
Transfiguration (Matt. 17:2), or the garb that the angel wore at the tomb, which exegetes
628
Knoll, Das Evangelistar Kaiser Heinrichs III. Joachim Plotzek, Das Perikopenbuch Heinrichs III.,
esp. 66 on the textile folios.
629
For example Alcuin, PL 100, col. 1116C. See also Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 659.
630
In this page the outer selvage band is again purple, though decorated with white dots. The colors are
also mixed in the interior space, although the orange minium frame seems to suggest a sort of barrier
between inner and outer patterns. On the meaning of green and purple combined in medieval book
illumination see further Carmassi, “Purpurismum,” 253—54. While Carmassi warns that green and red
are common colors in manuscripts and their meaning should not be overestimated, the Echternach codices
certainly apply these colors deliberately, at least in the textile pages.
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interpreted as symbols for the luminous glory emanating from Christ triumphant.631 On the other
hand, the combination of purple and white ornament on one page, and its placement at the
beginning of a Gospel book, suggests that the makers of the Codex Caesareus understood the
white pattern as a symbolic veil of scriptural revelation. I think this curtain represents the sensus
spiritalis, which must be discovered in scripture as opposed to the literal sense that can be
deduced from the letters themselves.632 As the Glossa Ordinaria states, “Also, Origen says ‘…
thus the word of God is proffered through prophets to men—there covered in flesh, here by the
veil of the letter. The letter, as flesh, may be seen; the spiritual meaning, as divinity, may be
felt.’”633 If we read the textile page of the Codex Caesareus in this sense, the dual-natured book-
body makes Christ’s humanity physically tangible, but his Divinity cannot be revealed through
man-made things. As we have seen in chapter two, however, scripture is a veil that opens a path
to divine truth. John Scottus Eriugena noted that it is “in a dual way, indeed, that the exegetes of
the divine law explain the incarnation of the Word: one of which teaches that he took flesh from
the Virgin […]; the other is that this same Word is as if incarnated, that is, embodied in the letter
of Scripture on the one hand and, on the other, in the ordered shapes of visible things.”634 The
textile page of the Codex Caesareus can be seen as such an ordered shape that both embodies the
Word and, at the same time, veils its sacred meaning just as Christ’s divinity was always present
but hidden under his corporeal body.
The Godescalc Gospel lectionary, a manuscript from the court school of Charlemagne,
shows another pictorial and material strategy that demonstrates how medieval book illuminators
631
On a reading of white cloth as a symbol for Christ triumphant see Jerome on Math. 28:3,
Commentariorum in Matheum libri IV, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 77, ed. David Hurst and Marc
Adriaen (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), 290. See also Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 282.
632
Friedrich Ohly, “Vom geistigen Sinn des Wortes im Mittelalter,” in idem, Schriften zur
mittelalterlichen Bedeutungsforschung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977), 1—31.
633
“Origenes quoque ait: … sic verbum Dei per prophetas profertur ad homines, ibi carnis, hic litterae
velamine tectum. Littera tanquam caro aspicitur: spiritualis sensus tanquam divinitas sentitur.” Glossa
Ordinaria, PL 113, col. 298. Trans. Kendrick, Animating the Letter, 246, note 6.
634
“Duobus quippe modis divinae legis expositores incarnationem dei verbi insinuant. Quorum unus est,
qui eius incarnationem ex virgine … edocet. Alter est, qui ipsum verbum quasi incarnatum, hoc est,
incrassatum litteris rerumque visibilium formis et ordinibus asserit.” Johannes Scottus, Commentarius in
evangelium Iohannis I.1 (on John 1:27), PL 122, col. 307B. Trans. Kendrick, Animating the Letter, 246,
n. 5.
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played with various expressions of materiality in order to make the divine visible in the form of a
book.635 In the case of the Godescalc lectionary, corporeal physicality and divine light were not
evoked by the combination of purple and white paint, but by golden text written on purple-
colored vellum. A dedicatory poem in this manuscript reveals the meaning of these colors. “The
golden letters are written on purple pages. They reveal heaven that was opened through the rose-
colored blood of God.”636 Thus, the poem explains that the purple-colored vellum is symbolic for
the blood of Christ’s humanity, while the golden letters reflect the heavenly light that radiated
from his Divinity.637 The allegory of revealed heaven not only refers to the visibility of celestial
light but also to the true meaning of scripture. Eusebius explained that light reflected in gold is
also symbolic of the spiritual sense that was hidden behind the literal meaning of the words.638
The textile page of the Codex Caesareus expressed the same metaphor in a different visual mode
and with different color codes. Here, the symbolism of gold paint as an indication of the sensus
635
Bruno Reudenbach, Das Godescalc-Evangelistar. Ein Buch für die Reformpolitik Karls des Grossen
(Frankfurt: Fischer, 1998). Fabrizio Crivello, Charlotte Denoël and Peter Orth, eds., Das Godescalc-
Evangelistar: eine Prachthandschrift für Karl den Grossen (Darmstadt: Primus, 2011).
636
“Aurea purpureis pingitur grammata scedis / Regna poli roseo pate — sanguine — facta tonantis /
Fulgida stelligeri promunt et gaudia caeli.” Reudenbach Godescalc-Evangelistar, 98. For Reudenbach’s
German translation see ibid., 99—101. For an alternative translation see Beat Brenk, “Schriftlichkeit und
Bildlichkeit in der Hofschule Karls des Grossen,” in Testo e Immagine Nell’Alto Medioevo (Spoleto:
Presso la Sede del Centro, 1994), 2:631—691, esp. 643, n. 28.
637
Metalwork objects from the Carolingian period such as the golden altar frontal of Sant’Ambrogio in
Milan and Suger’s use of material iconology attest that the metaphoric use of the color gold as symbol of
divine light was well known throughout the Middle Ages in relation to various media, not only book
illumination. Eric Thunø, “The Golden Altar of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan: Image and Materiality,” in
Decorating the Lord’s Table: On the dynamics between image and altar in the Middle Ages, ed. Søren
Kaspersen and Eric Thunø (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2006), 63—78. See also Bruno
Reudenbach, “Gold ist Schlamm: Anmerkungen zur Materialbewertung im Mittelalter,” in Material in
Kunst und Alltag, ed. Monika Wagner und Dietmar Rübel (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002), 1—12.
Herbert Kessler, “Image and Object: Christ’s Dual Nature and the Crisis of Early Medieval Art,” in The
Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Medieval Studies, ed. Jennifer R. Davies and
Michael McCormick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 290—326. On Suger see Martin Büchsel, “Licht und
Metaphysik in der Gotik: noch einmal zu Suger von Saint-Denis,” in Licht und Farbe in der
mittelalterlichen Backsteinarchitektur des südlichen Ostseeraums, ed. Ernst Badstübner, Gerhard Eimer
(Berlin: Lukas, 2005), 24—37, 226, with further references.
638
According to Eusebius, gold is also a symbol for the spiritual meaning of scripture that is hidden
behind the literal sense of the words. Cited in Meier and Suntrup, Farbenbedeutungen, 731—32, who
translate as follows: “Goldglanz ist ein Zeichen der Entdeckung des geistigen Schriftsinns.”
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spiritalis of scripture comes to bear on the golden script in which the book is written throughout,
even if the pages are not purple. If we read the physical materials used to make the Codex Aureus
and the Codex Caesareus as material metaphors, and contextualize these metaphors in the
codicological structure and ornamental programs of the books, these manuscripts appear as
material metaphors for the dual-natured Christ. They signify a material container that is
characterized by a duality of matter and spirit, which are represented, on the one hand, by the
physical materials and on the other by sacred scripture. By analogy to Christ, who was both man
and God, these liturgical books appear as material containers that embody a spiritual essence. If
the books were used on the altar, they stood in as material substitute for Christ’s body. On the
lectern they represented the four Gospels, the evangelical vita Christi that made Christ tangible
in the form of a textual garment. Understood as a veil of scripture, finally, the dual-natured
