NEW Church Objects in The Middle Ages

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Treasure, Memory, Nature
Church Objects
in the Middle Ages
Philippe Cordez
UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
HARVEY MILLER PUBLISHERS

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Chapter 2
Memory and Histories
he preservation, over hundreds of years, of objects relating to the memory of people or

T events is one of the distinguishing facets of European material culture. It is contingent
upon the continuing existence of institutions over a long period, as was the case with medieval
churches, as well as upon particular terms closely linked to the notion of "treasure7. Indeed,
memory (memoria) appears to have been one of the driving social forces behind the formation
of medieval church treasuries. My main focus here will be "relics', or the physical remains of
and other objects associated with Christ and the saints. Along with relics, and beyond the
various criteria for sainthood, objects that owed their status to a link with the past must also
be considered—for instance, objects with a primarily liturgical function that were linked to the
memory of founders or important benefactors who were not necessarily saints.1 Many of these
memorial objects were not particularly imposing, and could consist of fragments of bone or
stone, pieces of fabric, or liquids collected in ampoules. They thus acquired meaning only from
their material framework, or from performance, text, and words. This provides an excellent
starting point for a study of how objects were fashioned by society and how they functioned
within it: the social existence of objects, constantly renewed and sometimes enduring even
beyond their physical existence, is only visible to the historian in the form of what surrounded
these objects, what allowed them to exist in society, and what has itself been preserved.
These memorial objects will be approached from three perspectives. A study of documents
in which relics are identified and inventoried, drawing representative examples from the whole
of the Middle Ages, reveals the role of writing and text in the development of Christian memorial
objects, in how they were administered within specific ecclesiastical communities, in their
establishment as ordered collections, and in how they were staged. I then analyze the creation
of new memorial objects, a phenomenon that has both a material and a narrative dimension, for
the period spanning the eighth and thirteenth centuries through two cases central to Christian
culture: the staff "of Saint Peter", representing the authority of the Roman Church, and the
"foreskin of Christ", historically linked to debates concerning the real presence of Christ in
the Eucharist. Finally, a detailed analysis of the presence of chess pieces and chessboards in
churches shows how, especially between the tenth and twelfth centuries, the objects and images
associated with a game structured around the workings of feudal society were employed within
religious institutions to represent the social order itself, namely by preserving the memory of
important events.
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CHAPTER 2
Relics and Writing
The written documents that were the closest to memorial objects in material terms, and by
far the most widespread, were small labels (cedulae), generally made from parchment. In the
case of relics, these labels played a decisive role. Relaying and reinforcing oral memory, or
compensating for its defects, they enabled the identification of the relics and ultimately proved
their existence. Here writing served as a technology for representing and materializing the
sacred in a way that echoed the ancient tradition of funerary inscriptions.2 Alongside these
relic labels, inventories made it possible to grasp entire series of objects. Through the variety
of their modes of production, the media employed, their presentation, and their usages, both
relic labels and inventories attest to the active role that writing played in the invention, the
treatment, and the mediation of relics—from their enclosure within altars, to the establishment
of the first systematic collections during the Carolingian era, to the large-scale ostentations of
the late Middle Ages.
The very possibility of accumulating memorial objects depended upon their materiality,
and particularly upon the conditions under which such objects originated. Renewing older
pagan practices, the devotion to martyrs that spread from the second century on soon led to
the circulation of relics.3 At first, the faithful sought out stones, dust, oil, or pieces of fabric that
had touched the saints or their tombs, but once the Roman interdiction on opening tombs was
lifted, they began to also collect corporal remains. Though it emerged in the Byzantine world
from the fourth century on, the practice of dividing the bodies of saints and dispersing the
pieces was established more slowly among Latin Christians, for whom it only seems to have
become common practice in the seventh or eighth century.4 It was also in the fourth centu ry that
pilgrims traveling to the 'Holy Land' began to collect stones from sacred sites where the life of
Christ, as it was recounted in the gospels, materialized. It was in this way that the first coherent
ensembles of relics were established.5 A notable increase in transactions involving relics of all
kinds occurred in the sixth century, as evidenced by the texts of the pope Gregory the Great
and the bishop Gregory of Tours6 as well as by the oldest relic labels to have been preserved.
Particularly prestigious relics were exchanged among the powerful, and the first attempts
to bring together numbers of relics date from the same period, as shown in the groupings
established by the queens Radegund of Poitiers (c. 519-87) and Theodelinda of Bavaria (c. 573-
627). Some of these ensembles ended up in churches where they still survive today—as at the
two queens' respective foundations, the abbey of the Holy Cross at Poitiers and the cathedral
of Saint John the Baptist at Monza.7 The systematic collection and ordering of relics represented
a new development that first manifested itself at the chapel of Charlemagne's palace around
the year 800.
The First Collections: Inventories

One winter's day, around the middle of the fourth century, a young Roman officer named
Martin was struck with pity for a man, numb with cold, at the gate of the city of Amiens. Using
62
/
MEMORY AND HISTORIES
his sword, Martin cut in two his chlamys—the only garment he had and the symbol of his
military rank and his allegiance to the empire—giving one half to the beggar. The following
night, the charitable soldier dreamed that he saw Christ himself wearing the severed piece
of clothing: by giving to the poor he had served the Lord (Matthew 25:40). Soon after, Martin
had himself baptized and left the army, ultimately becoming bishop of Tours in 371. When he
died in 397, Sulpicius Severus, a jurist who had recently converted to Christianity, recounted
the episode in his Life of Saint Martin* For a Christian king, 'Saint Martin's cloak' was the
ideal emblem of power. It is mentioned for the first time in the Books of the Miracles of Saint
Martin, composed shortly after 573 by Gregory of Tours, the bishop of the city where the saint's
body lay housed in the basilica.9 Around 650-60, it reappears at the opening of a list of relics
possessed by the Merovingian kings, who had placed their power under Martin's protection.10
The chlamyda mentioned by Sulpicius Severus and Gregory of Tours was by this time known
as the capella, or Tittle cloak', in an affectionate diminutive that confirmed its renown.11 In 710,
the capella was in the custody of the Carolingian mayors of the palace, who entrusted it to the
clerics in their oratory. These clerics soon came to be known by its name: the term capellanus is
first attested in 741 and, by 765 or more likely 775, capella had come to designate the 'chapel' of
the royal court as a space. Though the Merovingian kings had themselves already had a private
oratory, it was the Carolingian kings and in particular Pepin the Short, crowned in 751, who
instrumentalized the relic to the benefit of this institution. By the end of the eighth century, the
word 'chapel' designated any oratory or its furnishings, dissolving the link with Saint Martin's
cloa k. But Pepin's son, Charlemagne, continued and even amplified the practice of his forebears
by building, and giving an exceptional significance to, his church at Aachen, in the direct vicinity
of the palace that he had made his principal residence. Constructed on a circular plan modeled
after the imperial churches of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople and San Vitale at Ravenna, and
decorated with mosaics,12 this collegiate church emphasized the idea of the sacrum palatium—
analogous to that of thesaurus ecclesiae, developed in the same years. With the establishment
of the royal 'chapel' at Aachen, relics played a new role, far beyond that of Martin's cloak
under the Merovingian and the early Carolingian kings. Indeed, all evidence suggests that the
ensemble of relics that Charlemagne gathered in his church marks a turning point in the history
of collections. While the documents that have come down to us only allow us to approach the
question indirectly, the information they provide points to something spectacular.
Two late twelfth-century manuscripts from the imperial church at Aachen appear to contain
incomplete copies of an inventory of relics dating back to the time of Charlemagne (fig. 13).
This copied text lists ninety-eight names and the corresponding relics, classed hierarchically.
Martin is included, but his name no longer appears in the place of honor. The list concentrates
on a shrine dedicated to the Virgin, and does not mention the relics enclosed in the altars.
Despite some incoherencies, possibly due to changes made already in the original document,
the grouping that it describes seems to have remained relatively unchanged since the time of
Charlemagne, and none of the relics is attributed to a saint who lived after hint.13 The emperor
acquired some of the relics in his possession as gifts, of which a number, including an important
donation from the patriarch of Jerusalem, are concentrated around the year 799, suggesting that
he may have solicited them. Others were probably passed down by his father, Pepin the Short,
who may himself have inherited them from previous kings—meaning that they could possibly
63
CHAPTER 2
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be traced back to the Merovingian rulers. Indeed, there is substantial evidence for an ensemble
of relics predating Charlemagne. Excavations at the church of Aachen have brought to light the
remains of a pre-Carolingian palace chapel, whose altar, integrated into the new building, was
positioned over a relatively large relic niche.14 Most significantly, a fragment of linen dating
from the ninth century, probably housed in the shrine of the Virgin until 1238, still bears an
inscription in ink indicating that the relics wrapped therein came from a "shrine commissioned
by Pepin".15 Finally, the inventory mentions the relics of a number of Gallic saints—very probably
assembled before Charlemagne, who himself preferred Roman saints.16 Charlemagne would
thus have expanded and systematized an already existing practice of accumulation, eventually
presenting it in the innovative form of an organized inventory.
This undertaking seems to have made a lasting impression. Charlemagne's grandson, the
emperor Charles the Bald, explicitly cited the model of the church at Aachen and its 'numerous
relics" in a donation charter drawn up in 877 for the royal monastery he founded at Compiegne.17
Likewise, in 1165 the clerics of Aachen used the favorable context of Charlemagne's canonization
to present the emperor Frederick Barbarossa with a forged document claiming that his
Carolingian predecessor had granted them certain freedoms that they were seeking to recover.
In it, Charlemagne supposedly explained: "I gathered the relics of apostles, martyrs, confessors,
and virgins from diverse lands and kingdoms, especially those of the Greeks, and I brought them
to this holy place so that the empire would be protected through their intercession and through
the forgiveness of sin'.18 The memory of Charlemagne's collection had thus remained very
present, as is also indicated by the inclusion, around 1170, of the Carolingian relic inventory in
a manuscript compiled to emphasize the preeminence of the collegiate church of Aachen over
all other churches of the Holy Roman Empire.19 The original collection still retained a special
status 1238: when the shrine of the Virgin was replaced, it was claimed that it had not been
opened since the time of Charlemagne.20
To begin to get a sense of the full scope of the relic collection gathered by Charlemagne at
Aachen, it is useful to identify the relics that he himself offered to other churches. The monastery
at Chelles, where his sister Gisela held the role of abbess from around 770 until her death in 810,
has preserved an important set of parchment labels identifying relics that appear to have been
amassed between the late eighth and early ninth centuries.21 At least some of them must have
been offered by Charlemagne, but paleographical analysis shows that the collection was built
up over a long period, making it difficult to reliably trace its history. Inventories, on the other
hand, present series of objects at particular moments in time and arranged in a specific order, and
they can be compared. At the abbey of Centula (today Saint-Riquier in Picardy), Charlemagne's
son-in-law, the lay abbot Angilbert, included a particularly important example in an account of
his renovation projects, written between 800 and his death in 814.22 In this text, Angilbert first
explains how he gathered the 173 relics from "all parts of Christendom'—apparently the first
use of the word christianitas in a spatial sense.23 He then lists the donors, demonstrating his good
relations with a range of powerful figures, cited in hierarchical order: the pope in Rome, the
imperial legates in Constantinople and Jerusalem, and numerous prelates from Italy, Germany,
Aquitaine, Burgundy, and Gaul. But the principal source was Charlemagne's church at Aachen,
where Angilbert—like many abbots of major houses—had been the chaplain24: he claims to
have received a fragment of each of the relics held in the sacrum palatium. A comparison of the
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lists supports this, as the Saint-Riquier collection seems to be, at least in part, a duplication of
that at Aachen25—just as the Marian church consecrated at Saint-Riquier in 799 was a smaller
version of that constructed by Charlemagne during the same period.26 The abbot presents the
relics according to two different systems. His first list reflects their distribution among the
numerous altars of the abbey. As the relics were placed to correspond as closely as possible to
the dedications of the altars, which were themselves chosen to create a spatial representation
of the heavenly hierarchy,27 they were materially integrated into an elaborately arranged
framework.28 Faced with the task of assigning the relics newly assembled at Centula to different-
altars and reliquaries, Angilbert ensured that their placements were carefully documented, and
included this information in his libellus. But the relics were far too numerous for all of them to
be situated in a meaningful manner: this is likely why he includes in his account a second list,
whose organization is independent from the spatial distribution of the relics.29
Angilbert seems to have taken from the church at Aachen, along with many of the relics
themselves, the ordering logic for this second list. It adopts the same hierarchical arrangement
of saints found in the later copies of the inventory of the shrine to the Virgin established
by Charlemagne. The relics of Christ and Mary are followed by those of apostles, martyrs,
confessors, and finally virgins, a structure that emphasized the representation of each type of
saint and thereby highlighted the universality of the collection. This mode of hierarchically
presenting saints was also found in the communicantes prayer at the beginning of the Canon of
the Mass, which associated them with the celebration of the Eucharist.30 But here it was likely
drawn in a more concrete way from litanies. This form of intercessory prayer probably emerged
within fourth-century Byzantine Christianity and spread to Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England
before being disseminated by missionaries throughout the Frankish kingdoms and adopted
more widely in the mid-eighth century. Like Alcuin, his master at the palace school of Aachen,
Angilbert seems to have actively participated in this process of diffusion.31 Litanies and relic lists
were above all long enumerations of saints' names, which naturally meant that these two sorts
of texts were likely to be considered alongside one another. A third kind of text may even have
served as an intermediary: the Laudes Regiae, which called on a long list of saints to intercede
for the sovereign. These royal laudations, developing precisely from monastic litanies, emerged
in the Frankish world during the second half of the eighth century.32 Just a few years later,
the assemblage and donation of unprecedented numbers of relics, along with their organized
presentation in the form of universalistic collections set out in long inventories, would likewise
constitute a sort of materialized form of imperial laudation.
If collections can be defined as the application of a logical structure to organize an already
existing ensemble of objects and to determine future acquisitions, three elements seem to have
prompted their emergence: one or more initiatives aiming to gather together specific objects,
a network enabling the realization of this project, and above all the structuring use of a logical
order, borrowed from an already existing textual genre. A phenomenon comparable to that of
relic collections and developed at the same time concerned books: the systematic construction
of monastic libraries followed the logic of bibliographical manuals. Stretching back to the anti-
heretical measures of late antiquity, this genre of text defined a Christian cultural canon.33 The
practice of collecting thus appears to be a dynamic process, stemming from a methodic political
enterprise and from a systematization effected through the act of writing. Finally, it is significant
66
that this process was set in motion following the imperial commissioning of inventories intended
to verify and monitor the property of churches—texts that also contributed to the development
of the new notion of 'church treasure'.
Inventorying: Objects, Techniques, Relevance

