(Routledge Research in Art History) Katharine D. Scherff - The Virtual Liturgy and Ritual Artifacts in Medieval and Early Modern Studies (2023, Routledge) - Libgen - Li

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The Virtual Liturgy and Ritual Artifacts in

Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Examining the history of altar decorations, this study of the visual liturgy grapples
with many of the previous theoretical frameworks to reveal the evolution and function
of these ritual objects.
Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book uses traditional art-historical meth-
odologies and media technology theory to reexamine ritual objects. Previous analysis
has not considered the in-between nature of these objects as deliberate and virtual
conduits to the divine. The liturgy, the altarpiece, the altar environment, relics, and
their reliquaries are media. In a series of case studies, several objects tell a different
story about culture and society in medieval Europe. In essence, they reveal that media
and media technologies generate and modulate the individual and collective structure
of feelings of sacredness among assemblages of humans and nonhumans.
The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, medieval studies,
early modern studies, and architectural history.
Katharine D. Scherff is Postdoc Lecturer and teaches for the School of Art and the
Medieval and Renaissance Studies Center at Texas Tech University.
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Routledge Research in Art History
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American Art in Asia

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Nature and Imagination in Ancient and Early Modern Roman Art

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Erasures and Eradication in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design

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Edited by Agnieszka Chmielewska, Irena Kossowska, and Marcin Lachowski
Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà and its Afterlives

Lisa Rafanelli
The Virtual Liturgy and Ritual Artifacts in Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Katharine D. Scherff
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Research-in-Art-History/book-series/RRAH
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The Virtual Liturgy and Ritual

Artifacts in Medieval and Early
Modern Studies
Katharine D. Scherff
iv
First published 2023

by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Katharine D. Scherff
The right of Katharine D. Scherff to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 9781032274560 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032304793 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003305279 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003305279
Typeset in Sabon
by Newgen Publishing UK
v
For Grandpa
vi
vi
Contents
List of Figures viii

Acknowledgments xii
Introduction 1
1 There are No Medieval Media? 3
Part I 27
2 Media, Mediator, and Intercessor: Remembering the Loca Sancta 29
3 Mass Media and Liturgical Performance 43
Part II 67
4 Religious Technology and the Vierge Ouvrante 69
5 Virtually There: Expounding the Tensions Between Planar and

Virtual Space Within the Ghent Altarpiece 100
6 Reflections 131
Bibliography 136
Index 146
vi
Figures
1.1 Coppo di Marcovaldo (active c. 1225–1276), Madonna del Bordone,

tempera on panel, 1261. Servite order, in Santa Maria dei Servi, Siena 6
1.2 Lippo Memmi (active 1317–1356), Madonna with Child, tempera on
panel, fourteenth century. Servite order, from Santa Maria dei Servi,
Siena. Now in Siena, Pinacoteca 7
1.3 Guido da Siena (active c. 1270–1280), Enthroned Madonna, tempera
on panel, c. 1270. Dominican order, from San Domenico, Siena. Now
in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena 8
1.4 Simone Martini (1315–1344), Santa Caterina Polyptych
(reconstructed), tempera on wood, c. 1320. Dominican order, from
Santa Caterina, Pisa. Now in Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa 10
1.5 Duccio di Buoninsegna (active 1278–1318), Rucellai Madonna, 1285,
tempera on oil. Dominican order, from the church of Santa Maria
Novella. Now in Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi 11
1.6 Maestro di Città di Castello (attributed, active 1290–1320)
(reconstructed polyptych), Madonna and Child, 1307(?). Augustinian
order, from the Eremo di Montespecchio. Now in Siena, Museo
dell’Opera del Duomo, no. 24; lateral Saints, Siena, Pinacoteca,
nos. 29–32 12
1.7 Bonaventura Berlinghieri (active 1228–1282), Madonna and Child
with Crucifixion, tempera on wood, c. 1255–1265. Franciscan order,
from Santa Chiara, Lucca. Now in Florence, Galerie degli Uffizi 13
1.8 Painted cross (no. 15), late twelfth century. Franciscan order, from
San Sepolcro, Pisa. Now in Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo 14
1.9 Maestro della Croce no. 434 (active c. 1230 –mid-13th century),
Crucifix with Stories of the Passion of the Christ (no. 434),
c. 1240–1245. Franciscan order, Tuscan, near Florence or Pisa.
Now in Florence, Galerie degli Uffizi 15
1.10 Former Cistercian Abbey Church High Altar, Bad Doberan,
Nuremberg. On the wings of the reredos reliefs from the Life of
Christ and the Old Testament typological parallels. North Germany,
c. 1300: base story with standing apostles and saints on the wings,
c. 1360 16
1.11 The Retable and Frontal from San Juan, (Ayala Altarpiece), 1396.
Dominican order, from the church of Saint John the Baptist, Quejana,
Spain. Now in Art Institute Chicago 17
xi
List of Figures ix
2.1 Bifolium from a Bible: Initial E[t factum est] with Ezekiel, c. 1290.
France, Paris, ink, tempera, and gold vellum. Sheet: 40.3 x 53.7cm.
Now in Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH 31
2.2 Sancta Sanctorum Reliquary Box with stones from the Holy Land,
view 1, open –reverse of lid with narrative scenes (L) and box with
stones (R), sixth century. From Syria or Palestine. Now in Vatican
City, Museo Sacro, Musei Vaticani 33
2.3a The Fieschi Morgan Staurotheke with lid slightly ajar, early ninth
century. (Made in Constantinople [?]). Byzantine. Gilded silver, gold,
and enamel worked in cloisonné and niello 36
2.3b Interior detail with five walled cavities for a True Cross relic and
other relics associated with the Holy Land. Now in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art 36
2.4 Reliquary Triptych with the Annunciation, St. Ansanus, the Adoration
of the Magi, and the Crucifixion, thirteenth century. Tempera and
gold leaf on wood with gold polychromed ivory; open. From France.
Now in The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD 38
2.5 Nardo Ceccarelli. Reliquary tabernacle with Virgin and Child,
c. 1350. Tempera, gold, and glass on panel. From Italy. Now in The
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD 39
3.1 An illustration of the camera obscura principle. (C) The “pinhole” or
aperture. Date taken 1900 47
3.2 Andrea di Niccolò, The Biccherna of Siena Offering the Keys of the
City to the Madonna delle Grazie. Cover of the Biccherna accounts
book, 1483. Siena, Archivio di Stato, Museo delle Tavolette di Biccherne 52
3.3a Andrea Orcagna, Tabernacle, 1359; Bernardo Daddi, Madonna and
Child with Angels, 1347. Florence, Orsanmichele 54
3.3b Bernardo Daddi, Madonna and Child with Angels (detail) 55
3.4 Visual vs. Acoustic Space 56
3.5 Remains of the original twelfth-century portal –Maiestas domini.
Former Abbey of Saint-Bénigne, Dijon, France. The inner arch
decorated with leaves and eight columns with capitals with vegetal
decoration are among the features retained from the Romanesque
façade. The tympanum is from the nineteenth century 59
4.1 Shrine of the Virgin, c. 1300. Oak, linen covering, polychromy,
gilding, gesso. From Rhine Valley, Germany. Now in New York,
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 17.190.185a,b 71
4.2 The Golden Madonna, c. 1000. Wood and gold leaf. Treasury of
Essen Cathedral, North Rhine- Westphalia, Germany 72
4.3 Shrine Madonna, fifteenth century. Wood polychrome. From Prussia.
Now in Paris, Musée national du Moyen Âge, Thermes de Cluny
(Inv.nr.Cl. 12060) 73
4.4 Virgen abrideras de Allariz, third quarter of the thirteenth century.
Traces of gilding and polychromy on wood. From Aragon, Spain.
Now in Allariz (Orense), Museo de Arte Sacro del Real Monasterio
de Santa Clara. Inv. 1 74
x
x List of Figures
4.5 Vierge de Boubon, second quarter of the thirteenth century. Ivory.
From the Priory of the Convent of Boubon, France. Now in
Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Museum. Inv. 71.152 76
4.6a Vierge Ouvrante, c. 1390–1400, open. From Morlaix. Now in Eglise
St.-Mathieu, Morlaix 81
4.6b Vierge Ouvrante, c. 1390–1400, closed (Morlaix). Eglise St.-Mathieu,
Morlaix 82
4.7 Retablo-tabernáculo de Castildelgado, now without Marian figure,
c. 1300 (Spain). Museu Frederic Marès in Barcelona 83
4.8 Retablo-tabernáculo de Mule, c 1250 (Iceland). Museo Nacional de
Copenhague 84
4.9 Folding Shrine with Virgin and Child (open) c. 1325. Elephant
Ivory and metal mounts. Made in France. Now in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art 85
4.10 The Life of the Virgin, c. 1325–1350. Ivory, traces of gilding. From
France. Now in Cleveland Museum of Art, purchase from the J.H.
Wade Fund 1951.450 86
4.11 Duccio di Buoninsegna, Madonna of the Franciscans, c. 1255–1319.
Tempera on wood, 13.5 × 16 cm. Franciscan order, from Siena.
Now in Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena 87
4.12 Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, Madonna della Misericordia,
1308–1309. Panel, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena 88
4.13 Michael Erhart (a. 1469–1522 in Ulm), the Ravensburg Madonna
of Mercy, c. 1480. Polychromed limewood (Germany). Now in The
Staatliche Museen, Berlin 89
4.14 Shrine Madonna, c. 1390. Polychrome and gilding on wood. From
the Roggenhausen town chapel, Nuremberg. Now in Germanisches
Nationalmuseums, Nuremberg 90
4.15 School of Konrad Witz, Double Intercession, Saint Thomas Panel,
c. 1450. Now in Basel, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Kunstmuseum
(Inv. Nr. 1590) 91
5.1a Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece (Adoration of the Mystic Lamb)
(open). c. 1426–1432. Oil on wood panel. From St. John’s Parish
church, now St. Bavo Cathedral, Vijdt Chapel, Ghent. Now in Ghent,
Cathedral baptistry 101
5.1b Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece (Annunciation and Patrons) (closed) 102
5.2 Master of Saint Giles, Triptych wing with the Mass of St. Giles,
c.1480–1490. Oil on panel. National Gallery, London 103
5.3 Sacristy cabinet, c. 1305. Carved relief and tempera on panel.
Doberan Abbey Church, Germany 105
5.4 Rhenish Master, The Wings of the Altenberg Altarpiece, c. 1330.
Mixed technique on fir –fully open. Now in Frankfurt, Städel
Kunstinstitut 106
5.5 Diagram of the Ghent Altarpiece 107
5.6 Tower retable of St. John the Evangelist, c. 1480–1490, open. Carved
relief and oil on panel. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona 108
xi
List of Figures xi
5.7 Cimabue (active 1240–1302), Santa Trinita Maestà, c. 1290–1300.
Tempera on wood, gold background, 384x223cm (Inv. 1890
no. 8342). From church of Santa Trinita, Florence. Now in Florence,
Galerie degli Uffizi 110
5.8 Ghent Altarpiece, lower tier details of grisaille figures –Sts. John
the Baptist and John the Apostle, closed. From left to right, Jodocus
(Joos) Vijd, St. John the Baptist, St. John the Evangelist, and
Elizabeth Borluut 112
5.9 Ghent Altarpiece, lower tier detail of grisaille figures as officials
unveil the restored exterior panels of The Adoration of the Mystic
Lamb at St. Bavo Cathedral in Ghent on October 12, 2016 114
5.10 Rogier van der Weyden, Miraflores Triptych, c. 1440. Now in Berlin,
Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen 115
5.11 Jan van Eyck, Madonna in the Church, 1438–1440. Now in Berlin,
Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen 116
5.12 Floor plan of the Cathedral of St. Bavo A) Vijdt Chapel; B) Baptistry 118
5.13 Jan van Eyck, Virgin and Child with Sts. Catherine and Michael and
a Donor (Dresden or Giustiniani Triptych), 1437. Oil on oak panel.
Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen, Berlin 120
5.14 St. Bavo Cathedral Gothic windows in ambulatory behind the high
altar 122
5.15 Rogier van der Weyden, detail of Mass against chancel screen in
Seven Sacraments, central panel, c. 1440–1445. Oil on panel. Royal
Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp 123
5.16 Ghent Altarpiece, upper tier Annunciation with sybils and prophets
above, closed. Showing detail of Mary’s words 125
xi
Acknowledgments
I would first like to acknowledge the anonymous referees, supportive readers, and
editors at Routledge | Taylor & Francis Group.
I deem it a profound honor to express my gratitude to Kevin Chua and Yasmine
Beale-Rivaya for their most excellent feedback, creative suggestions, exceptional
guidance, and support they provided during these many months of final preparations
for this project.
It would be greatly remiss of me if I didn’t also acknowledge Justin Kroesen for the
many emails and image donations as well as other contributions made by Jean-Yves
Cordier, Francisco Ortega, Elina Gertsman, Asa S. Mittman and Michel De Paepe.
In addition to my unceasing support system, I would also like to express my deepest
gratitude to my unflappable husband, Brian, for his immeasurable and enduring
patience in all my projects, goals, and crazy dreams. This accomplishment is very
much ours.
And finally, but profoundly, to my dearest children –William and Zoë. In every-
thing that I am and all that I do I endeavor to make you proud. Be bold. Be brave. Be
brilliant.
newgenprepdf
Introduction
2
3
1 There are No Medieval Media?
“Do not seek the old in the new, but find something new in the old.”
(Siegfried Zielinski 1)
“There are no medieval media.”2 This seems a strange statement in a book about medi-
eval media, mediation, and technology. Media studies scholar Wolfgang Ernst made
this rather controversial statement at the congress Mediävistik im 21. Jahrhundert
in 2003. Though a rather radical declaration, Ernst clarified the differences between
“old” and “new” media.3 He argued for considering the study of media to be withheld
for only modern electronic technology which is essentially the automatic storage,
processing, and transmission of information, automatic being the operative word.4
This suggests that media can only be classified and considered as such within mod-
ernity. That would, therefore, negate any media consideration before the Industrial
Revolution.5 Operating under Ernst’s assumption, then, there are no medieval media.
However, to starkly suggest that the medieval period is purely amedial only suggests
a disregard for material support in medieval visual culture. In an article that com-
paratively discusses medieval and early modern studies, historian Erik Born denotes
that “the argument for this [Ernst’s] claim warrants consideration, especially if it
helps medievalists and (early) modernists alike to clarify the terms and stakes of
studying mediality in historical periods.” The comparison between premodern and
modern media could clarify beneficial distinctions between them.6 Born’s softened
interpretation more closely reflects the reality, in my view. I will caution, however,
that scholars of the Middle Ages and early modern period should be cautious when
comparing old and new media, or when describing the historic through a present-day
medium, because scholars may be shaped by cultural biases. In more recent years,
we have made leaps and bounds to decolonize traditional historiographies. Carefully
examined, a well-framed media-focused discussion will bear fruitful and imaginative
insights. Ernst’s provocative saying that “there are no medieval media” is cited quite
often in German media theory. What such scholars have been driving at is that they
are not interested in definitions of the “nature” or essence of media or technology.
Rather, they are interested in the “technological-medial a prioris” of culture, in other
words, the functioning of media. Nevertheless, discussion with the intention of dis-
tinction would illustrate that medieval and “new” media are not so easily delineated.
I work through the operations and workings of premodern media. In their introduc-
tory chapter of the recent anthology Old Media and the Medieval Concept, Thora
Brylowe and Stephen Yeager astutely posit that “a deeper understanding of medieval
DOI: 10.4324/9781003305279-2
4
4 Introduction
media will enable us to reframe and so clarify the philosophical problem of medi-
ation itself.”7 It is interesting that Brylowe and Yeager choose the phrase ‘problem of
mediation,’ for that is the very inquiry of my own work. What is mediation? What is
media? Why do humans invent and continue to harness this meaningful channel of
communication?
Lars Elleström defines medium as a “ ‘middle’–a channel for the mediation of
information.”8 Media are the transferential processes of affective communication
performed or enacted by an object. Born has observed that “though bound up with
a material support, the [medieval] icon cannot be understood solely as a devotional
object, since its content is less relevant than the effect it creates.”9 That is, all media,
medieval or not, are tied to material supports.10 When McLuhan wrote “the medium
is the message,”11 he maintained that the nature of the object is more important
than its content. For McLuhan, the very fact that we are watching television is more
important than the television program. I go beyond the object/content or medium/
message oppositions, by showing how the materiality of the object does not precede
the medium, but is itself the medium or is mediumistic. Caroline Walker Bynum’s
understanding of medieval materiality centers on the idea that “the viewer cannot
avoid observing the particular materials employed, and these materials have multiple
meanings, again both obvious and subtle.” Medieval materiality was and is dynamic,
multivalent, and charged with connectivity, tethering the profane to the divine. Images
do convey a “middle” that acts as a channel –embedded within the material is the
conveyed message. Medieval media are not the “new” media McLuhan was assessing
though they mediate –i.e., communicate a message –nonetheless. The use of rock
crystal in reliquary construction, for instance, is a common example of the meaning
in medieval materiality. Often used in reliquary construction, it is conveniently trans-
lucent, revealing the wonders within the reliquary or embedded within the crystal
itself. Additionally, it is intrinsically linked with cleansing waters: “And he showed
me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God
and of the Lamb” (The Revelation of St. John the Divine 22:1). It also mattered that
crystal itself is precious and lent its own glory to divine relics.12 In this instance, the
message –all messages –are media.13
Whether or not scholars can classify premodern media as such, I think, is irrele-
vant. As Brylowe and Yeager so astutely observe, the Middle Ages are the “mediating
ages.”14 During the Middle Ages people were mediating all the time. It was thought
about and art made for it –there is an entire history of mediation as humans grappled
with a much larger and mysterious universe around them. Throughout this discussion
of what media are, it is worth discussing what mediation is.15 I address the problem
of mediation by examining several medieval objects and performances as media tech-
nologies and turn toward the act of mediation. I tackle several objects that tell a
different story about culture and society in medieval Northern Europe. They reveal
that media and media technologies generate and modulate the individual and col-
lective structure of sacredness among assemblages of humans and non-humans. The
assemblages under analysis are the ones brought into being and activated by medieval
liturgical rituals in Northern Europe. The non-humans involved include altarpieces
and other objects of worship –the divine.
The altarpieces, their assemblages, and their environment are mediators aligned
with its historiography and invention. “Altarpiece” is a term referring to the public or
private devotional object which resides on the mensa. When describing it as “on” the
5
There are No Medieval Media? 5

altar, one is speaking in a broad sense because altarpieces are not always set directly
on top of the altar. They can be a freestanding sculptural panel. In his book Staging
the Liturgy: The Medieval Altarpiece in the Iberian Peninsula, Justin Kroesen defines
an altarpiece as a permanent altar fixture; an “upright ornamental screen featuring
sculptures or paintings, raised up above or behind an altar with which it forms a
visual unity.”16 The term “retable” is a contraction of the two Latin words “retro,”
meaning back of, and “tabulum,” meaning panel.17 The French and Portuguese
adopted the term collectively and the Italians refer to a retable as a pala. Altarpiece
and retable are most often used interchangeably in reference to decorative panels of
painted or sculptural imagery on the mensa. Retables, however, are typically smaller
rectangular panels, whereas altarpieces are larger and, in some instances, are equipped
with wings.18 Altarpieces with multiple panels are also known as polyptychs. Kees van
der Ploeg noted that, because of its size and the heaviness of the materials, an altar-
piece (or retable) had a permanent place on the altar.19 Pala, reredos, winged retable,
and polyptych are all considered types of altarpieces. Van der Ploeg also observed
that, unlike frontal or dossal altar decorations, the altarpiece originated from side
chapels.20 The altar and panel decoration was situated against the east wall to accom-
modate a Eucharistic celebration ad orientem. However, because of the predominance
of celebration facie ad populum at the high altar, this type of adornment did not gain
immediate popularity.21 The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 made no distinctions as
to the elevatio or the position of the priest during consecration.22
The panel retable transformed into a polyptych, or multi-paneled altarpiece, around
1300. The scale was sometimes increased by the additional support of a predella (a
painted base, or plinth).23 About the same time, retables were outfitted with side panels
that were mounted with joints and hinges. These were called winged retables or winged
altarpieces, or polyptychs (see Figure 5.4). These types of altar decorations were par-
ticularly popular in Italy, Germany, England, and the Low Countries. A reredos is a
horizontal ornamental screen that covers the back wall of an altar. Popular in France
and England, it was often sculpted stone or painted panels. Despite this established
art-historical vocabulary, medieval authors tended to follow their own set of rules
when referring to altarpieces. For instance, ‘altar’ and ‘retable’ were often used inter-
changeably.24 Even the use of certain terms and their chronology have been strongly
debated. For instance, the thirteenth-century term retrotabularium, or “panel-behind,”
may be the earliest reference to this type of altar decoration. Other Italian variations
of the term altarpiece include ancona, dossale, paliotto, and tabernaculum.25 These
types of altarpieces and their evolutions will be discussed below to provide a founda-
tion for my subsequent theoretical approach to altar decorations.
Mendicant orders were instrumental in the development of the form and function of
painted altarpieces in the thirteenth century.26 Italian altarpiece panels of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries were dominated by Marian and Christ imagery. The mendi-
cant orders active in Italy, including Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, Servites,
and Carmelites, were instrumental in shaping the thirteenth-century icon-like type of
the Madonna, or Maestà, that scholars are so familiar with today (Figure 1.1). Servite
and Carmelite orders preferred single panel devotional imagery of the Virgin and
Child over the considerably more complex polyptychs preferred by the Dominicans.27
The Servite independent panel by Lippo Memmi known as the Madonna del Popolo is
an example of that order’s proclivity for half-length portraits of the Virgin and Child
in contrast to the full-length portraits attributed to the Dominicans (Figure 1.2).28
6
6 Introduction
Figure 1.1 Coppo di Marcovaldo (active c. 1225–1276), Madonna del Bordone, tempera on

panel, 1261. Servite order, in Santa Maria dei Servi, Siena (Photo: Public Domain).
7
Figure 1.2 Lippo Memmi (active 1317–1356), Madonna with Child, tempera on panel, four-
teenth century. Servite order, from Santa Maria dei Servi, Siena. Now in Siena,
Pinacoteca (Photo: Public Domain).
8
8 Introduction
Figure 1.3 Guido da Siena (active c. 1270–1280), Enthroned Madonna, tempera on panel,

c. 1270. Dominican order, from San Domenico, Siena. Now in the Palazzo Pubblico,
Siena (Photo: Public Domain).
9