Gospel book also functioned as a bridge into the realm of the spirit.
I conclude this chapter with another look at the textile page in the Codex Caesareus,
which brings all of these aspects together. On fol. 4v the Codex Caesareus represents an image of
Christ in Majesty. This miniature is visible through the white textile design on the recto of the
double page [figs. 243 and 266]. A closer look at the composition, function and symbolic
meaning of the textile page suggests that the images on the verso and recto of this folio were
planned as corresponding images. The textile page can be read as a visual and material
commentary on the Gospels’ function as a book-body and veil of revelation. The compositional
correspondance between the verso and recto pages is apparent in the geometric pattern of the
white textile design that almost perfectly mirrors the roundels that enclose the evangelists’
symbols painted on the reverse, while the rosette in the center of the lozenge frame comes to rest
in the middle of Christ’s body. In addition, the lozenges and rosettes of the textile design recall
the typical lozenge and medallion compositions of Maiestas miniatures in Carolingian
manuscripts. A lozenge with circular extensions appears, for example, in the First Bible of
Charles the Bald (the so-called Vivian Bible) [fig. 267].639 We know that the Echternach
639
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Msc. lat. 1, Tours, 845, fol. 329v. Marie-Pierre Laffitte,
“Bible de Vivien, dite première Bible de Charles the Chauve,” in Marie-Pierre Laffitte and Charlotte
Denoël (eds.), Trésors carolingiens: Livres manuscrits de Charlemagne à Charles the Chauve (Paris:
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2007), cat. no. 13, 103—5.
194
workshop used Carolingian models, which might have inspired the lozenge design.640 A similar
Maiestas Domini further appears in the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, a Carolingian
manuscript that was well known in Ottonian Regensburg [fig. 268].641 On fol. 46v the Codex
Aureus of St. Emmeram shows another Maiestas in the incipit page to the Gospels of Mark [fig.
269].642 The geometric medallion and lozenge composition in these Maiestas images have been
read as a symbol of the world.643 In the incipit page to the Gospels of Mark, the ethereal
background and the stars on blue and green grounds further identify the world ruled by Christ as
a cosmic world. In addition, the evangelist, prophets and evangelist symbols characterize the
image as a vision of future events. In contrast, the textile page in the Codex Caesareus depicts
birds, griffins, and fabulous half-humans, which inhabit the border and the lozenge pattern.
Viktor Elbern suggested that the presence of animals and plants in lozenge-and-medallion
640
Mayr-Harting also noted compositional similarities between the Maiestas miniatures of the Vivian
Bible and the Maiestas of the Codex Aureus. Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination, 195. On
Carolingian manuscripts in Echternach see Nancy Netzer, Cultural Interplay in the Eighth Century: the
Trier Gospels and the Making of a Scriptorium at Echternach (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1994), and Rainer Kahsnitz, “Frühottonische Buchmalerei,” in Otto der Große:
Magdeburg und Europa, ed. Matthias Puhle (Mainz: von Zabern, 2001), 1:228, 246.
641
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14000, fol. 6v. Georg Leidinger, Der Codex Aureus der
Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München, 6 vols. (Munich: Schmidt, 1921—25). Wilhelm Köhler and
Florentine Mütherich, Die karolingischen Miniaturen 5, Die Hofschule Karls des Kahlen (Berlin:
Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1982), 175—98. For a digital facsimile see http://daten.digitale-
sammlungen.de/~db/0005/bsb00057171/images/ (accessed 2014/02/07). When the Codex Aureus was
restored at the scriptorium of St. Emmeram, Abbot Ramwold had his picture inserted on fol. 1r to mark
his achievement. Adam S. Cohen, The Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy, and Reform in Eleventh-Century
Germany (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 18—20. See also William
Diebold, “The Anxiety of Influence in Early Medieval Art? The Codex Aureus of Charles the Bald in
Ottonian Regensburg,” in Under the Influence: The Concept of Influence and the Study of Illuminated
Manuscripts, ed. John Lowden and Alixe Bovey (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 51—64. The figure of
Ramwold appears against a textile-ornamented ground, similar to the bishops in the Egbert Psalter in
Cividale. See fig. 41 and bibliography in chapter 1. I will return to this image and to the miniature of Uta
in the Uta Codex in a future study.
642
Cohen, Uta Codex, 18—19.
643
Herbert L. Kessler, The Illustrated Bibles from Tours (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press,
1977), 51—52. Madeline H. Caviness, “Images of Divine Order and the Third Mode of Seeing,” in Gesta
22 (1983): 99—120, esp. 107. Viktor Elbern, “Bildstruktur—Sinnzeichen—Bildaussage:
Zusammenfassende Studie zur unfigürlichen Ikonographie im frühen Mittelalter,” Arte medievale 1
(1983): 17—37. On the function and meaning of geometric schemata in Ottonian book illumination see
Cohen, Uta Codex, 157—71.
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symbols of the world mark such geometric images as representations of the terrestrial cosmos.644
If we read the textile page along these lines, the geometric ornament with birds and various
creatures represents the terrestrial world. In addition, the purple color of the textile-like border
alludes to the concept of textiles as a corporeal fabric and evokes the materiality of the body. The
white textile veil inside this purple frame is more difficult to read. On the one hand, the design
represents a physical material, cloth, and shows a geometric pattern that symbolizes the world.
On the other, the white color evokes the radiance of celestial light. In short, the white textile
pattern presents a mixture of matter and spirit. We might read this textile page in a Pseudo-
Dionysian sense as a representation of physical matter that makes visible the immaterial sphere
of the spirit. Moreover, if we consider that this dual-colored textile page veils an image of Christ
and further appears in a Gospel book, the textile image appears to reflects the “paternally
transmitted enlightenment coming from sacred scripture.”645 However, Christ, the source of
spiritual enlightenment that is to be found in scripture, remains veiled under a cloth-like page.
Thus, like the textile curtains and textile-parchment-veils that I discussed in chapter two, textile
ornament in the Codex Caesareus transforms the parchment page into a metaphoric veil of
revelation. The textile image, placed at the very beginning of the book, visualizes the notion that
reading and contemplating the Gospels uncovers the mystical truth in scripture and fills the
readers’ heart with the spiritual light of heaven. While the ultimate goal in such a spiritual
reading of scripture is to overcome the attachment to the material world, physical matter plays an
important role in this process. That the precious Codex Caesareus was made for private
contemplation is unlikely, however.646 Probably, this book had its place on the lectern and altar
644
Elbern, “Bildstruktur.”
645
Pseudo-Dionysius, “The Celestial Hierarchy,” I. 2, trans. Colm Luibheid, Pseudo-Dionysius: The
Complete Works (London: SPCK, 1987), 145. On Pseudo-Dionysius and his influence in the Middle Ages
see Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 16, 79.
646
Manuscripts designed for private study and contemplation often contain schematic diagrams like the
textile page in the Codex Caesareus, but these were usually line drawings. See Caviness, “Images of
Divine Order.” Also Jeffrey F. Hamburger, “Haec Figura Demonstrat: Diagrams in an Early-Thirteenth
Century Parisian Copy of Lothar de Segni’s De Missarum Mysteriis,” Wiener Jahrbuch für
Kunstgeschichte 58 (2009): 7—75. Adam S. Cohen, “Making Memories in a Medieval Miscellany,”
Gesta 48 (2009): 135—152.
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during the liturgy.647 Bound into a textus, which physically represents Christ in the liturgy, the
textile page of the Codex Caesareus represents simultaneously an opaque corporeal garment and
a translucent veil that clads Christ, the source of celestial light. Moreover, the book itself
presents Christ as the veil that separates heaven from earth. The design and color of the textile
page, beneath which Christ is visible, can be read as a commentary on Christ’s dual nature.
While the purple color and textile motif evoke his human body, the white color of the pattern
inside the border alludes to the celestial light that flowed from Christ’s divinity. Kessler has draw