An inventory of relics presents their accumulation according to a graphic order and, from the
moment it organizes them into a coherent and open-ended structure, constitutes them as a
collection. Its compilation is always determined by material and social circumstances, and two
types of situations in particular can be distinguished: the enclosing of relics within altars and
within reliquary vessels. As soon as it became common practice to place not just individual
relics but series of them—some very long—within altars, it also became necessary to establish a
list. Indeed, such lists would soon be mandated by prescriptive texts. This was the case with the
Roman-Germanic Pontifical, a compilation of rites for use by bishops that was drawn up in Mainz
around the middle of the tenth century and circulated widely during the Ottonian renovatio
imperii. As stipulated in the pontifical, a bishop consecrating an altar was to 'announce to the
clergy and to the people' the list of relics that he placed within it.34 The recording of such lists
in writing is attested as early as the ninth century,35 but only in the eleventh century do we find
an orcio, from Vic in Catalonia, that prescribes placing in the altar a carta specifying the date of
the consecration, the name of the consecrating bishop, and the names of the saints whose relics
were enclosed there.36 Another pontifical, established in the twelfth century at the Roman Curia,
was very widely used in the thirteenth century. It does not prescribe a carta, but does assume
the existence of written documents in connection with relics removed in order to be transferred
another church, stating that the bishop was to look at these diligenter37 In his pontifical—which
from the late thirteenth century would gradually supplant that of Rome—the bishop of Mende
William Durand adopted the injunction to read publicly the lists of relics being deposited in
altars, and added that on the eve of the consecration the bishop should place in the container a
'small charter on parchment, written in large letters'. This document was to indicate the names
of the saints to whom the altar and the church were dedicated, the name of the consecrating
bishop who sealed the vessel, the date of the consecration, and the indulgence that would be
granted each year on the anniversary of the event.38 Written records were therefore an integral
part of the ritual of consecration, and subsequently of the altar as a sacred site. Such instructions
can also be found in fifteenth-century pontificals, and consecration notices themselves testify
that they were put into practice: the document belonging to an altar in the cathedral of Girona
consecrated in 1341 to the eleven-thousand virgins, for example, mentions seven relics.39
The inventories included in these consecration notices preserved the memory of the relics
that were enclosed in altars. Once an altar was sealed, the relics remained in place until it was
opened, which in turn necessitated its reconsecration and meant that a new document would
have to be drawn up. The same thoroughness and solemnity also seem to have been applied to
reliquaries. Reports of relic translations follow the same model, providing the date, the person
who carried out the translation, and the identity of the relics involved. A Titulus capitis beati
Alexandri thus recounts that on Good Friday 1145, the abbot Wibald of Stavelot deposited two
relics of Pope Alexander I into the head reliquary devoted to this saint, together with other relics
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"found alongside them": five relics of Christ, plus those of Saints Peter, Agapet, and Crispin, of
the Theban Legion, and of the eleven-thousand virgins. The base of the reliquary in fact takes
the form of a portable altar. Today, however, the report it contains is actually a thirteenth-
century copy, indicating that the reliquary was opened at that time. The record of Abbot Wibald"s
translation henceforth formed part of the institutional memory of the abbey, and between the
twelfth and seventeenth centuries it was copied into several cartularies, volumes into which
were copied documents considered to be important.40
Relics housed in reliquaries that could be easily opened were particularly at risk of becoming
lost. One reliable way of avoiding this was to present a list of its contents on the container
itself. The reverses of three mid-thirteenth-century reliquaries probably from the Cistercian
abbey of Grandselve (in Tam-et-Garonne) were thus engraved with particularly long lists, each
enumerating over thirty relics. When one of them, said to be "of the True Cross", was opened in
1895, the relics were found to be contained in small silk pouches to which were attached thirty-
one strips of parchment, inscribed in the thirteenth century with the names of the relics41—a
comparison with the thirty-four names listed on the inventory indicated that only three of the
labels were missing. Starting in the High Middle Ages, certain kinds of reliquaries responded
to the specific need to contain and display series of relics while also preventing their separation
and dispersal. A fifteenth-century reliquary from the abbey of Ronceray in Angers took the form
of a quadrangular plate made up of twenty-four individual receptacles, each one containing
relics under a window of crystal. In 1903 it still held seventeen labels, of which two dated
respectively to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.42 The other fifteen were contemporary with
the reliquary itself: apparently by the same hand, they were written in blue, gold, and red ink,
the colors varying from letter to letter. Clearly intended to be seen, these labels constituted a
sort of ornamental inventory integral to the object; devotional readers could let their gaze move
from one inscription and one relic to another.
Reliquaries that announced their contents through an inscription or through their form
were nevertheless in the minority. Relics were sometimes fixed in resin or wax to prevent their
loss inside reliquaries, a technique noted in 1472 in an inventory from the Cistercian abbey of
Kamp43 and evidenced by remnants found in several reliquaries from the collegiate church
of Brunswick.44 To get a view of the entire contents, however, it was necessary to open the
reliquary,45 find the labels, read them, and compile them in the form of an inventory. Where the
labels once used to produce an inventory have been preserved, it is possible to reconstruct this
process. This is the case for the shrine of Saint Simetre at the parish church of Lierneux, a filial
church of the abbey of Stavelot-Malmedy in the province of Liege. The abbot Erlebald opened
the shrine on May 26,1185: the inventory drawn up on a piece of parchment on this occasion
has remained in the shrine along with a series of labels dating from between the ninth or tenth
century and the twelfth century.46 Of the thirty-eight relics listed in the inventory, thirty-two in
sum are mentioned across twenty of the twenty-six labels. The labels do not seem to have been
copied out in any particular order, apart from the fact that the local saint, Simetre, comes at the
head of the list, preceded only by Mary and Peter. Two relics that had been transferred into
a different reliquary forty years earlier are naturally not mentioned in the inventory, despite
being still referred to on one of the labels. But several inconsistencies suggest that the author
of the inventory synthesized certain details while ignoring others—that is, unless new labels
68
have since found their way into the shrine. Another instance in which it is possible to follow
the construction of an inventory is that of a 'small four-sided vessel' at the abbey of Mont-Saint-
Michel, whose contents were recorded along with those of other reliquaries in 1396.47 Several
labels could be found in this reliquary, and six of these, probably dating from the thirteenth
century, have been preserved. Together they list twenty-two of the twenty-four relics recorded
in the inventory as actually being in the box. A comparison reveals that the author copied
the labels into the inventory in order of length, starting with the longest and ending with the
shortest. Though the first two concern homogeneous ensembles from the Holy Land and from
the abbey of Saint-Denis respectively, the labels that follow do not have the same coherence. In
one case, however, relics of both distant and local origin (Christ, the Virgin, and Saint Margaret,
plus three Norman saints) were grouped together and placed in the reliquary: as in the label
for the relics from the Holy Land, the use of the word continentur here indicates that this list
reflects the contents of a preexisting reliquary that was transferred into the box inventoried in
1396. In the 1967 edition of the text, the inventory of the relics found in the 'small four-sided
vessel' is laid out in five paragraphs, a format that probably follows a fifteenth-century copy.
This suggests that the page layout of handwritten inventories, where the word item ('likewise')
is followed by a group of relics, can correspond to labels of various origins, thus making it
possible to reconstruct part of the history of a given collection.
Reading such documents often proved difficult. The person who drew up the inventory of
relics at Mont-Saint-Michel admits on several occasions that he was unable to read labels that
were too old (propter vetustcitem) or darkened (perobscure traditur), or that had been lost. He also
mentions anonymous relics. The authors of inventories often indicate their sources, referring
to scripturae, cedulae for labels, or sculpturae for inscriptions. They relay their disappointment
about illegible labels, or ones not corresponding anymore to the relics within the reliquaries.
Occasionally they use metaphorical formulae, concluding their work by invoking other relics
whose 'names God alone knows', or whose attributions 'are inscribed in the Book of Life' or 'in
the heavens'. At the same time, admitting these failures shored up the claim that all the names
actually recorded were based upon a scrupulous reading of the documents. Far from rendering
less valuable those relics that remained anonymous, these formulae hinted at further riches: a
mid-twelfth-century inventory from the Benedictine abbey of Muri in present-day Switzerland
even states that relics without labels should be stored especially carefully, since there was no
way of knowing which saint they belonged to.48
Various circumstances could spur the creation of such comprehensive inventories of a
church's relics. The authors could, for instance, be driven by a desire to fix in writing the memory
of recent acquisitions through the compilation of up-to-date documents: this was the aim of
Abbot Angilbert of Centula in the early ninth century, when, as we have seen, he included his
inventory in a work recounting his activities related to restoration and renovation.49 Likewise,
an inventory of 242 relics recorded on four pages of a cartulary drawn up at the Cluniac abbey
of Reading in the 1190s, about seventy years after its foundation in 1121, can be interpreted as
a first reckoning after a period of rapid accumulation.50 Many copies of consecration notices for
altars can be similarly linked to memorial concerns.
The making of an inventory could also be prompted by a desire to secure an ensemble of
relics considered to be in danger—or at least could serve as a declaration of intent to manage
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the collection in a rigorous way. Around 1135-37 at the Benedictine abbey of Zwiefalten (located
between Stuttgart and Lake Constance), the librarian Ortlieb denounced, in his chronicle of the
monastery, the treasurer Berthold's inadequate supervision of the relics, supporting his point
with biblical citations.51 Probably on the basis of existing lists and memory, Ortlieb himself drew
up an inventory of the relics contained in the abbey's reliquaries and monstrances. But his text
breaks off before he gets to the loose relics, despite having already announced that he would
name them, that the relics that could be placed in new reliquaries should be underlined in red,
and that these reliquaries should be described. Everything seems to suggest that Berthold the
treasurer did not allow Ortlieb to study these stray relics at close proximity. Moreover, from
1137 Berthold began compiling his own chronicle, into which he inserted an inventory of the
objects under his care. He emphasized the acquisitions he had made as treasurer, and likewise
employed biblical citations but avoided giving any details concerning the relics in question. At
the Cistercian abbey of Kamp near Diisseldorf, the inventory drawn up under Abbot Heinrich
von Ray in April 1472 was the product of a different kind of conflictual situation.52 In 1469-70,
the relics and ornaments of the monastery had been evacuated for almost eighteen months due
to the threat of a siege some ten kilometers away. The abbot also ordered the reorganization
of the archives, probably as a reaction to this extreme situation. A short time later, a series of
Cistercian monasteries in the region were implicated in the selling of relics. Though Kamp does
not seem to have been affected, it was probably this episode that drove von Ray's successor
Heinrich von der Heyden to combine the inventory with five excerpts from prescriptive texts
compiled under the title Inhibitio de reliquiis sanctorum non distrahendis. The addition of these
texts, warning against the alienation of relics, bolsters the impression that the inventory served
as a means of securing the collection.
In certain cases, compiling a new inventory could be a way of bringing forgotten riches to
light. Such an approach does not always seem to have been self-evident: reliquaries that had
been unopened sometimes for several centuries were probably opened only under particular
circumstances. A number of texts describe or stage the strong emotional reactions aroused
by such occasions,53 and the exceptional nature of these events probably explains why truly
comprehensive inventories appear to be relatively rare, at least until the end of the Middle
Ages. One project of this kind was undertaken at the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel in 1396,
during the term of Abbot Pierre le Roy and in the context of an administrative and liturgical
reorganization following the first phase of the Hundred Years' War. Two hundred relics were
found at the abbey, in forty or so reliquaries.54 Some housed a single relic, while others contained
much larger quantities, including over forty-five in a single chest. In instances such as the
latter, it is likely that these were relics acquired a long time ago and left in a certain disorder.
Inventorying them served as a reminder of their existence, the first step in the process of their
valorization, precisely what the librarian Ortlieb had sought to do at Zwiefalten. Similarly, the
word nota, entered numerous times in the margin of an inventory made at Brunswick in 1482
that lists no fewer than 1,220 relics, probably indicates the intention to create new reliquaries for
relics deemed particularly important.55 The multiplication of monstrance-shaped reliquaries
of relatively low value during the late Middle Ages may well have followed the establishment
of inventories, making certain relics within ever-expanding collections available for devotion
while also ensuring their preservation.
70
The relevance of an inventory also lay in the knowledge that it transmitted and in the
sequence in which that information was presented. Relic labels, essential material for the
construction of any inventory, could be supplemented by other sources. The hierarchy of
saints, at the origin of the first systematically ordered collections in the Carolingian period,
continued to be regularly employed as an organizational device, though not necessarily at the
expense of other methods. This hierarchy was in fact a roughly sketched historical typology,
determined by the different modes of living and dying by which individuals, from martyrs
to confessors, achieved sainthood, both before and after the establishment of Christianity as
an official religion. It could also be nuanced in order to describe ensembles of relics in a more
specific way. The inventory drawn up at Mont-Saint-Michel in 1396 therefore begins with the
oldest donation, a miracle-performing portable altar reputedly offered by the 'apostolic see'
on the occasion of the church's foundation. It concludes with the donation of relics, including
a fragment of the Cross, made the previous year by King Charles VI and thus still very much
present in memory. This provides a broad framework for the collection, stretching from the
pope to the king of France and from an object linked to the Eucharistic sacrament to a relic of
the Passion. Such an order takes the histories of the objects themselves into account, rather than
simply those of the holy figures represented by the relics. Other local histories are summoned
in the body of the inventory. The author refers back to earlier texts, recalling in the discussion
of his relics the legend of the monastery's founder Saint Aubert,56 and invoking the account
written between 1112 and 1130 by Archbishop Baldric of Dol concerning the sword and shield
supposedly used by the archangel Michael to overcome the dragon.57 When no such reference
is available it seems that the inventory draws upon oral tradition, as in its account of a fragment
of a veil said to have been brought by Saint Michael from paradise and placed on an altar as
a sign of its consecration.58 This combined use of information from textual and oral sources is
not limited to the oldest objects and plays a strategic role with respect to more recent ones. The
text indicates that relics originating from Guingamp had been offered in 1388 by Count Henry
of Brittany, who still held the same office in 1396. This claim is supported with references to a
charter ratified by the bishop of Treguier and to various letters issued by a Franciscan friar.59
But the following entry, relating to a reliquary offered by the same count's father, omits any
mention of the donor by name, despite an explicit and clearly visible inscription cited in another
inventory drawn up in 1647: 'This is the rib of Saint Yves, given by Charles of Blois'. This
reliquary was important in the region, as Charles of Blois had campaigned for the canonization
of Saint Yves, which took place in 1347. However, up to his death in 1364, Charles had also
regularly tried to seize the duchy of Brittany, a claim that his son Henry would renounce in 1365:
the disproportionate level of detail given about the donations of the two men probably reflects
discussions within the monastery concerning this situation.
Another inventory, drawn up between 1489 and 1499 at the abbey of Zwiefalten, is presented
as a purely administrative tool, written in an approximate Latin and based almost exclusively
on relic labels and a few preexisting lists.60 Certain philological clues suggest that the notice of
the church's consecration may well be a clumsy transcription of knowledge transmitted orally.
In such a case, the rare historical elements take on a particular significance, as they reflect
fundamental knowledge that was very likely shared by all members of the community. This
makes it possible, for example, to evaluate the impact of the competing strategies employed
71
CHAPTER 2
three hundred years earlier by the librarian Ortlieb and the treasurer Berthold, as discussed
above. The late fifteenth-century author at Zwiefalten does not seem to have been aware of
his predecessors' respective chronicles, but he clearly privileges Berthold by mentioning the
translation of relics that he had brought to the abbey, while another comparable translation
conducted by Ortlieb appears to have been forgotten.
Finally, it was also possible to order inventories according to the reliquaries themselves
rather than the relics contained therein. A combined approach was sometimes adopted, as
at the abbey of Kamp in 1472, where the hierarchy of the saints was applied to the conten ^
of each of the thirty-four reliquaries—a total of around eight hundred items relating to 292
individuals.61 Renouncing an overarching and homogeneous organization meant that it was
no longer possible to present the entire ensemble of relics as an abstractly ordered collection
But taking the containers and vessels into account led to an increased correspondence between
object and text, a result that could meet other needs. The 1482 inventory of the church of Saint
Blaise in Brunswick thus began by describing the contents of six reliquaries that were evidently
considered to be particularly important, and then classed the others according to their form,
with discrete sections treating the twenty-six chests, the twenty-two monstrances, the ten arm
reliquaries, and so on. Judging by those that have been preserved, the monstrances were even
dealt with according to size, and with great precision.62 In many instances, the order in which
the containers were listed probably reflected the order in which they were stored. In any case,
if they were really to be used as tools for managing a collection, inventories had to facilitate
the identification of the objects listed. As their users were familiar with the objects in question,
however, a few indicators would suffice. Listing the fourteen monstrances, the author of the
1472 Kamp inventory describes some of them in a fairly cursory way, for example as 'silvered
with a round crystal' (argentea cum rotundo cristallo), 'with three turrets' (cum tribus turribus), or
by calling the smallest ones monstranciola. As his descriptive vocabulary sometimes seems to
have been lacking, he also used a system of signs: a monstrance said to be signata cum craticula
was marked with a small grid, while two others were referred to as signata cum tali signo, with
corresponding signs being drawn in the margin of the text—for instance, an eight-pointed
star surmounted with a chalice.63 When taken to an extreme, this kind of system could result
in drawings of the objects themselves, as at Brunswick in 1482. This practice opened the way
for the illustrated inventories that became spectacular manuscripts in their own right, such as
that compiled at the cathedral of Bamberg in Franconia in 1508-09M or especially that made at
Halle in Saxony at the end of the 1520s, listing the reliquaries amassed by Cardinal Albert of
Brandenburg (fig. 14).65
Forms and Uses of Inventories: The Mediation of Collections

The material supports used for inventories of relics were varied. Many inventories likely
existed in a unique copy on a single leaf or quire and never circulated. Those that survive
today must represent only a small fraction of the original corpus, as obsolete documents of this
type were not preserved. However, three inventories from the Benedictine abbey of Engelberg
in Switzerland, founded in the early twelfth century, are written on sheets of parchment and
appear to register a process of revision corresponding to a rapid accumulation of relics: while
72
14 Relic inventor)' of Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg, end of the 1520s. Hofbibliothek Aschaffenburg, Codex Ms. 14. fol. 421v:
Byzantine ivory casket, 10,h-l'l*h century
CHAPTER 2
the first contains around ninety names, the second and third, which also date from the twelfth
century, respectively cite over one hundred and fifty and then nearly two hundred relics.66
Another inventory with an administrative function was drawn up in 1482 at the collegiate
church at Brunswick: a note on its cover stipulated that it was to be kept with the relics within
the high altar 67
Most inventories, however, have been retained because they served other functions beyond
the administrative, which resulted in them being written on other kinds of supports. Many
thus figure among documents collected together mainly for their historical value. This was
a practical solution in the case of consecration notices that had been enclosed in altars and
as a result remained inaccessible until a deconsecration rendered them obsolete: to preserve
the memory of their contents, these notices could be recopied onto other supports exterior
to the altars. An inventory of the relics enshrined in five altars at the Benedictine abbey of
Pfafers, near St. Gallen, was probably excerpted from this kind of notice. It was compiled and
inscribed around 870 on a flyleaf added to a lectionary, a book of liturgical readings.68 More
often, the entire text of these notices seems to have been transcribed: they were either inserted
into various manuscripts as stand-alone texts or integrated into chronicles or other similar
works,69 especially when the consecration event had a particular significance beyond the church
concerned. This was the case for the consecration of the cathedral at Halberstadt in 992, which
was attended by a dozen bishops, princes, and Holy Roman Emperor Otto III along with his
court. It was also true of the consecration of Basel Cathedral in the presence of Emperor Henry
II in 1019, or that of the church at the monastery of Saint Servatius in Quedlinburg in 1021. The
choice of a particular bishop for the consecration of an altar could assume a special importance
within these rituals, the descriptions of which were copied and recopied in various chronicles,
sometimes even several centuries after the events.70 Beyond these consecration notices, even a
general inventory such as that drawn up at Mont-Saint-Michel in 1396 could be reproduced in
a fifteenth-century manuscript grouping together many historical texts.71
Certain consecration notices were reproduced as monumental inscriptions, either on
the altar itself or on a nearby wall. In these instances, the quality and visibility of the writing
expressed the importance of the text. In Rome, the oldest consecration inscriptions including
lists of relics date back to the seventh century. Some seem to have been composed in the seventh
and eighth centuries to be directly inscribed onto marble—that is, without drawing on any
preexisting model on parchment or papyrus—but the majority date from the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries.72 Early inscriptions have also been preserved in Spain, particularly from
the seventh century on.73 Of the 274 known inscriptions recording the consecration of altars
across the territory of modern-day France, dating from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries,
thirty-four mention the enclosure of relics—on average fewer than six relics in any one altar.74
At the entrance to the church of Saint Stephen at Worms, an inscription in gilt brass letters
once recalled the consecration of 1055, citing the list of relics associated with the altar.75 At
Hildesheim, another inscription in gold letters, also lost, referred to eighty-three relics and
was affixed to the back of the cathedral's high altar when the building was renewed by Bishop
Hezilo and consecrated in 1061.76 In the church of the Benedictine monastery of Saint George
at Prufening, to the west of Regensburg in Bavaria, a notice commemorating the consecration
of 1109 and listing thirty relics in hierarchical order was reproduced in 1119 on a panel affixed
74
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CHAPTER 2
to the southwest pillar of the transept crossing. The letters and the decorated border of this
panel were created by pressing molds into bands of red and white clay that were then fired,
giving the whole a striking visual presence (fig. 15).77 The same list of relics was reproduced
during the second half of the twelfth century in a volume in which the monastery's traditions
were compiled.78 In the choir of the church at the Cistercian abbey of Veruela, near Zaragoza in
Aragon, a consecration inscription dating from 1248 and listing twenty relics stretches across
the four pillars in the round end of the choir (figs. 16-17).79
There was also an oral dimension to how relic inventories were used. At the start of the
twelfth century, the abbot Thiofrid of Echternach laid out a typology of relics in his Flowers
Strewn over the Tombs of the Saints, including a category of non-bodily remains, with a chapter
dedicated to the names of the saints. In it, he affirmed that when proclaimed aloud, these names
had a power equivalent to that of relics—and even superior, since the names could be activated
anywhere and were not materially constrained.80 Thiofrid does not mention written names, but
it is evident that inventories of relics could serve as a vehicle for such practices, as indicated by
16-17 Consecration notice at the abbey church at Veruela (Aragon), 1248, painted on the pillars in the round end of the choir,
general view and detail of the four panels
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an injunction articulated at the end of an inventory drawn up in 1003 at the Benedictine abbey
of Prum: 'Read the names of the saints in order to obtain eternal life through their prayers'.81
This is a reminder that litanies probably played a role in the appearance of the first major
inventories of relics. At the end of the thirteenth century, William Durand clearly pointed in
his pontifical to the close relationship between litanies and inventories, indicating that litanies
of saints should be sung during the consecration of altars, including those saints whose relics
were being enclosed.82 As a result, collections of relics must have seemed to take the form of
materialized prayer. Certain inventories were moreover explicitly designed to be read in public.
At Exeter Cathedral around 1010, the preface to an inventory written in Old English and listing
138 relics was addressed to an audience of listeners: 'Now, without any fabrication, we shall
tell you what the relic-collection (haligdom) contains which is here in this holy minster, and tell
you forthwith the writing which reveals without any duplicity what each one of the relics in
the collection is'. The text goes on to introduce, in a didactic manner, some of the saints.83 The
oral usage of inventory texts could even extend to their integration into the liturgy, as during
the annual celebration at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris commemorating the arrival of the Passion
relics acquired by Saint Louis from the Latin emperor of Constantinople between 1239 and 1241
(fig. 18). A book of sequences or sung liturgical pieces, probably assembled around 1250-60
for the king's private chapel, contains about ten such texts entitled De Sanctis Reliquiis. They
enumerate just over twenty relics, corresponding to those that appear in the surviving historical
and administrative texts, namely the translation account and the act ceding the relics, both
from the 1240s, as well as four inventories made between 1534 and 1791. But the sequences are
more than simple lists: they cite the relics in a carefully chosen order that traces the events of
the Passion. What is more, they offer a commentary that relates the relics to various Christian
virtues, all the while emphasizing the theme of divine royalty.84
An inventory from the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif at Sens, compiled at the
end of the thirteenth century by the monk Geoffroy of Courlon, shows that a collection of relics
could also be used to communicate a repertory of stories. Geoffroy was working on a chronicle
of the abbey, probably well underway when the prior asked him to prepare a book on the relics.
The aim, as he recounts in his prologue, was to familiarize the sacristan with the history of the
monastery's relics so that he could relay it to others in turn.85 The book begins with a regular
inventory. Next, more than eighty respective chapters return to each of the relics, inscribing
them both within a wider sacred history and within that of the abbey itself. Geoffroy used
information collected for the chronicle that he was compiling in parallel, and drew additionally
upon diverse sources: the Bible, the apocryphal gospels of John and of Nicodemus, the writings
of Jerome, Augustine, and John Chrysostom, and the Golden Legend. The text opens with the
mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation, before moving from one Passion relic to the next.
In each case, the relevant episode is related and followed by information such as who brought
the relic to the monastery and at what date, when and how it was usually exhibited, and even
who commissioned its reliquary. The subsequent chapters deal with the Nativity and the
Assumption of the Virgin, presenting her clothes, her hair, and her milk. Geoffrey then recounts
the miracles that had taken place at the abbey, before addressing the saints in hierarchical
order. The copy that has been preserved, dating from 1293 and in use over five centuries, seems
to have belonged to the sacristans.86 These individuals could probably refer to the text when
Si
CHAPTER 2
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detail: the relic feast at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris
they had to explain one of the objects, but the collection does not seem to have been employed
overall—that is, in its entirety—in the routine contexts of the liturgy and preaching.
Could accumulated relics be presented in ways that were not simply textual but that also
involved speech, performance, and the organized display of objects? In the late medieval Holy
Roman Empire, grand ostentations were staged in which relics were presented as veritable
collections, rather than as isolated items or in small groups like those exhibited on altars or
carried in processions on certain feast days. Presenting collections in this way implied the use
of inventories, and had to take into account the reliquaries themselves rather than only their
contents so as to guide the ostentation ceremonies. These inventories could take various forms.87
Ordines of ostentations described the unfolding of the ceremony and were intended for use by
the clerics responsible for its organization, giving a list of the objects to be shown. More rarely
preserved are the documents used directly by those who presented the relics to the assembled
crowds. An example drawn up in Nuremberg sometime after 1437 and kept updated until 1459
consists of a long slip of parchment attached to a baton that enabled it to be held and rolled
up.88 Compiled at the Premonstratensian abbey of Saint Vincent in Wroclaw, two rolls dating
from between 1401 and 1404 are furnished with wooden rods at both ends, and each contains
the same list of eighty relics together with a bull of indulgence granted for an ostentation. That
these are written in a very large script89 suggests that they were either displayed for all to see
or were used by the individual—shown perched on a scaffold, baton and quire in hand, in a
Nuremberg engraving of 1487 (fig. 19)—who verbally announced the relics during the course
of the ceremony.90
When a church's relics were particularly famous, inventories could circulate beyond the
context of the church itself and its clerical milieu. This was the case for the relics in many churches
in Rome, although they were generally enclosed in altars. Many monumental consecration
inscriptions, sometimes located within the chevets of churches and therefore inaccessible
to pilgrims, were nevertheless diffused and found additional resonance in the descriptions
of churches that were integrated into pilgrimage narratives. These circulated widely and in
multiple languages at the end of the Middle Ages, first as manuscripts and then in the form
of printed pamphlets.91 Multiplied and replicated in this way, some relic inventories could
serve in private devotion. From the 1460s on, large-scale ostentations of relics were regularly
announced as well as amplified in inventories printed either as broadsheets or in small booklets
and designed to be sold, often including woodcuts showing the reliquaries (fig. 20).92
Object Histories:
The Construction of Memory
Stories of discoveries, translations from one church to another, or even thefts frequently
accompanied the acquisition of memorial objects such as relics.93 These different kinds of texts
effectively served as an extension of a saint's vita and record of miracles.94 Often rewritten to suit
83
CHAPTER 2
19 Wic das hqchwirdigist Auch kaiscrlidi heiligthuni {...} Allcjaer aujlgerucfft vndgaocisl wirdt (Nuremberg: Vischer, 1487),
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CHAPTER 2
the needs of a particular moment, these object histories enabled communities to conceive and
sustain the memory of their own origins, emphasizing their importance not only to outsiders but
also to themselves.95 The recurrence of a number of narrative motifs nevertheless suggests that
these memorial traditions should also be considered in terms of the dynamics among individual
institutions. In cases where contradictory claims arose, the borrowing and adaptation of such
narratives from one church to another could determine the outcome of a conflict or encourage
the parties to seek a narrative consensus. The history of a memorial object must therefore be
understood beyond the object's individual materialization, by examining the implications of
each local account as well as how these were taken up in other, more widely circulated texts,
which in turn gave rise to further adaptations. We must also consider the role played by the
objects themselves as these different narratives were instrumentalized within churches.96 The
following sections will focus on two of the most significant objects for medieval culture between
the eighth and twelfth centuries: the pastoral staff of Saint Peter (a materialization of the power
of the church) and the foreskin of Christ (evidence of the Savior's humanity).
Saint Peter's Staff