An Enthroned Madonna attributed to Guido da Siena is an example of Dominican
interest in presentations of the Virgin (Figure 1.3). This painting not only demonstrates
the Dominican contribution to major panels of the Madonna but also the developing
regard for naturalism, moving away from the more linear Byzantine style. Joanna
Cannon notes this shift, outlining several aesthetic developments in the late thirteenth
century, principally an emphasis on highlighting the human qualities of the Virgin as
well as more relaxed and diverse poses than previously allowed for the Virgin.
The Dominicans made notable contributions to Italian polyptychs.29 The large
and impressive polyptych by Simone Martini for Santa Caterina in Pisa (1320)
was a substantial Dominican commission that likely influenced the design of many
other polyptychs reaching far beyond the walls of the order’s convent (Figure 1.4).30
Although the Franciscan proliferation of devotional imagery is generally agreed
upon, the Dominicans were also fervid patrons of art.31 When they did sponsor art,
Dominicans were partial to images of the Virgin and Child, preferring to “suppress
extraneous elements” like the Rucellai Madonna (Figure 1.5).32
Where other mendicant orders had a great affection for representations of the
Virgin, the Augustinians preferred polyptychs whose thematic program aligned with
their order.33 For the Augustinians, the polyptych was a tool to align their order
with its origins and the first hermits in Egypt.34 This is reinforced visually through
the representations of Saint Augustine and hermits like Saint Anthony Abbot, both
of which are visible in one of the earliest polyptychs sponsored by the order. The
Maestro di Città di Castello’s reconstructed Madonna and Child from the Museo
dell’Opera del Duomo in Siena features a central half-length portrait of the Virgin and
Child, flanked by Saints Peter and Paul who fortify the painting’s apostolic authority
(Figure 1.6). The composition of this work and many other Augustinian polyptychs
reinforced their pre-mendicant history and legacy.
Scholars like Henk van Os and Joanna Cannon privilege the Franciscans in their
primacy in the patronage of Italian art.35 Their sponsorship was indeed immense,
and shaped not only the iconographic design but also the content of many retables.
The Franciscans, for instance, preferred narrative scenes to portraits of saints. They
had a particular predilection for passion cycles as the order was most sensitive to the
sufferings of Christ.36 Franciscan theology inspired the diptych from Santa Chiara de
Lucca, c. 1255–1265 (Figure 1.7). On the left panel, a Madonna and Child reside on
an embellished gold background. Surrounded by saints, including Saint Francis and
the Archangel Gabriel, the Mother and Child embrace as the Virgin reveals the body
of her son to the viewer as she pulls at a draped swaddling cloth with her right hand.37
The left panel illustrates a suffering Christ on a ‘Y’-shaped cross. Franciscan piety
influenced much of the order’s panel imagery. Below, Christ’s wounded feet splice the
bottom register in half, dividing it into two cells of the Christ Carrying his Cross and
the Descent from the Cross. Late twelfth-century historiated cross altarpieces have
some of the most extensive passion scenes of the genre. The painted cross from San
Sepolcro and the Crucifix with Stories of the Passion of the Christ by the Maestro
della Croce no. 434 are two Pisan examples of highly detailed narratives surrounding
a central crucified Christ (Figures 1.8 & 1.9). Earlier historiated crosses featured a
Christus Triumphans while the later thirteenth-century types were replaced by the
more visceral Christus Patiens.38 The latter type poignantly illustrates the suffering of
Christ, more adequately aligning visually with Franciscan piety.39
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10
Introduction
Figure 1.4 Simone Martini (1315–1344), Santa Caterina Polyptych (reconstructed), tempera on wood, c. 1320. Dominican order,
from Santa Caterina, Pisa. Now in Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa (Photo: Public Domain).
1
Figure 1.5 Duccio di Buoninsegna (active 1278–1318), Rucellai Madonna, 1285, tempera on

oil. Dominican order, from the church of Santa Maria Novella. Now in Florence,
Gallerie degli Uffizi (Photo: Public Domain).
21
12 Introduction
Maestro di Città di Castello (attributed, active 1290–

Figure 1.6 1320) (reconstructed
polyptych), Madonna and Child, 1307(?). Augustinian order, from the Eremo di
Montespecchio. Now in Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, no. 24; lateral Saints,
Siena, Pinacoteca, nos. 29–32 (Photo: Public Domain).
It is important to think of the chancel (or presbytery or sanctuary) as a cooperative

and complete environment. Its individual parts can function either separately
or in tandem, to act as a conduit to the divine.40 Altarpieces and other ritual objects
function as media connectors between the sacred and the mundane/worldly. If we con-
sider ritual objects as instruments of media technology, which I choose to call apparati
throughout, I propose that such apparati generated a virtual interface between their
own reality and that of the divine. It is important to first outline briefly the standard
account of how altars and altar decorations developed or evolved.
It is unclear precisely when panel retables were adorned with wings. This conven-
tion, however, is virtually unknown until about 1300.41 These retables, like the
high altar in the former Cistercian abbey in Bad Doberan, c. 1310, were particularly
popular in Italy, France, Germany, and the other Low Countries (Figure 1.10). They
evolved from reliquary cabinets whose charge was to protect relics and cult statuary.42
The wings of the altarpiece were not often opened; rather the objects housed within
were revealed to the public during feast-day celebrations. Most of the year the wings
were kept shut in order to conceal the relics within. The early northern winged altar-
piece itself functioned more as a cabinet or repository for relics.43 As these winged
cabinets grew in size, so too did the complexity of the narrative that they illustrated.
In the middle of the fifteenth century, one can observe the canonical amalgamation
of intricate Gothic ornamentation with iconographic reference to the Corpus Christi
(Figure 1.11). Because the mensa is the table where the sacrificial supper is prepared
during the Mass, the iconography aligns with the altar and winged cabinets, not only
31
Figure 1.7 Bonaventura Berlinghieri (active 1228–1282), Madonna and Child with Crucifixion,
tempera on wood, c. 1255–1265. Franciscan order, from Santa Chiara, Lucca. Now
in Florence, Galerie degli Uffizi (Photo: Public Domain).
physically but also spiritually. The Crucifixion scene in the retable is a promise of the
Eucharistic supper to come. Elaborate winged retables were often programmed to cor-
respond with the liturgy and feast-day ritual.
Many liturgical objects from the Middle Ages are no longer preserved in situ.44
Therefore, scholars of liturgical furniture have little chance of fully experiencing the
ritual environment in its purest sense. As altarpieces were manufactured entirely for
the liturgy, the spatial and physical environments of all liturgical objects are important
to the comprehension of their contextual function. Peter Humfrey goes so far as to
describe this concept as a Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art). Altarpieces were
meant to be viewed as part of a church’s essential features, the church’s architecture,
candlelight, and supportive liturgical objects such as reliquaries and chalices which,
Humfrey argues, all combined to create a unified devotional field.45 The high altar
from the former Cistercian Abbey Church in Bad Doberan is an exquisite example
of this unified environment. It has one of the few Gothic high altars still in situ
(Figure 1.10). The wings of the high altarpiece depict reliefs from the Life of Christ
and the Old Testament with typological parallels. A spired tabernacle ciborium, to the
left, towers 38 feet above the high altar.46 A sacristy cabinet to the far left, c. 1350–
1360, is now used as a chalice cupboard (Figure 5.3).47 Additionally, more ephem-
eral elements played into the aesthetic of the mensa. Light emanating from apse or
41
14 Introduction
Figure 1.8 Painted cross (no. 15), late twelfth century. Franciscan order, from San Sepolcro, Pisa.
Now in Pisa, Museo Nazionale di San Matteo (Photo: Public Domain).
51
Figure 1.9 Maestro della Croce no. 434 (active c. 1230 –mid-13th century), Crucifix with
Stories of the Passion of the Christ (no. 434), c. 1240–1245. Franciscan order, Tuscan,
near Florence or Pisa. Now in Florence, Galerie degli Uffizi (Photo: Public Domain).
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16
Introduction
Figure 1.10 Former Cistercian Abbey Church High Altar, Bad Doberan, Nuremberg. On the wings of the reredos reliefs
from the Life of Christ and the Old Testament typological parallels. North Germany, c. 1300: base story with
standing apostles and saints on the wings, c. 1360. Spired tabernacle ciborium (left) and sacristy cabinet to
the far left, c. 1350–1360 (now used as chalice cupboard) (Photo: Public Domain).
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Figure 1.11 The Retable and Frontal from San Juan, (Ayala Altarpiece), 1396. Dominican order, from the church of Saint John the Baptist, Quejana,
Spain. Now in Art Institute Chicago (Photo: Courtesy of the Art Institute Chicago).
81
18 Introduction
ambulatory windows, or strategically placed candles and lamps, added to the glory
of the sanctuary. The light from a window facing the Doberan ciborium would direct
a spotlight upon it from the rising sun. Light would sparkle as it mingled with the
ciborium’s colors and gilding. As the window was small, this angelic effect would only
last for a few hours each morning.48
Altarpieces themselves were a part of an entire altar “ensemble.” Placed on the
front of the altar, rectangular panels called frontals or antependia often accompanied
the altarpiece which resided on the mensa. These panels functioned as complemen-
tary images for Eucharistic iconography.49 The Ayala retable and frontal from San
Juan, Kexaa/Quejana, Spain, dated 1396, is a sizable example of this iconographic
alignment (Figure 1.11). Several images from the life of Christ and Mary are painted
on this two-part panel. Mary and the Christ Child are arranged in a familiar embrace.
In the panel above, a Crucifixion is illustrated in the center of the top register. The
Adoration acts as a kind of prefiguration of the Eucharist which is prepared upon the
table. Below the Crucifixion, an Etimasia mediating these two benchmarks of Christ’s
life may symbolize the Church which is the mediator linking the earthly and spiritual
realms during the consecration of the Eucharist.
Although these sumptuous liturgical decorations were often large and were an
easily identifiable accoutrement of Christian worship, altar decorations were not actu-
ally requirements of the liturgy itself. Canon law, in fact, considered altarpieces to
be adiaphorous (neither mandated nor forbidden).50 The year 1215 proved to be a
particularly crucial one for altars and their altarpieces. Many scholars specifically cite
the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 as a key influence in the decoration of the altar
mensa.51 This Council, among other things, determined the standards of altar main-
tenance, care, and cleanliness, and the preservation of the Eucharist.52 Julian Gardner,
in his essay “Altars, Altarpieces, and Art History: Legislation and Usage,” maintains
that the adoption of the Lateran Council legislation was not uniform; regional cus-
toms were a large factor in the evolution and growth of the use of altarpieces and
private and mendicant patronage were also mitigating elements.53
Victor Schmidt asserts that the rise of polyptychs and winged altarpieces was
specifically related to the evolution of church architecture as early as the thirteenth
century. He also disputes the widely accepted explanation that the Fourth Lateran
Council was a key influence in the rise of altarpieces, though it certainly was a factor.
He notes, “It will be useful to recall that the altarpiece as an object type goes back to
the eleventh century at the latest.”54 Van der Ploeg asks whether subsequent practices
that began after the 1215 Council, including the Elevation of the Host and changes
in the position of the celebrant, could be more prominent catalysts in the rise of the
altarpiece.55 A linear view of altarpiece evolution is impractical and impossible. As the
liturgical environment changed and evolved, so did the altarpiece, as regional parishes
embraced the altar decoration and used it to enhance the liturgy. Despite its liturgical
associations and Eucharistic references, Van der Ploeg and Gardner assert that the
altarpiece is not a liturgical object.56 Van der Ploeg explains that, despite legislation
put forth by the Council, no altarpiece, whether stationary retable or winged polyp-
tych, was canonically programmed to function in a particular part of the Eucharistic
celebration.57 Much of its liturgical use was specific to an object, region, and parish.
Additionally, altarpieces were often later replaced in favor of other altar decorations.58
Van der Ploeg notes that during “all this time,”59 however, the liturgy stayed constant
while the furnishings varied.
91

This raises several questions regarding the function of altarpieces. If the altarpiece
was not, in fact, liturgical, then how was it utilized by the clergy and laity during the
liturgy? In his essay, “Divinità di cosa dipinta,” David Rosand approached the rela-
tionship between image and the liturgy by suggesting that the very act of viewing is
an act of worship.60 I tend to agree with Rosand, in that there was a much deeper
connection between the altarpiece and the liturgy than Canon law recognized. The
medieval practice of decorating the altar with figural representation was inherent to
the execution of the liturgy. No other pictorial image has had such a relationship with
the viewer, thereby distinguishing the altarpiece and its assemblages from other devo-
tional objects by its liturgical function.61 The delineation between the sacred, profane,
and mundane was an essential purpose of these medieval media. Jacqueline Jung, for
instance, in her essay “Beyond the Barrier: The Unifying Role of the Choir Screen in
Gothic Churches,” and more recent book The Gothic Screen: Space, Sculpture, and
Community in the Cathedrals of France and Germany, ca.1200–1400, addressed the
physical and symbolic boundaries between the laity and clergy while focusing largely
on a few surviving screens, panel paintings of Gothic screens, and the actual practice
of liturgical interaction within these medieval structures.62 She concluded that the
Gothic screen functioned like a boundary marker, connoting the difference between
the sacred and mundane, and less as an obstacle which separated viewer from par-
ticipant. In her work, Jung also concerned herself with the anthropological aspects
of church design and function. She examined the original construction of the sancta
sanctorum (or holy of holies) and its church screens in France and Germany. Another
scholar who has embraced anthropological and even archaeological approaches
to altars and screens, with similar concerns as Jung, is Michele Bacci. In his essay,
“Side altars and ‘pro anima’ Chapels in the Medieval Mediterranean: Evidence from
Cyprus,” he posits that side altars played “a key role in lay piety” whose aesthetic
shaping was a result of their function.63 A notably historiographical shift away from
the iconographic approaches of Jacob Burkhardt toward the altar/decorations to a
more contextual treatment of the altar and its decorations is apparent in the work of
scholars like Jaqueline Jung. Additionally, scholars have also shifted to the agency of
these objects.64
The focus on the altarpiece for Blake Wilson, Nino Zchomelidse, and Gaudenz
Freuler lies in the agency of objects to stimulate a response from the audience.65
For instance, Freuler outlined the propagandist power of saints’ imagery and the
instrumental nature of communal lobbying for a saint’s canonization. Wilson and
Zchomelidse addressed the confraternal influences in Italy, where they identify lay
devotion and ritual as an important component of Christian and civic identity, and
an interaction of the congregation with devotional objects that differs from that
of the clergy.66 Where previous historians and art historians have taken a histor-
ical and anthropological approach to these objects, some others have focused on
the altarpiece’s religious function, symbolism, and the performative nature of ritual.
Donald Ehresmann’s essay, “Some Observations on the Role of Liturgy in the Early
Winged Altarpiece,” reveals a unique use of the wings of fourteenth-century German
altarpieces.67 He maintains that their movement and imagery were closely related to
the liturgical seasons. Louis van Tongeren’s interest in this same subject is outlined in
his essay, “Use and Function of Altars in Liturgical Practice” in the edited volume The
Altar and Its Environment: 1150–1400.68 One specific component of the liturgy that
he investigated was that of Holy Week processionals which illustrate how integral the
02
20 Introduction
altar was as a site of ritual, whether during daily prayer or actual church services. Van
Tongeren also emphasizes how useful Libri ordinarii are in understanding ritualistic
decoration; for instance, how light is used to “illuminate” the altar or how the altar
was considered an area to showcase reliquaries. His arguments are quite compelling
and demonstrate how Libri ordinarii could elucidate the altar as a virtual space. It is
in this same edited volume that other prominent medieval art historians share their
conclusions regarding the aesthetic shifts of altars and altarpieces as a response to
liturgical ritual.69
Although these methodologies have contributed greatly to our understanding of
medieval liturgical practice and the material culture associated with Christian ritual,
I propose that understanding their role as mediators will offer deeper insights. Media
technology has already taken hold in German scholarship because of its extensive
historiography initiated in the 1920s and the proliferation of radio and film; how-
ever, this methodology has just begun to disseminate across other related fields and
has increased in prevalence.70 Though a continued debate on the controversial appli-
cation of media in the pre-digital era is still very much a part of the discourse, it has
no less deterred its application to the medieval epoch. In her chapter “ ‘Media’ before
‘Media’ Were Invented: The Medieval Ballad and the Romanesque Church,” Sigurd
Kvoerndrup sought to apply spatiotemporal theory within a discourse of sacred and
secular space. She used the Romanesque church as a principal point of investigation.
Kvoerndrup discusses the religious building and its architecture as early mass media.
She used Marshall McLuhan’s definitions of media to construct her theoretical frame-
work.71 The study of cultural techniques and technologies has grown in applicability
to Anglo cultural studies. Media terminology has proven useful in informing questions
regarding literacy, historiography, and periodization.72 Martin Foys also looked at
McLuhan’s method of “understanding media” in Virtually Anglo-Saxon: Old Media,
New Media, and Early Medieval Studies in the Late Age of Print.73 He addresses the
modern discomfort with the Bayeux Tapestry’s perceived ending. As Walter Ong notes,
concerning the Bayeux Tapestry, “print is comfortable only with finality.”74 This is an
interesting point because it defines the embroidered text and image as a type of print.
Foys then addresses the text within the tapestry and its unusual liberties with time
and space. He likens this time/space shift to computer hypertext.75 In “Remanence
of Medieval Media,” Foys retheorizes medieval manuscripts in contemporary Xerox
commercials.76 Within religious studies, there have been scholars who have turned
to media theory –e.g., Hent de Vries and Samuel Weber’s Religion and Media from
2002.77 Vries and Samuel compiled an anthology of multidisciplined scholars, ranging
from comparative religion scholars to critical theorists. This edited volume offers a
diverse cultural and disciplinary perspective on the dissemination of religion through
media, as well as the larger relationship between the two. Concepts of mediatization,
virtuality, modernity, identity, globalization, and capitalization are among the topics
broached in this volume. As will be evident in the forthcoming chapters, the scholars
mentioned above, who have folded media theory within medieval studies, have greatly
influenced my own research.
There has been an increase in the use of new and alternate methods in art his-
tory and medieval studies. Some newer edited volumes include essays by medievalists
who approach ritual objects and space with the lens of critical theory. Recent and
innovative research applying performative, spatial, and proximity theory, including
that of Barbara A. Hanawalt and Michal Kobialka’s Medieval Practices of Space,
12