attention to an image in the Carolingian Stuttgart Psalter that shows Christ similarly from behind
in front of an extensible purple and white pattern [fig. 270].648 A marginal note explains the
meaning of this image. “Here Christ our Lord spreads out the heavens like an animal skin.”649
Kessler mentioned this image in the context of a discussion of physical matter as an aid for
spiritual sight. He explained that “the miniature represents the Lord holding out the veil of the
firmament, the physical sky that separates this world from the next, colored blue, violet and
white.”650 Kessler was unaware how closely the ornament resembles floral textile designs in
images of the evangelists, for example those in Ms. Astor 1 of the Public Library in New York
[fig. 106].651 The “animal skin” of Heaven shown in the Stuttgart Psalter is actually textile-
ornamented. In addition, Kessler interpreted this image as one of Christ, who is the “portal into
the celestial realm” [fig. 268].652 He noted in particular that the body of Christ in the Stuttgart
647
On function of the Gospel book in the liturgy see Heinzer, “Die Inszenierung des Evangelienbuchs.”
648
Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Ms. Bibl. Fol. 23, fol. 83v. Kessler, Kessler, “Image
and Object,” 299—301. Der Stuttgarter Bilderpsalter: Bibl. fol. 23. Facsimile (Stuttgart: Schreiber,
1965—1968). Felix Heinzer, Wörtliche Bilder: zur Funktion der Literal-Illustration im Stuttgarter
Psalter, um 830 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005). For a digital facsimile see http://digital.wlb-
stuttgart.de/digitale-
sammlungen/seitenansicht/?no_cache=1&tx_dlf[id]=1517&tx_dlf[page]=1&cHash=a60b54c1ec3937ca3
9171c430bedbb2b (accessed 2014/02/07)
649
Kessler, “Image and Object,” 301.
650
Ibid.
651
On the Astor manuscript see Jonathan J. G. Alexander, James H. Marrow and Lucy Freeman Sandler
(eds.), The Splendor of the World: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at the New York
Public Library (London: Harvey Miller, 2005), cat. no. 27 (Jacqueline Ann Frank), 143—47.
652
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Psalter “occupies the same plane as the skin-firmament […], thereby equating the ‘Word-Made-
Flesh’ with the vellum on which sacred writ is inscribed, and here, simultaneously with the
membrane dividing the physical and spiritual realms.”653 If we relate the miniature in the
Stuttgart Psalter to the Codex Caesareus, the purple and white textile page equally resembles
such a skin-firmament. Moreover, as in the Stuttgart Psalter, the makers of the Codex Caesareus
brought this corporeal firmament together with the body of Christ, and also showed Christ from
behind. The Stuttgart skin-firmament stretched out before the body of Christ and the Echternach
parchment-and-textile book-body likewise demonstrate that material images facilitate a
contemplative approach to scripture and aid anagogical ascent, but also make clear that art can
never replace spiritual sight.654 In both cases “Christ’s averted visage asserts the limits of carnal
seeing, and hence of art itself; a kind of behind-the-scenes Maiestas Domini, the depiction
reminds the faithful that gazing at the Lord’s face is promised only at the end of time, and then
solely to the blessed.”655 We have seen in chapter two that textile pages function as a warning not
to confuse a painted image of Christ with spiritual sight. While the Echternach textile page might
also be read along these lines, the artist appears to have placed the focus more clearly on the
body of the Incarnation, which he re-cast as a book-body that liturgically represents Christ on the
altar. Such a material reading of the liturgical textus demonstrates that material props and sensual
stimulation played an essential role in the medieval experience of the Divine. The function of
material objects in medieval worship, so it seems, must not be underestimated. Handling objects
like the textus and participating physically in the act of revelation, for example when the reader
653
Ibid.
654
Theodulf of Orléans, for example, addresses the dangers of visual representations. “God is to be sought
not in visible things, not in manufactured things, but in the heart; he is to be beheld not with the eyes of
the flesh but only with the eye of the mind.” “Unde datur intellegi, quod non in rebus visibilius, non in
manufactis, sed in corde Deus est quaerendus; nec carnalibus oculis, sed mentis solummodo oculo
aspiciendus (4.2),” Opus Caroli regis contra synodum (Libri Carolini), Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
Concilia, 2: supplementum, ed. Ann Freeman (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1998), 473. Trans.
Herbert Kessler, “Real Absence: Early Medieval Art and the Metamorphosis of Vision,” in idem,
Press, 2000), 104—48, esp. 119. On Theodulf’s critique of images see Karl F. Morrison, “Anthropology
and the Use of Religious Images in the Opus Caroli Regis (Libri Carolini)” in Jeffrey F. Hamburger and
Anne-Marie Bouché (eds.), The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 32—45.
655
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turned the textile-ornamented pages, intensified the spiritual experience. While the Echternach
textile book-bodies comment on the importance of reading and contemplation and make clear
that God is invisible to corporeal eyes, these sumptuous books strongly encourage a sensual
approach to scripture. The full-folio textile pages made at Echternach present the Word of God
as a form of Incarnation that stimulates in particular the tactile senses suggesting that the
embodiment of scripture in a material and tangible container can equally function as a vehicle for
spiritual revelation.
Conclusion
Unlike most textile images that function as visual symbols, the full-folio designs of the
Echternach manuscripts transform manuscript pages into material metaphors that the readers can
explore with their eyes and by means of their tactile senses. Textile patterns in combination with
the colors purple and red evoke associations of blood and flesh. In addition to the textile
metaphor of the body, the Echternach book illuminators exploited the notion of writing as
weaving and scripture as a textual garment in an unusual manner to cast the Gospels into a
corporeal and tangible form. The context of the liturgy adds additional layers of meaning to the
textile-clad book-body because on the lectern and altar the Gospel book functions as a material
representative of Christ. Thus, the textile-clad textus appears as a form of Incarnation, as spirit
clad in a garment of corporeal matter. However, in analogy to Christ’s two natures the embodied
Word presents itself as a dual-natured body. In addition to the metaphor of the parchment page
as a veil that reveals and conceals at the same time, color codes make clear to the viewer that the
textus is not the embodied Divinity, but a material symbol that functions as a bridge between the
world of matter and the realm of the spirit. Thus, the textile-ornamented Echternach Gospel
books combine the notion of scripture as a veil of revelation with the idea of Christ’s human
body as a vessel of redemption into the powerful material metaphor of the liturgical textus and
present the Word of God in the form of a physical book-body that re-enacts the Incarnation.
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Conclusion
Textile ornament is beautiful. Beauty, however, must not be understood as a meaningless form of
decoration. On the contrary, this study of textile ornament in early medieval manuscripts from
the ninth to the eleventh century has shown that textile ornament is not only deeply meaningful
but also a means to an end.656 Isidore of Seville and Alain de Lille considered beauty a tool for
the gathering of spiritual knowledge.657 Textile-ornamented pages in medieval manuscripts
generated such knowledge by helping the readers of biblical and liturgical manuscripts to
establish communication with God. Such ornament facilitated access to the Divine and allowed
the readers to enter a spiritual sphere made visible and tangible in textile-ornamented books. As
the large number of surviving manuscripts demonstrates, textile ornament was not only a potent
ornamental formula but also a very popular one. It is difficult to say with certainty when and
where textile ornament was invented. The textile folios of the Folchart Psalter, 872—883, and
the Lindau Gospels, 883—890, point to St. Gallen as a potential place of origin for textile
pages.658 Carolingian manuscripts that display a repertoire of ornamental motifs similar to those
appearing in Ottonian textile pages were available at the scriptorium of St. Gallen, as were
Anglo-Saxon Gospel books that contain ornamental interlace-images.659 Perhaps St. Gallen