The first claim to possess a real staff that had belonged to Saint Peter, the disciple who became
the first archbishop of Rome, can be found in the vita of Archbishop Bruno of Cologne (953-65),
composed by a monk named Ruotger around 967-69. According to this account, Bruno acquired
the staff at Metz. The described event probably occurred at the moment Bruno took control of
the town in late autumn 953, shortly after being named duke of Lotharingia by his brother,
Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor. This position effectively gave him political power over Metz, a
bishopric dependent on the archbishopric of Trier rather than that of Cologne.97 Ruotger adds
that Bruno also obtained the chain of Saint Peter, brought to Cologne from Rome, and that on
the same occasion he enlarged his cathedral.98 The building campaign may have involved the
addition of two naves, bringing the total number to five, in resonance with Saint Peter's Basilica
in Rome: this demonstration of a singular connection with Peter and with Rome, expressed
through objects and through architecture, underscored the importance of the archbishop of
Cologne and renewed the cathedral's link to its patron saint, a dedication dating back to the
seventh century.99
The staff itself is still retained at Cologne Cathedral (fig. 21). Its upper section has a gilt
cuff, dated to between the sixth and the eighth centuries, that is decorated with a frieze of
alternating hearts, some of which still contain filigree work.100 In the eighth century, Metz played
an important role in the Carolingian policy of introducing the Roman liturgy into Frankish
churches. Bishop Chrodegang was Pepin the Short's main agent in this reform, and traveled
to Rome at his behest in 753. Around 755, he compiled a rule for the use of canons, which was
soon adopted widely.101 Chrodegang's successor, Angelram, to whom Charlemagne entrusted
the ecclesiastical affairs of his realm in 780, continued in the same vein, using history to justify
Metz's claim to a close link with Rome. In 784, he commissioned Paul the Deacon, a Lombard
man of letters with ties to the court, to write a Liber de episcopis Mettensibus, emphasizing the
bishopric's decisive contribution to the reform of the Frankish church and thereby proclaiming
its central place in the Carolingian kingdom. Indeed, Charlemagne seems to have wanted to
86
21 'Staff of Saint Peter', ivory upper tip late antique (?), mount partly Metz, 7S0s. Cologne, Domschatzkammer
CHAPTER 2
22 'Scepter of Dagobert', late antique (?) and early medieval elements. Abbey of Saint-Denis, lost 1795. Bernard de Montfaucon,
Lcs monumcns do la monarchicfrangoisc [...), 5 vols (Paris: Gandouin et Giffart, 1729-33), I, pi. 3, detail
make Metz a metropolitan see.102 At a time when the court, which would only become fixed at
Aachen in 794, still regularly moved from one location to another, all this could have proven
decisive. Paul the Deacon's chronicle maintained that the bishopric of Metz had been founded
by Saint Clement, an emissary sent directly by Saint Peter.103 Here, the Lombard author adapted
a motif developed in the south of France, notably at the cathedral of Saint-Trophime at Arles in
the early fifth century and at Saintes in the sixth century,1W and echoed, perhaps independently,
at Ravenna in the mid-seventh century and at Grado in the eighth century.105 The political and
narrative context at Metz Cathedral thus seems to have been particularly conducive to a claim
to possess the 'staff of Saint Peter', which would have materialized the bishop's authority to
act in favor of the Roman liturgical model and consequently also the Carolingian sovereign's
interest in supporting him in that effort. It may have been there, in the 780s, that this relic was
conceived. As it is preserved today, the staff differs from the long-handled cross that appeared
as an attribute of the apostle in images from the mid-fourth century on.106 Its tip is formed from
a ball of turned ivory, recalling the scepters of late antique Roman consuls.107 It may in fact be a
piece from a real consular scepter offered to the cathedral at some point in the distant past, seeing
as Metz was one of the most important cities of Roman Gaul and became Christianized from the
late third century on. If this is so, the ivory ball would be the only surviving component of any
consular scepter, though mention should be made of the scepter 'of Dagobert' that, recorded
at the abbey of Saint-Denis before disappearing in 1795, may have similarly reemployed such
fragments (fig. 22).108 Whatever the case, this ivory ball established a link with Roman antiquity
and once again served to underscore the ambition of Metz to reform the liturgy according to
the Roman model.
The history of Saint Peter's staff did not end with its transfer from Metz to Cologne in 953.
In 980, Archbishop Egbert of Trier (977-93) commissioned a number of spectacular objects,
including a reliquary said to contain part of the staff.109 This new staff seems to represent an
attempt to outdo that at Cologne, not only in its material and iconographic richness but also in
the narrative construction into which it was integrated. The object is covered almost entirely
in gold, and around its upper extremity are wrapped four rows of figural busts, in cloisonne
enamel and set among elaborate filigree and gemstones (fig. 23). Two rows occupy the knob
that crowns the staff, with the four evangelists shown in the upper row and Saint Peter and the
first three bishops of Trier in the lower. The two other rows of busts, running around the top of
the shaft of the staff, represent the apostles. Two series of bust portraits embossed into the gold
descend along either side of the staff: one consisting of ten popes, from Peter's successor to the
reigning pontiff, and the other of ten archbishops of Trier, including Egbert himself, with the
selection of archbishops privileging those considered to be saints. Reinforcing the message of
the relic itself, these two parallel lines reflect the uninterrupted continuity of the Roman Church
as well as the status of the archbishopric of Trier from the time of the apostles. The decoration is
supplemented by two inscriptions. The first, using juridical language to position the staff at the
nexus of the community of believers, the universal church, and the cathedral at Trier, threatens
with anathema anyone who should attempt to remove the object. The other inscription extends
along the length of the staff and describes its history. As stated therein, Peter gave his staff to
the founder of the diocese of Trier, Saint Eucharius, so that he could use it to bring his fellow
missionary Saint Maternus back to life. The text goes on to relate that the relic was subsequently
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23 'Staff of Saint ftMer', c. 980. From the cathedral at Trier. Limburg an der Lahn, Diozesanmuseum
removed from Trier as a precaution in the face of the advancing Huns, and was transferred to
safety at Metz, a bishopric dependent on the archbishopric of Trier. Later it was seized from
Metz by the archbishop Bruno of Cologne. Bruno's successor, Warin, finally restored the upper
portion of the relic to Egbert of Trier at the request of the emperor Otto II himself.
This story likely took concrete shape at the same moment as the new reliquary, under
Archbishop Egbert. At the time, Egbert was competing with his powerful counterparts at
Mainz and Cologne for the position of primate, the first among the empire's archbishops.n0That
Egbert was not given the entirety of the staff represents a significant concession to Cologne, yet
the possession of its upper section still appears to have been sufficient for him to stake a claim
to the Roman apostolic investiture. In fact, the most recent material analysis of the wooden
fragment at Trier reveals no link to that at Cologne, confirming that this account of the division
of the staff was invented.1,1 However, this does not mean that the maneuver was not also taken
seriously in Cologne. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the staff was respectively invoked
in the vita of the saint and archbishop Heribert of Cologne and on his shrine at Deutz Abbey.112
In 1281, a canon at Cologne Cathedral named Alexander of Roes took up the idea of its partition
as a means of strengthening his own church's declaration of preeminence—now arguing that
Cologne possessed the more prestigious upper section, he nevertheless conceded that the lower
part's superior length signified the rival see of Trier's claim to an earlier foundation.113
To affirm their higher status while also recognizing that the Cologne relic came from Metz,
the individuals who shaped the history of the Trier staff made judicious use of two passages from
Paul the Deacon's Deeds of the Bishops ofMetz of 784, the main historiographical text concerning
the bishopric. As recounted there, the fourth-century bishop of Tongeren, Saint Servais, was
warned in a vision that Gaul would be destroyed by the invading Huns. He embarked on a
pilgrimage to Rome, where he learned that only the oratory of Saint Stephen of Metz—that
is, the future cathedral—would be saved through the intervention of Saints Peter and Paul.114
This enabled the clergy of Trier to argue plausibly that their predecessors, forewarned of the
approaching catastrophe and the singular destiny of the church at Metz, had placed the staff
of Saint Peter there for safety: the relic would thus have been present at Trier well before it was
present at Metz and then Cologne. Another passage in the Deeds of the Bishops explained that
Saint Peter had sent Saint Clement to found the bishopric of Metz. The Trier version introduced
the staff at this point, maintaining that Peter gave it not to Saint Clement but to Saint Eucharius,
founder of the archbishopric of Trier, adding that Eucharius used the object to bring a fellow
missionary back to life.
For this new development, the authors at Trier were also able to draw on accounts that
originated in other towns, and that were analogous yet more explicit. The concise narrative that
appears on the reliquary of 980 is recounted at greater length in the late ninth- or early tenth-
century biographies of the first three bishops of Trier, Saints Eucharius, Valerius, and Maternus.
This text borrows directly from the vita of Saint Memmius of Chalons (written c. 677) and
from that of Saint Martial of Limoges (written before 846), both of which also deal with objects
that were offered by Saint Peter and were instrumental in the performance of a resurrection
miracle.115 In the vita of Saint Memmius, the object in question is an item of clothing given to
the saint by the apostle. But the Limoges text invokes the staff itself. Was this account already
inspired by the claims formulated at Metz just sixty years before? Or did this relic, which was
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later claimed not only by Limoges116 but also by the basilica of Saint-Seurin in Bordeaux117 and
the cathedral of Saint-Front in Perigueux,118 emerge and evolve independently at these churches
in the south of France? Whatever the case, it was by means of a complex material and narrative
construction—mobilizing artists and precious materials, synthesizing preexisting traditions,
and even fabricating false papal privileges119—that Egbert of Trier created a prestigious emblem
capable of furnishing concrete and visible proof of the apostolic origins of his see as well as of
the legitimacy of his entitlement to primacy.
After Trier, other episcopal sees took up the motif of Saint Peter giving his pastoral staff to a
founding saint. From the eleventh century, Metz explicitly held that Saint Clement, the founder
of the archbishopric, had not simply been sent by Saint Peter, as Paul the Deacon had related in
the late eighth century, but had in fact directly received the staff from the apostle's hand. This
was most likely a later appropriation of the argument that, while it certainly fit with the claims
made during the Carolingian era, was actually a reaction to the evolutions unfolding at Cologne
and then at Trier between the 950s and the 980s. The claim to materially possess such a staff relic
is attested at Metz in the sixteenth century.120 Another account of a staff 'of Saint Peter' appears
in the early twelfth-century Deeds of the Bishops of Tout, another suffragan diocese of Trier. This
text made the case that the staff was brought back from Rome by Saint Mansuetus, the first
bishop of Toul and founder of the see. To this end, it drew upon the Life of Saint Mansuetus,
written c. 974, which already recounted that the saint had been sent as a missionary by Saint
Paul, though without mentioning the staff. The author of the twelfth-century text nevertheless
contended that this object had been ceded to the bishop of Metz in exchange for lands around
935.121 That such an exchange actually occurred is highly unlikely, however: while the gift of a
scepter could certainly symbolize the transmission of rights, the gift of the emblem of the first
bishop of Rome would have symbolized much more than that. It is perhaps the case that this
assertion was in fact designed to identify Toul as the earliest point in the record of Saint Peter's
staff within the Lotharingian region.122
The pastoral staff of Saint Peter was thus first devised as a relic at Metz in the context of the
Carolingian liturgical reform, before being transferred to Cologne as part of a rivalry between
archbishoprics. It was subsequently imitated at Trier using a new and more developed material
and narrative framework, then was reclaimed once again by Metz and, via a projection into
the past, by Toul. And this is only a view of the Lotharingian region between the eighth and
the twelfth centuries. Other churches also declared that they possessed fragments of the staff,
though apparently without developing the same kind of accompanying narrative: the abbeys of
Rastede near Oldenburg in 1091,123 of Weingarten in Wiirttemberg in 1183,124 of Glastonbury in
England between 1240 and 1247,125 of Neufmoustier near Huy between the late thirteenth and
early fourteenth centuries,126 along with the cathedral in Magdeburg at the end of the fifteenth
century.127 In 1354, the emperor Charles IV himself sawed off a fragment from the Trier staff to
offer to the cathedral in Prague.128 This list is surely far from exhaustive, and it is certain that
not all these relics held equal importance for the communities that possessed them. But this is
enough to show that in order to fully understand the nature of Saint Peter's staff, its function,
and its success as an emblem of the apostolic investiture it must be considered in relation to
all of the local claims that were made to it and about it across the centuries. The same is true of
many other major relics of the Middle Ages, which for the most part remain little studied.
92
Christ's Foreskin
Preserved in two copies dating from the fifteenth century, the cartulary of the abbey of Saint-
Sauveur at Charroux in western France contains a number of texts129 relating to an uncommon
relic whose history is particularly intertwined with the concept of the Eucharist, the sacrament
at the heart of the Christian notion of memoria. The first two texts were most likely composed
shortly after 1045 with the aim of winning certain rights for the monastery in the context of a
conflict, the details of which have been lost. As was often the case in the eleventh century, they
attribute to the emperor Charlemagne a major role in the founding of the monastery, along
with donations of liturgical instruments and relics, including a fragment of the Cross. Another
group of texts in the cartulary concerns a relic referred to as sancta virtus. One reproduces
exactly a miracle story included by Adhemar of Chabannes, a monk from Limoges, in his early
eleventh-century chronicle, except that this earlier text ascribed the miracle to the True Cross'.
This sancta virtus thus seems to have replaced a piece of the Cross as the main relic at Charroux
Abbey.130 According to another narrative, it was discovered during the consecration of an altar,
most likely in 1082: the opening of a first reliquary revealed a second, which in turn contained
this relic together with a small amount of fresh blood.131 The phrase sancta virtus designates a
sort of 'holy power', and the mention of the blood evokes bodily presence, though curiously
not attributed to any particular subject. A third account, composed before 1130, provides a few
more details, recounting that after attending the consecration of the monastery at Charroux,
Charlemagne set off for Jerusalem in search of relics. This motif develops the earlier claims
concerning Charlemagne's role as a founder and donor, and does so in a very concrete way,
given tha t it was integrated directly into one of the already existing accounts. As the emperor was
attending Mass in the church of the Holy Sepulcher, the hand of Christ is said to have appeared
over the sacred vessels and marked them with the sign of the cross, before placing the sancta
virtus on the altar. The infant Jesus then appeared to the right of the altar, announcing, 'Most
noble prince, receive this small gift from my true flesh and my true blood'. Charlemagne is thus
positioned as the first witness to the identification of the sancta virtus as the body of Christ, and
to its association with the Eucharistic rite. The text even relates that, during his return voyage,
Charlemagne brought one of his companions back to life by placing this signaculum Christi on
his mouth.132
The reliquary itself, still preserved at Charroux, fits with the main elements of this narrative
(fig. 24). Its core is a Byzantine gold medallion dating from the tenth or eleventh century (fig.
25), showing niello images of the Virgin and two saints, accompanied by an inscription in
Greek. The origin of this first reliquary was certainly, and visibly, Eastern, although it is possible
that the inscription remained unintelligible to contemporaries at Charroux. At the end of the
eleventh century, the medallion was enclosed in a silver-gilt case featuring an image of Christ
in blessing, flanked by the alpha and the omega (fig. 26). A Latin inscription around the case,
hie earn et sanguis christi continentur, takes up the words spoken to Charlemagne by the infant
Christ in the story.133 This object seems to have been the impetus for a rapid expansion of the
abbey, for 1096 saw the inauguration of a new church, whose very distinctive architecture
combined the typical form of a basilica, with a centralized plan invoking the Holy Sepulcher
of Jerusalem (fig. 27). Over the crypt, the crossing of the transept swelled into a monumental
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24-26
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27 Charroux. abbey of Saint-Sauveur, plan of the church consecrated in 1096
mda surmounted by a lantern tower (fig. 28), crowning as it were the sancta virtus,134 The
that the edifice was consecrated by Pope Urban II as he traveled across France Calling for a
ade to the Holy Land135 can only have amplified even further the relic's renown.
Indeed, the story of the Charroux relic circulated widely. From around 1130 it car be found
number of accounts of pilgrimages to Jerusalem, which had fallen into the hands of the
saders in 1099. Several modifications were made to the earlier versions. First, in their reports
the pilgrims recall that Jesus was circumcised in the temple rather than the Holy Sepulcher,
which is no longer mentioned. Second, and above all, these travelers no longer speak of a
sancta virtus, but of Christ's prepuce, or foreskin, said to have been offered to Charlemagne by
an angel rather than by Christ himself. In this version, the emperor initially brought the relic to
Aachen; it was his grandson Charles the Bald who subsequently offered it to Charroux.136 This
version would reappear at the end of the twelfth century in a frequently copied glossa to the
Historia scolastica, a paraphrasing of the Bible composed around 1168 by Petrus Comestor and
widely used for teaching. From there, it can be found in several large compilations of historical
materials and in other popular thirteenth-century texts.137These transformations of the narrative
call for an explanation. The introduction of a detour via Aachen in fact made it possible to
accommodate another text, most likely originating in 1080 within the entourage of the French
king, which recounted that Charlemagne had brought relics back from Jerusalem to Aachen
and that these were subsequently given by Charles the Bald to the abbeys of Saint-Cornelius
at Compiegne and of Saint-Denis. Since this account had circulated extensively from the early
twelfth century,138 that of Charroux had to be compatible with it if it was to find an audience
beyond the abbey. The most significant transformation, however, concerns the nature of the
relic. Between 1380 and 1426, four papal bulls authorized indulgences for an ostentation every
seven years at Charroux, invoking as the principal relic the 'foreskin of our Savior Jesus Christ,
96
28 Charroux, abbey of Saint-

Sauveur, ruins of the lantern
tower and the cloister
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••.*1
known as the Holy Virtue' (prepuciimi Domini nostri Jhesu Christi Smicta Virtus nuncupatuni). This
confirms that the two relics were one and the same. The transition from one term to the other
must have taken place at Charroux itself, in the context of the Eucharistic debates that assumed
an increasing importance starting in the second half of the eleventh century.
From the 1040s, Berengar (c. 999-1088), a former student at the cathedral school at Chartres
and head of school at Saint-Martin Abbey in Tours, had affirmed that consecrated bread and
wine only became the flesh and blood of Christ in a symbolic sense and not through a true
conversion of their substance, that is, not through transubstantiation. In so doing he revived
questions that had already preoccupied certain monks in the Carolingian era, and sparked a
polemic on a grand scale. Berengar's position clashed with both the commonly held opinion
and with the Church's claim over the reality and efficacy of the sacraments. He was thus
criticized at multiple synods from 1050 on, and was obliged to pronounce an oath stipulated
by Rome in 1059, and again in 1079 and 1080 because he continued to produce writings on the
subject.139 As this controversy and its unexpected course escalated, with Berengar's opponents
finding themselves obliged to engage seriously with certain of his arguments, it ultimately
provoked an unprecedented refinement in the discourse on the Eucharist and even came to
bear on the question of relics. Between 1098 and 1104/05, the abbot Thiofrid of Echternach, in
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modern-day Luxembourg, composed a treatise entitled Flowers Strewn on the Tombs of the Saints,
prompted by a new feast day celebrating the monastery's relics, hi it, he explicitly cited the
berengariana heresys, and at several points compared relics to the bread and wine of the Eucharist
in a consideration of the ways in which God intervenes, through the material substance of relics,
in the perceptible world.140
Thiofrid does not address the question of the bodily relics of Christ, which was intimately
related to the controversy over the Eucharist. But these relics would soon find themselves at the
center of another treatise, On the Saints and their Relics, composed between 1114 and 1120 by the
monk Guibert of Nogent. This was Guibert's reaction to a claim by the monks of Saint-Medard
Abbey in Soissons to possess one of Christ's baby teeth. He argued that only in the Eucharist was
Christ materially present on earth. He therefore rejected the very possibility of a corporal relic
of the Savior—including those parts of his body that might have remained after his ascension,
such as a tooth lost during childhood—and scathingly denounced churches and relic-hunters
who professed to hold them. Guibert reports that he himself had observed how a relic-hunter
from a 'famous church'—probably the cathedral of Laon, in 1112 or 1114—presented the faithful
with a box supposedly containing a fragment of bread chewed by the Savior during the Last
Supper; the author then turns his ire on claims by 'others' to possess the umbilical cord or the
foreskin of Christ.141 If the history of Christ's umbilical cord remains uncertain, this mention of
Christ's foreskin is very likely a reference to the relic kept at Charroux.
The discovery or 'invention' of the milk tooth at Soissons (probably during the second
half of the eleventh century)—like that of the sancta virtus at Charroux, which would soon
become the foreskin (probably in 1082)—took place while Berengar of Tours was active.
When he discussed these relics of Christ c. 1114-20, Guibert was thus revisiting the intense
debates of a period marked by a lack of consensus concerning the nature of the Eucharist. This
situation had encouraged the emergence and the success of unusual phenomena that appealed
to the imagination, such as miracles, relics, and visions,142 as well as new kinds of images.143
For example, the regular veneration of miraculous hosts or of liturgical fabric stained by an
outpouring of blood does not seem to predate the polemic instigated by Berengar of Tours,
although the first accounts of miracles involving the transformation of the Host into actual
flesh and blood appeared already in the early Middle Ages.144 The emerging tendency was to
believe that Christ, considered to be present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, could also
manifest himself in other perceptible forms.145 In this context, the sancta virtus that became a
foreskin is an early and complex case. The miraculous appearance of the relic in the presence
of Charlemagne and during a Mass at the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem—in other words, at
the very site of the Resurrection—fueled its prestige. The foreskin clarified what was already
evoked by Charlemagne's vision: as a relic of the Circumcision, it recalled the Incarnation of
Christ that lay at the origin of the Eucharistic ritual.
Another foreskin relic is attested a few years later at the chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum
of the Lateran Palace, the residence of the pope in Rome. Between 1130 and 1143, Benedict, a
canon at Saint Peter's, wrote that a relic of the circumcisio was carried in procession during the
feast of the Elevation of the Cross.146 Writing between 1159 and 1181, John the Deacon refers to
this relic in his Description of the Lateran. Giving it pride of place among the relics of the chapel,
he describes it as being placed at the center of a cross that was anointed once a year, also on
98
the feast of the Elevation.147 According to these accounts, then, the foreskin was here too a
prominent relic associated with the sacrifice of Christ. But the Charroux relic was so famous
that Rome could not ignore it. Contemplating whether the resurrected Christ had regained
the foreskin removed from his body as a child, Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) thus invoked
the Lateran and the Charroux relics in succession; without reaching a conclusion as to their
authenticity, he ultimately referred the matter to God.148 In a collection of the lives of the saints
composed around 1245, Bartholomew of Trent likewise mentions the two relics.149 Basing his
account on this text, the great hagiographical compiler Jacobus de Voragine, another north
Italian Dominican, combined these two elements in his Golden Legend, implying that the relic
once at Charroux could now be found in the Sancta Sanctorum.150 This idea of a translation
from Poitou to Rome ultimately demonstrates the broad impact of the late eleventh-century
invention at Charroux, an impressive operation that wou Id, in the space of only a few years, bring
together ancient claims concerning the involvement of Charlemagne, the story of the emperor's
voyage to Jerusalem, contemporary debates surrounding the Eucharist, the reappropriation of
a reliquary, and the realization of a spectacular architectural project. The relic quickly found its
detractors, but for the most part was met with wide success, reaching as far as Rome and even
beyond.151
Chess and the Imaginary of Power
The chess pieces and chessboards found within churches represented situations that directly
concerned medieval society and those who played an active role in it.152 Originating in the
East, specifically in India, and disseminated with the expansion of Islam, the game of chess
was introduced to Europe in the tenth century. Although the pieces generally retained their
rather schematic form, their nomenclature was adapted to local social realities. What had been
the shah became the king, the former giving us scachus in Latin, esches in Old French, and then
'chess' in English. The vizier was transformed into a queen, while at either end of the board
crowded the comites, equites, marchiones, and pedones—counts (formerly war elephants), knights
(formerly horsemen), marquises (formerly chariots), and a troop of foot soldiers that held the
front line. Together the pieces made up two 'peoples' or populi that competed against one another
following established rules, as attested in the Versus de scachis, a Latin poem copied around the
turn of the first millennium in the Benedictine monastery of Einsiedeln in Switzerland, which
names the pieces and describes their moves.153 The chess pieces stood for the different agents of
the feudal system, which organized society according to relations of domination and obligation
between lords and their vassals: free men pledged their loyalty and their military assistance in
return for lands held in 'fief' (feodum).154 Chess players could imagine themselves operating in
these kinds of social and military configurations, as each game enacted the individual twists and
turns of a conflict before finally reaching a fatal end.155 The Einsiedeln poem specifically praises
the game as mental recreation, without physical danger and without the risk of making a false
oath. As a game of images, then, chess was intimately linked to the imaginary of feudalism.
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The codified society of its figures recalled the codes of social life, in which sovereigns and their
entourages effectively staged gestures and objects that one needed to know how to interpret.
Historians have endeavored to understand the 'rules of play' of medieval political life, their
nuances, and their development based on texts and images that themselves made use of these
conventions as a means of recounting events or displaying allegiance.156 But how did the game
of chess, which by representing the social game artificially reduced its complexity, participate
in the same social dynamics?
The numerous objects in bone, wood, or antler found on archaeological sites indicate the
progressive spread of the game of chess from the tenth and above all the eleventh century,
especially among the lower ranks of the aristocracy.157 The success of this practice was very
likely linked to the transformations that were taking place in society, with the construction of
castles and the reorganization and agriculturalization of lands resulting in a shift in military
realities. In what follows, a study of donations of chess pieces and chessboards to churches and
of their repurposing in sometimes highly complex objects will make possible an exploration of
the relations among the game of chess, its players, and the Church, the latter having a central
role in the feudal social system. Such donations appear to have been common between the
tenth century and the first decades of the twelfth century, and all evidence suggests that they
were symbolic and carefully planned acts meant to establish and exhibit relationships between
ecclesiastical institutions and holders of secular and military power.158 These acts thus represent
one of the most spectacular expressions of the social implications of chess during the first
oeriod of its history in Latin Christendom—from the Holy Roman Empire around the year
000 to the kingdom of France in the 1120s and 1130s via Spain, Saxony, the Ardennes, and the
'oung duchy of Normandy. The final pages of this section will focus on the transformation of
a chessboard into a binding for a gospel book offered to the collegiate church of Brunswick in
1339. This relates to a later conception of the game of chess that developed in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries in connection with courtly culture and moral discourse.
Imperial Positions and Military Conflicts