is also utilized.78 Alexander Nagel’s Medieval Modern and Martin Foys’ Virtually
Anglo-Saxon are also secondary sources which serve in a similar capacity as examples
of a theoretical methodology used in the examination of Christian ritual, space, and
material.79 The digital humanities have shown the centrality of technology in medieval
scholarship and –somewhat counterintuitively –in medieval history. Art historian
Janis Elliott at Texas Tech University has used ArcGIS mapping systems to create
maps and ground plans of churches in southern Italian cities in the fourteenth cen-
tury.80 Mickey Abel, an art historian at the University of North Texas, has also used
GIS mapping and geographical determinants to inform her understanding of archi-
tectural space, perception, and the liturgy in post-conquest Spain.81 Donal Cooper
at Cambridge has reconstructed the lost church of San Pier Maggiore in Florence.82
Media studies have shaped other medieval disciplines, including literature.
This is an interdisciplinary project rooted in the theory of medieval media. In each
chapter, I approach varying facets of media technology through medieval objects and
performance. By looking at these works as “media” in the modern sense of the word,
we discover that they function procedurally for their medieval viewers in unique and
dynamic ways. Primary documentary sources, such as canons of the Fourth Lateran
Council, the Council of Trent, period sermons, hymns, and iter, and Franciscan and
Cistercian legislation on the use of imagery to promote the missions of the orders and
altar imagery are consulted.83 When necessary, liturgical objects and well-documented
rituals will stand as primary sources. This monograph is organized into two parts.
The next two chapters (Chapter 2: Media, Mediator, and Intercessor: Remembering
the Loca Sancta, and Chapter 3: Mass Media and Liturgical Performance) function
similarly. They are more generalized discussions of the definitions of media
and their multitudinous manifestations in medieval Europe. The next chapter,
Chapter 2: Media, Mediator, and Intercessor, reviews media’s varying concepts and
historical understandings to further explain medial interface, telepresence, and trans-
parency. The sixth-century Sancta Sanctorum Reliquary Box with stones from the
Holy Land is an early example of Christian devotion that functioned as a link of
telepresence between real space and the divine. The material nature of relics reflected
the shifting emphasis on media, whether its material or transferential facets that align
complex messages of devotion and site-specificity. Holy Land relics were carefully
constructed artifacts that reflected compulsory collection, and were also a congre-
gation of immediacy which transported its handler beyond its own consciousness
and propelled them to the Holy Land. In turn, coordinating imagery of sacred sites
constructed a new locus, rendering what was distant near and tangible.
Chapter 3: Mass Media and Liturgical Performance expands on Chapter 2’s concepts
of mediation by examining a wider scope of liturgical interaction with objects and
space with a discussion of acoustic space and intercession. For instance, ritual singing
and object veneration of fourteenth-century Italian Maestà panels were motivated by
the thought that “the sacred could be imputed to objects and thereby transmitted to
humans.”84 In so doing, I reveal the intercessory link between object and ritual, viewer
and venerated. This chapter also demonstrates how music and object veneration have
separately played a part in the mediation of the sacred and the mundane while empha-
sizing the joint effort through the acts of ritual celebration and veneration. This was –
and still is –a multimodal event in which each individual liturgical medium had a
divine purpose. Much like the Sancta Sanctorum Reliquary Box, the construction
or reconstruction of sepulchri in Germany and France simulated the multilocational
2
22 Introduction
nature of liturgical performance and materiality. This generation of site-specificity
reconstructed Jerusalem in an act of transformative spatial transference. This interest
in blurring the boundaries between loci occurred in many other feast-day and litur-
gical celebrations across Europe. Staging choir members in scaffolding behind angelic
sculptures not only amplified the aesthetic experience of the sung Mass but simulated
the promise of the Heavenly Jerusalem. These examples demonstrate the larger com-
plexity of willful mediation.
The second half of the monograph delves deeper into the action of mediation and
considers the social and technological networks which shape these objects and their
larger environment. Chapter 4: Religious Technology and the Vierge Ouvrante shifts
the discussion from media to that of its complement, technology. In this chapter, I define
technology and the subcategory, religious technology. This is not a purely mechanical
analysis but is also a look at these “Shrine Madonnas’ ” socio-technical assemblages.
Vierges are a part of a larger system that cannot function outside of a human context.
These concepts are then applied to a unique genre of Marian cult imagery, the Vierge
ouvrante, and demonstrate the extraordinary and impassioned influence an environ-
ment or network has on media and its mediation. These Madonna shrines demon-
strate the instability of mediation and meaning through ritual, social, and teleological
networks. Vierges are a kind of narrative reflection, constructing complex themes or
motifs that connect the hidden images steeped in controversy. The Trinitarian con-
tent found within the interior body of several Vierges ouvrantes inspired exceptional
feelings of heresy, resulting in the modifications of many. These modifications force-
fully altered the iconographic narrative read within these unique statues, which has
resulted in our shifting understandings of the iconographic purpose and the network
in which it resides. With these disruptions in exchanging and distributing agency, the
Vierge network was in flux which variably shifted from a human-centric to a divine-
centric, to an object-centric point of ritual activity.
Chapter 5: Virtually There: Expounding the Tensions Between Planar and Virtual
Space of the Ghent Altarpiece, demonstrates how the media concepts discussed in
the two previous chapters can be combined with an examination of a virtual media
technology. Here winged altarpieces function as a kind of liturgical technology that
both mediates and enhances the liturgy through virtual interface. To support these
claims, a recent essay by Griet Steyaert who puts forward a new design concept for the
fifteenth-century winged Ghent Altarpiece will be utilized as a foundation.85 I utilize
David Summers’ concepts of planarity and virtuality to harness an art-historical frame-
work that supports the media technology concepts of virtuality.86 These frameworks
demonstrate the tension between the planarity and virtuality in Van Eyck’s Ghent
Altarpiece. My chapter contradicts the standard account of the linear shift from medi-
eval to early modern designs and proposes a much larger problem of visual piety
where visual planes shift in dominance that propels the viewer beyond the physical,
the natural, and the earthly.
The following chapters bring the history of media and mediation into closer coali-
tion with medieval and early modern studies to reconcile the multivalent complexities
of medieval materiality. In understanding the mediating ages, we further illuminate
the Middle Ages. This will reframe and amplify the philosophical problems of medi-
ation itself. Furthermore, retooling our methodologies will dismantle many of the
issues that we face today as premodern scholars. These are –the demand to be rele-
vant, problems with periodization, and colonized historiographies. There is nothing
32

particularly revolutionary about these observations; however, as many of us are
aware of the growing discourse surrounding these issues, we argue that the variety of
approaches within medieval and early modern studies strengthens and diversifies our
interests, leading to new insights and blurring the boundaries between the premodern
and modern ages.
Notes
1 Siegfried Zielinski, Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing
by Technical Means, trans. Gloria Custance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), 3.
2 Wolfgang Ernst, “ ‘Medien’ im Mittelalter? –Kulturtechnische Retrospektive,” in
Goetz Mediävistik im 21. Jahrhundert: Stand und Perspektiven der interdisziplinaren
Mittelalterforschung, ed. Hans-Werner Goetz and Jorg Janut, (Munich: Fink, 2003), 347–
357. Paper from the proceedings of the congress Goetz Mediävistik im 21. Jahrhundert, as
cited in Erik Born, “Media Archaeology, Cultural Techniques, and the Middles Ages: An
Approach to the Study of Media before the Media,” Seminar 52, no. 2 (May 2016), 110.
3 “Verkürzt gesagt, eskalieren mittelalterliche Kulturtechniken erst postum zu Medien.”
Ernst, “ ‘Medien’,” 347.
4 Ernst, “’Medien’,” 347.
5 Born, “Media Archaeology,” 110.
6 Born, “Media Archaeology,” 113–144.
7 Thora Brylowe and Stephen Yeager, “The Medieval/Media Concept,” in Old Media and
the Medieval Concept, ed. Thora Brylowe and Stephen Yeager (Montreal, QC: Concordia
University Press, 2022), 19.
8 Lars Elleström, “The Modalities of Media: A Model for Understanding Intermedial
Relations,” in Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality, ed. L. Elleström
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 13.
11 McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message,” in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994), 7.
12 Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Later Medieval
Europe (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), 28.
13 Bynum, Christian Materiality, 28.
14 Brylowe and Yeager, “Introduction,” 4.
15 Richard Grusin, “Radical Mediation,” Critical Inquiry 42, no. 1 (Autumn 2015): 124.
16 Justin Kroesen, Staging the Liturgy: The Medieval Altarpiece in the Iberian Peninsula
(Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 14–15.
17 Kroesen, Staging the Liturgy, 15.
18 Kees Van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical Is a Medieval Altarpiece?” in Italian Panel Painting
of the Duecento and Trecento, ed. Victor M. Schmidt (Washington, D.C./New Haven, CT/
London: National Gallery of Art and Yale University Press, 2002), 109. Larger retables
were possible and do exist; however, they were only constructed for Mass celebrated in
front of the altar. These types of retables did reach extensive heights, particularly in Spain.
19 Van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical,” 107.
20 Van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical,” 109. Side chapels consisted of a mensa and small altar
decorations. Van der Ploeg noted that, from the Carolingian period, high altars were
decorated with altar crosses; however, it was popular to decorate side altars with retables.
21 Van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical,” 109. Facie ad populum translates from the Latin to “facing
the people.” Versus populum translates to “towards the people,” supposedly describing
moments when the priest, celebrating ad orientem, would turn towards the congregation.
42
24 Introduction
Ad orientem, or facing eastward, refers to the expectation that Jesus Christ will return from
the East.
22 Van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical,” 103. There is a point in the late thirteenth century when
the Mass changed to ad orientem almost exclusively.
25 Julian Gardner, “Altars, Altarpieces, and Art History: Legislation and Usage,” in Italian
Altarpieces 1250–1550: Function and Design, ed. Eve Borsook (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1994), 14.
26 See Henk Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces 1215–1460: Form, Content, Function vol. I: 1215–
1344 (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1988).
27 Joanna Cannon, “The Creation, Meaning, and Audience of the Early Sienese
Polyptych: Evidence from the Friars,” in Italian Altarpieces 1250–1550: Function and
Design, eds. Eve Borsook and Fiorella Superbi Gioffredi (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1994), 51.
28 Cannon, “The Creation, Meaning, and Audience,” 51.
29 Cannon, “The Creation, Meaning, and Audience,” 42; Joanna Cannon, “Simone Martini,
the Dominicans, and the Early Sienese Polyptych,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes 45 (1982): 75.
31 Cannon, “The Creation,” 42.
32 Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative Painting, Franciscan
Ideologies, and the Levant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 17.
33 Cannon, “The Creation, Meaning, and Audience,” 43; Janis Elliott, “Augustine and the
New Augustinianism in the Choir Frescoes of the Eremitani, Padua,” in Art and the
Augustinian Order in Early Renaissance Italy, edited by L. Bourdua and A. Dunlop.
Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007, 99–126.
35 Henk van Os, “Saint Francis of Assisi as a Second Christ in Early Italian Painting,” Simiolus
7 (1974): 115–32; Joanna Cannon, “Simone Martini, the Dominicans, and the Early Sienese
Polyptych,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982): 69–93.
36 Derbes, Picturing the Passion, 19.
37 The saints within this panel include Saints Peter, John the Baptist, and Clare in the top
register. Bottom register: Saints Andrew, Anthony of Padua, Michael, Francis of Assisi,
and James.
38 Derbes, Picturing the Passion, 4–5.
39 Derbes, Picturing the Passion, 19.
40 The chancel is the space and place where the altar is located. It is reserved for the clergy
and choir; often it is separated from the nave by a screen. The chancel is also known as the
presbytery, or sanctuary, or choir.
44 Victor Schmidt, “Introduction,” in Italian Paintings of the Duecento and Trecento, ed.
Victor Schmidt (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 12.
45 Peter Humfrey, “The Bellini, The Vivarini, and the Beginnings of the Renaissance Altarpiece
in Venice,” in Italian Altarpieces 1250–1550: Function and Design, eds. Eve Borsook and
Fiorella Superbi Gioffredi (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 139–140.
46 Charles Tracy and Andrew Budge, Britain’s Medieval Episcopal Thrones (Philadelphia: Oxbow
Books, 2015), 80.
47 Rainer Kahsnitz, Carved Splendor: Late Gothic Altarpieces in Southern Germany, Austria,
and South Tirol, trans. Russell Stockman (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications, 2006), 9.
52

48 Tracy and Budge, Britain’s Medieval, 81.
49 Victor Schmidt, “Ensembles of Painted Altarpieces and Frontals,” in The Altar and Its
Environment 1150–1400, eds. Justin Kroesen and Victor Schmidt (Turnhout: Brepols
Publishers, 2009), 207.
50 Justin Kroesen and Victor Schmidt, “Introduction,” in The Altar and Its Environment
1150–1400, eds. Kroesen and Schmidt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 7.
51 Julian Gardner “Altars, Altarpieces, and Art History: Legislation and Usage,” in Italian
Altarpieces 1250– 1550: Function and Design, eds. Borsook and Superbi Gioffredi
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 6.
52 Gardner, “Altars, Altarpieces, and Art History,” 7. See Canons 19 and 20 specific-
ally, from “The Fourth Lateran Council,” in Medieval Sourcebook: Twelfth Ecumenical
Council: Lateran IV 1215 (New York: Fordham University, 1996). [https://sourcebooks.
fordham.edu/basis/lateran4.asp]
53 Gardner, “Altars, Altarpieces, and Art History,” 13.
54 Schmidt, “Ensembles of Painted Altarpieces,” 218.
55 Van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical,” 103. These were related to the 1215 Lateran Council. The
elevation was introduced around 1200. Van der Ploeg notes that it is likely to have been
practiced much earlier than that. However, the Council did not make stipulations regarding
the elevatio. For more discussion see Van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical,” 103–105.
56 Van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical,” 115–116; Gardner, “Altars,” 6.
57 Van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical,” 115–116. Canonical regulations on altar decorations
were not specifically outlined until the Counter Reformation and the Council of Trent in
the sixteenth century.
58 Duccio’s Maestà, for instance, was replaced by a ciborium constructed by Vecchietta in
1506. Van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical,” 116.
60 David Rosand, “ ‘Divinità di cosa dipinta’: Pictorial Structure and the Legibility
of the Altarpiece,” in The Altarpiece in the Renaissance, eds. Peter Humfrey et al.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 147.
61 Rosand, “ ‘Divinità di cosa dipinta,’ ” 147.
62 Jacqueline E Jung, “Beyond the Barrier: The Unifying Role of the Choir Screen in Gothic
Churches,” The Art Bulletin 82, no. 4 (2000): 622–657; Jacqueline Jung, The Gothic
Screen: Space, Sculpture, and Community in the Cathedrals of France and Germany,
ca 1200–1400 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 1– 10
and 45–46.
63 Michele Bacci, “Side Altars and ‘Pro Anima’ Chapels in the Medieval Mediterranean:
Evidence from Cyprus,” in The Altar and Its Environment 1150– 1400, eds. Kroesen
and Schmidt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 11. Bacci maintains that the types of rituals or
celebrations performed in the side chapel dictated the aesthetics and construction of each
chapel and its decoration. For instance, fourteenth-century side-niche chapels housed tomb
slabs of their donors. Their shape was reminiscent of traditional church cemetery spaces.
Bacci, “Side Altars,” 15
64 Jacob Burckhardt, The Altarpiece in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988); Justin Kroesen and Victor Schmidt, eds., The Altar and Its Environment
1150–1400 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009); Kroesen, Staging the Liturgy; Paul Binski, “Statues,
Retables, and Ciboria,” in The Altar and Its Environment 1150–1400, eds. Kroesen and
Schmidt; Judith Berg Sobre, Behind the Altar Table: The Development of the Painted
Retable in Spain, 1350–1500 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989).
65 Blake Wilson, Music and Merchants: The Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); Nino Zchomelidse, Art, Ritual, and Civic Identity in
Medieval Southern Italy (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014);
Gaudenz Freuler, “Sienese Quattrocento Painting in the Service of Spiritual Propaganda,” in
62
26 Introduction
Italian Altarpieces 1250–1550, Function and Design, eds. Borsook and Gioffredi Superbi,
81–118.
66 Zchomelidse, Art, Ritual, and Civic, 2–7.
67 Donald Ehresmann, “Some Observations on the Role of Liturgy in the Early Winged
Altarpiece,” The Art Bulletin 63, no. 3 (Sept., 1982): 359–369.
68 Louis van Tongeren, “Use and Function of Altars in Liturgical Practice,” in The Altar and
Its Environment 1150–1400, eds. Kroesen and Schmidt, 261–274.
69 Tongeren, “Use and Function,” 269.
70 Born, “Media Archaeology,” 109. It is also likely that the proliferation of media studies in
Germany has to do with the history of the printing press and its fifteenth-century invention
in early modern Germany. For an excellent book on the topic see: Frank Bösch and Freya
Buechter, Mass Media and Historical Change: Germany in International Perspective, 1400
to the Present (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017).
71 Sigurd Kvoerndrup, “ ‘Media’ before ‘Media’ Were Invented: The Medieval Ballad and the
Romanesque Church,” in Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality, ed. L. Elleström
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 99–110.
73 Martin K. Foys, Virtually Anglo-Saxon: Old Media, New Media, and Early Medieval
Studies in the Late Age of Print (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007).
74 Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy (New York: Routledge, 2003), 132.
75 Foys, Virtually Anglo-Saxon, 38–78.
76 Martin Foys, “The Remanence of Medieval Media,” in The Routledge Research
Companion to Digital Medieval Literature, eds. Jennifer E. Boyle and Helen J. Burgess
(New York: Routledge, 2018), 9–30.
77 Hent de Vries and Samuel Weber, Religion and Media (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2002).
78 Michal Kobialka and Barbara A. Hanawalt, Medieval Practices of Space
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
79 Foys, Virtually Anglo-Saxon.
80 Janis Elliott, “Mapping Angevin Southern Italy: Royal and Aristocratic Church Patronage,”
https://angevinchurchesinsouthernitaly.wordpress.com
81 See Mickey Abel, Medieval Urban Planning: The Monastery and Beyond (Newcastle upon
Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017).
82 See: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/virtual-florence-religious-art-is-restored-to-
its-original-setting.
83 The Council of Trent: The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred Oecumenical Council of
Trent, trans J. Waterworth (London: Dolman, 1848). http://www.documentacatholicaom
nia.eu/03d/1545-1545, Concilium_Tridentinum, Canons_And_Decrees,_EN.pdf. “The
Fourth Lateran Council,” in Medieval Sourcebook: Twelfth Ecumenical Council: Lateran
IV 1215 (New York: Fordham University, 1996). https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/
lateran4.asp.
84 Wilson, Music and Merchants, 183.
85 Griet Steyaert, “The Ghent Altarpiece: New Thoughts on its Original Display,” The
Burlington Magazine (February 2015): 74–84.
86 David Summers, Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism
(New York: Phaidon Press, 2003).
72
Part I
82
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2 Media, Mediator, and Intercessor