artists merged Carolingian ornamental motifs with the full-page format of insular interlace pages
656
Andreas Speer, “Vom Verstehen mittelalterlicher Kunst,” in Mittelalterliches Kunsterleben nach
Quellen des 11. bis 13. Jahrhunderts, ed. Günther Binding and Andreas Speer (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt:
Frommann & Holzboog, 1993), 13—52, esp. 48, defined the medieval concept of beauty evoked by the
terms pulcher and pulchritudo not as beauty for beauty’s sake but as a vehicle for emotional affection and
a source of knowledge.
657
Ibid., 48—49.
658
Anton von Euw, Die St. Galler Buchkunst vom 8. bis zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (St. Gall:
Verlag am Klosterhof, 2008), cat. no. 97, 1:394—99, and cat. no. 99, 1:408—11. Peter Ochsenbein and
Beat von Scarpatetti, Der Folchart Psalter aus der Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen (Freiburg, Basel and
Vienna: Herder, 1978).
659
Anton von Euw, “Anfänge und Höhepunkte der St. Galler Buchkunst,” in Die Kultur der Abtei
St.Gallen: Vorträge im Studium Universale anlässlich der Ausstellung vom 1. April bis 18. Mai 1996 in
der Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Bonn (Bonn: Bouvier, 1997), 60—81.
200
for the first time and thus created a new type of ornamental image: the textile page. From St.
Gallen the phenomenon would have spread in the tenth century especially to Reichenau and from
there elsewhere.660 Why the dissemination of textile ornament and its re-appearance in the work
of Anno and Ruodprecht, two book illuminators who worked very near St. Gallen at Reichenau,
occurred nearly one hundred years later remains an open question. It is further unclear by what
routes textile ornament was transmitted to other places like Corvey, Regensburg, and workshops
in Flanders. The reasons that triggered the sudden flourishing of textile ornament in the late
tenth-century remain equally obscure. What we can now say is how textile ornament functioned,
what spiritual purposes it served, and what religious needs it satisfied.
Three major functions of textile ornament have emerged from my analysis. First, textile
pages function as a veil of revelation. In the context of evangelist portraits, textile ornament
evokes the metaphor of the veil in order to paraphrase the typological relationship between the
Old and New Testaments. Textile ornament placed at the beginning of the Gospels, either in
combination with an evangelist portrait or as an individual textile page, also illustrates how
textile images facilitated the contemplative exercises of reading and meditation. As chapter two
demonstrated, textile-ornamented pages in Gospel books devise a form of veil that is both
metaphoric and physical. Touching and turning a textile-patterned manuscript page makes the
process of revelation both a corporeal and a spiritual experience. Second, because textiles are a
medium that relates to the human body on both a physical and metaphoric level, textile ornament
lends itself to visual exegesis on the Incarnation. When contextualized in the Christmas and
Easter liturgies, textile patterns illustrate basic theological arguments about the blood and body
of Christ as the vehicles of redemption. In the context of the mass, textile ornament further
comments on the allegoric nature of the Eucharistic body and indicates that the sacrament of the
Eucharist is a way of establishing a spiritual union with God. Finally, cladding the quires and
canon tables of a liturgical Gospel book in textile ornament transforms a manuscript into a
material metaphor that functions as a physical representative of Christ in the liturgy. The textile-
clad and tangible book-body symbolizes the body of the Incarnation, which contained Christ’s
660
Von Euw, Die St. Galler Buchkunst, 1:410, and idem, “Echternacher Prachthandschriften,” in Die
Abtei Reichenau: 698—1998, ed. Michele Ferrari, Jean Schroeder, and Henri Trauffler (Luxembourg:
Cludem, 1999), 166—202, esp. 180, suggested that textile ornament occurred first in St. Gallen and
spread from here in the tenth century to Reichenau, and from Reichenau to Echternach in the eleventh,
but the development was perhaps not as linear as such a notion of transmission suggests.
201
divine nature under a physical human habitus, just as the sensus mysticus of scripture is
concealed under layers of parchment and paint. Color codes play a significant role in marking
this book body as a form of embodiment that mirrors the two natures of Christ. In addition, the
metaphor of the scripture as a woven dress and the book as a corporeal garment for the life of
Christ characterizes the medieval textus as a container that unites the four Gospels in one body.
As ethnologist Jean-Pierre Warnier noted, however,
Containment as a means of symbolizing power […] is based on […] passing through
and transformation. Containment is of little value unless it is accessible through
opening.661
Thresholds are usually embellished for this reason: they highlight openings and signal ways of
transformation. Ornament draws attention to the places where two spheres meet and where
transformation takes place, not only in Christian art but also in sacred objects produced by many
different cultures.662 The textile pages discussed in this study serve all of those functions. They
conceal, contain, and make the sacred accessible to those faithful who seek spiritual
transformation. While textile ornament emphasizes entranceways to the realm of the Divine and
helps readers along the spiritual passage of scripture, it also contains the immaterial Word in a
visible and tangible form. The book container, in turn, functions in private contemplation and in
the liturgy as another form of passage. Showing the book-body and opening it to read sacred
scripture from it acts to unveil the gates of heaven that metaphorically open inside this book, just
as heaven opened when the body of Christ was sacrificed on the cross.
Three potent agents, color, geometry and metaphor fuel the power of textile ornament as
a motor of revelation and spiritual transformation. As Madeline Caviness, Mary Carruthers, and
Kirk Ambrose, among others, have noted, non-figural ornament in particular stimulates the mind
because it is non-specific.663 Since it is a form of textile iconography, textile ornament is not
661
Jean-Pierre Warnier, “Inside and Outside: Surfaces and Containers,” in Handbook of Material Culture,
ed. Christopher Tilley, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Michael Rowlands and Patricia Spyer (London,
Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage, 2006), 186—97, esp. 193—94.
662
Ibid.
663
Madeline H. Caviness, “Images of Divine Order and the Third Mode of Seeing,” Gesta 22 (1993):
99—120. Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric and the Making of Images, 400—
202
strictly speaking non-figurative. However, textile ornament operates based on an abstract
geometric formula that enhances the potency of textile pages because it lends itself to many
interpretations that stimulate discursive thinking. If we take into account, furthermore, that
textile images in a medieval manuscript do not act independently from their physical support but
correspond with the material, textual, and codicological structure of the book-body in which they
operate, these manuscripts emerge as multi-dimensional objects. The textile-ornamented Gospel
book, in both its capacities as a tangible veil of revelation and as a physical book body for the
Word, is a form of embodied exegesis, a thinking machine that triggers interpretation,
contemplation and spiritual transformation. As material vehicles that generate both thought and
spiritual sight, textile ornamented manuscripts add to our understanding of the cooperative
workings of matter and spirit in medieval art.
1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 167—78. Kirk Ambrose, The Nave Sculpture of
Vézelay: The Art of Monastic Viewing (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2006), 64.
203
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Figures
Image removed for copyright reasons
Figure 1. Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Sal. IX b, Petershausen Sacramentary, 980, fol. 40v,
photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
239
Figure 2. Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 426 Helmst., Corvey, late 10th century,
240
Figure 3. Wolfenbüttel, Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel, 6 Urk 11, marriage Charter of Otto II and
Theophanu, photo: Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel.
241
Figure 4. Uppsala Universitetsbibliotek, Cod. C 93, Codex Caesareus, fol. 2v—3r, photo: Uppsala
Universitetsbibliotek.
242
Figure 5. Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, HS 156142 (Codex aureus Epternacensis), fols.