A particularly important ensemble of chess pieces can be found on the pulpit offered by the
emperor Henry II (1014—24) to the collegiate church at Aachen (fig. 29).159 The pulpit is made up
of three curved panels. The central and largest one is divided into nine square, recessed fields,
while the two side panels are respectively divided into three rectangular fields, set one on top of
the other. The borders between the fields are all decorated with ornate goldwork and precious
stones. The fields at the four corners of the main panel contain images of the four evangelists,
while the five central ones, distinguished by the insertion of a precious object at the middle
of each of these fields, together form the Cross. Its center seems to have originally contained
a large antique cameo featuring an eagle,160 while the other four—the arms of the Cross—still
contain vessels made from rock crystal, agate, and glass designed to imitate agate,161 with the
mouths of the vessels facing inward. The core of the pulpit is made from wood, and is pierced to
allow light to shine through these vessels, thus giving them the appearance of large gemstones.
Twenty-seven chess pieces are set all across the arms of the Cross, with between six and eight
pieces occupying each of these four fields (fig. 30). They are carved from two types of stone, a
100
29 Pulpit, between 1002 and 1014, general view. Aachen, church of Saint Mary
CHATTER 2
30 Pulpit, between 1002 and 101-1, dismounted metal plate (central panel, left middle field) with crystal cup and chess figures.
Aachen, church of Saint Mary
banded agate and a milky grey chalcedony, presumably once distinguishing the pieces of each
of the two players. The sixteen main pieces are positioned at the corners of the four fields, and
eleven foot soldiers are otherwise arrayed. The poem preserved at Einsiedeln, a monastery that
also benefited from Henry II's favor,162 dates from the same period. Applying the identification
of the pieces from the poem reveals that the upper and lower ends of the vertical axis of the
Cross are occupied by kings and queens, while the center of this axis is occupied by counts;
across the horizontal axis, four marquises are placed above four knights.163 This arrangement
may vary from the original, as the pulpit has been modified and restored several times over
the centuries.16* But the distinction between the chess pieces and the other stones, the latter
relegated entirely to the borders of the square fields, must be an original part of the design. The
pieces are standing on the vertical surface of the pulpit: they are positioned on the motif of the
Cross as they would be on a chessboard. What might the meaning of such an arrangement be
in the context of a gift from Henry II?
An inscription running along the upper and lower edges of the pulpit indicates that Henry
II offered this to the Virgin from his own wealth. It describes him as rex—that is, as king rather
than emperor. Henry II was crowned king of East Francia at Mainz in July 1002, shortly after
102
the sudden death of the young Otto III in Italy. The succession was complicated, as nothing had
been prepared. Henry seized the imperial regalia from the funeral march carrying Otto's body
back to Aachen, and faced a lack of support from the aristocracy as he defended his legitimacy.
He traveled throughout the kingdom gathering allegiances, before finally arriving at Aachen,
where his second coronation took place on September 8, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin.
The donation of the pulpit may have been conceived on this occasion, mobilizing the riches
inherited from Otto III in order to mark Henry II's accession to the throne.165 In this context, the
arrangement of the chess pieces appears to affirm a particular notion of sovereignty: Henry II
used the chess pieces to represent the nobles in a position of subordination to the triumphal
symbol of the gemmed cross, on a structure that functionally supported the proclamation of
the gospels. Such a composition associated the royalty of the sovereign with that of Christ, the
king of kings, an association likewise made in the orcio of the coronation.166 It also bolstered the
institution of royalty by mobilizing a knowledge of the longstanding metaphor of the ecclesial
organization as Christ's body, a knowledge that Henry had certainly mastered during his time
studying at the cathedral schools of Hildesheim and Regensburg167—his reign was characterized
by the presentation of sovereignty as an ecclesial duty,168 regularly expressed through images
and objects.169 Above all, the signification of the chess pieces distributed on the Cross must
have been readily understandable to the members of the aristocracy to whom the message was
addressed, as they were very likely familiar with the game. Henry would once again draw
upon the idea of the human body as a hierarchical model in the preamble to a charter directed
to the bishop of Strasbourg in 1013 or 1014, during his reorganization of the relations among
ecclesiastical institutions:
Because the form of the human body was created from the rational order of the
omnipotent God, in such a way that whatever lesser members are subject to the head
and are governed by it just as if under some military commander, we do not think that
it is incongruous to this model to place certain smaller churches in our realm beneath
the greater ones, and we have judged that it in no way counters the will of the king of
kings, who knew how to set apart the celestial and earthly domain with a miraculous
ordering. 170
Other churches may too have received chess pieces from the Ottonian and Salian emperors,
although this is not attested directly. A king piece in crystal, preserved at the cathedral of
Halberstadt and probably made in Egypt during the tenth century,171 may have been offered
by Otto III on the occasion of the consecration of the cathedral in 992, together with a scepter
symbolizing the confirmation of the properties of the diocese.172 Another king piece, possibly
of the same origin, is likewise linked to the memory of Otto III at the cathedral of Munster
(fig. 31).173 Inventories drawn up in 1051 and 1127 at the cathedrals of Spire and Bamberg,
respectively, refer to nlea in ivory and in crystal.174 Here, the word designates chess pieces and
not dice, which at the time were often used in chess, thus encouraging a slippage in the meaning
of the term—the Einsiedeln monastery Versus de scachis is, for instance, entitled De nlea ratione
in a copy dating from the early eleventh century.175 During this period, Bamberg and Spire had
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31 Reliquary with chess figure, 10'h-l 3,h century. Munster, Domkammer

particularly close links with imperial power: the bishopric of Bamberg was founded in 1007 by
Henry II, who attended the consecration of its church in 1012, while the cathedral of Spire was
privileged by his successor, Conrad II, who oversaw its rebuilding (which probably began in
1025) and was probably buried there. At the cathedral at Trier, a chess set in crystal recorded in
a 1238 inventory alongside other small pieces of crystal and precious stones176 can perhaps be
linked to the term of Archbishop Egbert (977-93), chancellor to Otto II. There is also a possible
connection between Hildesheim Cathedral's acquisition of another chess piece, mounted on a
reliquary dating from the second half of the tenth century (fig. 32),177 and Otto Ill's preceptor,
the bishop Bernward (993-1022). Finally, a series of crystal figures, attested at the cathedral of
Osnabriick since 1615 and allegedly given by Charlemagne (fig. 33),178 is more likely linked to
a bishop and close advisor of Henry IV, Benno II (1068-88), whose term saw the forgery of two
acts attributing the church's foundation to the Carolingian emperor.179
It was not only emperors, however, that exploited the symbolic capacities of chess in their
relations with churches. Take, for instance, Bouchard, count of Vendome and of Paris, a member
of the inner circle of the king of the Franks Hugh Capet, who died in 1005, having entered
the abbey of Saint-Maur. Writing in or shortly before 1058, his biographer Odo of Saint-Maur
stated that Bouchard had offered a number of precious objects to the abbey, including a game in
crystal 'habitually played by soldiers'. This donation must have signaled his renouncement of
secular and military life.180 In a testament dated 1008, Ermengol I, count of Urgell in Catalonia,
bequeathed a chess set to a monastery dedicated to Saint Giles, most likely the Benedictine
abbey of Saint-Gilles near Ntmes. The simplified form of this text suggests that it was written
in haste, perhaps on the eve of an expedition against the Moors that would end in 1010 with
a rout of the Christian troops outside Cordoba and the death of Ermengol.181 The promise of
this offering seems to have been formulated in preparation for an imminent conflict, and its
realization made dependent upon a fatal outcome. A potentially dangerous situation thus
apparently led the count to make a salvific arrangement with the recipient church, with the chess
set representing the military confrontation itself. It is possible that this chess set did indeed find
its way to the abbey of Saint-Gilles: around 1139, the Pilgrim's Guide to Santiago de Compostela
mentioned objects 'in the form of chess pieces' set among other lapides cristallini along the top of
the shrine of Saint Giles,182 and in 1363 an inventory recorded estaquis de cristallo, integrated into
a reliquary.183 However, these may also relate to another chess set bequeathed to the same abbey
by Ermengol's sister-in-law, the countess Ermesinde of Barcelona, in her testament of 1058. 1S4
At the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Foy at Conques in Rouergue, a chessboard was used to
symbolize the resolution of a feudal conflict. The object appears in a narrative contained in the
Book of Miracles of Saint Foy, composed by a local monk c. 1030-40 in continuation of the work
begun between 1013 and 1020 by Bernard of Angers. It is an independent narrative in which the
chessboard is at once a material object—said to have been given to Saint Foy, and probably on
view in the church—and a literary object that comes to play a central role in the narrative. The
story is that of Raymond, son of the lord of Montpezat near Cahors, who was imprisoned in a
tower of the castle of a rival lord named Gauzbert, most likely around 1025-30. After Raymond
had appealed unceasingly to Saint Foy for five weeks, she finally appeared to him and freed
him from his chains. He then leapt over the barrier formed by the men guarding him and ran
down the stairs, past a group of sleeping soldiers, and finally into the great hall of the castle:
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32 Reliquary with chess figure, second half of the 10,h

century with later additions. Hildesheim, Dom museum
33 O' ss figures'of Charlemagne', rock crystal, 10,h-12,h century. Osnabruck, Diozesanmuseum
While lie was standing there in great agitation and uncertainty at last it occurred to
him that, although he couldn't convey his chains to the holy virgin's basilica because of
their great weight, at least he could carry off the chessboard hanging there as evidence
of his escape. After he had grabbed it he threw himself headlong over the wall, which
was higher than he was tall, landed without injury, and sped away on bare feet. 185
Raymond's escape, the crucial moment in this miracle story, coincides with the first appearance
of the chessboard. This object is invoked as the equivalent of the chains that former prisoners
regularly brought as ex-votos to the church of Saint Foy, who was seen as a specialist in this kind
of escape.186 At the very moment when he should take flight, Raymond is effectively paralyzed
by a symbolic problem. He is concerned with how to carry his chains away with him, despite
the fact that they are too numerous and too heavy: though broken by the miracle, they continue
to hold him, for he must offer them to the saint in order to be completely delivered from them.
It is at this instant that, noticing a chessboard on the wall, Raymond is able to free himself by
recognizing it as a fitting substitute. The story goes on to relate that after his escape, too weak to
travel directly to Conques, Raymond returned to Cahors and to his life as a clerk at the cathedral
of Saint-Etienne, and settled for dedicating a very large candle to Saint Foy. As time went on and
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still he had not fulfilled his promise, the saint did not forget. Finally, on the anniversary of the
betrayal of Christ by Judas, she appeared to him and summoned him to Conques at Easter.187
Indeed, the story as a whole follows the cycle of the liturgy, from the imprisonment during Lent,
to the physical liberation on Palm Sunday, to the true deliverance on Easter. With the symbolic
function of the chessboard confirmed by the appearance of Saint Foy, the former prisoner sets
off for the monastery, where the denouement of the story takes place:
Completing the journey he had undertaken, he arrived at the oft-mentioned place

carrying the chessboard with him and prostrated himself in prayer, offering what he
had thought out in a humble murmur. When he had finished [...] he addressed the
people there and told them what had been done for him miraculously through the
holy virgin while he was wrapped in chains. The small crowd of people, both men
and women, listened in silence. Among them was the son of the abovementioned
Gauzbert, who by chance was with a group of his fellow warriors who had come there
to pray. He was absolutely dazed by the sight of Raymond in the center of the crowd,
wondering how he could have been freed from the bondage of so many chains. And
equal amazement gripped Gozfred at this sight: he saw his own chessboard which
Raymond had carried off to Conques offered to the holy virgin as evidence of the
miracle! Then all recognized that divine power had been at work and they turned to
declarations of praise, glorifying the power of the holy martyr Foy bestowed upon her
by the Lord, Who grants every kind of miracle because of her holy merits. 188
By introducing not the oppressor Gauzbert himself but rather his son and his fellow soldiers,
the narrative brings together adversaries of equal status, for Raymond is himself the son of
a lord. Their meeting follows the precise moment when, having presented the chessboard to
Saint Foy, Raymond relates his story before the crowd, obliging the enemy soldiers to recognize
the unjust captivity and the intervention of Saint Foy in his liberation.189 Before the eyes of all
present, this situation renders the chessboard both a trophy and a symbol of the conflict and its
resolution: in keeping with its function as a game, it materializes a confrontation between two
parties, with Saint Foy intervening as if to decide the outcome of the match. If the imaginative
act of placing the chessboard at the heart of this affair testifies to a subtle and shared awareness
of the symbolic stakes of the game of chess, the fact that the story was written down between
five and fifteen years after the events underscores the impression it had made at Conques.
A number of churches in the north of Spain possessed chess pieces, most likely of Islamic
origin. The circumstances in which they were acquired are not entirely clear, but may be linked
to conflicts with the Moors along what would soon become the pilgrimage route to Santiago de
Compostela. Not far from Urgell in Catalonia, a series of figures in crystal, apparently dating
from the eleventh century, were long kept at the collegiate church of Saint Peter at Ager. This
church was founded on the site of a Moorish fortress conquered by the nobleman Arnau Mir
de Tost (c. 1000-72), who may have offered the chess pieces to commemorate this victory.190 In
Rioja, the Benedictine monastery of San-Millan de la Cogolla was rebuilt by order of the king of
Navarre Garcia Sanchez III (1035-54) after being destroyed in 1001 during the final campaign
108
of the vizier Almanzor, warlord and ruler of Arab al-Andalus. Here, sometime between 1030
and 1090, two pawns and a knight, all in crystal, appear to have been incorporated into an
ivory reliquary that has since been broken up.191 Farther to the west, four ivory chess pieces
dating to the ninth or early tenth century have been preserved at the monastery of Santiago de
Penalba, founded by Gennadius, the bishop of Astorga who became a hermit and died there
in 936, and built during the reign of King Ramiro II of Leon, who defeated the caliph Abd al-
Rahman III at Simancas in 939.192 Finally, in Galicia, thirteen rock crystal chess pieces, probably
from early tenth-century Fatimid Egypt, were kept at the monastery founded at Celanova in
Ourense in 938 by Saint Rudesind, a propagator of Benedictine monasticism along the margins
of the Christian kingdom.193 Much farther north, donations of chess pieces are also attested
in Normandy, possibly because during this era the region represented another frontier of
Christianity. At the Benedictine abbey of the Trinity at Fecamp, a 1362 inventory mentions
some eschez and attributes them along with some other objects to a 'duke'—no doubt Richard
I (942-96) or his successor Richard II (996-1026), the dukes of Normandy who refounded the
abbey.194 At the cathedral of Rouen, the capital of the duchy, some chess pieces in crystal are
cited in an inventory drawn up between 1184 and 1192.195 In Norman Italy, chess pieces are
either referenced or actually preserved at the cathedrals of Capua196 and Salerno,197 suggesting
that they may likewise have benefited from such offerings.
The association of such objects with churches and with military undertakings appears
again at several locations at the end of the eleventh century. The Annales of Saint James at Pegau
near Leipzig in Saxony, written around 1155, record one such case from 1096, in connection
with the consecration of this Benedictine church. On his return from a pilgrimage to Rome
and Compostela to atone for violent acts of war, the count Wiprecht of Groitzsch (c. 1050-1124)
founded the monastery, and is said to have offered a number of ivory and crystal chess pieces
to 'adorn the pulpit'. This recalls the pulpit of Aachen, testifying to its fame yet adapting it
to a new situation. By associating the chess pieces with the structure from which the gospels
were read, Wiprecht demonstrated his desire to detach himself from his military past as well
as to place himself under the protection of Christ, the king of kings, who spoke through the
holy book. It is possible that he had acquired the chess pieces through his father-in-law, King
Vratislav II of Bohemia (1085-92), who was involved in the new foundation.198 Also in 1096 but
this time in the Ardennes, the duke Godfrey of Bouillon is said to have given a chess set to the
Benedictine abbey of Saint-Hubert just before departing on a crusade to Jerusalem. A chronicle
written between 1098 and 1106 recounts that 'shortly afterwards the duke set off for Jerusalem,
having sent us a chess set in crystal; he took with him a large number of nobles and clergy'.199
Within a single sentence, the reference to the offering is inserted between the announcement
of the duke's departure on crusade and the details about those who accompanied him. The
gift of the chess set thus signaled the departure of the group, whose members correlated to the
chess pieces—as populus, in the terminology of the Einsiedeln poem, or as a mesnie (household,
family) gathered around a military chief, according to a French term known to have been used
in reference to chess pieces starting in the thirteenth century.200 This act may even have been
carried out publicly in the context of ritual preparations for the crusade: at the moment he was
to lead his men into a dangerous conflict against the infidels, the play-combat giving way to a
real battle in the name of the Church, Godfrey thus marked a moment of transition, showing
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that the time for play was over and that the group entrusted itself to God. When the chronicle
was composed, several years after the crusaders' departure but most likely before their return,
the signification of these objects still remained clear to the author and the audience. The six
pawns found at the abbey of Saint-Maurice d'Agaune, one in rock crystal, the others in agate,
may have been offered under comparable circumstances. Today they are affixed to the shrine
of Saint Maurice, assembled in 1230 from older elements.201 At the Benedictine abbey at Mozac
in Auvergne, an 1197 account recognizing the authenticity of the relics of Saint Austremonius
notes the presence of chess pieces in crystal fixed to the saint's shrine, and describes them as
a gift from the king Pepin the Short (751-68). With the assertion that the king had donated the
relics, the monastery sought to counter a rival claim by the abbey of Issoire. The involvement
of Mozac in a number of conflicts pitting the counts of Auvergne against the kings of France
during the first half of the twelfth century may, however, have provided the real occasion for
the acquisition of these figures. 202
The King of France, Saint-Denis, and Reims