Remembering the Loca Sancta
As made evident in the introductory chapter, media are an important component of

communication. Media are a complex idea that has distinctly different usages and
contextual interpretations. If we think about medieval materiality in terms of media,
their purpose as intercessors or mediators reveals their material, theoretical, and his-
torical significance. Varying disciplinary frameworks and scholars give primacy to
descriptions, concepts, and definitions through which they understand the nature of
media and how they function. This chapter describes the shared historiographies and
definitions of media and mediation to illustrate how relics function as media and to
explore the theoretical significance of a relic’s role as an intercessor. Media concepts
put forth by Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin, Lars Elleström, and Marshall McLuhan
are employed to examine a Byzantine box reliquary with stones from the Holy Land.
The Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box from the Holy Land stands as an example of a
media studies analysis of a medieval religious object.
Understanding relics and saints (in this case, Christian) as mediators is not a new
concept to medieval scholars. Relics are objects that have preserved connections with
saints or sacred places that have made them holy. Their sanctity made them potential
mediators. While their function as in-between entities mediating the sacred and mun-
dane is acknowledged, the nature of mediation is often neglected. What is a medium?
What does mediation mean? How do differing disciplines discuss medium? In a broad
sense, media are defined as means of communication. Types of “new” media include the
internet, online gaming, and email. When discussing “old” media, media theorists ref-
erence medieval manuscripts, radio, and the camera obscura, to name a few.1 Marshall
McLuhan, a media philosopher and theorist, pointedly drew parallels between the
tactility and visual interplay of television and medieval sensation.2 “Medieval and
ancient sensibility now dominates our time as acoustic and multisensory awareness
displaces the merely visual.”3 That is, acoustic space is multisensory and multi-
modal. Medieval media is about more than the visual components of any material.
In Remediation: Understanding New Media, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin
discussed medium as a mediator between two bodies as it pertains to the meaning
behind the media. They conclude that for the interaction between “new” and “old”
media, the user or viewer does not want to be mediated but delights in an object’s
transparency –an interface “that erases itself, so that the user is no longer aware of
confronting a medium, but instead stands in an immediate relationship to the contents
of the medium.”4 Media can fulfill a desire for immediacy or a reality closest to the
viewer’s own.5 In their investigations Bolter and Grusin examine these conditions in
computer games, digital photography, graphic design, film, virtual reality, and the
DOI: 10.4324/9781003305279-4
03
30 Part I
World Wide Web. These investigations, however, are not unique to “new” media. Anne
Feinberg, Bolter and Grusin, and Marshall McLuhan have applied many new media
concepts to medieval manuscripts, to Leon Battista Alberti’s fifteenth-century concep-
tion of linear perspective, and even to cabinetry. For instance, Bolter and Grusin, as
well as McLuhan, determined that, like immediacy, viewers are equally delighted by
the hypermediacy of a given object. In their examples, Bolter and Grusin point to the
illuminated initials of medieval manuscripts (Figure 2.1). Although an intricate design
is employed to potentially obfuscate the letter, the initial is still an integral part of the
text. Integration and illumination highlight the tension between the text and image.6
It is evident, then, that a medium can be a complex concept. It is made even more
complex by Elleström who teases out the many modes of media, proposing that
meaning can be channeled through varying modes whether visual or verbal.7 In his
introductory chapter, “Media, Modality, and Modes,” Elleström discusses the variants
of media in four modes: material, sensorial, spatiotemporal, and semiotic. Elleström
defines material modality as a “latent corporeal interface of the medium.”8 Media
are expressed and are manifested in many different types of material: human bodies,
other materiality such as flat surfaces and three-dimensional objects, and material
manifestations such as sound waves and light.9 As an example, Elleström describes the
two-dimensional flat surface of a television, contrasting the three dimensions of the-
ater.10 As media is multimodal, it is also multimaterial. Sensorial modality is described
as the “physical and mental acts of perceiving the present interface of the medium
through the sense faculties.”11 Media cannot be understood unless they are translated
through one or more of our senses. Therefore, in the same way that watching a modern
film or seeing a play is multimodal, it is also multisensorial.
Elleström continues by describing the concept of spatiotemporal modality, which
is the “perception of sense- data of the material interface into experiences and
conceptions of space and time.”12 This quality of media exists in multiple dimensions.
In terms of geometry, an object exists in three dimensions –height, width, and depth.
Elleström identifies a fourth dimension, which pertains to media. Therefore, media
might have height, width, depth, and time.13 To be clear, however, the spatiotemporal
characteristics of any media are structured through a viewer’s own reception and
perception of time and space.14 Like the spatiotemporal, the semiotic is a matter that
pertains to perception and reception. Semiotic modality is “the creation of meaning in
the spatiotemporally conceived medium by way of different sorts of thinking and sign
interpretation.”15 Meaning exists in the unconscious and then continues to rearrange
and define itself by means of contextual translation and perception. These modes, as
defined and outlined by Elleström, are defining characteristics of any medium.16
In terms of physical property and mechanics, media are often defined by the
conventions employed in their creation or systems of delivery. The concept may run the
gamut of application from very precise classifications to very broad terms: protocols,
codes, analog, digitized, paint, gems, stippled, gold, etc. Media can also refer to typo-
graphic categories like sculpture, painting, new media, social media, and so on. The
early twentieth century ushered in an expanded classification of media along with
new definitions of art. Since modernism and the criticisms of Clement Greenberg, who
popularized the term medium as it is used by art historians, medium has been brought
to the forefront in the study of aesthetics. Greenberg postulated that many issues or
problems with a work can be traced to its medium.17 The mechanical and artistic pro-
cess depends on the artist’s ability to manipulate a medium, lending a kind of primacy
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Media, Mediator, and Intercessor 31
Figure 2.1 Bifolium from a Bible: Initial E[t factum est] with Ezekiel, c. 1290. France, Paris, ink, tempera, and gold
vellum. Sheet: 40.3 x 53.7cm. Now in Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (Image: Courtesy of the
Cleveland Museum of Art).
23
32 Part I
to the medium properly –flatness and abstraction in painting, for example –over
content and form. This line of thought defines medium specificity.18 Rosalind Krauss
defined media within the post-medial electronic age of the late twentieth century.19
According to Krauss, a medium is a supportive structure, more specifically “a set
of conventions derived from (but not identical to) the material condition of a given
technical support.”20 A medium is indexical, whereby it is not reducible to its physical
properties.
If we consider pre-modernist interest in media, the medium of an object or image is
often determined under very precise conditions, forms, functions, and meanings that
were paramount in their selection. An anorthosite gneiss (related to diorite) statue of
the pharaoh Khafre from the Fourth Dynasty in Egypt (c. 2570 BCE), for instance,
was selected for its strength, durability, and luminosity related to the divine; rock
crystal was used in the manufacture of an eleventh-century vessel for a reliquary flask,
not because it was transparent, but because of its association with water –purity, and
its inherent value.21 A medium is an intervening substance, and conveyor of informa-
tion through an object. It could even be positioned halfway between two extremes.
Elleström defines a medium as “ ‘middle’, ‘interval’, ‘interspace’ … a channel for the
mediation of information.”22 Marshal McLuhan defined medium as “the extension of
man.”23 He considered the extension of the body, the brain, consciousness, or the phys-
ical to be self-outward.24 Here McLuhan considered a medium to be a tool, whether
“hot” –engaging a single sense –or “cool” –engaging multiple senses.25 He concluded
that “the medium is the message” instead of the content. “This is merely to say that
the personal and social consequences of any media –that is, of any extension of our-
selves –result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension
of ourselves, or by any new technology.”26 One need only briefly examine the use of
“new” media today, like Twitter, YouTube, and Skype to see that his concepts are
self-evident. What is clear is that media have agency and meaning as conveyors of
information. As defined earlier in Chapter 1, media are the transferential processes of
affective communication performed or enacted by an object. Moreover, the “function
of a medium, so construed, is mediation.”27
So let us examine, then, the process of mediation in a reliquary box from around
the sixth century. This example demonstrates how these methods of study and classifi-
cation can work in concert to illuminate the complexities of medieval materiality and
image culture (Figure 2.2). In this instance a text medium, in tandem with the material
media of rock, wood, and paint, construct a complex interdependency, and manufac-
ture a virtual pilgrimage to the Holy Land. This wooden reliquary, originally from
Syria or Palestine, contains several stones and a wood fragment from the Holy Land,
or loca sancta.28 Three of the stone fragments bear Greek inscriptions. These include
“From [Mount] Zion,” “From the Place of Resurrection,” and “From the Mount of
Olives.”29 It is possible that the other stones also bore inscriptions that are not legible
today. The wooden sliver reads “From Bethlehem.”30 The sliding lid is painted on the
exterior with the Golgotha Cross with the monogram of Christ inside a mandorla.31
Inside the lid are five isolated scenes painted on a field of gold. The central scene
is twice as big as the other scenes and illustrates Christ’s Crucifixion alongside the
two thieves. Below the central scene, from left to right, are the Nativity and Christ’s
Baptism. Along the top register, from left to right, are the Women Arriving at the Tomb
and Christ’s Ascension. Each scene corresponds to the identifying sites from which
these stones were presumably collected.
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Figure 2.2 Sancta Sanctorum Reliquary Box with stones from the Holy Land, view 1, open –reverse of lid with narrative scenes
(L) and box with stones (R), sixth century. From Syria or Palestine. Now in Vatican City, Museo Sacro, Musei Vaticani
(Photo: History and Art Collection /Alamy Stock Photo).
43
34 Part I
Each component and each element of this reliquary was carefully constructed. For
instance, the sliding door of the reliquary, when shut, covers the stones as if each
narrative scene were being reenacted over the collected ground of its locus. Although
this is a simple wooden box, the narrative scenes are painted on a golden ground.
Just as actual gold was used when constructing some reliquaries, the reference to the
precious through the paint color connotes the purity of the saints and Christ depicted
within each section of the lid and the importance of the relics within. In this instance,
and in many more, the medium was selected to convey important elements regarding
the narrative content. The gold, used in honor of the sacred stones and wooden
shard related to Christ’s life, connotes meaning and even function, as I outline below.
The rocks housed within the box are brandea relics from those important Christian
locations inscribed on the stones. The two types of relics are body parts and brandea.
The former includes the entire body or a piece of the body of the saint. This could
include a tongue, skull, finger bone, tooth, etc. The brandea varied, and were typically
ordinary objects, such as pieces of a tomb, dirt, a rock, water, or oil. They were made
holy by their contact with the loca sancta and were common in the early centuries
of Christendom. The advantage for pilgrims was that they could make their own
brandea by rubbing a piece of cloth against a holy tomb or by filling a small flask (or
ampulla) with holy water or oil. These were popular substances. Water drew parallels
with Christ’s baptism, and oil with the anointing of his feet.32 Through affective com-
munication the flasks that held these precious fluids often reflected the sacred events
or places of origin, specifically the Life and Passion of Christ.33
In her Itinerarium, the fourth- century pilgrim Egeria observed the practice of
collecting relics during her travels around Jerusalem. She wrote of pilgrims collecting
twigs from a nearby sycamore tree, hoping they were instilled with healing powers
“though it [the tree] is now extremely old, and thus small, it still bears fruit, and
people who have something wrong with them pick its twigs, which do them good.”34
Bits of earth and stones were another common souvenir. Like the healing souvenirs
of water and twigs, stones were often procured as good health talismans. The sixth-
century “Piacenza Pilgrim” fervently acquired objects from nature as relics. Ora Limor
notes the Pilgrim’s enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm of other pilgrim collectors, as a
reflection of “collection impulse.”35 As late as the twelfth century, Petrus Diaconus
mentioned in his Liber de locis sanctis that pilgrims would take stones from the
altar near the Sea of Galilee which was presumed to be the site of the miracle of
the fishes and the loaves recounted in the Gospel of Mark.36 However, the collection
of such objects was unnecessary. One could simply take part in Christian ritual at
home where blessings were plentiful. The fifth-century abbot of the White Monastery,
Shenoute of Atripe, encouraged his congregation to “glorify Jerusalem in your mon-
astery, which you have dedicated to my name together with those who will hear and
obey you, as equals of the angels … You must know that my cross is everywhere for
whoever desires to repent.”37 For those who had the means to take on the arduous
journey, the act of peregrination cleansed a person of their sins or illnesses. If this
were the case, then why would a pilgrim go through the added step of procuring
commonplace objects and handmade relics? Caroline Walker Bynum addresses the
enthusiasm for holy matter, maintaining that “people wanted objects (herbs, water,
bread, salt, prayer cards, pilgrim badges), not mere words.”38 By the sixth century
these brandea had become somewhat standardized.39 In addition to modest ampullae,
small pieces of bone, cloth, stone, and pilgrim tokens are among the diverse pilgrim
53

relics housed in the Vatican Museum. Among these treasures is a plain wooden book
with nine relic cavities that cradle brandea and other pilgrim souvenirs under a sliding
lid. Classified as early medieval, it houses stones, fragments of carbon, and pilgrim’s
tokens (Palestine). Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the early ninth-century
Fieschi Morgan Staurotheke (Constantinople [?]‌) is a class of reliquary associated
with the True Cross (Figure 2.3 (a) and (b)). An early example of cloisonné enamel,
the lid of the box boasts an elaborate triumphal Christ on the Cross flanked by the
Virgin and Saint John the Theologian. Twenty-seven busts of saints progress around
the edges of the box while the underside of the lid depicts fine lined scenes of the
Annunciation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion (mirroring the imagery of the Crucifixion
atop the lid), and the Anastasis. In the interior of this small portable box is a series
of walled compartments. The central focus is a cross-shaped cavity thought to have
housed fragments of the wooden cross on which Christ was crucified. The remaining
interior cavities were possibly meant to contain other memento relics associated with
the Holy Land.40
The most similar arrangement is seen in the Sancta Sanctorum box reliquary, one
of its earliest examples. Once housed in the treasury of the Lateran Palace, this reli-
quary, and other early reliquaries like it, stand as historical markers of the history of
medieval imagery, materiality, and mediation. The relic and reliquary had an inter-
dependent relationship. Without its relics, the reliquary is but a piece of manmade
art, unable to fulfill its sacred purpose. Without the reliquary, the relics would then
be but “indistinct matter.”41 The two objects function cooperatively in a state of sym-
biosis where the reliquary acts as a frame, not only to hold and protect the topo-
graphical or bodily relic but also to give context and continuity to it. By themselves
the stones of the Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box from the Holy Land have little
meaning. However, this ensemble is embedded within a larger religious framework or
structure in tandem with text, image, and the reliquary box. With the identifying text
inscribed onto the stone’s surface, a viewer could perceive it through visual/textual
validation as having “gained holiness through contact with other holy matter, like
a sacred contagion.”42 Relics like these stones not only contain blessings from holy
places, but could also provide remote access to the Holy Land.43 In addition, these
objects did not just come from these holy sites to remind a collector of their pil-
grimage, but also operated as a bridge between the viewer’s locus and the object’s
place of origin. Alexander Nagel discussed this concept of “non-site-specificity” in
his 2012 publication Medieval Modern. Although the stones were directly extracted
from holy sites and isolated into a decorative box, neither site nor object “stands inde-
pendent of the other.”44 The stones and site are tethered and connected by a “space
of metaphoric significance.”45 The relic, therefore, does not act only as a reminder of
the site, but also as a point in space connected to another. Because they function as
media with great agency, the stones are a mediator extending a viewer’s conscious-
ness from site “A” to site “B.” Here the reliquary is not static but is a mediator and
intercessor between sites. These concepts are fundamentally difficult to describe to
the penitent through language; therefore, medieval materiality harnesses these intrica-
cies through visual storytelling. Like a miniature Holy Land, it actively involved the
viewer in a kind of virtual interface through remote access. Ideally, this interface is
“perfect” and the viewers, under the logic of transparency, feel that they are indeed in
another world.46 Elina Gertsman and Asa Simon Mittman described the reliquary as a
complex “mnemonic map, punctuated with a series of visual, material, and cognitive
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36
Part I
Figure 2.3a and 2.3b (a) The Fieschi Morgan Staurotheke with lid slightly ajar, early ninth century. (Made in Constantinople [?]‌). Byzantine. Gilded
silver, gold, and enamel worked in cloisonné and niello. Overall (with lid): 1 1/16 x 4 1/16 x 2 13/16 in. (2.7 x 10.3 x 7.1 cm).
(b) Interior detail with five walled cavities for a True Cross relic and other relics associated with the Holy Land. Now in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art (Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art).
73

triggers that potentially encouraged an ersatz, performative pilgrimage.”47 This would
lead the viewers to experience the “same emotions that [they] might feel in the real
world” of the Holy Land.48 The viewer stands in the presence of the object, and by
so doing, takes part in its sanctity in a state of relative immediacy.49 Gertsman and
Mittman continue to note that, by the sixth century, pilgrimage to the Holy Land
was already in decline because shrines, martyria, and churches along the traditional
routes had diffused pilgrim traffic and redirected it from the Holy Land to other
sites of interest. Gertsman and Mittman describe the Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box
as “transportable.”50 The spiritual journey that the object facilitated “challenged the
necessity of physical journeys to the Holy Land.”51 Although the stones are small
pieces of the loca sancta, they were in fact viewed as representing the Holy Land in its
fullness. When pilgrims “contained” their relics from the Holy Land and housed them
in boxes, bags, and books, the new locus, when the pilgrims arrived home, became a
site of pilgrimage.52
If the stones were divorced from their new situation within the reliquary, the medi-
ation of the two would be severed. Just as the stones are interconnected with their
site of origin, they are equally connected with the text and image. It is important to
note here that the imagery truly affirms this concept, in that typically the “types” of
narrative scenes that appear on pilgrimage souvenirs only provide the viewer with
enough information to understand the content. They are usually quite abbreviated
and, sometimes, highly abstracted. The artist here takes great care to create an acute
understanding of geographic accuracy. One can observe this in the depiction of the
Women Arriving at the Empty Tomb; the artist depicts the domed monument as it
appeared in Palestine before its seventh-century modification.53 Any stone slab or cave
might have been a sufficient indicator of Christ’s tomb; however, this artist intention-
ally illuminated the building, as the pilgrim would have seen it during the time of
the relic’s collection. The great accuracy of identifying text and relational authentic
imagery of Christ’s sepulchre solidifies the transparent interface. The stones with
their inscriptions could have just been housed in a wooden box; however, the act of
rendering the invisible visible gave concrete qualities and made the divine attainable.
“In this container the stones are displaced, but their real connection to their sites is
proclaimed by a system of inscriptions and pictures.”54
The Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box then exists in two mediums –one in the art-
istic material medium and the other in the communicative medium of writing.55 The
presence of the sacred is not only mediated through the inscribed stones to the locus of
the pilgrim/viewer but is also further remediated or “refashioned” through narrative
imagery.56 The content of the reliquary box is the holy ground, and the holy ground
is represented in the narrative imagery. This attainability of the divine functions much
the same as contemporary new media. When using Skype, one accesses a remote loca-
tion and retrieves a distant voice. One accesses two spaces simultaneously through a
digital interface. In addition, people immersed in virtual reality can access a remote
location different from their own. Holy Land reliquaries reinforced the Christian trad-
ition of representing the spiritual shift from the intangible to the tangible. This sym-
biotic arrangement between artistic medium and connective medium is not peculiar
to the Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box. There are many others like it and several are
documented in seventeenth-century texts.57 The wooden book with nine relic cavities
and the Fieschi Morgan Staurotheke discussed earlier reflect this similar approach to
a virtual pilgrimage.58
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38 Part I
Figure 2.4 Reliquary Triptych with the Annunciation, St. Ansanus, the Adoration of the Magi,
and the Crucifixion, thirteenth century. Tempera and gold leaf on wood with
gold polychromed ivory; open. From France. Now in The Walters Art Museum,
Baltimore, MD. (Photo: Courtesy of The Walters Art Museum).
A fourteenth-century reliquary triptych from Siena is a later example of the con-

tinuation of this transference of media (Figure 2.4). A gold-ground triptych, typical
of devotional imagery from Siena, reveals an Annunciation scene on the inside panels
of its wings and 15 round glass-covered cavities containing relics associated with the
Holy Land.59 The Sienese patron saint, Ansanus, is depicted within the central pin-
nacle above two small, thirteenth-century French ivory panels depicting the Adoration
of the Magi and the Crucifixion. Though the relics seem to be unassociated with the
Annunciation, an interesting theme of the “spirit’s entry into matter” runs through the
entire imagery of the reliquary, lending continuity. As the Annunciation emphasizes
the Incarnation of God, the relics’ importance as holy objects further reinforced
Christ’s presence on Earth. An interesting ensemble of interface, interconnectivity, and
continuity is present within the metaphoric imagery. The adoring Magi who bear
witness to Christ’s birth affirm the Annunciation and Incarnation of God. In addition,
the artistic medium reinforces the connective medium of the Holy Land relics. It is
93
Figure 2.5 Nardo Ceccarelli. Reliquary tabernacle with Virgin and Child, c. 1350. Tempera,
gold, and glass on panel. From Italy. Now in The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore,
MD (Photo: Courtesy of The Walters Art Museum).
04
40 Part I
also no coincidence that the spiritual presence of Christ is described in paint while the
ivory relief carvings draw parallels with his physical presence.60 The Holy Land relics
housed around the central panel substantiate Christ’s Crucifixion and connect the
viewer with the loca sancta. This juxtaposition of material and spiritual transference
further aligns the artistic medium and the communicative medium into a complex
message of devotion and site-specificity. This tangible force is notable in many other
reliquaries similarly constructed. The reliquary Tabernacle with Virgin and Child by
Nardo Ceccarelli and the Reliquary with Virgin and Child with Saints constructs a
homogeneous metaphor of the presence of God made physical through sacred conta-
gion transferred to relics and their reliquaries (Figure 2.5).
In conclusion, I have discussed the term medium according to its logical usage
and historical understanding. I have also outlined the shifting historical emphases
of the material and operative ontology of media. That is, due to a medium’s inten-
tional selection, it is paramount in the effective construction of a given object.
The following chapters continue to refer to ritual or religious objects as media.
Considering all aspects of what it is to be a medium, and to mediate, reorients the
reliquary as a material object and a channel for mediation. The notion of the trans-
ference of holiness through portable objects fulfills the desire to render tangible
what is intangible and aligns with the concept of virtuality which makes visible what
is invisible.
Notes
1 See Jay David Bolter, and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 12–13; Marshal McLuhan, Understanding Media: The
Extensions of Man (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994), 245; Friedrich Kittler, “Preface,”
in Optical Media (Berlin: Polity Press, 2010), 19–28; Siegfried Zielinski, Deep Time of the
Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means (Cambridge: MIT
Press, 2006), 205–226.
2 See Marshall Philip Marchand, Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger: A
Biography (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), 54 and 104.
3 Marshal McLuhan and Eric McLuhan, Laws of Media: The New Science (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1988), 225.
4 Bolter and Grusin, Remediation, 24.
5 Bolter and Grusin, Remediation, 4–5.
7 Lars Elleström, “Media, Modality and Modes,” in Media Borders, Multimodality and
Intermediality, ed. Lars Elleström (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 14. I will revisit
the four modalities of media in Chapter 3.
8 Lars Elleström, “Media,” 17.
9 Lars Elleström, “Media,” 17.
10 Elleström, “Media,” 17.
17 Charles Harrison, Modernism: Movements in Modern Art (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 18–19.
14