243
Figure 6. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Lat. 27, fol. 73v, photo: Adam Cohen.
244
Figure 7. Mainz, Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum, Inv. Kautzsch Nr. 1 (=Nr. 974), 11th
century, fol. 113r, Luke, photo: Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum Mainz.
245
Figure 8. Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, ca 1015, fol. 179r, Initial page to the
Gospels of John, photo: Brandt, Das Kostbare Evangeliar, 30.
246
Figure 9. Maastricht, St. Servatius, silk samite, Inv. 6—3, photo: Stauffer, Die Mittelalterlichen
Textilien, 33, plate 5.
247
Figure 10. Bamberg, Diozesanmuseum, silk tapestry, Gunthertuch, Constantinople, 971, photo:
Baumstark, Rom und Byzanz, 2:207.
248
Figure 11. Hildesheim, Dommuseum, inv. no. D 1997—4, eastern Persia (?), photo: Puhle, Otto der
Grosse, 2:481.
249
Figure 12. Hildesheim, Domschatz, Bernwardsbibel, inv. no. DS 61, fol. 4v, photo: Brandt and
Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, 570.
250
Figure 13. Riggisberg, Abegg Stiftung, silk fragment from Byzantium or the eastern Mediterranean, inv.
no. 98, photo: Otavsky and Salīm, Mittelalterliche Textilien I, 137.
251
Figure 14. Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, HS 156142 (Codex aureus Epternacensis), fol.
252
Figure 15. Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, HS 156142 (Codex aureus Epternacensis) fol
51v—52r, photo: Grebe, Codex Aureus, fig, 50, 71.
253
Figure 16. Léon, Real Colegiata de San Isidoro, lining from the caja de los marfiles, photo: Schorta,
Monochrome Seidengewebe, fig. 58, 93.
254
255
Figure 18. New York, Metropolitan Museum, silk and cotton textile, Accession no. 31.106.64,
photo: Metropolitan Museum, digital collection.
256
Figure 19. Rome, Vatican, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, inv. no. 1275, silk with winged horses,
photo: Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit, 2: 658.
257
Figure 20. Venice, Museo Marciana, transenna panel, photo: Evans and Wixom, Glory of
Byzantium, fig. 292, 452.
258
Figure 21. Maastricht, St. Servatius, Inv. 9—13, reliquary pouch, fatimid (?), 11th century, photo:
Stauffer, Die Mittelalterlichen Textilien, 131.
259
Figure 22. Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 426 Helmst., fol. 59v, photo:
Bildindex Marburg.
260
Figure 23. Schänis, Stiftskirche St. Sebastian, ca 820, photo: Faccani, “Geflecht mit
Gewürm,”137, fig. 23.
261
Figure 24. Ahenny, County Tipperary, stone cross (detail), eighth century, photo: Brown, Lindisfarne
Gospels, 30, fig. 16.
262
Figure 25. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Rep I 57, fragment of a sacramentary, fol. 2r, photo: Brandt
and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, 2:409.
263
Figure 26. London, British Library Add. MS 8900, Cuthbert Gospels, front and back cover, photo:
British Library, digital Collection.
264
Figure 27. Ivory diptych from a book cover, St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 60, photo: Duft and
Schnyder, Die Elfenbein-Einbände, plate 2.2.
265
Figure 28. Hildesheim, St. Michael, column with lozenge floral pattern from the northern section of the
choir screen, photo: author.
266
Figure 29. Saint- Benoît-sur-Loire, mosaic floor, photo: Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von
Hildesheim, 2:300.
267
Figure 30. Antioch on the Orontes, floor mosaic, photo: Grabar, “Le Rayonnement de l’Art Sassanide,”
plate 7, fig. 1.
268
Figure 31. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 8318, fragment of a pattern book, fol. 64v.
photo: Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, 2:258.
269
Figure 32. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 85r, photo: Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv.
270
Figure 33. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 56r, photo: Ronig, Egbert: Erzbischof,
plate 107.
271
Figure 34. Chelles, Musée municipal Alfred Bonno, inv. no. E16, two woven bands from the tomb of
Saint Balthild, 7th century, photo: Krone und Schleier, 245.
272
Figure 35. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, fol. 15r, photo: Suckale-Redlefsen, Die
Handschriften, 1.1: 124, fig. 399.
273
Figure 36. Cividale del Friuli, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Ms. 136, Egbert Psalter, 977—993, fol.
151v—152r, Liutwinus, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 19.
274
Figure 37. Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 24, Egbert Codex, 977—993, fol. 6r, John, photo: Gunther, Der
Egbert Codex, 89.
275
Figure 38. Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Sal. IX b, 980, fol. 43r, Vere Dignum, photo:
Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
276
Figure 39. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, 978—983, fol. 3r, Vere Dignum, photo:
277
Figure 40. London, British Museum, Ms. Add. 5111, fol. 10v, Prologue, Constantinople 7th century,
photo: Nordenfalk, Die Spätantiken Kanontafeln, plate 1.
278
52v—53r, Maternus, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 11.
279
Figure 42. Bucharest, Alba Iulia Biblioteca Documenta Batthyaneum, Ms. R II—I, Lorsch Gospels, 810,
page 36, photo: Exner, Das Guntbald-Evangeliar, plate 57.
280
Figure 43. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 1203, Godescalc Gospels, fol.
3v—4r, photo: Crivello, Denoël, and Orth, Das Godescalc-Evangelistar, plates 6 and 7.
281
Figure 44. Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung, inv. no. 655, Silk fragment, Persia or Mesopotamia, 11th—12th
century, photo: Otavsky and Salīm, Mittelalterliche Textilien I, 133.
282
173v—174r, Magnericus, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 21.
283
century, fol. 16v, Matthew, photo: Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum Mainz.
284
Figure 47. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 15r, photo:
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, digital collection.
285
Figure 48. Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, ca 1015, fol. 19r, Matthew, photo:
286
Figure 49. Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, ca 1015, fol. 16v, Bernward at the altar,
287
Figure 50. Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, ca 1015, fol. 18r, the Magi, photo:
288
Figure 51. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 12084, 790—804, fol. 1v, photo: Laffitte
and Denoël, Trésors carolingiens, 79.
289
Figure 52. Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, ca 1015, fol. 175v, John and the disappearing Christ,
290
Figure 53. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4452, Perikopes of Heinrich II, 1007—1012, fol.
3v, Matthew, photo: Fabian and Lange, Pracht auf Pergament, 178.
291
Figure 54. Berlin, Staatliche Museen Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Hs. 78 A 1, 11th century, fol. 77v,
292
Figure 55. Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, ca 1015, fol. 118v, Luke, photo: Brandt,
293
Figure 56. Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, ca 1015, fol. 76r, Mark, photo: Brandt,
294
Figure 57. Wolfenbüttel, Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel, 6 Urk 11, marriage Charter of Otto II and
Theophanu, detail, photo: Staatsarchiv Wolfenbüttel.
295
Figure 58. Schänis, Stiftskirche St. Sebastian, ca 820, photo: Faccani, “Geflecht mit Gewürm,” 137, fig.
23.
296
Figure 59. Washington D.C., Dumbarton Oaks Collection, one leaf from a pair of silver book covers,
Constantinople, mid 6th century, photo: Safran, Heaven on Earth, color plate 7B.
297
Figure 60. London, British Library, Cotton Ms. Nero D.IV, Lindisfarne Gospels, fol. 2v, prefatory
cross-carpet page, photo: London, British Library, digital collection.
298
Figure 61. Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity, floor mosaic from the Grotto beneath the church, 5th
century, photo: Kitzinger, “The Threshold of the Holy Shrine,” 642, fig. 3.
299
Figure 62. St. Maurice, Klosterkirche, lower part of an ambo frontal, 7th—8th century, photo: Riek, Goll,
and Descœudres, Die Zeit Karls des Grossen, 143, fig. 38.
300
century, fol. 16v, Matthew, photo: Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum Mainz.
301
Figure 64. Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 24, Egbert Codex, 977—993, fol. 3v, Matthew, photo: Gunther,
302
Figure 65. Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 24, Egbert Codex, 977—993, fol. 4r, Mark, photo: Gunther, Der
Egbert Codex, 87.
303
Figure 66. Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 24, Egbert Codex, 977—993, fol. 5v, Luke, photo: Gunther, Der
Egbert Codex, 88.
304
Figure 67. Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 24, Egbert Codex, 977—993, fol. 6r, John, photo: Gunther, Der
Egbert Codex, 89.
305
Figure 68. New York, Public Library, Ms. Astor 1, page 2, Matthew, photo: Alexander, Marrow and
Sandler, The Splendor of the World, 144.
306
Figure 69. Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Inv. AE 679, Mainz, first half 11th century, fol. 21v,
307
Mark, photo: Märker, Gold und Purpur, 32.
308
John, photo: Märker, Gold und Purpur, 36.
309
Figure 72. Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Inv. AE 679, Mainz, first half 11th century, fol. 190r,
310
Figure 73. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 15r, textile
311
Figure 74. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 15v, Matthew,
312
313
Figure 76. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 66v, Mark,
314
Figure 77. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 67r textile
315
316