Until the French Revolution, a series of chess pieces in ivory, exceptional in their size and form,
were preserved at the abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris (fig. 34). They were made in southern Italy
at the end of the eleventh century, but are only mentioned for the first time in an inventory of
1505: 'A complete game of chess in ivory, which belonged to Charles Maigne'.203 To understand
the reasons for their presence at Saint-Denis and for their attribution to Charlemagne, here
I will explore the possibility of a memorial initiative by the abbot Suger.204 Born in 1081 and
educated at Saint-Denis at the same time as the future king Louis VI (1108-37), to whom he
would become an advisor, Suger grew familiar from an early stage not only with the chancery
of the kings of France and the nature of the Anglo-Norman administration but also with the
diplomatic customs of the Holy See. While still a simple monk, he embarked on a grand project
to officially transform Saint-Denis into a royal abbey and necropolis.205 This was equally a
matter of working toward the consolidation of the kingdom of France, then politically weak
and limited to the royal estate, the Ile-de-France. In 1124, when he had been abbot for two years,
Suger drew up a deed that gave audacious expression to his political thought: the king figured,
in his role as the count of Vexin, as the vassal of the martyred saints of the abbey. In this, French
royal power was presented as stemming from the saints and from God. At the same time, the
abbey's position was strengthened as it was placed at the head of the Church in France and
thus in direct contact with the papacy. Suger further reinforced his ideas in a fake charter of
Charlemagne, probably created between 1124 or 1127 and 1129, and supposedly marking the
foundation of the king's position as a vassal to the abbey. In it, the Carolingian emperor was
said to have placed the 'regalia and ornaments of the kingdom of France' on the altar of the
martyrs,206 then proclaiming before the most important figures of his realm that he himself
was merely the defender of the regnum franciae, which he hereby entrusted to the saints, as its
guardians and masters under God. Charlemagne was also said, among other measures, to have
forbidden his successors to have themselves crowned anywhere except at Saint-Denis. This was
addressed in particular to the abbey of Saint-Remi at Reims: in 1108, Louis VI had been crowned
in extremis at the cathedral at Orleans, but the coronation of the two preceding kings, Henry I
110
and Philippe I, had taken place at Reims in 1027 and 1059, respectively. This competition
between Saint-Denis and Reims also explains why the archbishop of Reims figured in the fake
charter at the head of the list of twenty witnesses, just after the emperor. 207
Chess pieces with a truly imperial appearance, said to have been solemnly placed by
Charlemagne on the altar of the martyrs at Saint-Denis, may have represented the notion that
he had commended his realm to the abbey: the chess set 'of Charlemagne' was perhaps among
the 'regalia and ornaments of the kingdom' evoked in the false charter. It is therefore probable
that Suger attributed these chess pieces to the emperor at the same moment, that is, between
1124 and 1129. In his Life of Louis VI, written around 1144, Suger claimed that in the preceding
years he himself had made two voyages to Norman Italy. He could have acquired the chess
pieces on one of these, either in January 1121, when he met with the pope in Puglia to settle
'various business of the kingdom' before assuming the abbacy upon his return in March 1122
or, scarcely a year later, when he spent six months in the region, visiting its principal shrines,
after participating in the Lateran Council of March 1123.208 The abbot must have deemed this
supposed offering of chess pieces by Charlemagne to be both plausible and believable, which
makes sense given that these kinds of objects are regularly attested at churches throughout the
eleventh century. In coming up with this account, he projected the donation into a prestigious
past while taking the initiative himself, just as he did with other objects or architectural elements
representing the historical claims of the abbey.209 But the false charter and the chess pieces did
not have the desired effect: in 1129 and again in 1131, it was the abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims
that was chosen for the successive coronations of the two sons of Louis VI: Philippe, who died
early, and then Louis. This disappointment catalyzed a change in Suger's strategy, as he turned
from the king to the pope210 and began to concentrate his efforts on the reconstruction of his
abbey church—though the chess pieces nevertheless remained among the riches of the abbey.
These themes surrounding royalty and the Church as an institution are elaborated upon
in an intricate ensemble of images on an ivory object with the stylized form of a king piece,
which according to nineteenth-century authors came from the cathedral at Reims (figs. 35-38).
Various components suggest that the piece was never used in a game: its relatively large size,
with a height of almost nine centimeters (3.5 inches), the opening on the underside that would
have allowed it to serve as a container, and the fact that it is very finely carved from the point
of an elephant's tusk.211 Under a pediment that indicates the facade of a building, the Virgin
sits enthroned, holding Christ. Depicted almost in profile, they are turned towards their right,
where the Three Kings present their gifts. On the other side of the Virgin and Child stands a
bearded man, dressed in the style of antiquity, holding a scroll. In the next scene, King Herod is
shown seated with his shoulders slouched, his head resting on his left hand, and his scepter held
at an oblique angle between his legs, parallel to the lance of the guard at his side. After the Three
Kings, following the star, have just asked him for directions, he listens to a figure announcing the
prophecy of the birth of a king of Israel at Bethlehem. The next scene shows the Massacre of the
Innocents ordered by Herod in his fear of the new king (Matthew 2:1-18). Lastly, the rear of the
object is occupied by the baptism of the adult Christ in the Jordan. An inscription on a vertical
band identifies the dove that descends towards his forehead: spiritual ecce ciei, 'here is the spirit
of God'. Above, within three arches, are scenes that seem to be drawn from the legend of Saint
Peter: at left, a baptism that may be that of the Roman centurion Cornelius, the first non-Jew
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3-1 Chess figures'of Charlemagne', ivory, south Italy, end of the 11th century. From the abbey of Saint-Denis.
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France, departement des Monnaies, medailles et antiques
112
1
113
36 Chess figure, ivory, 1129 or 1131 (?). From the cathedral at Reims. Raris, Musee de Cluny- Musee national du Moyen Age.
Front: Virgin and Child.
CHAPTER 2
36 Chess figure, ivory, 1129 or 1131 (?). From the cathedral at Reims. Paris, Musee de Cluny - Musee national du Moyen Age.
Right: Massacre of the Innocents.
CHAPTER 2
admitted to the Christian faith (Acts 10:1-48); in the center, a sleeping bishop; and, at right,
his two guards, one of whom is equipped with a lance and a shield. The bishop is probably
Saint Peter himself, imprisoned in Rome by Herod (Acts 12:3-19). The angel shown descending
to free Peter reassures him with the words: 'may you not be disheartened', according to the
inscription running over the central arch and across the horizontal band that separates the
upper and lower registers. Herod's death will follow soon after (Acts 12:20-25).
The program of images sets the Three Kings and King Herod into opposition, not only in
terms of their relation to Jesus but also of their relation to the institution of the Church. This
institution is represented by the Virgin enthroned—which often evoked the ecclesia—and by
Saint Peter, but above all by the architectonic structure whose various elements—pediment,
roofs, arches, colonnettes—organize the relations of meaning among the figures. The handing
over of the gift from the first magus is highlighted by the exaggerated size of his hands and
those of Christ, and further by the unfolding of this action against the base of a prominent
round tower that belongs to the main building. On the opposite side of the object as a whole, an
isolated, broken, and angular tower stands at the right edge of the Massacre of the Innocents.
In a similar contrast, whereas the Three Kings are bound together underneath a continuous and
ascending architectural band, a monstrous mask emerges from an angle in the structure just
above Herod and seems to crush him. The bearded man, upright beneath a large arch decorated
with rinceaux next to the arch that supports the facade, seems to serve as a sort of guardian of
the Law.
At Reims, these images would certainly have recalled the baptism of the king Clovis by
the bishop Remi around 498, a foundational moment for the Frankish kings. With this, Saint
Remi had repeated for the Franks what Saint Peter, by baptizing Saint Cornelius, had done for
all the non-Jewish—that is, all the pagan—nations. The architecture evokes both the church in
general and a localized edifice such as the cathedral at Reims.212 If a sovereign can act negatively,
ordering massacres and imprisonments like Herod, or positively, by recognizing Christ and
accepting baptism, the object itself already expresses a clear position—a game piece that stands
for a secular king is transformed into a support for images and very probably also for a reliquary.
The high quality of the carvings suggest that this may have been a gift from the king of France to
the church of Reims, pointing to the circumstances and dynamics of a royal coronation. Closer
consideration allows us to identify a more precise context.
The kings Henry I and Philippe I were respectively crowned at Reims in 1027 and 1059.
Coronations had taken place there in 922 and 954, and again in 1129 and 1131, followed by
a gap until 1179.213 That the chess piece was realized in the contentious context of the 1129
and 1131 coronations seems to provide the best explanation.214 The coronation of Louis VI at
Orleans in 1108 had effectively called into question the exclusive right of Reims to crown the
kings of France, and Suger sought to use this to the profit of Saint-Denis during the 1120s,
before Reims regained the upper hand. It was probably in the 1130s that a monument was
realized in stone for the abbey of Saint-Remi, intended as a surround for a royal throne
(fig. 39). At its center, enthroned beneath a pediment decorated with rinceaux, was a figure
holding a church in one hand. This figure was flanked to its right by three clerics oriented
inwards, their attitude resembling that of the Three Kings, and to its left by five other figures,
the first of whom was consulting a book. These images are primarily known through an
118
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une coefFe qu’a une mitre : cc qui fait cror- •' c.-- . v.brw-.s
eft plus ancien que RaouI-lc-Vcrd. Cem;
i precendcnc,que le prince qui prefenteunc eglife a un archcvequc
a genoux , eft le comte de Rccel, qui rcfticue a l’archcvequc quel-
que bien qu’il avoit ufurpe. Mais outre qu’on ne rcprcfcnceroic
: pas ce prince habillc a la grccquc , on ne rcprcfcnceroic pas non
: plus a genoux a fes pieds l’archevequc de Reims , done il ecoic
> vafial. Afin que les f9avans & les anciquaircs puiflent en porter
t un jugement plus certain, nous rcprcfenccrons ici le tombeau.
: . / <7«7. ,V/.
//. TttrtiK 9
L
39 Surround for a royal throne, stone, 1130s (?). Formerly at the abbey of Saint-Remi at Reims. Edmond Martene and Ursin Durand,
Voyage littcraire de deux religicux benedictnis de la congregation de Saint-Maur /.../, 2 vols (FViris: Delaulne, 1717-24), II, p. 81
CHAPTER 2
eighteenth-century description with an engraving, and must be interpreted with caution since
only a few fragments have been preserved.215 But the resemblance to the Marian scene on the
chess piece is striking. There, the most pronounced visual element is the star guiding the Magi
to Christ, which is represented just above the pediment: a recessed area, still bearing traces of
copper allov, was carved into the ivory to accommodate a small piece of gilt metal, fixed in place
through the hole. This celestial body has the unusual form of a droplet, which, if one considers
the anthropomorphism of the chess piece, shines out from the forehead of the king. Its shape
thus recalls the oil with which the archbishop of Reims anointed the king during the coronation.
The competition with Saint-Denis had effectively sparked the revival of a Carolingian legend
according to which a miraculous dove had descended from the heavens bearing a vial of oil
to be used in the coronation of Clovis by Remi. And indeed, the coronation of 1131 is the first
I
in which the use of this oil is attested. Perhaps to reinforce this allusion, the dove alighting
on Christ at the moment of his baptism is very clearly featured on the chess piece. One inal
question concerns the plant form that rises from the back of the piece, worn in such a way as to
suggest that it was regularly used as a handle. Its design in the form of a tree or flower, perhaps
a lily, may evoke an element of the crown: although associated with Mary since the eleventh
century, it was precisely during this period and under the influence of Abbot Suger that the lily
or fleur-de-lis became an emblem of Capetian royalty, which was thus placed under the sign of
the Virgin216—just as it is on this object.
Chivalric Histories
The study of chess pieces offered to churches between the tenth and the twelfth centuries
reveals a widespread practice that must have drawn its potency from the rapid success of
the game. It staged a range of actors, from the lords of regions at the margins of Christianity
seeking to stabilize their authority to the imperial or royal powers undergoing a process of
institutionalization. Certain usages, such as the mounting of chess pieces on reliquaries, seem
to have recurred over the decades, while some particular objects stand out for their conceptual
and formal complexity. From the simple donations of Islamic pieces around the year 1000 to
the fine objects carved in ivory in the early twelfth century, a development had taken place.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as social relationships evolved, the game of chess
progressively entered into literature. Chansons degeste and courtly romances portrayed it as an
art to be mastered by nobles, sometimes resolving interlacing narrative situations using scenes
in which the game was played.217 The attribution of the Saint-Denis chess pieces to Charlemagne
participates in this broader interest. At the abbey of Saint-Arnoul in Metz, chess pieces were
similarly attributed to queen Hildegarde, the wife of Charlemagne, and are mentioned in a poem
that was installed in front of her tomb during the fourteenth century.218 At the collegiate church
of Sainte-Marie at Roncevaux in Navarre, a key site for the Carolingian gestae, a fourteenth-
century reliquary made up of alternating squares of rock crystal and enamel, though never
intended to serve in play, was presented as Charlemagne's chessboard'.219 From the thirteenth
century, the game of chess gave rise to moralizing interpretations. Sometime before 1330, its
structure was notably used by the Italian Dominican Jacobus de Cessolis in his Book of the
Customs of Men and the Duties of Nobles, or the Book of Chess, a compilation of sermons that was
120
soon translated from Latin into many vernacular languages and witnessed an enduring success
right to the end of the Middle Ages. 220
This new literary and moral conception of the game of chess is apparent in the final offering
to a church that I will discuss here. This is a chessboard that in 1339 was transformed into the front
board of a binding for a copy of the gospels at the behest of the duke of Brunswick Otto the Mild,
who subsequently offered it to the collegiate church of the same town (fig. 40).221 The squares
of this chessboard were made from red jasper and rock crystal, the latter encasing miniatures
with a gold background. This combination of materials was employed in Venice between the
mid-thirteenth and the late fourteenth centuries. The chess pieces were moved over images
depicting by turn hybrid creatures, armed knights, a dubbing ceremony, a musician playing for
a lady, and even a royal couple absorbed in a game of chess. The Brunswick chessboard thus
associated the game with an epic and courtly adventure, without determining in advance how
the story would unfold as the game was played. The fact that the act of playing was in this way
rendered an allegory for the unfolding of life perhaps contributed to the decision to convert
the chessboard into a gospel binding,222 which entailed several significant modifications. The
number of squares was reduced from sixty-four to thirty-five in order to adapt the square
gaming table to the rectangular format of the book. The fifteen central squares were set slightly
deeper into the wooden support compared to the twenty that surrounded them. This support
is 2.5 centimeters (nearly one inch) thick and contains under each of the squares a cavity one
centimeter in diameter, for the storage of relics. The list of the contents was inscribed on a sheet
of parchment and glued to the inside of the front cover, thus sealing these tiny reliquaries, the
placement of which can still be glimpsed through the transparent parchment.223 The binding
board preserves the structure of the chessboard, but transforms the adventure story evoked
by the miniatures into a path toward salvation: the course no longer simply leads from courtly
scene to heroic combat but also from one saint to another.224 The recession of the central section
of squares is emphasized by the brilliance of the plates of rock crystal that this configuration
clusters together, in contrast to the surround where they continue to alternate with the duller
texture of the jasper. Echoing the colors of the border, the white pearls and red gems dotted
among the crystal of the central section reinforce this contrast. In this brilliant field, certain
miniatures have made way for other elements. At the very center, a relic of the True Cross
is presented in the form of a small wooden cross whose arms are extended into the adjacent
squares by the symbols of the evangelists, also in slight relief. This central point attracts the
gaze, as if encouraging the beholder to move beyond the gaming table and enter into the book
of the gospels. This chessboard is in fact without chess pieces: it is its individual observers that
the binding invites to enter into the play of images or to meditate on the Cross, appealing to
their imaginative capacities and thereby shaping them as responsible subjects. The implications
of this transformation are clearly revealed when one examines the back board of the volume,
formed from a slab of punched copper. There, the duke Otto and his wife Agnes of Brandenburg
are depicted kneeling on either side of the patron saint of the collegial church, Saint Blaise. The
chessboard had most likely belonged to the duchess Agnes, who died in 1334, and the gospel
book was destined for a funerary chapel that was consecrated in 1346, two years after the death
of Otto. The object thus had a strong personal dimension: the act of converting the gaming table
signaled the end of earthly and profane life and opened an eschatological perspective.
121
CHAPTER 2
40 Chessboard transformed into the front cover of a binding for the gospels, c. 1300-39. From the collegiate church at Brunswick.
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
1 On these objects, see Klaus Gereon Beuckers, 'Schatz and Medieval History, Thought and Religion, 32 (1976),
und Stiftungen. Allgemeine Bemerkungen zu pp. 145-84; Peter Brown, Relics and Social Status in the
Stiftungsmotivationen im Friih- und Hochmittelalter', Age of Gregory of Tours (Reading: University of Reading,
in Der Gandersheimer Schatz im Vergleich: Zur 1977).
Rekonstruktion und Prdsentation von Kirchenschdlzen,
7 Cynthia Hahn, 'Collector and Saint: Queen Radegund
ed. by Hedwig Rockelein (Regensburg: Schnell and
and Devotion to the Relic of the True Cross', in 'The
Steiner, 2013), pp. 21-34. For an introduction to 'relics'
Language of the Object: Essays in Honour of Herbert L.
and reliquaries, see Philippe Cordez, 'Die Reliquien,
Kessler', ed. by Martina Bagnoli and Peter W. Parshall,
ein Forschungsfeld. Traditionslinien und neue
special issue, Word & Image, 22, no. 3 (2006), pp. 268-74;
Erkundungen', Kunstchronik, 2007, no. 7, pp. 271-82
Jas Eisner, 'Replicating Palestine and Reversing the
[original version: 'Les reliques, un champ de recherche.
Reformation: Pilgrimage and Collecting at Bobbio,
Problemes anciens et nouvelles perspectives', 2007];
Monza and Walsingham', Journal of the History of
Julia M. H. Smith, 'Relics: An Evolving Tradition in
Collections, 9, no. 1 (1997), pp. 117-30.
Latin Christianity', in Saints and Sacred Matter: The Cult
of Relics in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. by Cynthia Hahn 8 Sulpicius Severus, Vita Sancti Martini, ch. 3, 1-3, ed.,
and Holger Klein (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks trans., and intr. by Jacques Fontaine, Vie desaint Martin,
Research Library and Collection, 2015), pp. 41-60. 3 vols, 'Sources chretiennes', 133-35 (Paris: Cerf, 1967-
69), I, pp. 256-59; trans., intr., and notes by Richard J.
2 Fora reflection on thesedocuments from the perspective
Goodrich, The Life of St. Martin, in Sulpicius Severus: The
of the history of writing and of proof, see Paul
Complete Works, 'Ancient Christian Writers', 70 (New
Bertrand, 'Authentiques de reliques. Authentiques ou
York: Paulist Press, 2015), pp. 23-54 (p. 27). On the
reliques?', Le Moyen Age. Revued’liisloire et dephilologie,
symbolic range of this use of the cloak, see Dominic
112 (2006), pp. 363-74. An initial version of what
Janes, God and Gold in Late Antiquity (Cambridge:
follows was published in Philippe Cordez, 'Gestion et
Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 159.
mediation des collections de reliques au Moyen Age.
Le temoignage des authentiques et des inventaires', 9 Herve Oudart, 'Le manteau partage. Un echo de
in 'Reliques et saintete dans l'espace medieval', ed. l'episode d'Amiens dans les ceuvres de Gregoire de
by Jean-Luc Deuffic, special issue, Pecia. Ressources en Tours', in 'Le partage du manteau et le rayonnement
medievislique, 8-11 (2005), pp. 33-63. For a more recent martinien', ed. by Christiane Deluz, special issue,
account, see Julia M. H. Smith, 'Portable Christianity: Memoires de la Societe archeologique de Touraine, 63
Relics in the Medieval West (c. 700-1200)', Proceedings (1997), pp. 207-15.
of the British Academy, 181 (2010-11), pp. 143-67; Smith,
'Relics: An Evolving Tradition'. 10 Olivier Guillot, 'Les saints des peuples et des nations
dans l'Occident des vic-xcsiecles.Unaperqud'ensemble
3 On this Christianization, see Andreas Hartmann, illustre par le cas des Francs en Gaule' [1989]; repr. in
Zwischen Relikt und Reliquie. Objektbezogene Olivier Guillot, Arcana Imperii (iv'-xF' siecle) (Limoges:
Erinnerungspraktikcn in antiken Gesellschaflen (Berlin: Presses universitaires de Limoges, 2003), pp. 95-138.
Verlag Antike, 2010), pp. 593-660.
11 On what follows, see Johannes van den Bosch, Capa,
4 Luigi Canetti, 'Reliquie, martirio e anatomia. Culto basilica, monasterium et le culte de saint Martin de Tours.
dei santi e pratiche dissettorie fra tarda Antichita e Etude lexicologique et semasiologique (Nijmegen: Dekker
primo Medioevo', in 'Le cadavre. Anthropologie, & Van de Vegt, 1959), pp. 7-35; and Joseph Fleckenstein,
archeologie, imaginaire social (Moyen Age, Die Hofkapelle der deutschen Kbnige, 2 vols, 'Schriften
Renaissance)', ed. by Jacques Chiffoleau and Agostino der MGH', 16 (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1959-66), I, pp.
Paravicini Bagliani, special issue, Micrologus, 7 (1999), 11-18 and 28-30. See also Luce Pietri, 'La capa martini.
pp. 113-53. Hostility toward these practices is explored Essai d'identification de la relique martinienne', in
in Arnold Angenendt, 'Der "ganze" und "unverweste" Romanite et cite chreticnne. Permanences et mutations,
Leib-eine Leitideeder Reliquienverehrung bei Gregor integration et exclusion du ler au vr‘ siecle. Melanges en
von Tours und Beda Venerabilis', in Aus Arcliiven und I'honneurd'Yvette Duval, ed. by Fran<;oise Prevot (Paris:
Bibliotheken. Festschrift fiir Raymund Kottjc zum 65. De Boccard, 2000), pp. 343-57.
Geburlstag, ed. by Hubert Mordek, 'Freiburger Beitriige
12 See the synthesis provided in Matthias Untermann,
zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte', 3 (Frankfurt am
Main: Peter Lang, 1992), pp. 33-50. ‘opere mirabili constructa. Die Aachener "Residenz"
Karls des GroRen', in 799. Kunst und Kultur der
5 See, in particular, Bruno Reudenbach, ‘Loca sancta. Karolingerzeit, III, pp. 152-64.
Zur materiellen Ubertragung der heiligen Statten',
in Jerusalem, du Schone. Vorstellungen und Bildcr einer 13 One of the manuscripts is composite, the other is
heiligen Stadt, ed. by Bruno Reudenbach, 'Vestigia a cartulary. On this subject, and for the discussion
bibliae', 28 (Bern: Peter Lang 2008), pp. 9-32. that follows, see Heinrich Schiffers, Karls des Groflen
Reliquienschatz und die Anfdnge der Aachenfahrt
6 John M. McCulloh, 'The Cult of Relics in the (Aachen: Volk, 1951), with an edition of the list at pp.
Letters and Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great: Sl-83; Klaus Herbers, 'Die Aachener Marienschrein-
A Lexicographical Study', Traditio: Studies in Ancient Reliquien und ihre karolingische Tradition', in Der
123
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
Aachcncr Maricnschrcin. Eine Festschrift, ed. by Dieter P. 1887), pp. 173-79.