18 Janna Houwen, Film and Video Intermediality: The Question of Medium Specificity in
Contemporary Moving Images (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 7.
19 Yvonne Spielmann, “How Does Differing Matter? Dialogue and Reflexivity in the Flow
of Remediations,” in Film in the Post- Media Age, ed. Ágnes Pethő (Newcastle upon
Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), 20.
20 Krauss, “Reinventing the Medium,” 296.
21 Martina Bagnoli, “The Stuff of Heaven: Materials and Craftsmanship in Medieval
Reliquaries,” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe,
eds. Martina Bagnoli, Holger A. Klein, C Griffith Mann, and James Robinson (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 141.
23 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1994), 1.
24 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 80.
25 McLuhan first described the participatory concepts of “hot” or “cool” media in
Understanding Media, 22.
26 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 7.
27 David Davies, “Medium in Art,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, ed. Jerrold
Levinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 181.
28 It is important to note the provenance of this object. In 1905 it was transferred from the
Treasury of the Sancta Sanctorum in the Lateran Palace in Rome to the Museo Cristiano
in the Vatican Museums. In 1999 it was transferred a final time to the Vatican Museums
by Pope John Paul II. The Museo Sacro was first established in the eighteenth century by
Pope Benedict XIV as a treasury. This papal collection of sorts specialized in works which
solidified the Church’s ancient authority, cementing the legacy of Catholicism. While in the
Sancta Sanctorum, the objects had a very limited viewing.
29 Derek Kruger, “The Religion of Relics in Late Antiquity and Byzantium,” in Treasures of
Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, eds. Martina Bagnoli et al. (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 11.
30 Derek Krueger, Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the Formation
of the Self in Byzantium (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 69.
31 Martina Bagnoli et al., eds. “Catalogue 1–35,” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and
Devotion in Medieval Europe, 29–51 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 36.
32 Ora Limor, “Earth, Stone, Water, and Oil,” in Natural Materials of the Holy Land and
the Visual Translation of Place 500–1500, eds. Renana Bartal et al. (London: Routledge,
2017), 10.
33 A late sixth-century pilgrim flask, presumably from Palestine, is decorated with both,
including the scenes from the Crucifixion and the Ascension. See printed image in Martina
Bagnoli et al., eds, Treasures of Heaven, “Catalogue 1–35,” 43.
34 John Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, 3rd ed. Translated by John Wilkinson (Warminster: Aris
and Philips, 1999), 102.
35 Limor, “Earth,” 6.
36 Mark 6:33–44; Limor, “Earth,” 5; Petrus Diaconus, Liber de locis sanctis, in Itineraria
et alia geographica, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 175, ed. I. Fraipont and R. Weber
(Turnhout: Brepols, 1965), 99.
37 Cited in Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian
Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 202. For
source text, see Vita Sinuthii: Monuments pour servir à l’histoire de l’Egypte chrétienne, ed.
and trans. E.C. Amelineau, vol. 1 (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1888), 333ff.
38 Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval
Europe (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011), 128.
39 Derek Kruger, “The Religion of Relics,” 10.
24
42 Part I
40 Stuart Wilensky, “Pre- Iconoclastic Byzantine Art and the Fieschi- Oppenheim-Morgan
Reliquary of the True Cross,” MA thesis (State University New York at Binghamton,
1983) 49.
41 Alexander Nagel, “The Aftermath of the Reliquary,” in Treasures of Heaven, eds. Martina
Bagnoli et al. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), 212.
42 Krueger, “The Religion of Relics,” 5.
44 Alexander Nagel, Medieval Modern: Art Out of Time (New York: Thames and Hudson,
2012), 116.
45 Nagel, Medieval Modern, 121.
47 Elina Gertsman and Asa Simon Mittman,“Rocks of Jerusalem,” 157–171, in Natural Material
of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation, ed. Renana Bartal et al. (London: Routledge,
2017), 158. Derek Krueger initially characterized the Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box as
“a virtual pilgrimage to the Holy Land”, “The Religion of Relics in Late Antiquity and
Byzantium,” in Treasures of Heaven, eds. Bagnoli et al., 11.
50 Gertsman and Mittman, “Rocks of Jerusalem,” 158–159.
51 Gertsman and Mittman, “Rocks of Jerusalem,” 158.
52 George Greenia, “Songs of the Pilgrimage Path,” conference lecture from the 2018 TEMA
Conference, October 26, 2018.
53 Bagnoli, “Catalogue 1–35,” 36.
54 Nagel, Medieval Modern, 121.
55 Greg Downey, “Place-making in the ‘Holy of Holies’: The Church of the Holy Sepulcher,
Jerusalem,” in Ritual, Performance and the Senses, eds. John P. Mitchell and Michael Bull
(London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015), 74.
56 Bolter and Grusin define remediation as “the way in which one medium is seen by our
culture as reforming or improving upon another.” Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin,
Remediation, 59; it is “the formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms.”
Bolter and Grusin, Remediation, 273.
57 Nagel, Medieval, 119.
58 Reana Bartal et al., eds, “Plate 2,” in Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual
Translation of Place, 500–1500 (New York/London: Routledge, 2017), 155. For a discus-
sion on this and other box reliquaries see Elina Gertsman and Asa Simone Mittman, “Rocks
of Jerusalem: Bringing the Holy Land Home,” in Natural Materials of the Holy Land and
the Visual Translation of Place, 500–1500, eds. Reana Bartal et al.,157–171 (New York/
London: Routledge, 2017).
59 Rayna Kalas, Frame, Glass, Verse: The Technology of Poetic Invention in the English
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018), 24.
60 Martina Bagnoli et al., eds., “Catalogue 77–124,” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics,
and Devotion in Medieval Europe, 172– 207 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2011), 205.
34
3 Mass Media and Liturgical Performance
“What remains of people is what media can store and communicate.”

(Friedrich A. Kittler, Discourse Networks)
The second half of the eleventh century initiated what is called the Berengar-Lanfranc
controversy.1 Berengar of Tours, in a spiritual crisis, questioned in what sense the
real presence was apparent in the body of Christ. He examined the constitution of
the Eucharist through a logical examination of nature and the will of God.2 In 1050
the Abbot of Bec, Lanfranc, condemned his colleague at a local council in Rome for
denying the presence of Christ’s body in the Eucharist and, in turn, the efficacy of the
Paschal ritual. After hearing Berengar’s heretical teachings, Pope Leo IX ordered him
to appear before a regional council at Vercelli in September of the same year. After the
condemnation of his radical and heretical views, Berengar was compelled to swear at
the Council of Tours in 1054 and later again at the Council at Rome in 1059 that the
body and blood of Christ were present in the Eucharist.3 Berengar would retract his
oath in 1059, claiming that “by consecration at the altar the bread and wine are made
into religious sacraments, not so that they cease to be that which they were, but so
that they are that which is changed into something else.”4 The issue in this statement
is that after transubstantiation the “true” bread would no longer be present on the
altar having been replaced by the “true” presence of the body of Christ.5 As could be
expected, this sparked great controversy across Christian Europe and initiated sig-
nificant debate. The Berengar-Lanfranc controversy is rather complex and, as Charles
M. Radding acknowledges, is not easily summarized.6 However, here is a brief syn-
opsis of Berengar’s complaint: How can a material object be an invisible object or a
spiritual truth?7 For Berengar, only the spiritual presence of Christ could be manifest at
the altar, not the true body from Mary’s womb that now resides in heaven.8 Berengar’s
position is an appropriate example to illustrate that an object cannot inherently be an
invisible object or a spiritual truth, but it can be infused with meaning through ritual.
Within the medieval tradition of sacred materiality, the liturgy brought the peni-
tent into the divine presence. Repeated ritual generated the movement of the spir-
itual through the physical. The liturgical ritual is a performance of virtual media that
mediates the presence of God.9 In this chapter, I turn my attention to the performance
of the liturgy and liturgical actions. I will argue two related points regarding divine
mediation. First, the liturgy and its various components are forms of media. And
second, that media generate a virtual interface that is made manifest by a host of ritual
DOI: 10.4324/9781003305279-5
4
44 Part I
arts. These visual and performance arts function as transparent media and imbue a
space or object with metaphysical power.
The liturgy as mediation

First we define what the liturgy is. The word has diverse origins: From the mid-sixteenth
century via French or late Latin from Greek leitourgia “public service, worship of the
gods”, from leitourgos “minister,” from lēitos “public” + -ergos “working.”10
Plainly put, the liturgy is a “public service of worship,” a collective assembly of
all people during the Mass. It is more than just a public ceremony. The liturgy is
also “a form of formulary according to which public religious worship, especially
Christian worship, is conducted.” It is specifically “the service of the Eucharist.” It is
important to surmise, then, that the liturgy is not just one thing, but many things all
happening at once. The liturgy is a formula followed by the clergy and laity alike. It is
read or sung aloud in a consecrated space. It is performed for the masses in a public
space. It imparts information to a wide range of the faithful. And, as such, the liturgy
is a form of mass communication. If we contemplate the ontology of modern mass
broadcasting platforms, we may consider the performance of the liturgy to be a form
of early mass media.
The philosopher and media theorist Marshall McLuhan was interested in mass
media culture and the “simultaneous relations” and “non-lineal mosaic” that is media.11
McLuhan focused on how media shaped environments and the human sensorium.
Though McLuhan’s language was quite complex and often baffled his readers, he was
quite intentional with his language and manner of defining media. This author has read
and re-read many of his famous anecdotes including “the medium is the message,”12 to
only understand its meaning after years of contemplation. Often, readers interpret his
meanings incorrectly, interpreting this phrase literally. What he means to say is carefully
outlined in his 1964 publication Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man –“the
medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences
of any medium –that is of any extension of ourselves –result from the new scale that
is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new tech-
nology.”13 For McLuhan, the fact that we are watching television far outweighs its
content. A reemergence of McLuhan’s work in the early 1990s constituted a McLuhan
Renaissance. The publication Wired Magazine declared McLuhan to be their “patron
saint” and the republished Understanding Media in 1994 reinvigorated his theories
for a new age of media and media theorists.14 A second Renaissance, if you will, took
place in 2014 when the Journal of Visual Culture released an entire issue dedicated to
the fiftieth anniversary of The Extensions of Man.15 McLuhan’s concept of acoustic
space or the dynamic character of a multimodal auditory signal received from all
directions sounded very much like the liturgical environment which simultaneously
harmonizes both the earthly and heavenly realms of Christianity. Though McLuhan’s
theories may wax and wane in popularity, his understanding of media is universal and
transcends his own time, as he was regarded as having the ability to tell the future.
McLuhan’s epigram –“media is the extension of man” –refers to the invention
of media, or communicative networks, models “of some biologic capability sped up
beyond the human ability to perform.”16 All media are constructions of biological
responses and systems. Glasses enhance sight and extend the eye’s capabilities.
Hearing aids do much the same for the ears. These media extend the senses to a real
54
Mass Media and Liturgical Performance 45

plane. The liturgy and its ancillary media extend the senses to a sacred plane and
enable the human ability to commune with God. Therefore, the liturgy is a channel
mediating the sacred and it functions within Elleström’s precept that media is subject
to the “material interface into experiences and conceptions of space and time.”17 That
is, the liturgy is a spatiotemporal medium. In a discussion of church architecture and
rood screens in her essay “ ‘Media’ before ‘Media’ Were Invented,” Sigurd Kvœrndrup
surmises that the early medieval church employed a sort of mass media because
the “church building became the greatest ‘extension of man.’ ”18 It is important to
remember McLuhan’s analogy of media as metaphor: “all media are active metaphors
in their power to translate experience into new forms.”19 That is, the performance of
the liturgy is a metaphorical extension of man that translates the ritual experience to
the experience of the sacred.
The medium is the message

McLuhan posited that “the medium is the message.” As Norman Mailer said, this is
one of the “most useful and confusing remarks of the twentieth century.”20 McLuhan
maintained that “societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media
by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.”21 Within the
medieval context, this understanding demonstrates the possible ways in which images
and other ritual media routinely functioned as votive figures. McLuhan’s assertion
may be a useful method of understanding the Christian perspective of material objects
and their function, even when that included a function outside the realities of the
physical world.
Performance media
It is important to return here to the most fundamental component of the liturgy, the
Eucharist, with which Berengar took issue. The bread and wine are transformed into
the body and blood of Jesus to be consumed by the faithful. The Fourth Lateran
Council in 1215 clarified the Church’s position, using the word transsubstantiatio
in the first canon.22 However, because this only happens in the Mass, it is through
the ritual performance that this miracle is mediated. Even without the visual and
sonic accessories of the Mass, which are typically present, it is the performance that
institutes the miracle. To put it another way, the bread and wine do not and cannot
just turn into the body and blood of Christ. A priest must lay the supper on the altar,
bless it, and recite the Eucharistic prayer with proper intention. The specific words of
liturgical consecration, recited with intentionality, are essential to the True Presence.
The Agnus Dei then affirms the sacrifice and acts as an ancillary frame.23 Furthermore,
the ritual practice itself is a reenactment of the events which transpired during the
Last Supper, bridging the happenings of the past into the present in a state of spatio-
temporal transference.
It is through the ritual performance of the liturgy of the Eucharist, and then through
spoken/sung text, that the metaphysical presence of Christ, imbued by God himself,
is recognized, and manifested in a physical time and space. Although Berengar asked
a reasonable question –“can a material object be an invisible object?” –dogmat-
ically, ritually, and, as we will see, also socially, the metaphysical is captured and
enhanced through materiality. Michal Kobialka notes, “all things, including human
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46 Part I
beings, come from nonbeing into being through something other than themselves.”24
Instead of viewing the Eucharistic bread iconographically, that is, as a material object
which represents the divine flesh, it can be approached as a form of media. As the
body mediates between the soul of a person and the divine, or vice versa, liturgical
ornamentation, in all its forms, mediates between the material and the metaphys-
ical. This is not a linear act with a delineated beginning and end. It is a cyclical
exchange. The act of consecration is a fundamental example of the nature of ritual as
medium. The liturgy itself and the mystery of the sacred host are those “in-between”
states that characterize media. The wafer, in its state of grace, is a medium, or part of
a communicative network. In its state of activation, it is dynamic and becomes a point
of contact between the worshipper and God.
The configuration of such mediation is similar to that of the camera obscura
referenced in Chapter 1. The camera obscura is a form of media technology; it is an
optical device, a dark room or box that usually has a fitted lens within an aperture
through which light, from an outside source, filters through to form an image of a scene
or objects on an opposing surface. An artist then traces the lighted silhouettes, fixing
them permanently to a surface. Light is merged with the surface medium creating a
new object. An illustration visually demonstrates the technological phenomenon in use
(Figure 3.1). The artist has diagrammed the lines originating from points “A” and “B”
simulating the mediation of the figure to the left through the aperture and onto the
opposite surface. These lines create an interesting “X” shape whose crossing intersects
at the aperture. The Eucharist functions as a medium similar to the principles of the
camera obscura. Envision the Eucharist at the junction of the aperture. Translating to
the diagram, the figure on the left represents the viewer or participant during the Mass
and the mediated image on the opposing wall now represents the sacred. In terms of
evoking or recreating the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, the presence of
Christ is mediated from one spatial plane to another. Friedrich Kittler describes the
camera obscura technology as a tool of the fine arts, saying that it “captured light
and cast it further, but it did not send it.”25 Much like this optical device, the body
of Christ is “captured” in the Eucharistic wafer and casts the miracle to the faithful
through their ritual consumption. But the Eucharist did not send the divine presence
of Christ to the locus of the altar; the Eucharistic bread receives the divine presence,
it embodies it. The “sender” [God] lies beyond the church and the physical world,
residing in a divine plane. It was funneled through and mediated from a place of the
divine and therefore channeled from one spatial plane to another.
Christ’s body is a medium in and of itself, as his presence on Earth was a medi-
ation of God. Much as the “content of any medium is always another medium,”26
when consecrated, the Eucharistic wafer is the body of Christ. However, the Eucharist
is a different kind of medium from that of the Holy Land reliquary box discussed
in Chapter 1. A performance of the liturgy is required to transform the Eucharistic
wafer. The rocks within the Holy Land reliquary box are sacred relics because they
are objects that came from the Holy Land. However, as bread, the wafer is not inher-
ently the body of Christ. The bread must be transformed. It must be activated by the
celebration of the Eucharistic rite. Therefore, context, or the ground with which it is
made, is exceptionally important.
Ground and figure are key concepts within McLuhan’s work on media. According to
McLuhan, the figure and its significance, whether it is a person, text, or symbol, cannot
be fully defined or determined without the context of its ground or environment.27
newgenrtpdf
74
Figure 3.1 An illustration of the camera obscura principle. (C) The “pinhole” or aperture. Date taken 1900 (Photo: Public Domain).
84
48 Part I
Therefore, the figure derives meaning from its ground. Often, they are related to causal
concepts. That is, the figure shapes its environment or ground. The Eucharistic wafer
is the figure, and it derives meaning from its context, and the context is the liturgy. I do
not refer to the textual liturgy, but the performance of the liturgy. It is worth quoting
at length a passage from a 1973 letter to Tom Stepp written by Marshall McLuhan:
The figure is what appears and the ground is always subliminal. Changes occur in
the ground before they occur in the figure. We can project both figure and ground
as images of the future using the ground as subplot of subliminal patterns and
pressures and effects which actually come before the more or less final figures to
which we normally direct our interest.28
In the 1973 letter quoted above, it is evident that McLuhan privileged the ground,
unlike previous media scholars who had focused on the figure.29 The ancillary spaces
that support the Eucharistic mystery may seem concrete, like the apse, altar, and
furnishings. This literal framework, however, is a socially prescribed concept. The
environment is not a container, it “is process … the environment always manages
somehow to be invisible.”30 The ritual environment which mediates the sacred is tran-
sitory and its borders are indiscernible. It is not an actual space which defines the sac-
ramental framework but a space of action and utterance.
Procession
Beyond the fundamentals of the Mass, what makes visible and/or presents what is
invisible, is the assemblage of architecture, procession, music, and material objects
within the sanctuary space. These components, in a cooperative engagement, achieve
this theophanic aim.
Procession is a major component of performance media. The local medieval parish
system was an institution of multiple functions. It was a place not only for the cele-
bration of the Eucharist but was also a locus for many of the other sacraments, like
marriage and baptism. If the church architecture is taken as the ground, it is not a con-
stant because the building served several secular functions. It was a center of civic life,
a place of information where announcements were made, and of various daily affairs
relating to community. Kings and bishops greeted their congregations and subjects
from the choir screens.31 Parishioners even settled their personal affairs there. Fights
often broke out in the sacred space of the church itself, with all its secular interaction
ritual.32 Furthermore, parishioners had also to prepare themselves for the sacred ritual
through cleansing, repentance of sins, and prayer.
The millennial Church originally contained three processions within the Mass: the
entry procession, the offertory procession, and the communion procession.33 The entry
procession initiated the manifestation of the metaphysical, localizing the presence of
God and transforming the secular building into a sacred space. I would like to be clear
that the church building itself is a sacred area, contrasting with the unconsecrated
grounds beyond the church walls. In terms of the hierarchy of church architecture,
however, the altar and its relics inhabit an inherently sacred space even when the lit-
urgy is not being performed. They were separated from the secular world by a choir
screen and the most elaborate ceremony possible, officiated over, at minimum, by the
local bishop.34
94