Figure 79. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 110v, Luke,
317
318
Figure 81. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9475, second half 11th century, fol. 174v, John,
319
Figure 82. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 85r, photo: Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv.
320
Figure 83. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Mss. Laud. lat. 27, fol. 17v—18r, photo: Pontifical Institute of
Medieval Studies, Toronto, slide Library.
321
322
fol. 18r, photo: Bildindex Marburg.
323
324
Figure 87. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 13601 (Uta Codex), Regensburg, ca 1025. fol. 6v,
photo: Cohen, Uta Codex, color plate 14 a.
325
Figure 88. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 13601 (Uta Codex), Regensburg, ca 1025. fol.
42v, photo: Cohen, Uta Codex, color plate 14 b.
326
60v, photo: Cohen, Uta Codex, color plate 14 c.
327
90v, photo: Cohen, Uta Codex, color plate 14 d.
328
Figure 91. Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, ca 1015, fol. 20r, photo: Brandt, Das
Kostbare Evangeliar, 12.
329
Figure 92. Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 33, Guntbald Gospels, 1011, fol. 22v, photo: Exner, Das
330
331
332
333
Figure 96. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 1, Lindau Gospels, St. Gallen, 883—890, fol. 5v,
textile page, photo: Pierpont Morgan Library, CORSAIR digital collection.
334
Figure 97. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 1, Lindau Gospels, St. Gallen, 883—890, fol. 12r,
335
century, fol. 75v, Mark, photo: Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum Mainz.
336
century, fol. 113r, Luke, photo: Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum Mainz.
337
century, fol. 171v, John, photo: Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum Mainz.
338
Figure 101. Trier Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 22, Ada Gospels, ca 800, fol. 15v—16r, photo: Toman and
Bednorz, Kunst der Romanik, 407.
339
Figure 102. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 8850, Soissons Gospels, before 814, fol.
81v, Mark, photo: Mütherich and Gaehde, Carolingian Painting, plate 6.
340
Figure 103. London, British Library, Ms. Harley 2821, Echternach, 11th century, fol. 67, photo: British
341
Figure 104. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 640, 9th century, fol. 100v, photo: Holcomb, Pen
and Parchment, 40.
342
Figure 105. Helsinki, Suomen Kansallismuseo, inv. no. 53131, single leaf, Corvey, last quarter of the
11th century, photo: Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, 416.
343
Figure 106. New York, Public Library, Ms. Astor 1, page 5, John, photo: Kahsnitz, “Frühottonische
Buchmalerei,” 233.
344
Figure 107. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Rep. I 4° 57 a, single leaf, Corvey, last quarter of the 11th
century, photo: Brandt and Eggebrecht, Bernward von Hildesheim, 416.
345
Figure 108. Rome, S. Paolo fuori le mura, Bible, 870, fol. 32v, photo: Kessler, Spiritual Seeing, 154.
346
Figure 109. London, British Library, Add. Ms. 10546, Moutier-Grandval Bible, ca 840, fol. 449r, photo:
Riek, Goll and Descœudres, Die Zeit Karls des Grossen, 235.
347
Mark, photo: Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
348
349
Majestas Domini, photo: Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
350
Figure 113. Berlin, Staatliche Museen Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Hs. 78 A 1, 11th century, fol. 114r,
textile page, photo: Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
351
John, photo: Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett.
352
Figure 115. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 4453, Gospels of Otto III, Reichenau, late 10th
century, fol. 139v, photo: Mütherich and Dachs, Das Evangeliar Ottos III, plate 42.
353
Figure 116. London, British Library, Cotton Ms. Nero D.IV, Lindisfarne Gospels, fol. 209v, John,
photo: London, British Library, digital collection.
354
Figure 117. Salerno, Museo Diocesano, ivory plaque with the incredulity of Thomas, photo: Thunø,
Image and Relic, fig. 113.
355
Figure 118. Darmstadt, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Hs. 1640, Hitda Codex, 1020, fol. 6v—7r,
photo: Boskamp-Priever, Das Evangeliar der Äbtissin Hitda, 100.
356
Figure 119. Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 16 Aug. 2°, textile curtain, fol. 5r,
357
358
359
360
Figure 123. Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 16 Aug. 2°, fol. 131r, Tours 9th
century, photo: Europeana Regia.
361
Figure 124. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 56r, photo: Ronig, Egbert: Erzbischof,
plate 107.
362
Figure 125. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 127r, Majestas Domini, photo: Koblenz,
Landeshauptarchiv.
363
Figure 126. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 127v, John, photo: Koblenz,
Landeshauptarchiv.
364
Figure 127. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 128r, textile page, photo: Koblenz,
Landeshauptarchiv.
365
Figure 128. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 84v, Luke, photo: Koblenz,
Landeshauptarchiv.
366
Figure 129. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 16v, Matthew, photo: Ronig, Egbert:
367
Figure 130. Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Best. 701 Nr. 81, fol. 55v, Mark, photo: Ronig, Egbert:
368
Figure 131. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Lat. 27, fol. 73v—74r, photo: Adam S. Cohen.
369
370
371
Figure 134. Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. 426 Helmst., Corvey, late 10th
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
Figure 143. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 4453, Gospels of Otto III, Reichenau, late 10th
century, fol. 23v—24r, photo: Mütherich and Dachs, Das Evangeliar Ottos III, plates 14—15.
381
Figure 144. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 5v, Matthew, photo: Suckale-
Redlefsen, Die Handschriften, 23, fig. 35.
382
Figure 145. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 6r, John, photo: Kirmeier,
Schreibkunst, 76.
383
Figure 146. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 6v, Mark, photo: Kirmeier,
Schreibkunst, 77.
384
Figure 147. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 7r Luke, photo: Kirmeier,
Schreibkunst, 77.
385
Figure 148. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 7v, Henry, photo: Kirmeier,
Schreibkunst, 75.
386
Figure 149. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 8r, Mary, photo: Kirmeier,
Schreibkunst, 75.
387
Figure 150. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 8v, Joseph’s dream, photo:
388
Figure 151. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 9r, textile page, photo: Suckale-
Redlefsen, Die Handschriften, 22, fig. 34.
389
Figure 152. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 14v, the Magi, photo: Kirmeier,
Schreibkunst, 77.
390
Figure 153. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 15r, textile page, photo:
391
Figure 154. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 53v crucifixion, photo:
392
Figure 155. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 59v, Women at the Tomb,
393
Figure 156. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, 1007—1014, fol. 60r, textile page, photo:
394
Figure 157. Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore, triumphal arch, Annunciation, 5th century, photo: Pietrangeli,
Santa Maria Maggiore, 113.
395
Figure 158. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 17.190.49, ivory plaque with Mary,
photo: Metropolitan Museum digital collection.
396
Figure 159. Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Ms. Bibl. Fol. 23, Stuttgart Psalter, fol. 83v,
397
Figure 160. Erevan, Matanadaran, Cod. 2734, Etschmiadzin Gospels, fol. 228v, photo: Maguire, “Body,
Clothing, Metaphor,” plate 3.9.
398
Figure 161. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Nouvelles acquisitions latines 2246, Cluny, ca
1100, fol. 6r, photo: Bibliothèque Nationale, digital collection.
399
1100, fol. 42v, photo: Bibliothèque Nationale, digital collection.
400
Figure 163. Paris, Cluny Musée Nationale de Moyen âge, Thermes de Cluny, Cl. 23757, Ascension,
cutting from fol. 64 of Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Nouvelles acquisitions latines
2246, ca 1100, photo: Stiegemann and Wemhoff, Canossa 1077, 1:340.
401
402
403
Figure 166. London, British Library, MS Add. 49598, fol. 5v, 963—984, photo: Deshman,
Benedictional, plate 8.
404
Figure 167. Hildesheim, Domschatz. Ms. 61, Bernward Gospels, ca 1015, fol. 17r, Mary, photo: Brandt,
405
Figure 168. Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Eins. 88, 980—90, pages 8—9, photo: author.
406
Figure 169. Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Eins. 88, 980—90, pages 74—75, photo: author.
407
Figure 170a. Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Fondo Antico 1452, ca 970, fol. 2v, photo: Lang
Festschrift zum tausendsten Todestag, 240, fig. 32.
408
Figure 170b. Rome, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Fondo Antico 1452, ca 970, fol. 2v, photo: Labusiak,
409
Figure 171. Rom, Biblioteca Angelica, Ms. Fondo Antico 1452, ca 970, fol. 5v—6r, photo: Labusiak,
410
Figure 172. Darmstadt, Hessische Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek, Ms. 1948, Gero Codex, shortly
before 969, fol. 5v, Maiestas, photo: Exner, Das Guntbald-Evangeliar, plate 66.
411
Figure 173. Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Sal. IX b, Petershausen Sacramentary, 980, fol.