J. Wynands (Aachen: Einhard, 2000), pp. 129-34; Julia
M. H. Smith, 'Rulers and Relics c. 750-c. 950: Treasure
23 Dominique Iogna-Prat, La Maison Dieu. Une histoire
nionumentale de I'Eglise an Moyen Age (Paris: Seuil,
on Earth, Treasure in Heaven', in 'Relics and Remains',
ed. by Alexandra Walsham, special issue. Past and 2006), p. 142, see also p. 200.
Present, 206, suppl. 5 (2010), pp. 73-96 (particularly pp. 24 Fleckenstein, Die Hofkapelle der deutschen Kbnige, I,
77-SS on the relics of the Carolingian monarchs and pp. 106 and 108.
pp. S0-S1 on Charlemagne).
25 This comparison was established in Heinrich Schiffers,
14 Norbert Wibiral,' Altarort und Altarzahl. Bemerkungen Kulturgeschichte der Aachener Heiligtumsfahrt (Cologne:
zu Aachen, York und Centula', Wiener Jahrbuch fiir Gilde, 1930), pp. 101-05 and 195-99; with a synthesis
Kunstgeschichte, 54 (2005), pp. 39-60 (p. 46). in Schiffers, Karls des Grofien Reliquienschatz, p. 14.
15 Helga Giersipen, ed., Die Inschriften des Aachener Dorns, 26 Wibiral, 'Altarort und Altarzahl', p. 57.
'Die Deutschen Inschriften', 31, 'Diisseldorfer Reihe', 1
(Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1992), no. 12. 27 On this point, see Francois Heber-Suffrin and Anne
Wagner, 'Autels, reliques et structuration de l'espace
16 On the transfers of relics of Roman saints at this time in monastique. L'exemple de Saint-Riquier', in Le
order to supplant local cults, see Patrick J. Gear)', 'The programme. Une notion pert inert te en histoire de Part
Ninth-Centurv Relic Trade: A Response to Popular medieval?, ed. by Jean-Marie Guillouet and Claudia
Piety?' [1979]; repr. in Patrick J. Geary, Living with Rabel, 'Cahiers du Leopard d'Or', 12 (Paris: Le Leopard
the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca / London: Cornell d'Or, 2011), pp. 27-55.
University Press, 1994), pp. 177-93; Julia M. H. Smith,
'Old Saints, New Cults: Roman Relics in Carolingian 28 This could even extend beyond the altars, as relics
Francia', in Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: were also placed at the tops of pillars, bell towers,
Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, ed. by Julia and so on: see Nicole Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques
M. H. Smith, 'The Medieval Mediterranean: Peoples, des saints. Formation coutumiere d'un droit (Paris:
Economies and Cultures, 400-1453', 28 (Leiden: Brill, Klincksieck, 1975), pp. 169-73, and more generally
2000), pp. 317-39. Jean-Pierre Caillet, 'Reliques et architecture religieuse
aux epoques carolingienne et romane', in Les reliques.
17 Rccueil des actes de Charles II le Chauve, II, no. 425, pp.
Objels, cultes, symboles, ed. by Edina Bozoky and Anne-
448-54 (p. 451). Charles the Bald saw Compiegne as
Marie Helvetius (Tumhout: Brepols, 1999), pp. 169-97.
a substitute for Aachen, to which he no longer had
access. See May Vieillard-Troiekouroff, 'La chapelle 29 The differences between the two lists have yet to be
du palais de Charles le Chauve a Compiegne', Cahiers identified and precisely interpreted in :he context
arclreologiques, 21 (1971), pp. 89-108 (pp. 94-95 and 103, of the architectural projects and reliquaries at Saint-
note 77 on the relics). Riquier. For a general study, see Susan A. Rabe, Faith,
18 This undertaking was a great success, and Barbarossa Art, and Politics at Saint-Riquier: The Symbolic Vision of
reused the text in the freedom charter that he granted Angilbert (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
to the town on January 8,1166. See Walter Kaemmerer, Press, 1995).
ed., Aachener Qucllenlexte, 'Veroffentlichungen des 30 Josef Andreas Jungmann, Missarurn sollemnia. Eine
Stadtarchivs Aachen', 1 (Aachen: Mayer, 1980), genetisclre Erklarung der rdmischeit Messe, 2 vols
pp. 196-201 (p. 198). (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1948; repr. 1962), II, pp.
19 Erich Meuthen, 'Karl der GroBe - Barbarossa - Aachen. 213-25.
Zur Interpretation des Karlsprivilegs fiir Aachen', 31 Angilbert himself recommended the liturgical use of
in Karl der Grope. Lebenswcrk und Nachleben, ed. by various litanies in his Institutio de diversitatc officiorum,
Wolfgang Braunfels and Percy Ernst Schramm, 5 vols which he compiled as abbot of Saint-Riquier. See
(Dusseldorf: Schwann, 1966-68), IV, Das Nachleben Astrid Kruger, Litanei-Handsclrriften der Karolingerzeit,
(1967), pp. 54-76 (pp. 73-74). 'MGH, Hilfsmittel', 24 (Hanover: Hahn, 2007), pp. 11
20 See the notice drawn up at this time by the dean to and 19.
announce the presentation of the relics, preserved in 32 Kruger, Lilanei-Handschriften, pp. 22-34.
fifteenth-century copies: Schiffers, Karls des Grofien
Reliquienschatz, pp. 83-84, and 43-44. On the new 33 Rosamond McKitterick, TheCarolingiansand the Written
chest, see Wynands, Der Aachener Marienschrein. Eine Word (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989),
Festschrift. pp. 165-210.
21 Jean-Pierre Laporte, Le Tresor des saints de Chelles 34 Le pontifical romano-germanique du dixieme siecle, ordo xl,
(Chelles: Societe archeologique et historique, 1988), ch. 128,ed. by Cyrille Vogel and Reinhard Elze, 'Studie
p. 118. Testi', 227 (Vatican City: Biblioteca apostolica Vaticana,
1964), p. 169.
22 Angilbertus Centulensis, De ecclesia Centulensi libellus,
ed. by Georg Waitz, 'MGH, SS', 15,1 (Hanover: Hahn, 35 Maurice Prou and Eugene Chartraire, 'Authentiques
124
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
de reliques conservees au Tresor de la cathedrale de 43 Hans Mosler, 'Das Camper Reliquienverzeichnis