The interior space of the medieval church was organized in accordance with a
hierarchy.35 The nave was a more secular space than the sanctuary/chancel. The nave
provided space for the laity who entered the church often from the west doors. The
chancel and choir at the eastern end of the building were reserved for the clergy, who
entered from the vestry or sacristy adjacent to the chancel. The chancel space was
enclosed as an “intended gesture of devotion to the Holy Sacrament.”36 This area was
occupied by the altar and was identified by the chancel screen, marking the threshold
between the chancel and nave.37 As one moves along the nave toward the chancel,
one approaches the most sacred part of the church and begins to feel the presence of
God. The appreciation of this established hierarchical relationship of space within
the church is evident in the number of prestigious burials that were placed near the
chancel. Christopher Daniell notes that these threshold burials are not uncommon.38
At the beginning of the Mass, the procession of the officiants of the Mass crossed
through these spaces, leaving the secular world behind and entering the sacred realm.
However, the clergy did not leave the laity behind in the nave to be exiled in an
earthly realm. Rather, they instituted a process of enlarging the sacred space for the
laity through ritual procession. Jacqueline Jung explains this process: “The ordinary
processional route began within the enclosed space of the choir and moved outward
to encompass the length of the nave and baptistery in the west end before circling
back toward the choir.”39 As we can see from this description, the liturgical procession
starts in the holiest part of the church and then extends the divine space of the chancel
beyond the sanctuary through the threshold of the choir screen and into the nave.40
The return procession moved from west to east, from the less sacred to the most
sacred.41 In doing so, the procession mediates the divine space within the church.
The holy sphere expands to include the laity in the nave and then returns to the
choir as a signal of this metaphysical actuation. As illustrated, the figure of the church
is processed and its hierarchical signifiers are initiated; the environment, or ground,
shifts. However, unlike what the physical dimensions and hierarchical spaces of the
church may suggest, the environment is not a receptacle. Returning to McLuhan’s
concept that the environment is not a container, through the movement of procession
the ground shifts and operates under a reverse causal relationship. That is, it is the
ground which shifts and manifests the figure, or, in this instance, the sacred environ-
ment generated by the procession mediates and shapes the way in which the figure
functions. It is difficult for us to conceive of an environment that is “invisible,” as the
very nature of the medieval church was an optic experience: dappled, colored light
refracted by stained glass, soaring vaults, and large raised altars. Even the “ingestion”
of the Eucharist through visual adoration is a key component of the medieval church
aesthetic and ritual practice. However, mediation was not only generated through
optic sensation but also through auditory and haptic consumption. Ostensibly, a
haptic interface relates to the sense of touch and movement. More precisely, it is
the perception or simulation of the sense of touch. An example of this phenomenon
can be experienced when handling a smart device. Often the device will simulate
movement through a programmed buzzing or vibration which reproduces the sensa-
tion of pushing a button, when in actuality there is only a flat surface.
In the essay “The Power of Virtual Space,” co- authors and Christian studies
scholars Katherine Schmidt and Derek C. Hatch herald the concept of the liturgy as
virtual media. Like the ancillary spaces discussed above, virtuality is also a socially
prescribed production.42 Through their findings from the consultation of Evangelical
05
50 Part I
Catholics and Protestants at the 2016 convention of the College Theology Society,
Schmidt and Hatch assert that virtuality was, and is, a “hermeneutic for the sacra-
mentality of the church.”43 Though their observations are about twenty-first-century
Catholicism, they are applicable to the liturgy of the Middle Ages. Virtuality is an
inherent component of Christianhood and practice. It is natural for the participant to
desire a level of immediacy in order to reflect or replicate their own reality as closely
as possible. This, in turn, embraces a kind of hypermediacy, where multiple acts of
representation are acknowledged and made visible.44 Where immediacy constructs a
unified field, hypermediacy isolates an experience to a series of open windows. This
is the difference between “being in” or “of” and looking through.45 These concepts
will be discussed in more depth in Chapter 4. Schmidt and Hatch assert that the
Christian liturgy has existed in a state that is somewhere in between immediacy and
hypermediacy. They maintain that the liturgy is inherently virtual as it fulfills the
Christian desire of communion with God.46 This longing, then, engenders that desire
which activates, “motivates and inspires all kind of media.”47 Their support of media
as invention is quite evident in the varying ancillary media employed during the rituals
of procession and Mass and reflects the worshipper’s aspiration for immediacy.
The “sung” liturgy

Scholars are not entirely sure how much of the liturgy was sung. The priests of the
Latin Church may have sung some or all of the Mass.48 Therefore, I would like to
discuss the sung liturgy in terms of its potential performance. Like the processional,
the sung liturgy signals an ordination and mediation with the divine. The Kyrie, for
instance, is a liturgical invocation that is repeated after the Mass has begun and is a
general confession.49 The prayer “Kyrie, eleison” translates “Lord, have mercy.” The
preparative nature of the Kyrie calls for the presence of the divine. The participant,
through his invocation, interfaces with God. By acknowledging the presence of Christ
and his position as Son of God and One who may have mercy on humankind, the
participant begins a journey from a secular and earthly context toward the religious
and celestial, and is thus prepared for worship.50 The aesthetics of the music and ritual
environment further prepare the participant for a religious experience. It is then pos-
sible for the participant to work through the aesthetics to connect with the divine,
thereby perceptibly utilizing the bridge-like medium of music to bask in the metaphor-
ically cast beams of light of the metaphysical. Similar to the Eucharist, the musical
ground mediates between the user and the divine and transforms the figure or the
participant. This is only one brief example of how ritual harnessed the transforma-
tive power of liturgical music. Like the processional at the beginning of the Mass, the
liturgical medium of music situated the spirit and mind for a metaphysical interaction.
In these instances, the ritual was, and is, necessary for the participant’s perception of,
and interaction with, the divine. It is important to consider how affecting the content
of the liturgy is. Clearly the Church has taken great care in formulating the organiza-
tion of the Mass itself. However, as McLuhan noted, “the medium is the message.”51
The liturgy and images

The practice of ornamenting sacred spaces is recorded in late antiquity. The Greeks
and Romans ornamented their temples with statuary, a practice which was later
15

syncretically adopted by Christians. In Before the Gregorian Reform, John Howe
discusses a long-standing tradition in which Roman emperors and early Christian
rulers alike donated material ornamentation to the Church.52 From Constantine to
Charlemagne and beyond, ornaments for material devotion have included statuary,
manuscripts, crosses and crucifixes, altarpieces, reliquaries, and even the Eucharist
itself. Howe notes the logic behind the association of riches with the Church, being
that the most important material of the Church, the humble Eucharist, was to be
associated with the most sumptuous ecclesiastical materials. It was the duty of the
Church to pay homage to the saints, through earthly splendor.53 The sixth-century
pope, Gregory the Great, supported the use of devotional imagery as a pedagogical
tool for the ignorant.54 The proliferation of Christian devotional objects throughout
the medieval epoch is a testament to the spread of Christianity and of the notion that
the saints deserved the most precious materials to commemorate and honor them. The
faithful relied heavily on images to arouse spiritual visions.55 The mystic Angela of
Foligno noted in her Memorial the actual physical manifestations of this relationship
with the divine through imagery: “Whenever I saw the Passion of Christ depicted in
art, I could not bear it; a fever would overtake me and I would become sick. For this
reason, my companion carefully hid all picture of the Passion from me.”56 It is evident
here in Angela’s words that the affective communication enacted by the object not
only mentally but physically brought her to the divine. Support for the veneration of
images is evident in several contemporary sermons, heralding the ability of imagery to
inspire religious devotion. A late thirteenth-century Good Friday sermon employed a
crucifix, for example, to stir spiritual passions. “Oh see, Christian, look look! See how
[Jesus] has his head leaning down to kiss you, his arms extended to embrace you!”57
Cult imagery is a modern phrase used to define a diverse group of images whose
function is related to the focus of that devotion.58 What differentiates a cult image
from any other, however, is its role within a cultus. The image of Mary was and
still is a prevalent devotional image. The expansion of her cult in the twelfth cen-
tury saw a dramatic increase in Marian cult imagery.59 Over time, efforts were made
to bring the icon-like static images of the saints into a more natural and animated
state. Dolls of saints, statues, and painted images began to reflect this new state of
the “living matter.”60 Caroline Walker Bynum elaborates on the nature of the living
image when she states that “the image is a complex exploration of inner and outer
viewing” –that is, of “seeing the Eucharistic elements and seeing through them to spir-
itual presence.”61 This belief was felt so deeply that many reported seeing these images
move as if they were the actual saints doing their works here on earth. For instance, in
the case of the fourteenth-century image of the Virgin and Child with Saints Stephen
and Leonard, it was reported in 1484 that a child saw the colossal figure of the Virgin
Mary step out of the image to clean an abandoned prison. Eyewitnesses confirmed
that the figure wept and moved about. Soon after, the bishopric confirmed the event
and built a church around the site.62 In a less animated example, a cover painting from
a municipal accounts book kept by the Office of the Biccherna in Siena illustrates a
more liturgical interaction with the divine image. In Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s
Madonna del Terremoto (1467), the image of Mary comes to life while receiving ven-
eration and an offering of the keys to the city from the people of Siena (Figure 3.2).63
It is observable here that, just as the Virgin Mary was a spiritual intercessory medium
between humans and the divine, the image functioned in much the same way as a
medium and locus for the divine to inhabit here on earth. In returning to McLuhan’s
25
52 Part I
Figure 3.2 Andrea di Niccolò, The Biccherna of Siena Offering the Keys of the City to the
Madonna delle Grazie. Cover of the Biccherna accounts book, 1483. Siena, Archivio
di Stato, Museo delle Tavolette di Biccherne. (Photo: Public Domain).
35

one-liner “the medium is the message,” Robert Logan observes that “a medium has its
own intrinsic effects on our perceptions, which are the medium’s unique message.”64
Channeling the virtù

It is largely understood that liturgical practice is multisensory and multimodal. Sacred
powers of heavenly persons were transferable through the senses, privileging sight,
taste, sound, smell, and touch.65 The transference of the sacred is a phenomenon
studied by scholars including Derek Krueger and Arnold Angenendt.66 In Chapter 1,
I referenced Krueger’s comment on the transfer of holiness through contact, “like a
sacred contagion.”67 He explained that “matter might, in fact, gain its holiness through
mere proximity to holy places where holy events had occurred.”68 Through devotional
practices and transmission through images, the “power of the sacred could be imputed
to objects and thereby transmitted to humans.”69 Laude singing in Italy is an example
of how multiple modes of veneration were harnessed to reach the divine in a similar
transference. Laude spirituale were practiced by lay devotional groups of vernacular
singers, members of merchant confraternities that originated in the thirteenth century
who wished to emulate the practices of the orders. These confraternities were able
to institutionalize their faith in a “professionalized framework.”70 This type of lay
devotion was created to strengthen the relationship between the laity and the divine,
specifically focused on the Madonna.71
The act of devotion accessed the divine power that could be channeled through
an image, thereby using the image to access the divine power or virtue of the saint.72
The laudesi helped conduct ritual services and venerated the Virgin, and were also the
stewards and patrons of many liturgical spaces and objects. It was considered a great
honor to be associated with the great churches of Florence, such as the Duomo or
Orsanmichele. Bernardo Daddi’s Madonna and Child, inserted into the baldachin by
Orcagna in Orsanmichele, is an example of a laudese image still in situ (Figure 3.3).73
Large panels of the Virgin helped the lay singers focus and inspired a spiritual relation-
ship. Laudesi singing in Florence can be traced back to the mid-thirteenth century.74
The only certain and earliest laude artwork of Guido da Siena is a Dominican Virgin
and Christ Child Enthroned, dated to 1221.75 This image is thought to be the model
for another panel made for a Florentine Laude Confraternity, Coppo di Marcovaldo’s
Madonna del Bordone.76 It is important to note here that the title is no coincidence
but a testament to this altarpiece’s devotional history. In Italian, the term bordone
refers to a type of melody or a drone-like accompaniment. It is specifically cited to
have been used in churches by laude singers. Though Vasari refers to this Madonna as
“del Bordone,” Ginna A. Mina argues that the Madonna del Bordone should actually
be named “Madonna del Canto.” The veneration centered on The Rucellai Madonna
(Figure 1.5), thought to have been commissioned by the Compagni di Santa Maria
delle Laude,77 may have “formed the focal point of the devotions and processions
of the Laudesi.”78 Laudesi companies would assemble on Sundays and feast days in
venerative song while the image of the Madonna was revealed to the masses,79 an
action which is mirrored by the relief angels who unveil the Virgin Mary and the Christ
Child (Figure 3.3.2). The connection between song and image here is irrefutable. The
one sustains the other and strengthens the power of the divine through two liturgical
media. Blake Wilson surmises that “only through such a specific, carefully maintained
ritual locus could sacred virtù and human devotion be effectively exchanged.”80 It was
45
54 Part I
Figure 3.3a Andrea Orcagna, Tabernacle, 1359; Bernardo Daddi, Madonna and Child with
Angels, 1347. Florence, Orsanmichele (Photo: Public Domain).
thought that great artistic merit, esteemed patronage, and well-articulated devotion
through singing the Laude solidified this metaphysical relationship with the divine.
Daddi’s Madonna and images like it were used for devotional exercises and as media
on which the people based their devotion. These types of images form the relationship
between medieval imagination and devotion. The participant’s intention of mediation
5
Figure 3.3b Bernardo Daddi, Madonna and Child with Angels (detail) (Photo: Public Domain).
is reflected in the thirteenth-century laude Rayna possentissima whose final stanza

concludes with an appeal for succor:
Recòrdive de l’anima che sta mortificata.

l’alma di vosti Servi ve sia recomendada,
chi ha complì questa ystoria per vuy, vercene sacrata
(Remember the soul that is mortified.

Mary the souls of your Servants be recommended to you,
those who have composed this story for you, Holy Virgin.)81
As I have already discussed, the divine image held great power as a conduit to the saints
and as a vessel to contain the divine here on Earth. Through imaginative devotion, one
could focus squarely on an image or narrative to the point of perceptible immersion.
The act of laude singing was a form of this type of “dwelling” upon the sacred image,
situating the viewer within the sacred space.82 Furthermore, many images of the Virgin
enthroned included musical angels in the act of playing and singing. Through con-
textual imagery and action, the laude singers could more effectively exchange their
earthly space and virtually share it with the metaphysical.
Acoustic space
Another of McLuhan’s key concepts of media was acoustic space. He juxtaposed it
with visual space, although these two concepts are indivisible from each other and,
65
56 Part I
Visual Space Acoustic Space
Sequential Simultaneous
Asynchronous Synchronous
Static Dynamic
Linear Nonlinear
Vertical Horizontal
Left Brain Right Brain
Figure Ground
Tonal Atonal
Container Network
Figure 3.4 Visual vs. Acoustic Space (Table: K. Scherff).
in fact, are inseparable and present within any human situation.83 What is “visual” or
“acoustic” refers not only to sensorial reception but to a structure of space. McLuhan
discussed acoustic space throughout his career with multiple accounts, although his
accounts followed a homogeneous account of the term. He described acoustic space
as an auditory signal which was received from all directions at once; its “character
is dynamic ... in contrast, visual space is static.”84 When considering the context of
ritual and the liturgy itself, acoustic and visual space embody the media function of
the liturgy and its accessories (Figure 3.4). Because its nature is multimodal, acoustic
space harnesses much more than sight and sound. McLuhan defines acoustic space as
infinite, describing it as discontinuous, centering everywhere with margins nowhere.85
I mean space that has no center and no margin, unlike strictly visual space, which
is an extension and intensification of the eye. Acoustic space is organic and inte-
gral, perceived through the simultaneous interplay of all the senses.86
Just as McLuhan hypothesized, acoustic space was rooted in oral tradition whose
character would be conveyed through electronic media like radio, telephone, and tele-
vision.87 He surmised that the natural environment of acoustic space was inhabited
by the non-literate.88 It is then the imagination that dominates acoustic space, not
the written word. If a viewer were to experience the liturgy through text, that viewer
would inhabit a one-dimensional visual space. Like a coaxial cable (as McLuhan
likens it) this structure is linear, just as language is linear. However, in experiencing the
“liveness” of liturgical ritual one finds it to be acoustic, omnidirectional, and dynamic,
much like Wi-Fi (a wireless transmission, as McLuhan refers to it.)89 It is the “live”
Mass which synchronizes the intermodality of liturgical media.
Visitatio Sepulchri
Katherine Schmidt defines virtuality as the act of “making present of something that is
absent.”90 Ever since humankind’s separation from God after the Expulsion of Adam
and Eve, it has been God’s aim to reconcile this absence of the divine from Earth. For
a brief moment God had joined with humankind through his Son. However, Schmidt
notes that, since the Ascension of Christ, the “tension between presence and absence is
just how we have to understand God.”91 It is that “between” space in which liturgical
performance works in tandem with ritual media (image, music, and performance) in
75

order to reconcile the absence of God. Dunbar Ogden discusses Paschal plays and
their use of sepulchri to reconstruct Jerusalem in an act of transformative spatial
transference. In France and Germany, it was a common practice to celebrate Easter
Matins with a reconstruction of the Visitatio Sepulchri where, according to biblical
scripture, the three Marys find the tomb of Christ empty.92 In several instances this
ritual performance was accompanied by procession. In McLuhan’s “tetrads” from
the Laws of Media, acoustic space is described as “all the senses at once,” that is,
“simultaneous, resonant, multilocational.”93 Candlelight processions would, in some
cases, emerge from the choir and be accompanied by three Marys who approached a
constructed sepulchre. They took a similar route to the ordinary procession recounted
by Jacqueline Jung.94 Liturgical music often accompanied these scenes to affirm, in
a narrative-like fashion, the events which unfolded before the viewers.95 Peter and
John would then process forward to also confirm the empty sepulchre. The crumpled
linens of the funerary shroud would then be displayed to the people and the proces-
sion would return to the choir and chancel to unveil precious church relics at the altar,
thereby affirming the historical strength and continuity of the faith.96 Though many
accounts of these types of plays are available to us only in fragments, they do seem to
be consistent in their format.
Ogden describes French customs with their slight variations and concludes that
much variation is determined by the space and location of the performance. For
instance, the church sepulchres of France were often positioned at the main altar,
extending the miracle of the Visitatio closer to the onlookers and better integrating
them into the narrative.97 Inherent here is a sense of spiritual locality. By enacting
the Paschal play within the space of a church, the performance relocated the Holy
Sepulchre to the locus of that church through visual association. Thus, as the laity and
clergy bore witness to the unfolding events, they assumed the role of the spectators
who received the “glad tidings” of Christ’s Resurrection. Furthermore, any procession
or other ceremonial movements from the three Marys, Peter, or John also transferred
the spatiality of the events which unfolded in Jerusalem to the locus of the church.
This spatiotemporal modality, described by Lars Elleström, transformed the entire
space of the earthly church to a locus of the divine. Any reference to the old Jerusalem
within a church setting solidified the promise of a new Heavenly Jerusalem. Therefore,
at that moment of theatrical reenactment, the laity and clergy are connected not only
to a holy site but to a virtual heaven, as “virtuality” is making present what is absent.98
Angels in the architecture