41r, Maiestas, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
412
41v, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
413
44r, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
414
42v, Dominus vobiscum, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
415
43r, Vere dignum, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
416
44v, Te igitur, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
417
54v, In die admissam, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
418
55r, Concede, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
419
105v, Die dominico sancta passione, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital
collection.
420
106r, Deus qui hodierna, photo: Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, digital collection.
421
Figure 183. Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 2v, Vere
dignum, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 56.
422
Figure 184. Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 3r, textile
page, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 57.
423
Figure 185. Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 3v, Te
igitur, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 58.
424
Figure 186. Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 13r,
Concede, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 59.
425
Figure 187. Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 85r, Deus
qui hanc sacratissimam, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 66.
426
qui hodierna, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 67.
427
qui nos redemptionis, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 62.
428
Figure 190. Hildesheim, Domschatz, Ms. 19, Bernward Sacramentary, early 11th century, fol. 100r,
Deus, photo: Härtel, Die Handschriften im Domschatz, 68.
429
Figure 191. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 10514, Poussay Evangelistary, fol. 3v,
donor portrait, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 24.
430
Figure 192. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 10514, Poussay Evangelistary, fol. 4r,
Christ, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 25.
431
Luke, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 26.
432
Mark, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 27.
433
John, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 28.
434
Matthew, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 29.
435
Figure 197. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 10514, Poussay Evangelistary, fol. 9v—
10r, Nativity, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 30.
436
19r, the Magi before Mary and Christ, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 31.
437
438
36r, Crucifixion, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 32.
439
47r, Washing of the Feet, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 33.
440
textile page, photo: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, digital collection.
441
51r, Women at the Tomb, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 34—35.
442
67r, Ascension, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 36—37.
443
70r, Pentecost, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 38—39.
444
Figure 206. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, 978—983, fol. 1v—2r, frontispiece,
445
Figure 207. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, 978—983, fol. 2v, Dominus vobiscum,
446
Figure 208. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, 978—983, fol. 3r, photo: Labusiak,
447
Figure 209. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, 978—983, fol. 4r, Te igitur, photo:
448
Figure 210. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, 978—983, fol. 12v, initial page
Christmas, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 326.
449
450
Figure 212. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, 978—983, fol. 91v, textile page, photo:
451
Figure 213. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, 978—983, fol. 92r, initial page
Saturday of Holy Week, photo: Puhle, Otto der Große, 2:241.
452
Figure 214. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, 978—983, fol. 94r, initial page Easter,
453
Ascension, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 330.
454
Pentecost, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 331.
455
Assumption, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 332.
456
Figure 218. Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, B. R. 231, 978—983, fol. 163r, initial page All
Saints, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 333.
457
Figure 219. Fulda, Hessische Landesbibliothek, Cod. Aa 21, 1066—71, fol. 2v, dedication image, photo:
458
Figure 220. Fulda, Hessische Landesbibliothek, Cod. Aa 21, 1066—71, fol. 3r, textile page, photo:
459
Figure 221. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Lit. 3, ca 1020, fol. 62r, photo: Suckale-Redlefsen, Die
Handschriften, 40, fig. 88.
460
Figure 222. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 23261, 1080—1125, fol. 69r, photo: Usener,
“Das Breviar Clm. 23261,” fig. 19.
461
Figure 223. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Rep. I 57, ca 970, fol. 1v, photo: Puhle, Otto der
Große, 2:194.
462
Figure 224. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Rep. I 57, ca 970, fol. 1v, photo: Puhle, Otto der
Große, 2:195.
463
Figure 225. Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Codex Einsiedlensis 121 (1151), 964—996, page 29, In die
admissam, photo: Lang, Festschrift zum tausendsten Todestag, 241, fig. 34.
464
Figure 226. St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 9v and 19r,
photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 304—305.
465
Figure 227. St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 10v, photo:
466
Figure 228. St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 28r and 36r,
photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 307 and 306.
467
Figure 229. St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 96v—97r,
468
Figure 230. St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 239r and
240v, photo: Labusiak, Ruodprechtgruppe, fig. 303 and 302.
469
Figure 231. St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 12r, photo:
470
Figure 232. St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 13v, photo:
471
Figure 233. St. Paul im Lavanttal, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 20/I (olim XXIX. 2.2.), ca 980, fol. 15r, photo:
472
Figure 234. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Msc. Bibl. 95, front cover, 10th century, Byzantium, photo:
Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek.
473
Figure 235. Bremen, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. b. 21, fol. 1v—2r, textile page, photo: Knoll, Das
474
Figure 236. Bremen, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. b. 21, fol. 125v—126r, textile page, photo: Knoll, Das
475
476
Figure 238. Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, HS 156142 (Codex aureus Epternacensis) fol.
51v—52r, textile page, photo: Grebe, Codex Aureus, 71, fig, 50.
477
478
479
Figure 241. Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, KG 1138, front cover of Codex aureus
Epternacensis), photo: Grebe, Codex Aureus, 25, fig. 8.
480
Figure 242. Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum, inv. no. 78—462, Byzantium, 10th—11th century, photo: von
Wilckens, Mittelalterliche Seidenstoffe, 34.
481
Figure 243. Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek, Cod. C 93, Codex Caesareus, fol. 2v—3r, textile page,
photo: Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek.
482
Figure 244. Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek, Cod. C 93, Codex Caesareus, fol. 125v—126r, John, photo:
Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek.
483
Figure 245. London, British Library, Ms. Harley 2821, Echternach, 11th century, fol. 67, photo: British
484
Figure 246. London, British Library, Ms. Harley 2821, Echternach, 11th century, fol. 99v, photo: British
485
-1r, photo: Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, digital collection.
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
Figure 262. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 1, Lindau Gospels, St. Gallen, 883—890, fol. 5v,
501
Figure 263. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 1, Lindau Gospels, St. Gallen, 883—890, fol. 12r,
502
Figure 264. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 1, Lindau Gospels, inner front cover, 8th—9th
503
Figure 265. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 1, Lindau Gospels, inner back cover, 8th—9th
504
Figure 266. Uppsala, Universitetsbibliotek, Cod. C 93, Codex Caesareus, fol. 3v, John, photo: Grebe,
Codex Aureus, 126, fig. 97.
505
Figure 267. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Msc. lat. 1, First Bible of Charles the Bald (Vivian
Bible), 845, fol. 329v, photo: Laffitte and Denoël, Trésors carolingiens, 104.
506
Figure 268. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14000, fol. 6v, Maiestas, photo: Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek digital collection.
507
Figure 269. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14000, fol. 46v—47r, incipit page Mark, photo:
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek digital collection.
508
Figure 270. Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Ms. Bibl. Fol. 23, Stuttgart Psalter, fol.
116v, photo: Württembergische Landesbibliothek, digital collection.
509