Sens', Memoires de la Socicle nationale des antiquaires de von 1472', Annalcn des Hislorischen Vereins fitr den
France, 59 (1890), pp. 129-72 (no. 160 and p. 132); Iso Nicderrheni, insbcsondere das nlte Erzbistum Koln, 168-69
Muller, 'Zum mittelalterlichen Reliquienschatze von (1967), pp. 60-101 (no. 33, p. 98).
Beromiinster', Der Geschichtsfreund. Mittcilungen des
44 Andrea Boockmann, Die verlorenen Teile des
Historischen Vereins der Fiinf Orte Luzern, Uri, Schwyz,
'Welfenscliatzes'. Eine tibersicht anhand des
Unterzvalden ob und nid deni Wald und Zug, 120 (1967), Reliqtiienverzeichnisses von 1482 der Stiftskirche St.
pp. 5-40 (pp. 12-17). Blasius in Braunschweig (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and
36 Cited in Joseph Braun, Der christliche Altar in seiner Ruprecht, 1997), p. 65.
geschichtlichen Entwicklung, 2 vols (Munich: Koch, 45 This was not always an easy operation. In 1482,
1924), I, p. 632, note 2. the author of a Brunswick inventory took care to
37 Le pontifical roniain du xif siecle, ordo 17, ch. 1, ed. by explain the mechanism that opened an ivory casket:
Michel Andrieu, Le pontifical roniain au Moxjen Age, Boockmann, Die verlorenen Teile des' Welfenscliatzes', no.
4 vols, 'Studi e Testi', 86-88 and 99 (Vatican City: 17, p. 133.
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1938-41), I, p. 176. This 46 Ed. in George, Les reliques de Stavelot-Mahnedy, nos
text also specifies that the list should be announced 1-27.
publicly.
47 Jacques Dubois, 'Le tresor des reliques de l'abbaye du
38 Guillelmus Durantis, Pontificale, book 2, ordo 2, ch. 10, Mont Saint-Michel', in Millenaire monastique du Mont
ed. by Michel Andrieu, Le Pontifical roniain au Moyen Saint-Michel, 4 vols (Paris: Lethielleux, 1967-70), I,
Age, 4 vols, 'Studi e Testi', 86-88 and 99 (Vatican pp. 501-93 (no. 2).
City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1938-41), III, Le
Pontifical de Guillaume Durand (1940), pp. 456-57. On 48 Mittelalterliche Schalzverzeichnisse, no. 57.
these containers, see Hedwig Rockelein, 'Schatze in 49 Angilbertus Centulensis, De ecclcsia Centulensi libellus,
Altaren. Profane Gebrauchsgegenstande im sakralen pp. 173-79.
Raum', in Le tresor au Moyen Age. Discours, pratiques el
objets, pp. 179-97. 50 Denis Bethell, 'The Making of a Twelfth-Century
Relic Collection', in Popular Belief and Practice, ed. by
39 Braun, Der christliche Altar, I, p. 632. Braun nevertheless Geoffrey J. Cuming and Derek Baker (Cambridge:
considers that these prescriptions were rare. Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 64-72.
40 Philippe George, Les reliques de Stavelot-Mahnedy. 51 For what follows see Herrad Spilling, Sanctarum
Nouveaux documents (Malmedy: Art et Histoire, 1989), reliquiaruin pignera gloriosa. Quellen zur Ceschichte des
no. 43. On this reliquary, today in the Royal Museums Reliquienschatzes der Benediktinerabtei Zzviefalten (Bad
of Art and History in Brussels, and its liturgical context, Buchau: Federsee, 1992), pp. 1-8.
seeSusanne Wittekind, Altar-Reliquiar-Relabel. Kimst
und Lilurgie bei Wibald von Stablo, 'Pictura et Poesis', 52 Mosler, 'Das Camper Reliquienverzeichnis'.
17 (Cologne / Weimar / Vienna: Bohlau, 2004), 53 Boockmann, Die verlorenen Teile des 'Welfenscliatzes',
pp. 173-224, in particular pp. 195-202. p. 57.
41 These reliquaries are now preserved in the parish 54 Dubois, 'Le tresor des reliques'.
church of Bouillac (in Tarn-et-Garonne). The labels
and inscriptions have both been published in Fernand 55 Boockmann, Die verlorenen Teile des ‘Welfenscliatzes',
Pottier, 'Les authentiques de reliques', Bulletin de pp. 60 and 70.
la Societe archeologique de Tarn-et-Garonne, 40 (1912), 56 Dubois, 'Le tresor des reliques', no. 16. For an edition
pp. 145-59 (pp. 150 and 152). The inscriptions have and French translation of the De translationeet miraculis
been edited more recently in Robert Favreau, Jean beati Autberli, composed around 1080-95, see Pierre
Michaud, and Bernadette Leplant-Mora, eds., Ariege, Bouet and Olivier Desbordes, eds., Chroniques latines
Haute-Garonne, Hautes-Pyrenees, Tarn-et-Garonne, du Mont Saint-Michel (ix'-xir' siecle), 'Les manuscrits
'Corpus des inscriptions de la France medievale', 8 du Mont Saint-Michel. Textes fondateurs', 1 (Caen:
(Paris: CNRS, 1983), pp. 117-24. Presses universitaires de Caen, 2009), pp. 229-55.
42 See the description in Charles Urseau, 'Authentiques 57 Dubois, 'Le tresor des reliques', no. 28. On this narrative
de reliques provenant de 1'ancienne abbaye du see Armelle Le Huerou, 'Essai de reconstitution de
Ronceray a Angers', Bulletin historique et pliilologique 1'histoire des armes miniatures de saint Michel depuis
du Comite des travaux historiques et scienlifiques, 21 leur introduction au Mont jusqu'a leur disparition',
(1903), pp. 587-93. On the reliquary, today preserved Annales de Bretagne, 110, no. 2 (2003), pp. 157-87, which
in the cathedral's treasury though lacking both relics indicates on p. 171 that two copies of the text probably
and labels, see Monique Jacob and others, Les orfevres date from the abbacy of Pierre le Roy. For an edition
d'Anjou et du bas Maine, 'Cahiers du patrimoine', 50 and French translation, see Bouet and Desbordes,
(Paris: Editions du patrimoine, 1998), p. 326. Chroniques latines du Mont Saint-Michel, pp. 343-65.
125
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
58 Dubois, 'Le tresor des reliques', no. 27. The relic 73 Several examples are given in Braun, Der christliche
is mentioned as early as 1080-95 in an account of a Altar, I, pp. 364-66.
miracle: pp. 292 and 304.
74 Jean Michaud, 'Culte des reliques et epigraphie.
59 Dubois, 'Le tresor des reliques', no. 10. L'exemple des dedicaces et des consecrations d'autels',
in Les reliques. Objets, cultes, symboks, pp. 199-212.
60 See the analysis in Spilling, Sanctarum reliquiarum
pignera gloriosa. 75 Riidiger Fuchs, ed., Die Inscliriften der Slndt Worms,
'Die Deutschen Inschriften', 29, 'Mainzer Reihe', 2
61 Mosler, 'Das Camper Reliquienverzeichnis'. (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1991), no. 10, pp. 11-12.
62 Boockmann, Die verlorenen Teile des 'Welfcnschatzes', 76 Christine Wulf, ed., Die Inschriften der Stndt Hildesheim,
P 52. 'Die Deutschen Inschriften', 58, 'Gottinger Reihe', 10
63 Mosler, 'Das Camper Reliquienverzeichnis', nos 8,10, (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2003), no. 24, pp. 217-18.
and 11, p. 90. 77 Herbert E. Brekle, Die Priifeninger Weiheinschrifl von
64 Renate Baumgartel-Fleischmann, Das Bamberger 1119. Eine paldographisch-typographische Untersuchung
Heiltumsbucli von 1508/1509 in der British Libranj London (Regensburg: Scriptorium Verlag fur Kultur und
(Add. Ms. 15 6S9), I, Faksimile (Bamberg: Historischer Wissenschaft, 2005).
Verein, 1998). 78 Hans Georg Schmitz, Kloster Priifening ini 12.
65 See Ursula Timann, 'Bemerkungen zum Halleschen Jahrhundcrt, 'Miscellanea Bavarica Monacensia', 49
Heiltum', in Der Kardinal. Albrecht von Brandenburg, (Munich: Woffle in Kommission, 1975), pp. 31 (for the
Renaissancefiirst und Mdzen, ed. by Katja Schneider, date) and 44.
Andreas Tacke, and Thomas Schauerte, exhibition 79 Robert Favreau, 'Epigraphie medievale et
catalogue, Stiftung Moritzburg, Halle an der Saale, 2 hagiographie', in Le culte des saints, ed. by Robert
vols (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2006), II, pp. 255-
Favreau, 'Civilisation medievale', 1 (Poitiers: Centre
83. d'etudes superieures de civilisation medievale, 1995),
66 Ernst Alfred Stiickelberg, Geschiclite der Reliquien in pp. 63-83 (pp. 77-78).
der Schweiz, 2 vols, 'Schriften der Schweizerischen 80 Thiofridus Epternacensis, Flores epytaphii sanctorum,
Gesellschaft fur Volkskunde', 1 and 5, (Zurich / Basel:
III, l,ed. and intr. by MicheleCamillo Ferrari,'CCCM',
Gesellschaft fur Volkskunde, 1902-08), 1, pp. xxxix-
133 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), lines 130-31, 154, and
XLIII.
intr. p. xxxi.
67 Boockmann, Die verlorenen Teile des 'Welfenschatzes',
81 Auguste Digot, 'Inventaire du tresor de 1'abbaye de
pp. 43 and 50, note 182. On this kind of altar, see Braun,
Priim', Bulletin monumental, 15 (1849), pp. 283-300
Der christliche Altar, I, pp. 212-20.
(P- 297).
68 Iso Muller, 'Das Reliquienverzeichnis', in Thesaurus
82 Guillelmus Durantis, Pontificale, book 2, ordo 2, ch. 10,
Fabariensis.DieReliquien-.Schatz-undBucheroerzeichnisse
ed. p. 463.
im Liber Viventium von Pfiifers, ed. by Carl Pfaff and Iso
Muller, 'Sankt-Galler Kultur und Geschichte', 15 (St. 83 Patrick W. Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-century
Gallen: Staatsarchiv, 1986), pp. 13-55 (p. 13). Cultural History (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press,
1993), pp. 171-87 (p. 175), ed. and trans. pp. 176-87
69 Didier Mehu, ed., M/scs en scene et memoires de la
(pp. 176-77).
consecration d’eglisedans TOccident medieval, 'Collection
d'etudes medievales de Nice', 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 84 Karen Gould, 'The Sequences De Sanctis Reliquiis as
2007). Sainte-Chapelle Inventories', Mediaeval Studies, 43
(1981), pp. 315-41.
70 On these consecrations, see Karl Josef Benz,
Untersuchungen zur politischen Bedeutung der Kirchweihe 85 Gaufridi de Collone, Le livre des reliques de 1'abbaye
unter Teilnahme der deutschen Herrscher im hohen Saint-Pierre-le-Vif de Sens, ed. by Gustave Julliot and
Miitelalter. Ein Beitrag zum Stadium des Verhiiltnisses Maurice Prou (Sens: Duchemin, 1887), pp. 2-3.
zwischen weltlicher Macht und kirchlicher Wirklichkeit
unter Otto III. und Heinrich II., 'Regensburger historische 86 Gaufridi de Collone, Le livre des reliques, pp. 1 and xv.
Forschungen', 4 (Kallmunz: Lassleben, 1975), pp. 159, The chronicle was completed in 1295: Gaufridi de
176, and 234-36. Collone, Clironique de 1'abbaye de Saint-Pierre-le-Vif de
Sens, ed. and trans. by Gustave Julliot, 'Publications de
71 Dubois, 'Le tresor des reliques'. la society archeologique de Sens', 2 (Sens: Duchemin,
1876), pp. vi-ix.
72 See the synthesis in Nine Robijntje Miedema,
Die rdmischen Kirchen im Spdtmittelalter nach den 87 Hartmut Kiihne, Ostensio reliquiarum. Untersuchung
Tndulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae', 'Bibliothek iiber Enlstehung, Ausbreitung, Gestalt und Funktion
des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom', 97 der Heillumsiveisungen im romisch-deustchen Regnum,
(Tubingen: Niemeyer 2001), p. 320. 'Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte', 65 (Berlin / New
126
i
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
York: De Gruyter, 2000), pp. 51-55. Germ. N. S.', 10 (Weimar: Bohlau, 1951), pp. 31-32.
88 Gunther Schuhmann, ed., Niirnberg. Kaiser und 99 Achter, 'Die Kolner Petrusreliquien', pp. 987-91. I do
Reich, exhibition catalogue, Staatsarchiv, Nuremberg not, however, entirely follow Achter's interpretation.
(Neustadt an der Aisch: Degener, 1986), no. 57, Her hypothesis that the crypt was built to welcome
pp. 68-69. these relics is disproved by its early tenth-century
date: Klaus Gereon Beuckers, 'Ad altare S. Petri infra
89 Leo Santifaller, 'Quellen zur Geschichte des
Coloniam honorifice in principali loco fundatum. Zu den
spatmittelalterlichen AblaB- und Reliquienwesens
Ringkrypten romischer Pragung im Alien Kolner Dom,
aus schlesischen Archiven', Mitteilungen des
ihrer Datierung und zu der Frage ihrer Reliquien',
Osterreichischen Staatsarchives, 1 (1948), pp. 20-136 (pp.
lahrbuch des Kolnischen Ceschichtsvereins, 75 (2004),
102-06).
pp. 9-41 (p. 27).
90 Schuhmann, Niirnberg. Kaiser und Reich, no. 54 and
100 Georg Hauser, 'Zur Archaologie des Petrusstabes',
p. 61.
Kolner Domblatt, 76 (2011), pp. 197-217.
91 Miedema, Die romischen Kirchen im Spdtmittelaltcr,
101 Martin A. Claussen, The Reform of the Frankish Church.
especially pp. 327-28.
Chrodegang of Metz and the 'Rcgula Canonicorum’ in the
92 On illustrated inventories, see Philippe Cordez, Eighth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University
'Wallfahrt und Medienwettbewerb. Serialitat und Press, 2004).
Formenwandel der Heiltumsverzeichnisse mit
102 Daniel Carlo Pangerl, Die Metropolitanverfassung des
Reliquienbildem im Heiligen Romischen Reich (1460-
karolingischen Frankenreichs, 'Schriften der MGH', 63
1520)', in "lch armer sundtger Mensch". Heiligen- und
Reliquienkult am ilbergang zum konfessionellen Zeitalter, (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung 2011), p. 51-52.
ed. by Andreas Tacke (Gottingen: Wallstein, 2006), 103 Paulus Diaconus, Libellus de episcopis Mettensibus, pp.
pp. 37-73. 48-49; see Kempf, 'Paul the Deacon's Liber de episcopis
93 Anne-Marie Helvetius, 'Les inventions de reliques Mettensibus', pp. 292-93 and Elling, 'Institution versus
en Gaule du Nord (ixc-xiiic s.)', in Les reliques. Objets, Individuum, Diozese versus Dynastie', pp. 221-23 on
cultes, symboles, pp. 293-311; Hedwig Rockelein, Saint Peter.
Reliquicntranslationen nach Sachsen, liber Kommunikation, 104 Jean-Claude Ignace, 'Reflexions sur la legende et le
Mobilitiit und Offentliclikeit in Friilnnittelalter, 'Beihefte culte de saint Front. A propos des travaux de M. le
der Francia', 48 (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2002); Patrick J. chanoine A. Fayard', Bulletin de la Societe historique et
Geary, Furta Sacra. Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle archeologique du Perigord, 106 (1979), pp. 52-72 (pp.
Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978; 67-68); Alain Dierkens, 'Martial, Semin, Trophime et
revised ed. 1990). les autres. A propos des evangelisateurs et des apotres
94 For an introduction, see Jacques Dubois and Jean-Loup en Gaule', in Saint-Martial de Limoges. Ambition politique
Lemaitre, Sources et methodes de Fhagiographie medievale et production culturelle (x'-xuf siecles), ed. by Claude
(Paris: Cerf, 1993). Andrault-Schmitt (Limoges: Presses universitaires de
Limoges, 2006), pp. 25-38 (pp. 27-28).
95 Martin Heinzelmann and Monique Goullet, eds.,
La reecriture hagiographique dans VOccident medieval. 105 Jean-Charles Picard, Le souvenir des eveques. Sepultures,
Transformations formelles et ideologiques, 'Beihefte der listes episcopates et culte des eveques en Italic du Nord, des
Francia', 58 (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2003). origines au .V siecle, 'Bibliotheque des Ecoles franchises
d'Athenes et de Rome', 268 (Rome: Ecole franchise de
96 See, for example, Hedwig Rockelein, "'Die Hiillen Rome, 1988), pp. 693-97 (p. 697 for Paul the Deacon's
der Heiligen". Zur Materialitat des hagiographischen knowledge of these traditions).
Mediums', in Reliquiare im Mittelalter, ed. by Bruno
Reudenbach and Gia Toussaint (Berlin: Akademie 106 Eva Schurr, Die Ikonographie der Heiligen. Eine
Verlag, 2005), pp. 75-88, and several of the texts in Entwicklungsgeschichte ihrer Attribute von den Anfangen
Cordez, Charlemagne et les objets. Des thesaurisations bis zum achten fahrhundert (Dettelbach: Roll, 1997),
carolingiennes aux constructions memorielles. pp. 108-21.
97 According to the theory of Irmingard Achter, 107 Richard Delbruck, Die Consulardiptychen und venvandte
'Die Kolner Petrusreliquien und die Bautatigkeit Denkmdler (Berlin / Leipzig: De Gruyter, 1929), pp. 61-
Erzbischofs Brunos (953-965) am Kolner Dom', in 62 on scepters, which are generally surmounted by the
Das erste Jahrlausend. Kultur und Kunst im werdenden busts of emperors; Cecilia Olovsdotter, The Consular
Abendland an Rhein und Ruhr, ed. by Kurt Bohner and Image: An lconological Study of the Consular Diptychs
Victor Heinrich Elbern, 2 vols (Dusseldorf: Schwann, (Oxford: John and Erica Hedges, 2005), pp. 73-78.
1964), pp. 948-91 (p. 973).
108 Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, ed., Le tresor de Saint-Denis,
98 Ruotgerus Coloniensis, Vita Brunonis archiepiscopi exhibition catalogue, Musee du Louvre, Paris (Paris:
Coloniensis, ch. 31, ed. by Irene Ott, 'MGH, SS rer. Reunion des musses nationaux, 1991), no. 2, p. 60.
127
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
109 Since the secularization, this object has belonged to the Bordeaux (vic-xivc siecles)', in Aulour de Saint-Seurin.
cathedral of Limburg an der Lahn. See Thomas Head, Lieu, memoire, pouvoir. Des premiers temps chretiens a In
'Art and Artifice in Ottonian Trier', Gesta, 36 (1997), fin du Moyen Age, ed. by Isabelle Cartron and others
pp. 65-82; Rudiger Fuchs, ed.. Die Inschriftcn der Stadl (Bordeaux: Ausonius, 2009), pp. 87-116 (pp. 103-05
Trier, 2 vols, 'Die Deutschen Inschriften', 70, 'Mainzer and 1 OS-09).
Reihe', 10 (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2006-12), 1, no. 53,
pp. 102-08. 118 See the unreferenced statement in Antoine-Rene de
Voyer d'Argenson and Andr£-Guillaume Contant
110 Odilo Engels, 'Metropolit oder Erzbischof? Zur d'Orville, Melanges tires d'une grande bibliotheque, 70
Rivalitat der Erzstiihle von Koln, Mainz und Trier vols (Paris: Moutard, 1779-88), V, p. 89.
bis zur Mitte des 11. Jahrhunderts', in Dombau und
Theohgic im mittelalterlichcn Koln. Festschrift zur 119 Head, 'Art and Artifice in Ottonian Trier', p. 77
750-Jahrfeier der Grundsteinlcgung des Kblner Domes und and above all Klaus Kronert, L'exaltation de Treves.
zum 65. Geburtstag von Joachim Kardinal Meisner, ed. by L'hagiograpliie Ireviroise du >C au xif siecle, 'Beihefte der
Ludger Honnefelder, 'Studien zum Kolner Dorn', 6 Francia', 70 (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2010), pp. 95 and
(Cologne: Kolner Dom, 1998), pp. 267-94. 100.
111 Franz Ronig, 'Vorwort', in Egbert. Erzbischof von Trier 120 Thomas Bauer, Lotharingien als historischer Raum.
977-993. Gedenkschrift der Dibzese Trier zum 1000. Raumbildung und Raumbewusstsein im Mittelaller
Todestag, ed. by Franz Ronig, 2 vols (Trier: Selbstverlag (Cologne / Weimar / Vienna: Bohlau, 1997), pp. 460-
des Rheinischen Landesmuseum, 1993), I, pp. 9-10. 64.
112 Philippe Depreux, 'Der Petrusstab als 121 Gesta episcoporum Tullcnsium, ch. 32, ed. by Georg
Legitimationsmittel. Zu Kommunikation, Waitz, 'MGH, SS', 8 (Hanover: Hahn, 1848), p. 640. On
Erinnerungskultur und Autoritat im Mittelalter', in these texts see Monique Goullet, 'Les saints du diocese
Geschichlsvorstellungen. Bilder, Texte und Begriffc aus de Toul (Sources Hagiographiques de la Gaule, 6)', in
dem Mittelalter. Festschrift Hans-Werner Goetz zum 65. L'hagiograpliie du haul Moyen Age en Gaule du Nord.
Geburtstag, ed. by Steffen Patzold, Anja Rathmann- Manuscrits, textes et centres de production, ed. by Martin
Lutz, and Volker Scior (Cologne / Weimar / Vienna: Heinzelmann, 'Beihefte der Francia', 52 (Stuttgart:
Bohlau, 2012), pp. 412-30 (pp. 427-28). Thorbecke, 2001), pp. 11-89; Michel Parisse, 'Un
eveque reformateur. Gauzelin de Toul (922-962)', in
113 Alexander von Roes, Memoriale de prerogativa Romani Ad libros! Melanges d'etudes medicvales ofjerts a Denise
imperii, ch. 36, ed. by Herbert Grundemann and Angers et Joscph-Claude Poulin, ed. by Jean-Fran<;ois
Hermann Heimpel in Die Schriften des Alexander i>on Roes Cottier, Martin Gravel, and Sebastien Rossignol
und des Engelbert von Admont, 'MGH, Staatsschriften', (Montreal: Presses de 1'Universite de Montreal, 2010),
1, 1 (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1958), pp. 91-148 (p. 147). pp. 69-82 (p. 72 for the date, trans. p. 82).
114 On this narrative, itself based on two accounts by 122 Bauer, Lotharingien als historischer Raum, pp. 407-09.
Gregor)' of Tours, see Kempf, 'Paul the Deacon's Liber
de episcopis Metlensibus', pp. 293-94. 123 Historia monasterii Rasledensis, ed. by Georg Waitz,
'MGH, SS', 25 (Hanover: Hahn, 1880), pp. 495-511
115 Saint Peter's staff is also mentioned in the vita of Saint (p. 502).
Front of Perigueux, which predates the ninth century.
On these cases and the borrowings made at Trier, see 124 Notae Weingartenses, ed. by Georg Waitz, 'MGH, SS', 24
Maurice Coens, 'La vie ancienne de St. Front', Analecta (Hanover: Hahn, 1879), p. 830-33 (p. 832).
Bollandiana, 48 (1930), pp. 343-60 (pp. 334 and 348);
125 Martin Howley, 'Relics at Glastonbury Abbey in the
Wilhelm Levison, 'Die Anfange rheinischer Bistumer
Thirteenth Century: The Relic List in Cambridge,
in der Legende', Annalen des Historischen Vereinsfiirden
Trinity College R.5.33 (724), fols 104r-105v', Mediaeval
Niedcrrhein, 116 (1930), pp. 5-28; Ignace, 'Reflexions Studies, 71 (2009), pp. 197-234 (p. 224).
sur la legende et le culte de saint Front', p. 59; Eugen
Ewig, 'Kaiserliche und apostolische Tradition im 126 PhilippeGeorge/LetresordereliquesduNeufmoustier
mittelalterlichen Trier', Trierer Zeitschrift fiir Geschichte pres de Huy. Une part de Terre Sainte en pays mosan',
und Kunst des Trierer Landes und seiner Naclibargebiete, Bulletin de la Commission royaled'liistoirc, 169 (2003) no
24-26 (1956-58), pp. 147-86 (pp. 164-66). 44, pp. 17-35.
116 See the thirteenth-century Guillelmus Alvernus, 127 Hartmut Kuhne, 'Reliquien und Reliquiare des
De sacramento Eucharistiae, ch. 2, ed. by Blaise Le Feron Magdeburger Domes im 13. Jahrhundert. Versuch
in Guilielmi Alverni Opera omnia [...], 2 vols (1674; repr. einer Bestandsaufnahme', in Aufbrucli in die Gotik. Der
Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1963), I, pp. 407-555 Magdeburger Dom unddic$pdteStaufcrzeit,e d. by Matthias
(p. 440). Puhle, exhibition catalogue, Kulturhistorisches
Museum, Magdeburg, 2 vols (Mainz: Zabern 2009) I
117 An appropriation of the Limoges tradition, the object is pp. 180-91 (p. 187).
first attested in 1419: Christophe Baillet, 'Le memorial
des saints. Les reliques de 1'eglise Saint-Seurin de 128 Wolfgang Schmid, 'Reliquienjagd am Oberrhein. Karl
128
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
IV. erwirbt Heiltum fur den Prager Dom', Zeitschrift Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 14-20.
fiir die Gescliichtc des Oberrheins, 159 (2011), pp. 131-209
140 This treatise is only preserved in two manuscripts,
1 (p. 182).
probably copied at Echternach between 1110 and
129 See, in particular, Gisela Schwering-IIlert, Dieehemalige 1140-50. Thiofridus Epternacensis, Flores epytaphii
franzosisclie Abteikirche Saint-Sauveur in Charroux sanctorum, especially pp. xlix-l of the introduction.
(Vienne) im 11. und 12. Jh. Em Vorschlagzur Rekonslruklion
141 Guibertus de Novigento, Dc sanctis cl corum pigneribus,
und Deutung der romanischen Bauteile (Dusseldorf:
ed. by Robert B. C. Huygens, 'CCCM', 127 (Turnhout,
Triltsch, 1963), pp. 27-35; Matthew Gabriele, An Empire
Brepols, 1996), pp. 110 and 113. For a comparison with
of Memory: The Legend of Charlemagne, the Franks, and
the miracle narratives of Saint-Mcdard, see Karin
Jerusalem before the First Crusade (Oxford: Oxford
Fuchs, Zeichen utici Wunder bei Cuibert von Nogent.
University Press, 2011), pp. 44-51.
Kommunikation, Deutungcn und Funktionalisierung
130 The True Cross did not, however, entirely disappear, for von Wundererzahlungen im 12. Jahrhundert, 'Pariser
it was later given or sold to King Charles VII (1422-61). Historische Studien', 84 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008),
pp. 203, 205-06, and 208-10. Guibert's treatise is
131 Ed. in Pierre de Monsabert, Charles et documents pour
preserved in a unique manuscript copied at Nogent
servir a I’histoire de I'abbaye de Charroux, 'Archives
around 1119-20.
Historiques du Poitou', 39 (Poitiers: Societe franqaise
d'imprimerie et de librairie, 1910), p. 40. 142 Marinus B. Pranger, 'Le sacrement de 1'eucharistie et
la proliferation de l'imaginaire aux xr et xir siecles',
132 Ed. in Monsabert, Charles et documents, pp. 8-9.
in Fete-Dieu, 1246-1996, ed. by Andre Haquin, 2 vols,
133 During the thirteenth century, this composite reliquary 'Publications de 1'Institut d'etudes medievales. Textes,
was itself installed in a new arrangement where it was etudes, congres', 19 (Louvain-la-Neuve: Universite
presented by two angels. Perhaps hidden during the Catholique de Louvain, 1999), I, pp. 97-116.
Wars of Religion, in 1856 it was rediscovered with
143 Beate Fricke, Fallen Idols, Risen Saints: Sainte Foy of
another reliquary in one of the cloister walls. See
Conques and the Revival of Monumental Sculpture in
Robert Favreau and Marie-Therese Camus, Charroux
Medieval Art, trans. by Andrew Griebeler, 'Studies in
(Poitiers: Oudin, 1989), pp. 25-26; for the engolpion,
the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages', 7 (Turnhout:
see humic Durand, ed., Byzance. L’art byzantin dans
Brepols,2015) (original version: Eccefides. DieStatuevon
les collections publiques franâises (Paris: Reunion des
Conques, Cotzendienst und Bildkultur im Westen, 2007],
musces nationaux, 1992), no. 231, pp. 317-18. At the
pp. 83-147; on the artists see Pierre Alain Mariaux,
beginning of the 1990s, the object contained a wooden
'Eucharistie et creation d'image autour de 1'an Mil. Le
cross, two bones, and a piece of horn: see Amy G.
crucifix de Geron', in Les pratiques de 1’eucharistie dans
Remonsnyder, Remembering Kings Past: Monastic
les Eglises d'Orient et d’Occident, ed. by Nicole Beriou,
Foundation Legends in Mediez>al Southern France (Ithaca:
Beatrice Caseau, and Dominique Rigaux, 2 vols (Paris:
Cornell University Press, 1995), p. 177, note 111.
Etudes augustiniennes, 2009), II, pp. 1043-55; for seals
134 Only the tower is still extant. See Marie-Therese see Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, When Ego zvas Imago: Signs
Camus, 'A propos de la rotonde de Charroux', in of Identity in the Middle Ages, 'Visualizing the Middle
Guillaume de Volpianoet Tarchitecture des rotondes, ed. by Ages', 3 (Leiden: Brill, 2010).
Christian Sapin and Monique Jannet (Dijon: Editions
144 Peter Browe, Die eucharistischen Wunder dcs Mittelalters,
de l'Universite de Dijon, 1996), pp. 119-33.
'Breslauer Studien zur historischen Theologie', new
135 Alfons Becker, 'Le voyage d'Urbain II en France', in series, 4 (Breslau: Muller and Seiffert, 1938), pp. 117-18.
Le concile de Clermont de 1095 et I’appel a la Croisade,
'Collection de I'Ecole fran<;aise de Rome', 236 (Rome: 145 Theologians would comment only later on Eucharistic
£cole franqaise de Rome, 1997), pp. 127-40 (p. 135). miracles: Browe, Die eucharistischen Wunder, pp. 177-
202; Godefridus J. C. Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics
136 Three twelfth-century accounts are cited in Carla Rossi, to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction, 'Studies
'Le Voyage de Charlemagne. Le parcours vers Jerusalem in the History of Christian Thought', 63 (Leiden: Brill,
et les reliques', Crilica del teslo, 2 (1999), pp. 619-53 1995) [original version: De eucharistie- en reliekverering
(p. 619); others in Federica Monteleone, II viaggiodi Carlo in de middelleeuwen. Middeleeuzvse eucharistie-devotie
Magno in Terra Santa. Un'espericnza di pellegrinaggio netla en reliekverering in onderlinge samenhang, 19S9], p. 310;
tradizione europea occidentale (Fasano: Schena, 2003), Caroline Walker Bynum, Wonderful Blood: Theology and
p. 269, note 245. Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond
137 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007),
Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past, pp. 155, note
pp. 87 and 297, note 5.
23,172, note 89, and 175, note 105.
138 Gabriele, An Empire of Memory, pp. 51-68. 146 Benedictus Canonicus, Ordo Romanus, ed. by Paul
Fabre and Louis Duchesne, Le ‘Liber Censuum' de
139 See in particular Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The I’Eglise Romaine, 6 vols (Paris: Fontemoing, 1889-1910),
Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: II (1910), pp. 141-77 (p. 159).
129
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
147 Johannes Diaconus, Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae, Politikzwischeil Gcwolmheit und Konvention (Darmstadt:
ed. and trans. in Eivor Andersen Oftestad, The Lateran Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010). On the role
Church in Rome and the Ark of the Covenant: Housing the of images in particular, see Hagen Keller, 'Ritual,
Holy Relics of Jerusalem. With an Edition and Translation Symbolik und Visualisierung in der Kultur des
of the Descriptio Lateranensis Ecclesiae (BAV Reg. Lai. 712) ottonischen Reiches', Friilwiittelalterliche Studicn,
(Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2019), pp. 216-32 35 (2001), pp. 23-59; Gerd Althoff, 'Die Bilder der
(pp. 219 and 226). mittelalterlichen Historiographie', in Die Bildliclikcit
symbolischer Akte, pp. 23-35.
148 lnnocentius 111, De sacro Altaris Mysterio, ed. and
trans. by Stanislao Fioramonti, lnnocenzo 111. II 157 Antje Kluge-Pinsker, Schach mid Trictrac. Zeugnisse
sacrosanto Mistero dell’Allarc (De sacro altaris mysterio), mittelalterlichcr Spielfreude aus salischer Zeit, 'Romisch-
'MonumentaStudia Instrumenta Liturgica', 15 (Vatican germanisches Zentralmuseum. Monographien', 30
City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002), pp. 312-13. (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1991); Mathieu Grandetand
Jean-Franqois Goret, eds., Echecs et trictrac. Fabrication
149 Bartholomeus Tridentinus, Liber epilogorum in gesta
et usages des jeux de tables ail Mayen Age, exhibition
sanctorum, ch. 25, ed. by Emore Paoli, 'Edizione
catalogue, Musee du Chateau, Mayenne (Paris:
nazionale dei testi mediolatini', 1, 1 (Florence: Sismel
Errance, 2012).
/ Galluzzo, 2001), p. 43.
158 For other objects, see Philippe Buc, 'Conversion of
150 Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea, ch. 13, ed.
Objects', Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 28
by Giovanni Paolo Maggioni, 2 vols, 'Millennio
(1997), pp. 99-143.
Medievale', 6 (Florence: Sismel / Galluzzo, 1998), I, pp.
128-29; trans. by William Granger Ryan, The Golden 159 On this structure, see Silke Schomburg, 'Der Ambo
Legend: Readings on the Saints (Princeton: Princeton Heinrichs II. im Aachener Dorn' (unpublished
University Press, 1993; repr. 2012), p. 77. doctoral thesis, Aachen, Technische Hochschule,
151 Ralf Liitzelschwab, 'Zwischen Heilsvermittlung und 1998), especially pp. 85-97 for the chess pieces; Karen
Argernis - das preputium Domini im Mittelalter', Rose Mathews, 'Expressing Political Legitimacy and
in 'Reliques et saintete dans Tespace medieval', Cultural Identity through the Useof Spolia on the Ambo
pp. 601-28. of Henry II', Medieval Encounters: Jewish, Christian, and
Muslim Culture in Confluence and Dialogue, 5 (1999),
152 In what follows I revisit reflections first made in pp. 156-83.
Philippe Cordez, 'Images ludiques et politique feodale.
Les materiels d'echecs dans les eglises du xic siecle', 160 Today in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna:
in 'Tempus ludendi. Chiesa e ludicita nella societa Erika Zwierlein-Diehl, Magic der Steine. Die antiken
tardo-medioevale (sec. xii-xv)', ed. by Yann Dahhaoui Prunkkameen im Kunsthistorischen Museum (Vienna:
and Gherardo Ortalli, special issue, Ludica. Annali di Brandstatter, 2008), pp. 84-91.
storia e civilta del gioco, 13-14 (2007-08), pp. 115-36 and 161 Only the vessels in rock crystal and glass imitating
explored in greater depth in Philippe Cordez, 'O jogo agate (top, right, and left) are original. Lydia
de xadrez. Imagem, poder e Igreja (fim do seculo X - Konnegen and Gunnar Heuschkel, En detail. Der Ambo
iniciodos«kruloXII)', in'A Imagem Medieva. Historiae Heinrichs II. im Aachener Dom, exhibition catalogue,
Teoria', ed. by Maria Cristina Pereira Leandro Correira Domschatzkammer, Aachen (Aachen: Domkapitel,
and Eduardo Hendrik Aubert, special issue, Revista de 2002), pp. 18-19.
Historia, 165 (2011), pp. 93-120.
162 See the three charters of Henry II on www.klosterarchiv.
153 Versus de scacliis, ed. by Gabriel Silagi and Bernhard ch (accessed October 15,2019).
Bischoff, 'MGH Poetae latini medii aevi', 5,3 (Munich:
MGH, 1979), pp. 652-55. See also Helena M. Gamer, 163 A fifth count at the bottom left, in the place where one
'The Earliest Evidence of Chess in Western Literature: would expect a king or a queen, is the exception to this
The Einsiedeln Verses', Speculum, 29, no. 4 (1954), rule.
pp. 734-50.
164 Schomburg, 'Der Ambo Heinrichs II/, pp. 18-31 and
154 For an overview, see Alain Guerreau, 'Feodalitd', 91.
in Dictionnaire raisonne de I'Occident medieval, ed. by
Jacques Le Goff and Jean-Claude Schmitt (Paris: 165 Henry II returned regularly to Aachen: Thomas Zotz,
Fayard, 1999), pp. 387-406. 'Die Gegenwart des Konigs. Zur Herrschaftspraxis
Ottos III. und Heinrichs 11/ [1997J; repr. in Otto III. -
155 On the history of the game of chess and in particular Heinrich II. Eine Wende?, ed. by Bernd Schneidmiiller
its transformations over the course of the Middle Ages, and Stefan Weinfurter, 'Mittelalter-Forschungen', 1
see Harold James Ruthven Murray, A History of Chess (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 2000,), pp. 349-86 (p. 384).
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913; repr. 2007).
166 See Ludger Korntgen, Konigsherrschaft und Gottes
156 The meta phor of a ga me is recurrent in these stud ies. For Gnadc. Zu Kontext und Funktion sakraler VorsteUungen
a recent example, see Claudia Gamier and Hermann in Historiographie und Bildzeugnissen der ottonisch-
Kamp, eds., Spielregeln der Machtigen. Mittelalterliche friihsalischen Zeit (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001), p. 281.
130
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
167 On the history of this idea and its application to Ernst Schubert, 'Vortriige und Forschungen', 46
sovereignty, see Henri de Lubac, Corpus Mysticum: (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1998), pp. 267-93.
The Eucharist and the Church in the Middle Ages, trans.
173 On this object, see Geza Jaszai, Die Domknturner der
by C. J. Gemma Simmonds (Notre Dame: University
Kathedralkirche Sankt Paulas in Minister. Kommentare
of Notre Dame Press, 2007) [original version: Corpus
zu Hirer Bilderwelt (Munster: Kapitel, 1991), pp. 16
Mysticum. L'Eucharistie et Vtglise an Moyen Age. Etude
and 77-78. On Otto III and Munster, see Joseph
historique, 1944], pp. 3-7 on the assimilation of the body
Prinz, 'Prcbenda regis', in Monasterium. Festschrift
of Christ with the Church during antiquity and the
zuni 700jdhrigcn Weihegeddchtnis des Paulus-Domes zu
early Middle Ages; Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King's
Minister, ed. by Alois Schroer (Munster: Regensberg,
Two Bodies. A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology
1966), pp. 511-45 (pp. 522 and 540, note 131, pp. 537-
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957; repr. with
38 on the object), and above all Manfred Groten, 'Von
a new intr. by Conrad Leyser and a preface by William
der Gebetsverbrtiderung zum Kbnigskanonikat. Zur
Chester Jordan, 2016), pp. 42-86 on the assimilation of
Vorgeschichteund Entwicklungder Konigskanonikate
the king and Christ; Til man Struve, Die Enlwicklung
an den Dom- und Stiftskirchen des deutschen Reiches',
der organologischcn Staalsauffassung im Mittelalter,
Historischcs Jahrbuch, 103 (1983), pp. 1-34 (pp. 7-8).
'Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters', 16
(Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1978). 174 Mittclalterliche Schatzverzeiclniisse, Bamberg: no. 6, pp.
17-19 (p. 18); Spire: no. 84, pp. 89-90 (p. 90).
168 Stefan Weinfurter,'Authority and Legitimation of Royal
Policy and Action: The Case of Henry II', in Medieval 175 Versus de scachis, p. 653.
Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography, ed.
by Gerd Althoff, Johannes Fried, and Patrick Geary 176 Mittelaltcrliclie Schatzverzeiclniisse, no. 91, p. 96.
(Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute / 177 Ulrich Knapp, ed., Ego sum Hildenscmensis. Bischof,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), Domkapitel und Dom in Hildesheim 815 bis 1810,
pp. 19-37. exhibition catalogue, Dom-Museum, Hildesheim,
169 Eliza Garrison, Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture: 'Kataloge des Dom-Museums Hildesheim', 3
The Artistic Patronage of Otto III and Henry II (Farnham (Petersberg: Imhof, 2000), no. D 4, p. 488, where this
/ Burlington: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 87-163. pawn is not recognized at a chess piece.
170 Ed. in Die Urkunden Heinrichs II. und Arduins, ed. by 178 Walter Borchers, Der Osnabriicker Domschatz,
Haarry Bresslau and others, 2 vols, 'MGH, Diplomata', 'Osnabriicker Geschichtsquellen und Forschungen',
H II (Hanover: Hahn, 1901-03), no. 277, p. 327; see 19 (Osnabriick: Wenner, 1974), pp. 32-34 and 174,
John William Bernhardt, 'King Henry II of Germany: and Claude Joly, Voyagefait a Munster en Westphalic, et
Royal Self-Representation and Historical Memory', autres lieux voisins, en 1646 et 1647 (Paris: Prome, 1670),
in Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, p. 180. Hermann Queckenstedt, 'Schachspiel Karls des
Historiography, pp. 39-69 (pp. 56-57, trans. p. 56). GroGen', in Karl der Grojle/Charlemagne. Orteder Macht,
ed. by Frank Pohle, exhibition catalogue, Rathaus,
171 Islamic objects in crystal became more common in Aachen, 2 vols (Dresden: Sandstein, 2014), I, Katalog,
Europe following the sacking of the Fatimid palace no. 236, pp. 202-03.
at Cairo around 1069: see Avinoam Shalem, Islam
Christianized: Islamic Portable Objects in the Medieval 179 Hans-Werner Goetz, 'Die bischofliche Politik in
Church Treasuries of the Latin West, 'Ars Faciendi', Westfalen und ihre historiographische Legitimierung
7 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996; revised wahrend des Investiturstreits', Westfiilische Zeitschrift,
ed. 1998), pp. 56-71; Sophie Makariou and Gabriel 141 (1991), pp. 307-28 (particularly pp. 317-20). See
Martinez-Gros, 'Le tresor du palais fatimide du Caire. also a number of the essays in Hermann Queckenstedt
Inventaire du profane, mecanisme de dispersion et and Bodo Zehm, eds., Der Dom als Anfang. 1225 Jahre
pieuse conservation', in 'Les tresors des eglises a Bistum und Stadt Osnabriick, 'Das Bistum Osnabriick,
l'epoque romane', pp. 193-202 (p. 198 for chess sets). Schriften zur Archaologie des Osnabriicker Landes', 4
(Osnabriick: Dom-Buchhandlung, 2005).
172 On this object, only mentioned at a late date and with
an attribution to Charlemagne (in Ernst Hermes, Der 180 Odo Fossatensis, Vita Burchardi comitis, ed. by Charles
Dom zu llalberstadt. Seine Geschichte und seine Schdtze. de La Ronciere, Vie de Bouchard le Venerable, comte de
Eine Festschrift zum 18. September 1896 [Halberstadt: Vendome, de Corbeil, de Mel tin et de Paris (,V et xf siecles)
Koch, 1896], p. 125), see Andrea Lermer, 'Schachstein', (Paris: Picard, 1892), p. 28 (the editor reads locum rather
in Der Fleilige Schatz im Dom zu llalberstadt, ed. than locum).
by Harald Meller, Ingo Mundt, and Boje E. Hans
181 Ed. in Petro de Marca, Marca Hispanica sive limes
Schmuhl (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2008), no.
liispanicus, hoc est, Geographica & historica descriptio
2, pp. 46-47. On the offering of the scepter, see Gerd
Cataloniae, Ruscinonis, & circumjacentiinn populorum
Althoff, 'Magdeburg - Halberstadt - Merseburg.
(1688; repr. Barcelona: Base, 1998), no. 162, col. 974;
Bischofliche Representation und Interessenvertretung
Murray, A History of Chess, p. 405.
im ottonischen Sachsen', in Herrscliaftsreprdsentation
im ottonischen Sachsen, ed. by Gerd Althoff and 182 Iter pro peregrinis ad Compostellam, intr., ed., trans..
131
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
and notes by Paula Gerson and others. The Pilgrim's 194 Charles de Beaurepaire, 'Anciens inventaires du
Guide to Santiago de Compostela: A Critical Edition, 2 vols tresor de 1'abbaye de Fecamp', Bibliotheque de I'Ecolc
(London: Harvey Miller, 1998), I, p. 38. des Chartes, 20 (1859), pp. 153-69 and 399-411
(pp. 155 and 163); Lucien Musset, 'Le mecenat des
183 Ed. in Leon Menard, Histoire civile, ecclesiastique et princes normands au xic siecle', in Artistes, artisans et
litteraire de la ville de Nimes, 7 vols (1744-58; repr. production artistiqueau Moyen Age, ed. by Xavier Barral
Nimes: Lacour, 1988-89), II, p. 266. No chess pieces i Altet, 3 vols (Paris: Picard, 1986-90), II, Connnande et
are cited in the inventories of 1491, 1552, and 1562 travail (1987), pp. 121-34 (p. 123).
(IV, pp. 55,194, and 303).
195 Charles de Linas, 'Le tresor et la bibliotheque de
184 Liber Feudorum Maior. Cartulario real que se conserva en el l'eglise metropolitaine de Rouen, au xnc siecle',
Archiz’o de la Corona de Aragon, ed. by Francisco Miquel Revue de Vart chretien, new series, 4 (1886), pp. 455-67
Resell, 2 vols (Barcelona: Caridad, 1945—17), I, p. 523. (p. 462); Jacques Le Maho, 'Le tresor de la cathedrale
See also Pierre Bonnassie, La Catalogue du milieu du xf de Rouen de l'epoque merovingienne aux premieres
a la fin du xf siecle. Croissance et mutations d’unc societe, annees du xiiic siecle', in Les Tresors de sanctuaires de
2 vols (Toulouse: Universite de Toulouse-Le Mirail, I'Antiquite a l'epoque romane, ed. by Jean-Pierre Caillet,
1975-76), II, p. 500. 'Universite de Paris X-Nanterre, Centre de recherches
185 Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis, ed. by Luca Robertini sur I'Antiquite tardive et le haut Moyen Age', 7 (Paris:
(Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'Alto Medioevo, Picard, 1996), pp. 123-35 (p. 135).
1994), p. 236 (p. 65 for the date of the text); trans. (from 196 A king or queen in crystal, probably Fatimid and
an earlier ed.) by Pamela Sheingom: The Book of Sainte dating from the late tenth century: Wilfried Seipel,
Foy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ed., Nobiles officinae. Die koniglichen Hofiverkstdtten
1995), pp. 194 and 195, note 34 on the date of the events. zu Palermo zur Zeit der Normannen und Staufer ini 12.
186 On this type of ex-voto see Anne-Marie Bautier, und 13. Jahrhundert, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo
'Typologie des ex-voto mentionnes dans des textes dei Normanni, Palermo; Kunsthistorisches Museum,
anterieurs a 1200', in La piete populairc au Moyen Age, Vienna (Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum / Milan:
'Actes du congres national des societes savantes, Skira, 2004), pp. 175-76.
section de philologie et d'histoire jusqu'a 1610', 99, 197 Black and white figures are attested in 1510: Anna
1 (Paris: Bibliotheque nationale, 1977), pp. 237-82 Rotondo, 'L'Arcivescovo Federico Fregoso nella storia
(pp. 262-69). On Saint Foy see in particular Fricke, della Diocesidi Salerno e la Santa Visita del 1510-1511',
Fallen Idols, Risen Saints, p. 218, and p. 217 for the Rassegna Slorica Salernitana, 15 (1954), pp. 151-80
episode involving the chessboard. (p-171).
187 Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis, p. 237. 198 Annates Pegavienses, ed. Georg Heinrich Pertz, 'MGH,
188 Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis, ed. pp. 237-38; trans. SS', 16 (Hanover: Hahn, 1859), pp. 232-70 (pp. 240-41
pp. 195-96. and 246). On Wiprecht, see Marco Innocenti,'Wiprecht
von Groitzsch', in Biographisch-Bi'oliograpltisclies
189 The resolution of this conflict is discussed in Dominique Kirchenlexikon, ed. by Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz
Barthelemy, Chevaliers et miracles. La violence et le sacre and Traugott Bautz, 39 vols (Hamm / Herzberg /
dans la societe feodale (Paris: Armand Colin, 2004), Nordhausen: Bautz), XXII (2003), cols 1551-56. On
p. 100. the foundation of the monastery, see Enno Biinz,
190 Manuel Casamar and Fernando Valdes Fernandez, 'Wiprecht von Groitzsch und der hi. Jakobus', in Der
'Les objets egyptiens en cristal de roche dans al- Jakobuskull in Sachsen, ed. by Klaus Herbers and Enno
Andalus, elements pour une reflexion archeologique', Biinz, 'Jakobus-Studien', 17 (Tubingen: Narr, 2007), pp.
in L'Egypte fatimide, son art et son histoire, ed. by 61-95 (pp. 82 and 84 on the role of Vratislav in relation
Marianne Barrucand (Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne to Wiprecht).
nouvelle, 1999), pp. 367-81 (pp. 376-78). Arnau Mir de 199 Cantatorium sancti Huberti, ed. by Karl Hanquet, La
Tost did own a chess set: see Pedro Sanahuja, Historia Chronique de Saint-Hubert dite 'Cantatorium' (Brussels:
de la Villa de Ager (Barcelona: Serafica, 1961), pp. 339-49 Kiessling, 1906), p. 208; trans. by Aime Louis Philemon
(especially pp. 340 and 349). de Robaux de Soumoy, Chronique de 1'abbaye de Saint-
191 Casamar and Valdes Fernandez, 'Les objets egyptiens Hubert dite Cantatorium (1847; repr. Brussels: Culture et
en cristal de roche dans al-Andalus', pp. 374-76. Civilisation, 1982), p. 135. Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld,
'The Commemoration of Patrons and Gifts in
192 Augusto Quintana Prieto, Pehalba. Estudio historico Chronicles from the Diocese of Liege, Eleventh-Twelfth
sobreel Monasterio Berciano de Santiago de Penalba (Leon: Centuries', Revue benedictine, 109 (1999), pp. 208-43
Nebrija, 1963; repr. 1978), p. 114. (p. 215).
193 Fernando Valdes Fernandez, Las figuras de ajedrez y 200 Jean-Michel Mehl, Les jeux au royaume de France du
cristal de roca del museo catedralicio de Ourense (Ourense: xuf au debut du xvf siecle (Paris: Fayard, 1990), p. 124,
Grupo Francisco de Moure, 2004). note 89.
132
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
201 Ulrich Schadler, 'Eine Bergkristall-Schachfigur in Neuzeit', 31 (Cologne / Weimar / Vienna: Bohlau,
der Schweiz', in Festschrift fiir Egbert Meissenburg - 2009), pp. 156-96.
Schachforschungen / Festschrift for Egbert Meissenburg -
210 Rolf GroBe, 'Saint-Denis und das Papsttum zur Zeit
International Research in Chess, ed. by Siegfried Schonle
des Abtes Suger', in Die franzosische Kirclie und das
(Vienna: Refordis, 2008), pp. 654-67.
Papsttum (10.-13. Jahrhundert), ed. by Rolf GroBe,
202 Recognitio reliquiarum anno 1197 (= Bibliotheca 'Studien und Dokumente zur Gallia Pontificia', 1
Hagiographica Latina, no. 856), ed. in Acta Sanctorum (Bonn: Bouvier, 1993), pp. 219-38 (pp. 233-35 for the
quotquot toto orbe coluntur /.../, ed. by Jean Bolland hypothesis of a link between the failure of this false
and others, 68 vols (Antwerp / Brussels: Societe des charter of Charlemagne and the papal acts of 1129-31).
Bollandistes, 1643-1925), XI, no. 1, col. 80c. Alain
211 I would like to thank Isabelle Bardies-Fronty for
Dierkens, 'Une abbaye medievale face a son passe.
allowing me to examine this object preserved in the
Saint-Pierre de Mozac, du ixc au xiic siecle', in Ecrire
Musee national du Moyen Age in Paris. See Kluge-
son histoire. Les communautes regulieres face a leur
passe, ed. by Nicole Bouter, 'Travaux et recherches', Pinsker, Schach und Trictrac, pp. 30-32. It is not
18 (Saint-Etienne: Universite de Saint-Etienne, 2006), mentioned in the inventories of Reims Cathedral and
pp. 71-105 (pp. 85-86 and 104-05). Saint-Remi assembled in Prosper Tarbe, Tresors des
eglises dc Reims (Reims: Assy, 1843).
203 Cited in Blaise de Montesquiou-Fezensac, and Danielle
Gaborit-Chopin, Le tresor de Saint-Denis. Inventaire de 212 On the assimilation of ecclesiastical buildings and the
1634,3 vols (Paris: Picard, 1973-77), II, p. 213. institution of the Church, see Dominique Iogna-Prat,
La Maison Dieu. Une histoire monumentale de FEglise au
204 See Gaborit-Chopin, Le tresor de Saint-Denis, pp. 130-41 Moyen Age (Paris: Seuil, 2006), pp. 119-52, and 521-37
(p. 141). For other hypotheses, see Michel Pastoureau, for the figure of the king as a builder of churches.
L'echiquier de Charlemagne. Un jeu pour ne pas jouer
(Paris: Adam Biro, 1990), pp. 34-36; Lucinia Speciale, 213 Robert Henri Bautier, 'Sacres et couronnements sous
'II gioco dei Re: intorno agli "Scacchi di Carlomagno'", les Carolingiens et les premiers Capetiens. Recherches
in Medioevo. La Chiesa e il Palazzo, ed. by Arturo Carlo sur la genese du sacre royal franqais', Anmiaire-Bullctin
Quintavalle, 'I convegni di Parma', 8 (Milan: Electa, de la Societe de Vhistoire de France (1987-88), pp. 7-56
2007), pp. 238-48 (pp. 245-46). (pp. 52-53).
205 For what follows, see Franqoise Gasparri, 'La politique 214 Until now, comparisons have dated the chess piece to
de 1'abbe Suger de Saint-Denis a travers ses chartes', the late eleventh century: Adolph Goldschmidt, Die
Cahiers dc civilisation medievale, 46 (2003), pp. 233-45. Elfenbeitiskulpturen aits der Zeit der karolingischen und
sachsischen Kaiser. VIII-XL Jahrhundert, 2 vols, 'Die
206 Jens Peter Clausen, 'Suger, faussaire de chartes', in Elfenbeinskulpturen', 1-2 (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag
Suger en question. Regards croises sur Saint-Denis, ed. by fur Kunstwissenschaft, 1914-18), II, pp. 43—44; Danielle
Rolf GroBe (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2004), pp. 109-16 Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Freiburg: Office
(pp. 112-14). du livre, 1978), p. 196.
207 On the competition between Saint-Denis and Saint- 215 Lawrence Nees, 'The Fastigium of Saint-Remi (''the
Remi during the twelfth century, see Mario Kramp, Tomb of Hincmar") at Reims', in Representing History,
Kirche, Kunst und Konigsbild. Zum Zusammenhang von 900-1300: Art, Music, History, ed. by Robert A. Maxwell
Politik und Kirchenbau im capelingischen Frankreich des (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
12. Jahrhunderts am Beispiel der drei Ableien Saint-Denis, 2010), pp. 31-52 and 211-21.
Sainl-Germain-des-Pres und Saint-Remi/Reims (Weimar:
Verlag und Datenbank fiir Geisteswissenschaften, 216 Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, 'Suger and the Symbolism of
1995), especially pp. 289-90. Royal Power: The Seal of Louis VII', in Abbot Suger and
Saint-Denis: A Symposium, ed. by Paula Lieber Gerson
208 Sugerius Sancti Dionysii, Vita Ludovici Grossi Regis, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986),
ch. 27, ed. and trans. by Henri Waquet, Vie de Louis VI pp. 95-103 (p. 100); Michel Pastoureau, 'Une fleur pour
le Gros (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1929; repr. 1964), pp. le roi. Jalons pour line histoire medievale de la fleur de
207-08 and 214-17; trans., intr., and notes by Richard lis', in Michel Pastoureau, Line histoire symboltque du
Cusimano and John Moorhead, The Deeds of Louis the
Moyen Age occidental (Paris: Seuil, 2004), pp. 99-110.
Fat (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1992), pp. 121-22 and 126. 217 Jenny Adams, Power Play: The Literature and Politics of
Chess in the Late Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University
209 Franôise Gasparri, 'Le programme iconographique
of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
de l'abbaye de Saint-Denis au xu° siecle', in Vintage
dans la pensee el Part du Moyen Age, ed. by Michel 218 Isabelle Bardies, Francois Heber-Suffrin, and Pierre-
Lemoine (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 115-34; Lucas Edouard Wagner, eds., Lechemin des reliques. Temoignages
Burkart, Das Blut der Mdrtyrer. Genese, Bedeutung und precieux et ordinaires de la vie religieuse a Metz au Moyen
Funktion mittelalterlicher Schiitze, 'Norm und Struktur. Age, exhibition catalogue, Musees de la Cour d'or,
Studien zum sozialen Wandel in Mittelalter und friiher Metz (Metz: Editions Serpenoise, 2000), p. 32.
133
NOTES TO CHAPTER 2
219 The reliquary was identified as a chessboard in 1618,