This ceremonial connection with heaven and Jerusalem is not unique to the few
instances discussed above, but occurred in many other feast- day and liturgical
celebrations across Europe. For instance, Carolyn Marino Malone, in her essay
“Architecture as Evidence for Liturgical Performance,” recounts the choral and pro-
cessional utilization of church architecture and images where, in the case of Salisbury
Cathedral’s Palm Sunday procession, the clergy would pass choir members, who were
hidden behind carved angels while singing the Gloria laus and other songs of angelic
praise, generating a multisensory simultaneity of an acoustic space. Seemingly, this
practice mediated the earthly and the spiritual voice.99 This was also achieved through
the building of choir scaffolding along the westwork exteriors of church façades,
thereby elevating and amplifying the voices.100
85
58 Part I
Malone also discusses the type of staging employed on Palm Sunday in Dijon. At
the former abbey of Saint-Bénigne (cathedral since 1792), elevated voices sang the
Gloria laus as a procession passed beneath a twelfth-century tympanum depicting the
Maiestas domini (Christ in Majesty).101 Of what remains of the original Romanesque
design, one can still observe two angels that would have flanked the Maiestas domini.102
Iconographically, this image presided over the entering viewer as a reminder of the
Second Coming of Christ and encouraged the faithful to look eastward to the conch of
the apse for the Savior’s return. According to Saint-Bénigne’s third customary, the pro-
cession was received by singers staged in the nave. “While the procession is entering
the church, these singers intoned the Gloria laus … when finished … the procession
mounted to the choir.”103 The stanzas of the Gloria laus read:
Thou art the King of Israel,

Thou David’s royal Son,
Who in the Lord’s name comest,
The King and blessed One.
The company of angels

Are praising thee on high,
And mortal men and all things
Created make reply.
The people of the Hebrews

With palms before thee went;
Our praise and prayer and anthems
Before thee we present.104
In “Architecture as Evidence for Liturgical Performance,” Carolyn Marino Malone

unpacks these metaphorical theatrics: “as the procession passed beneath this visual
reference to heaven and entered the church, the earthly equivalent of the Heavenly
Jerusalem, the congregation heard the angel’s song of praise.”105 The congregation
was then welcomed by the elevated voices, perceptibly from heaven, joining the “com-
pany of angels” referenced in the Gloria laus and represented visually in the portal
(Figure 3.5). Additionally, McLuhan’s “tetrad” on acoustic space includes a quote
from Jacques Lusseyran’s And There Was Light. The excerpt reads:
most surprising of all was the discovery that sounds never came from one point
in space, and never retreated into themselves. There was the sound, its echo, and
another sound into which the first sound melted and to which it had given birth,
altogether an endless procession of sounds.106
One can imagine a similar experience during the performance of the liturgy to what
McLuhan found so affecting in Lusseyran’s description. In the instance of Saint-Bénigne,
through collaborative ritual, object, and music, the viewer was able to commune with
the divine in a state of relative transparency enveloped in acoustic space.
These cases presented by Wilson, Ogden, and Malone demonstrate how ritual cele-
bration and veneration was a multimodal event in which each individual liturgical
medium had a divine purpose. When the senses are cooperatively assembled efficiently
and effectively, they are exponentially experienced “all at once.”107 These media were
newgenrtpdf
95
Figure 3.5 Remains of the original twelfth-century portal –Maiestas domini. Former Abbey of Saint-Bénigne, Dijon, France.
The inner arch decorated with leaves and eight columns with capitals with vegetal decoration are among the features
retained from the Romanesque façade. The tympanum is from the nineteenth century (Photo: Public Domain).
06
60 Part I
joined together to amplify the body or the senses. Through the individual examinations
of these modes and, later, their cooperative employment, it is clear that this is a matter
of perception, due to the ontology of sacred materiality. Dirk-Martin Grube observes
that the “ontological features of the objects [or performance] being interpreted deter-
mine the ‘appropriateness of styles of interpretation’.”108 This is no less true in the
instances discussed above. The conclusion is that, in nearly any situation regarding
sacred acts, rituals, or objects, it is a matter for the viewers to understand and use
them to their advantage. An object, procession, or song is not inherently sacred but
is governed by certain doctrinal principles and the beliefs of the faithful. Here, and in
most instances, those ontological features of sacred ritual and object mediate between
the physical and metaphysical and act as a bridge that can be closed and opened by
viewer perception. To reconcile the tension between absence and presence, the medi-
eval Church virtually mediated the divine presence of God through liturgical per-
formance. Because it is a multimodal and multisensory happening, it harnessed the
simultaneity of acoustic space. Perhaps Berengar would have been more comfortable
contemplating the nature of the Eucharist as media. In this frame of thinking, there is
no issue with the particularity of the essence of the Eucharist and its mystical nature.
Notes
1 It is important to understand here that the nature of the Eucharist was a point of debate for
many centuries before the Berengar-Lanfranc controversy. The first treatise on the Christian
ritual was written in 831–833 by the monk of Corbie, Pascasius Radbertus. The monk
maintained that the Eucharist upon the altar table was indeed the same body of Christ that
was broken on the cross. Charles M. Radding and Francis Newton, Theology, Rhetoric,
and Politics in the Eucharistic Controversy, 1078–1079: Alberic of Monte Cassino against
Berengar of Tours (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 3–4.
2 Michal Kobialka, “Staging Place/ Space in the Eleventh- Century Monastic Practices,”
in Medieval Practices of Space, Barbara A. Hanawalt and Michal Kobialka, eds.
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 133. In 1059 Berengar was summoned
by Pope Nicholas II. He was forced to accept a statement written by Cardinal Humbert
of Silva Candida in support of the belief in a spiritual and physical transformation of the
Eucharist during transubstantiation. Radding and Newton, Theology, Rhetoric, and Politics,
6. “I, Berengar, ... believe that the bread and wine which are laid on the altar are after consecra-
tion not only a sacrament but also the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and they
are physically taken up and broken in the hands of the priest and crushed by the teeth of the
faithful, not only sacramentally but in truth.” [Ego Berengarius ... mihi que firmavit; scilicet
panem et vinum quae in altari ponuntur, post consecrationem non solum sacramentum, sed
etiam verum corpus et sanguinem Domini nostri Jesu Christi esse, et sensualiter non solum
Sacramento, sed in veritate manibus sacerdotum tractari, frangi et fidelium dentibus arteri.]
Lanfranc, De corpore et sanguine Domini, Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Latina, ed.
Jacques-Paul Migne, 221 vols. (Paris: Gamier Fratres, 1884), 150: 410 D-n A. The English
text is quoted in Gary Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period: A
Study of the Salvific Function of the Sacrament According to the Theologians c. 1080–c.1220
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1984), 36.
3 Radding and Newton, Theology, Rhetoric, and Politics, 6.
4 [Per consecrationem altaris fiunt panis et vinum sacramenta religionis, non ut desinant
esse quae errant, sed ut sint quae in aliud commutentur.] R.B.C. Huygens, ed. Beringerius
Turonensis Rescriptum Contra Lanfrannum. Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio
Mediaevalis vol. 84A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1988), 183. The text is quoted in Radding and
16

Newton, Theology, Rhetoric, and Politics, 11. This of course conflicted with Pascasius’ the-
ology of the Eucharist.
5 Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist, 38.
6 Radding and Newton, Theology, Rhetoric, and Politics, 14. For more on the controversy and
Berengar’s definitions see N.M. Haring, “Berengar’s Definitions of Sacramentum and their
Influences on Medieval Sacramentology,” Medieval Studies 10 (1948): 109–146; Shimon
Levy, ed., “Holy Space and Representational Place in the Tenth Century,” in Theatre and
Holy Script (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1999), 11–21; Shimon Levy, ed., This is
My Body: Representational Practices in the Early Middle Ages (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1999), chapter I; H. Chadwick, “Ego Berengarius,” Journal of Theological
Studies 40 (October 1989): 414–445; Macy, The Theologies of the Eucharist, 35–43 for the
description of the actions undertaken by Pope Nicholas II.
7 Kobialka summed up the Berengar controversy in a similar way; however, he said
“represents” instead of “be” which is a big distinction when it comes to the Real Presence
of Christ in the Eucharist. Kobialka, “Staging Place/Space,” 133.
8 Gary Macy, “Theology of the Eucharist,” in A Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle
Ages, eds. Ian Levy et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 371.
9 Katherine Schmidt and Derek C. Hatch, “The Power of Virtual Space,” College Theology
Society Annual Volume 62 (2016): 191.
10 Origins furnished by the Oxford English Dictionary, 2019 https://en.oxforddictionaries.
com/defi nition/liturgy.
11 Marshall McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message,” in McLuhan Unbound, ed. W.T. Gordon
(Corte Madera, CA: Ginkgo Press, 2005), 6 and 8. Reprinted from Forum (Spring 1960).
13 McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message,” 7.
14 Raiford Guins, “The Present Went This- A-
Way: Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding
Media: The Extensions of Man @ 50,” Journal of Visual Culture 13, no. 1 (April 2014): 3.
See: McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1994).
15 See the Journal of Visual Culture 13, no. 1 (April 2014).
16 McLuhan and B.R. Powers, The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media
in the 21st Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 87.
17 Lars Elleström, “Media, Modalities, and Modes,” in Media Borders, Multimodality and
Intermediality, ed. Lars Elleström (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 18.
18 Sigurd Kvœrndrup, “ ‘Media’ before ‘Media’ were Invented: The Medieval Ballad and the
Romanesque Church,” in Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality, ed. L. Elleström,
99–110 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 102.
19 McLuhan, Understanding Media, 57.
20 Norman Mailer, Antigonish Review 74–75 (Autumn 1988): 117.
21 McLuhan, “The New Education,” The Basilian Teacher 11, no. 2 (1967): 66–73.
22 “There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no
salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and
blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine;
the bread being changed (transsubstantiatio) by divine power into the body, and the wine
into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He
has received of us. And this sacrament no one can except the priest who has been duly
ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the
Apostles and their successors.” “Canon 1,” The Council of Trent: The Canons and Decrees
of the Sacred Oecumenical Council of Trent, trans. J. Waterworth (London: Dolman, 1848).
http://www.documenta catholicaomnia.eu/03d/1545-1545,_Concilium_Tridentinum,_Can
ons_And_Decrees,_EN.pdf. The Fourth Lateran Council. Fordham University. Medieval
26
62 Part I
Sourcebook: Twelfth Ecumenical Council: Lateran IV 1215. Accessed April 10, 2018.
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/lateran4.asp. Despite this clarity, there were still
theologians who had varying views on what transubstantiation meant and the nature of the
Eucharist.
23 I could discuss at length the Aristotelian concepts of metaphysics that were adopted by
Christian scholars and how the Christian Church determined that, as God is omnipotent
and omnipresent, transubstantiation is a constant. In this instance and from the perception
of the viewing human, these actions must take place in a certain order and at a certain time
for the elements to become the Host. For humankind, God is funneled into a specific time
and space, through transubstantiation, whether or not these are the actual metaphysical
properties of God. Transubstantiation is the conversion of the substance of the Eucharistic
elements into the body and blood of Christ at consecration, only the appearances of bread
and wine still remaining. Luke 22:19: “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks,
he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in
remembrance of me.’ ”
24 Kobialka, “Staging Place/Space,” 136.
25 Friedrich Kittler, Optical Media (Berlin: Polity Press, 2010), 69.
27 Robert Logan, “Figure/Ground: Cracking the McLuhan Code,” E-compós 14, no. 3, (Sept/
Dec 2011): 2.
28 Marshal McLuhan, eds. Matie Molinaro et al., Letters of Marshall McLuhan
(Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1987), 23.
29 Logan, “Figure/Ground,” 2.
30 Eric Nolden, “1969 The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan,” Playboy Magazine (March
1969), 30. Reprinted in Canadian Journal of Communication (December 1989): 134–137.
31 Jacqueline E Jung, “Beyond the Barrier: The Unifying Role of the Choir Screen in Gothic
Churches,” The Art Bulletin 82, no. 4 (2000): 629.
32 Simone Roux, Paris in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2009), 105.
33 John Howe, Before the Gregorian Reform: The Latin Church at the Turn of the First
Millennium (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2016), 161–171; Carolyn
Marino Malone, “Architecture as Evidence for Liturgical Performance,” in Understanding
Medieval Liturgy, eds. Helen Gittos and Sarah Hamilton (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2016): 207–238.
34 Howe, Before the Gregorian Reform, 116–117; Louis I. Hamilton, A Sacred City. Consecrating
Churches and Reforming Society in Eleventh- Century Italy (Manchester: Manchester
35 William Mahrt, “Acoustics, Liturgy, and Architecture,” in Music, Dance, and
Society: Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Memory of Ingrid G Brainard, ed. Ann
Buckley et al. (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2011), 255.
36 Craig Wright, Music and Ceremony at Notre Dame of Paris 500–1550 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989), 11.
37 Kvœrndrup, “ ‘Media before ‘Media’ were Invented,” 102.
38 Christopher Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, 1066– 1550
(New York: Routledge, 1997), 100.
39 Jung, “Beyond the Barrier,” 649.
40 Mahrt, “Acoustics, Liturgy, and Architecture,” 255.
41 It is important to note that, even though not all churches are oriented east–west, the “litur-
gical” layout of the church is consistently oriented east–west.
42 Schmidt and Hatch, “The Power of Virtual Space,” 189.
43 Schmidt and Hatch, “The Power of Virtual Space,” 189–190.
44 Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1999), 31.
36

48 How much of the Mass is sung still varies today, with little specific comment, in high litur-
gical churches. Many thanks to John Howe who confirmed this by email correspondence.
49 Lucian Deiss, Visions of Liturgy and Music for a New Century (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical
Press, 1996), 165.
50 Jean-Yves Leloup, Being Still: Reflection on an Ancient Mystical Tradition (New York: Paulist
Press, 2003), 77–78.
52 Howe, Before the Gregorian Reform, 113.
53 Howe, Before the Gregorian Reform, 115–116.
54 Gregory the Great, “Ep. 9.209,” in The Letters of Gregory the Great vol. 3, ed. and trans.
John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2004), 745–746;
Corpus Christianorum, series Latina 140, 874: Nam quod legentibus scriptura, hoc idiotis
praestat pictura cernentibus.
55 Cordelia Warr, “Re-reading the Relationship Between Devotional Images, Visions, and the
Body,” Viator 38, no. 1 (2007): 217.
56 C. Mazzoni, ed., and J. Cirignano, trans., Angela of Foligno’s “Memorial” (Cambridge:
Brewer, 1999), 32.
57 Ha! Veroi chrestin, regarde, regarde, comment il a le chief encline por toi beisier, les bras
estendu por toi embrachier! Sermon from the “Passion” rubric in a collection of distinctions
collected by Raoul de Chateauroux, based on the notes from sermons delivered in 1272–
73 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16482, fols. 136r–141v). Transcribed
from Marie Anne Polo De Beaulieu, “Nicole Bériou. L’Avènement Des Maîtres De La
Parole, La Prédication à Paris Au XIIIe Siècle. Paris, Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, Série
Moyen Âge Et Temps Modernes-31/32, 1998, 954 p.” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales
58, no. 6 (2003): 1424–1426. A discussion concerning looking at devotional images as
expressed through sermons is seen in Sara Lipton, “ ‘The Sweet Lean of His Head’: Writing
about Looking at the Crucifix in the High Middle Ages,” Speculum 80, no. 4 (October,
2005): 1172–1208. Also see L.G. Duggan, “Was Art Really the ‘Book of the Illiterate’?”
Word and Image (1989): 227–251.
58 Søren Kaspersen, “Introduction,” in Images of Cult and Devotion: Function and Reception
of Christian Images of Medieval and Post-medieval Europe, eds. Søren Kaspersen, Ulla
Hasstrup, and R.E. Greenwood (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2004), 11.
59 This was brought on by several monastic reforms in the Romanesque period including
monastic, especially Cistercian, interpretation of the Old Testament with Marian prefig-
uration. Diane J. Reilly, “Bernard of Clairvaux and Christian Art,” in A Companion to
Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. Brian Patrick McGuire (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 299. Examples of
these types are discussed in the introductory chapter.
60 Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011), 107.
62 Bynum, Christian Materiality, 106–107. For a full account of the happening see Erik Thunø,
“The Miraculous Image and the Centralized Church: Santa Maria della Consolazione in
Todi,” in The Miraculous Image in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance: Papers from
a Conference Held at the Accademia di Danimara in Collaboration with the Bibliotheca
Hertziana (Max-Planck Institut für Kunstgeschichte) Rome, 31 May –2 June 2003, ed.
Erik Thunø and G. Wolf (Rome: Bretschneider, 2004), 33; Robert Maniura, “The Images
and Miracles of Santa Maria delle Carceri,” in The Miraculous Image in the Late Middle
Ages and Renaissance: Papers from a Conference Held at the Accademia di Danimarca in
Collaboration with the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max-Planck Institut für Kunstgeschichte)
Rome, 31 May –2 June 2003, ed. Erik. Thunø G. Wolf (Rome: Bretschneider, 2004), 81–96.
46
64 Part I
Bynum notes that there are several sources of this type of happening in other countries,
including Spain, Italy, and Wales (Bynum, Christian Materiality, 324).
63 Keith Christiansen, Laurence B. Kanter, and Carl Brandon Strehlke, Painting in Renaissance
Siena, 1420–1500 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 316; Diana Norman, Siena and
the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1999), 25–26.
64 Robert Logan, “Figure/Ground: Cracking the McLuhan Code,” 7.
65 Angenendt specifically discusses the concept of the transference of sacred power through
touch: Arnold Angenendt, “Relics and Their Veneration,” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints,
Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, eds. Martina Bagnoli et al. (New Haven, CT: Yale
66 Derek Kruger, “The Religion of Relics in Late Antiquity and Byzantium,” in Treasures
of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, 5–18, ed. Martina Bagnoli
et.al. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 5–18; Angenendt, “Relics and Their
Veneration,” 19–28.
67 Kruger, “The Religion of Relics,” 5.
68 Kruger, “The Religion of Relics,” 5.
69 Blake Wilson, Music and Merchants: The Laudesi Companies of Republican Florence
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 183.
73 Brendan Cassidy, “Orcagna’s Tabernacle in Florence: Design and Function,” Zeitschrift
für Kunstgeschichte 55, no. 2 (1992): 180–211; Gert Kreytenberg, Orcagna’s Tabernacle
in Orsanmichele, Florence (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994); Diana Norman, “The
Glorious Deeds of the Commune: Civic Patronage of Art,” in Siena, Florence and Padua: Art,
Society and Religion 1280–1400, ed. D. Norman, vol. 1 Interpretive Essays (New Haven,
CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 132–153, esp. 144–153; Carl B. Strehlke,
Orsanmichele and the History and Preservation of the Civic Monument (Washington,
DC: National Gallery, 2012), 244–256.
74 Joanna Cannon, “Simone Martini, the Dominicans, and the Early Sienese Polyptych,”
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982): 76.
75 Diana Norman, Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, 1260–1555 (New Haven,
CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 53.
76 Norman, Painting in Late Medieval, 53.
77 George Bent, Public Painting and Visual Culture in Early Republican Florence
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 68.
78 Cannon, “Simone Martini, the Dominicans,” 76 fn. 55.
81 Brian K. Reynolds, Gateway to Heaven: Marian Doctrine and Devotion, Image and
Typology in the Patristic and Medieval Periods, vol. 1 (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press,
2012), 229; Rosanna Bettarini, “Jacopone da Todi e le Laude,” in Antologia della poesia
italiana, ed. Cesare Segre and Carlo Ossola, 3 vols. (Turin: Einaudi-Gallimard, 1997), 278–
332. The text can be found published online by “Rayna Possentissima: Lauda delle Serve
della Vergine di Bologna,” Treccani Magazine. (accessed June 27, 2019). http://www.trecc
ani.it/magazine/strumenti/una_poesia_al_giorno/06_21_Lauda_d._Servi_d._Verg.html. For
a complete edition of Jacopone da Todi’s 98 laude with English translation see Evelyn
Underhill, Jacopone da Todi: Poet and Mystic –1228–1306. A Spiritual Biography, trans.
Theodore Beck (London and Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1919).
83 McLuhan, Laws of Media, 33. McLuhan and Powers, The Global Village, 6 and 55.
56