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Ornament as Argument: Textile Pages and Textile

Metaphors in Medieval German Manuscripts (800—1100)

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements

© Copyright by Anna Bücheler 2014

revelation, the Incarnation as a symbolic garment, and textile-ornamented manuscripts as the

corporeal book-bodies of scripture. In addition to an investigation of the allegorical meaning of

and liturgical purposes in medieval worship.

List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii

Introduction: Textile Ornament as Argument ................................................................................. 1

Chapter 1: Textiles, Textile Ornament and Textile Iconography ................................................. 22

Chapter 2: Textile Ornament as a Veil of Revelation ................................................................... 70

Chapter 4: Scripture Embodied ................................................................................................... 162

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 200

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 204

Figures ........................................................................................................................................ 239

Textile ornament and textile iconography: proposition for a new terminology

A comparison of textile ornament with textile repeats

The Echternach Codex Aureus lion page: a pastiche

Sources for textile ornament in other media

Westermann-Angerhausen, “Spuren der Theophanu in der ottonischen Schatzkunst?” in Kaiserin

Book illumination as source for textile ornament

Stylized and non-symmetrical patterns

The importance of context

A distinct form of appropriation and iconological interpretation of ornament: the marriage

Naturalism, painterly execution and iconological meaning

Introduction: Ornament as threshold symbol

Ornamented thresholds in medieval art

Curtains in evangelist portraits: iconographic diversity

An iconological reading of the curtain in evangelist portraits

The curtain: a typological reading

The curtain: an exegetical reading

Reading textile ornament in context: Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Hs. 78 A 1

John as role model for the viewer

John as door and persona Christi

The Hitda Codex and the problem of corporeal sight

The textile-curtain page as a material device for contemplation

Scripture as pathway into the realm of the spirit

The textile-body of the Virgin

Textile iconography and the Virgin

Textile ornament in the context of the Christmas liturgy

Textile ornament in the Easter liturgy

Textile ornament enhances liturgical action

The crucifixion as a textile image

Textile ornament in the Codex Aureus Epternacensis

Planning a page with full-folio ornamentation

Textile ornament and material transformation

The textile garment of the Codex Aureus Epternacensis

Purple and textiles as metaphors for the human body

The Echternach Gospel books as a form of incarnation

Extensible ornament from a viewer’s perspective

Multicolored textile ornament and the dual nature of Christ

Ambrose. Opera. Expositionis in Apocalypsin libri I—IV, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio

Angobard of Lyon. De picturis et imaginibus, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis

––––. Eigthy-Three Different Questions, translated by David L. Mosher. Washington: The

––––. De catechizandis rudibus: The First Catechetical Instruction, translated by Joseph P.

––––. De Trinitate, translated by Stephen McKenna. Augustine: On the Trinity. Cambridge:

––––. Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi epistulae LXXI—CXX, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum

Liudprand of Cremona. “Liudprand’s Gesandtschaft an den Kaiser Nikephoros Phokas in

Pseudo-Dionysius. De coelesti hierarchia, translated by Colm Luibheid, Pseudo-Dionysius: The