but the attribution to Charlemagne is first attested
in 1897. See Isabel M. Herraez Martin, 'Restauracion
de esmaltes sobre plata. El Ajedrez de Carlomagno',
in Preprints of the 33"1 Triennial Meeting of the 1COM
Commit teefor Conservation, ed. by Roy Vontobel, 2 vols
(London: James & James, 2002), I, pp. 841-45.
220 Oliver Plessow, Volker Honemann, and Mareike
Temrnen, Mittelalterliche Schachzabclbiicher zwischcn
Spielsymbolik und Wertevermittlung. Der Schachtraktat des
Jacobus de Cessolis im Kontext seiner spiitmittelalterlichen
Rezeption, 'Svmbolische Kommunikation und
gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme. Schriftenreihe des
Sonderforschungsbereichs 496', 12 (Munster: Rhema,
2007).
221 Johann Michael Fritz, 'Der Rvickdeckel des Plenars
Herzog Ottos des Milden von 1339 und verwandte
Werke', in Der Welfenschatz und sein Umkreis, ed. by
Joachim Ehlers and Dietrich Kotzsche (Mainz: Zabem,
1998), pp. 369-85, pi. 23-24.
222 For other chessboards transformed into reliquaries,
see Monique Rev-Delque, ed., Toulouse sur les chemins
de Saint-Jacques. De saint Saturnin au ‘Tour des Corps
Saints'(\*-xvuf siecles), exhibition catalogue, Ensemble
conventuel des Jacobins, Toulouse (Milan: Skira /
Paris: Seuil, 1999), no. 117, pp. 225-27; Katja Schneider
and others, eds., Der Kardinal. Albrecht von Brandenburg,
Renaissancefiirst und Mdzen, I, pp. 248-49.
223 Ed. in Wilhelm Anton Neumann, Der Reliquienschatz
des Hanses Braunschweig-Liineburg (Vienna: Holder,
1891), p.247.
224 On the presence of relics in book bindings see Anatole
Frolow, Les rcliquaires de la Vraie Croix, 'Archives de
l'Orient chretien', 8 (Paris: Institut fran«;ais d'etudes
byzantines, 1965), pp. 71-73; Frauke Steenbock, Der
kirchlichc Prachteinband im friihen Mittclalter. Von den
Anfdngen bis zum Bcginn der Gotik (Berlin: Deutscher
Verlag fur Kunstwissenschaft, 1965), pp. 53-54.
134

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MEMORY AND HISTORIES

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Inventorying: Objects, Techniques, Relevance

Forms and Uses of Inventories: The Mediation of Collections

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Saint Peter's Staff

28 Charroux, abbey of Saint-

Chess and the Imaginary of Power

Imperial Positions and Military Conflicts

31 Reliquary with chess figure, 10'h-l 3,h century. Munster, Domkammer

32 Reliquary with chess figure, second half of the 10,h

33 O' ss figures'of Charlemagne', rock crystal, 10,h-12,h century. Osnabruck, Diozesanmuseum

Completing the journey he had undertaken, he arrived at the oft-mentioned place

The King of France, Saint-Denis, and Reims

MEMORY AND HISTORIES

Aachcncr Maricnschrcin. Eine Festschrift, ed. by Dieter P. 1887), pp. 173-79.

de reliques conservees au Tresor de la cathedrale de 43 Hans Mosler, 'Das Camper Reliquienverzeichnis

219 The reliquary was identified as a chessboard in 1618,

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