84 McLuhan and Powers, The Global Village, 74.
86 McLuhan, “The Playboy Interview.” It has been modestly redacted and slightly edited
(by Phillip Rogaway) for use in UC Davis’ ECS 188, “Ethics in an Age of Technology.” In
Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1989), 74, McLuhan defines acoustic space as “the basic char-
acter of a sphere whose focus or center is simultaneously everywhere and whose margin is
nowhere ... Acoustic space is dynamic; it has no fixed boundaries. It is space created by the
method or process itself. In contrast, visual space is static and container-like, with a fixed
center and margin.”
87 Emma Findlay-White and Robert K Logan, “Acoustic Space, Marshall McLuhan and
Links to Medieval Philosophers and Beyond: Center Everywhere and Margin Nowhere,”
Philosophies (September 1, 2016): 162–169, 162.
92 The Visitatio Sepulchri play is based on a contemporary description and archaeological evi-
dence provided by Archbishop Lanfranc’s c. 1070 conjectural plan of the Saxon Cathedral
Church of Canterbury prior to 1067. Dunbar Ogden, “The Use of Architectural Space in
Medieval Music-Drama,” Comparative Drama 8, no. 1 (1974): 64–65.
93 McLuhan and Powers, The Global Village, 160–161.
94 Jung, “Beyond the Barrier,” 629.
95 Ogden, “The Use of Architectural Space,” 70.
98 Schmidt and Hatch define virtuality as “the making present of something that is absent.”
Schmidt and Hatch, “The Power of Virtual Space,” 191.
99 Malone, “Architecture as Evidence,” 230. This French practice naturally is quite similar to
the laudesi alignment with heavenly choirs depicted in Marian imagery.
100 Malone, “Architecture as Evidence,” 228.
101 Malone, “Architecture as Evidence,” 223. The portal of the façade preserves what remains
of the Romanesque parts of the tympanum from the twelfth century which was damaged
during the French Revolution. The current tympanum of St. Stephen is from the nineteenth
century and comes from the old Saint-Etienne church. http://www.bourgogneromane.com/
edifices/dijon.htm
103 Louis Chomton, Histoire de l’église de S Bénigne de Dijon (Dijon: Jobard, 1990), 403–
404: Et dum processio in ecclesiam venerit, illi cantors simul incipient Gloria laus, quem
versum simul conventus reincipit et finit sedentibus cuntis … Quo finit, simul incipient
resp. Ingrediente Domino, tunc ascendit processio in chorum.
108 Dirk- Martin Grube, “Characteristic Features of the Interpretation of Religious
Texts: Applying Lamarque’s and Krausz’s Theorizing on Interpretation to Religion,”
in Interpretation and Meaning in Philosophy and Religion, ed. Dirk- Martin Grube
(Boston: Brill, 2016), 119.
6
76
Part II
86
96
4 Religious Technology and the

Vierge Ouvrante
The previous two chapters explored ritual objects and performances in terms of their
functions as media. I now turn to the concept of ritual objects as technology. Often
technology and media are examined together because frequently media are chan-
neled through technology. The discussion in previous chapters has made it clear that a
medium can be the “intervening substance that can amplify, convey, or channel a force
or power, which in turn influences the object or person on which that force acts.”1
Technology is the set of skills whereby tools are often employed to achieve a task. Just
as artistic media and communicative media have similar traits, technology and media
also share similar characteristics. I define technology as it pertains to a unique type of
medieval object, the Vierge ouvrante (or “opening Virgin”). The Vierge ouvrante is a
unique design of the “Madonna and Child,” and is often called a “Shrine Madonna”
(Figure 4.2). Although these objects have been extensively researched, the scholarship
has largely focused on formal analysis of the figures, their provenance, iconography,
and origins according to textual evidence. Recently these objects have been explored
in terms of their social significance, using divergent methodologies including perform-
ance theory and social metaphor. However, it is also necessary to examine them as
manifestations of technology. Their various gears, hinges, and dynamic movement are
in fact a religious technology and a practical technology permeating everyday life.2
Finally, I employ actor–network theory (ANT) as a point of technological discussion
because it focuses on the connections between human and non-human entities, on
which a lot of religious objects and performative devotion are centered. Religion and
technology collide as separate but equally important agents in the Vierges ouvrantes.
As discussed in the introduction, the mendicant orders were an instrumental force
in shaping Marian imagery in Italian altarpieces of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies.3 These orders were responsible for establishing types within the genre of religious
imagery. Among the Madonna types and variations of cult statuary, relief sculpture,
tabernacles, and panel paintings are remarkable and distinct types of Marian devo-
tional objects. These images are difficult to categorize as a specific Madonna type and
stand apart as novel “shrines” of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They are rather
small in size, approximately three to four feet high. Though they may first appear to be
traditional cult statues, upon closer inspection of individual examples, the viewer may
notice a seam that usually runs along the length of Mary. The body of Mary opens like
a winged altarpiece to reveal the mysterious secrets of the Lady within. Once opened,
a variety of imagery is revealed to the viewer, ranging from references to the three con-
substantial persons of the Trinity to narrative scenes of the Joys and Sorrows of Mary.
The way her arms open to create a kind of tri-formed configuration parallels other
DOI: 10.4324/9781003305279-7
07
70 Part II
thirteenth-century Marian tabernacles and winged altarpieces. By the fifteenth cen-
tury, they were found across Europe, including Poland, much of the Low Countries,
and England.4 Gudrun Radler, in her comprehensive catalog of these figures, Die
Schreinmadonna (1990), made an inventory of 43 Vierges ouvrantes.5 Melissa Katz,
in her dissertation Interior Motives: The Vierge ouvrante/Triptych Virgin in Medieval
and Early Modern Iberia, nearly doubled that number. She argued for the inclusion
of other similar Virgin “triptychs” from sixteenth-century Spain and the Americas.6
These sculptures are thought to have originated in the Iberian Peninsula, where nearly
a third are housed.7
Devotion to the Mother of Christ spread throughout medieval Europe and became
a visual trope. Her popularity in veneration and spirituality is evident in many of
the medieval arts. The Golden Madonna of Essen, c. 1000, is an early example of a
Marian cult statue (Figure 4.1). A gold-plated and bejeweled surface conveys a heav-
enly presence, typical of the Ottonian and Romanesque approaches to Marian sculp-
ture. Affinity for the Queen of Heaven propagated her popularity and established the
veneration of her as an archetype of motherly love which was represented in many
modes of devotion including text and song, such as the twelfth-century antiphons Alma
redemptoris mater and Salve Regina.8 In his thirty-ninth sermon for the Annunciation
of the Lord, the Cistercian abbot of Yorkshire, Aelred of Rievaulx (1110–1167),
praised Mary for her ultimate life of chastity by comparing her virtues to the trees
of paradise.9 The Cistercian order was particularly devoted to the Blessed Mother
and many of their monasteries were dedicated to her. Lady chapels, cathedrals, and
manuscripts were all created in the Virgin’s name.10 Vierge sculptures are often carved
in wood or ivory and polychromed. They are also known to be ornamented with gold
and jewels. French kings were among their owners.11
Vierges were steeped in controversy because of the Trinity content found within
the interior body of Saint Mary. These contained the entirety of the Godhead within,
reflecting a dogmatic perception of Mary as a doorway penetrated only by the Holy
Spirit. Appealing to a broader audience, the Castilian poet Gonzalo de Berceo (1190–
1264) described in vernacular this happening with a metaphor of a firmly shut door
through which only Christ could pass:
La puerta bien cerrada que diz Ecechiel,

a ti significava que siempre fust fïel;
port ti passó señero el Señor d’Israel,
e d’esto es testigo el ángel Gabrïel.12
Of the Shrine Madonnas that are preserved today several are damaged or have missing
components. Shrine Madonnas of the Trinitarian genre are often missing one or two
members of the Trinity. These specific figures were troubling to the sixteenth-century
Church, who sometimes deemed them heretical, a significant idea that I will revisit.
A Prussian Vierge from the fifteenth century, when opened, reveals a Throne of Grace
(Figure 4.3). Across the Lady’s lap the entire Godhead is carved in relief as if within
her womb. This visual metaphor of the entire Trinity having resided in the Virgin’s
womb during her miraculous pregnancy was condemned and ultimately banned by
Pope Benedict XIV in 1745.13 A Vierge from the early fourteenth-century Rhine Valley
reveals a less abstracted inference to the gestational inhabitants of Mary’s womb
(Figure 4.2). Here her entire body appears to be scooped away; a deep cavern of
17
Religious Technology and the Vierge Ouvrante 71
Shrine of the Virgin, c. 1300. Oak, linen covering, polychromy, gilding, gesso.
Figure 4.1
From Rhine Valley, Germany. Now in New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
17.190.185a,b (Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art).
27
72 Part II
Figure 4.2 The Golden Madonna, c. 1000. Wood and gold leaf. Treasury of Essen Cathedral,
North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany (Photo: Public Domain).
her body holds a seated figure of God holding a cross which is stamped with a small
incised Eucharistic wafer. The figures of the Holy Spirit and Christ are now lost, and
presumed victims of the post-Tridentine Church.14 Many Vierges are constructed simi-
larly. The Salamanca and Allariz Virgen abrideras, for example, are thirteenth-century
Life of Mary examples with shared aesthetics and construction (Figures 4.4). Raised on
37
Shrine Madonna, fifteenth century. Wood polychrome. From Prussia. Now in

Figure 4.3
Paris, Musée national du Moyen Âge, Thermes de Cluny (Inv.nr.Cl. 12060) (Photo:
Courtesy of RMN-Grand Palais [musée de Cluny –musée national du Moyen Âge] /
Michel Urtado).
47
74 Part II
Figure 4.4 Virgen abrideras de Allariz, third quarter of the thirteenth century. Traces of gilding
and polychromy on wood. From Aragon, Spain. Now in Allariz (Orense), Museo
de Arte Sacro del Real Monasterio de Santa Clara. Inv. 1 (Photo: Public Domain).
a drum-like pedestal, a Madonna and Child smile outward toward the viewer. When
opened, the Allariz Virgin reveals three registers of nine cells which include various
scenes from the Life of Mary, including the Coronation of the Virgin and the Virgin’s
Ascension.15 Although there are several features missing from the Salamanca Virgen,
57

a discernible Coronation of the Virgin is legible in the center of the first register.16 It is
also likely that the third register would have featured a Nativity, similar to the Allariz.
By comparing similarly constructed Vierges, many damaged and lost components
of the Shrine Madonna can be accurately reconstructed and grouped with similar
Madonnas. The specific taxonomies of these figures were examined by Gudrun Radler
and are discussed in terms of their “themes.”17 These include the Passion, Life of Mary,
and Trinity types.18 The Boubon Virgin is an example of the Passion type, whereby
the Madonna becomes the “shrine of the redemption mystery” (Figure 4.5).19 Seated
on a trefoil plinth, this small ivory features a seated Virgin holding a Christ Child.
When opened she reveals relief narratives presented in descending order. On the left
wing: Christ before Pilate, Carrying the Cross, the Flagellation, and Saint Mark the
Evangelist. On the right wing, there is the Ascension, Three Women at the Tomb,
Noli me tangere, and Saint Luke the Evangelist. Within the open head of Mary, a
Christ in Glory is seated, flanked by two angels. The center panel within Mary’s torso
features a crucified Christ surrounded by angels, the Virgin, Saint John the Evangelist
and, below, an Entombment with the Evangelists Matthew and John. The suffering
of Christ seems to sprout from the Nativity scene tucked into the plinth below. Christ
bursts forth from his mother’s body in two ways, through his actual birth recounted in
the Nativity and as the Madonna Shrine is physically opened, revealing Christ’s body
delivered to the cross.
The Rhine Valley Shrine (c. 1300) and the Vierge ouvrante from Morlaix
(c. 1390) are examples of Trinity types (Figures 4.2 and 4.6). The relationship and
mystery of motherhood and Mary herself collide to form this controversial type.
The closed Morlaix shrine is a seated Maria Lactans, dressed in flowing robes. The
ultimate miracle of the Incarnation, however, is fully illustrated when the shrine is
opened. Dressed in gold robes, a figure of God the Father holds a suffering Christ
on the Cross. The inclusion of a Dove above the pair creates a Trinity of the entire
Godhead. The Virgin’s body is carved out like a well, illustrating her purpose as the
miraculous vessel of Christ. Mary’s opened wings are painted with six narrative cells.
The left depicts the Joys of Mary including the Annunciation, Nativity, and Christ’s
Presentation in the Temple. The right includes an abbreviated Passion of Christ’s
Flagellation, Resurrection, and the Harrowing of Hell. Life of Mary and Trinity types
often share classifications. The Morlaix Vierge, for instance, can also be discussed
in terms of a Life of Mary type as well. What distinguishes the two, however, is the
central sculptural body of the Trinity. The Madonna of Allariz is an exemplar of the
Life of Mary type. In its opened state, the narrative scenes of the Incarnation and
the Passion of Christ are analogous with assistance in salvation. According to Radler,
this is achieved through pictorial overlaps of Mary’s participation in Christ’s acts as
redeemer.20
Radler’s and other scholarly discussions of these types of Madonnas largely focus
on this systematic line of interest. They often compare iconographic features and
attempt to explain notable variations by referring to medieval prayers, hymns, cult
associations and devotions. These approaches shaped a discourse around the Vierges
through period writings and reflections on the Virgin Mary, her life, and her participa-
tion in Christian salvation. Although Radler’s research has provided a helpful base and
method for examining these rare and fascinating objects, few mention the metaphor-
ical implications of doorways as existing in-between two spaces, acting as a unifier
or separator between two spaces, an inside and an outside.21 Additionally, previous
67
76 Part II
Figure 4.5 Vierge de Boubon, second quarter of the thirteenth century. Ivory. From the Priory of
the Convent of Boubon, France. Now in Baltimore, MD, Walters Art Museum. Inv.
71.152 (Photo: Courtesy of The Walters Art Museum).
7

scholarship has neglected to focus on the metaphorical designs implemented in the
construction of these Shrine Madonnas or the methodological implications that crit-
ical theory may offer in analysis. Two recent scholars have addressed these important
academic lacunae. Melissa Katz’s 2009 article, “Behind Closed Doors: Distributed
Bodies, Hidden Interiors, and Corporeal Erasure in ‘Vierge ouvrante’ Sculpture,”
addresses concepts of revelation in the viewing of the opened Vierges. Her evaluations
of these sculptures center on the fluctuation and deliberate limitation of the viewer’s
access to the sculpture’s interior scenes, not only through the limitation of actual
viewership, but also through the metaphorical secrecy that is the Virgin’s body. Here
Katz treats the statue’s body as a dynamic complex figure of hidden revelations, which
are obscured by doors that lock the secrets within.22 In terms of access, she cites
eleventh-century texts which refer to the Virgin as a metaphysical doorway or portal
through which it is not easy to pass.23 Katz argues that the visual representations
of those metaphors would not have been lost on the viewer, because there was an
established metaphorical language describing the Virgin’s character and sexual phys-
icality. Therefore, it is no surprise that the interior scenes within the sculpture are
just that; they are scenes and not actual representations of the Virgin’s womb. This
particular methodology, which focused on corporeality, deviates from Gertsman’s
observation for the interior composition and organization making similar reference to
medieval obstetric illustrations of the seven-chambered uterus. Katz’s analysis of the
Vierges describes the viewing experience as titillating for the viewer.
In Elina Gertsman’s 2008 essay, “Performing Birth, Enacting Death: Unstable Bodies
in Late Medieval Devotion,” Gertsman responds to previous scholarship which largely
focuses on comparing formal and iconographic properties of the Shrine Madonnas.
She examines the Morlaix Vierge through the lens of performance theory and by asso-
ciating textual resources found in courtly poetry and vernacular theater.24 She applies
this theoretical scaffolding to the dynamic Madonna structures and asserts that, when
a Shrine Madonna is opened by the clergy, the priest acts not only as a participant in
the divine ritual of revelation and visual consumption but also as a kind of midwife
to assist the Madonna with the difficult delivery of the Christ Child. Just as the priest
acts as a custodian of the Eucharist, he is also the midwife who shepherds the sacred
Eucharist from the divine to the earthly.25 Gertsman also approaches the performance
of Christ’s death envisioned in the Morlaix Vierge. Scenes within the outstretched
arms of the Madonna are themed. The Joys and Sorrows of the Virgin and Christ’s
life are depicted through their cyclical narrative –from Christ’s birth to his Passion
and death, and, ultimately, Resurrection. Therefore, each time the Madonna’s interior
images are revealed to the audience, Christ’s life is also reenacted in a dynamic and
emotional performance. Gertsman claims: “the birth is enacted, not depicted … the
Shrine does not imply but actively performs this very birth, and does this repeatedly
in the hands of a priest.”26 She continues, “[as such] revealing, through the act of
unfastening, that [the Vierge] becomes transformed into an all-subsuming womb.”27
The womb of which Gertsman speaks is the very stage on which the performance
is enacted. She describes Mary’s womb as a seven-chambered vessel and refers to
obstetric illustrations from the early sixteenth century.28 Like the Holy Land relic
discussed in the previous chapter, these concepts are fundamentally difficult to com-
prehend which is why medieval materiality manifests these intricacies through visual
storytelling. This “visualized theology”29 is an “unfolding drama” that intersects with
the viewer’s body.30 As the priests are cast as the midwife, the viewers are also drafted
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into the biblical narrative to bear witness to the miraculous birth of Christ.31 While
early scholarship on these shrines consists of formal analysis which isolates the figures
within their novel genre, Gertsman deviates from this formula by situating the Vierges
within a broader discourse of medieval Marian imagery and objects.32 She argues that
the implication of tactility through visual representation was a large part of the ritual
object’s function. Therefore, the viewer is better able to comprehend the temporal and
haptic characteristics involved in devotion to these objects.
Katz and Gertsman have diversified and expanded the range of investigation
regarding ritual objects and sculpture. These fresh perspectives and critical method-
ology contribute greatly to the corpus of knowledge of the Vierges ouvrantes. Katz’s
corporeal focus on spectator impulse and revealed mysteries steered scholars to view
these Virgin triptychs as endless pathways to the divine. Gertsman combines performa-
tive, clinical, and theological discussions of the Vierges. Her stunning book examines
these sculptures from an anthropological perspective on female anatomy and Mary’s
role as a counter figurehead in the Trinity.33 While several other authors have also
contributed to the scholarship on the Vierges ouvrantes, I focus on Gertsman and
Katz’s works because their research concerns my interest in the power of the medi-
ation of these statues.34
The Vierges are pathways, doors, and divine bodies under the taxonomic cat-
egory of religious technology. To be more specific, they are a technological device
whose power and meaning were harnessed by the priest during religious interaction.
Technology is not an artifact or material object; it is the mechanism that activates the
object. The Vierges ouvrantes are working cogs, in the social, cultural, and religious
process of medieval worship, that was formed by technology in the same way that
technology shapes us today. It is important to note that these religious interactions
were not restricted to a single religious system of what we might call Catholic worship.
They were members of an assemblage of which both human and non-human actors
were a part. This dialogue highlights the way in which the Vierges ouvrantes recreate
themselves through technology embodied within the object, how the Shrine Madonna
stands apart as a religious technology and, when it is activated, how the sum of its
parts joins a larger body of religious and social networks. The Vierges are as infinite
as the variable complexities of the divine mysteries and the social ensembles to which
they belong.
What are the parallels or shared characteristics of a Shrine Madonna and tech-
nology? What is technology? What is religious technology? Can we apply the term
“technology” to objects in the Middle Ages in the same way we apply it today?
These are important questions to answer and clarify when discussing the function
of the Vierge ouvrante as a kind of technology. Many scholars have tried to define
technology. Like media, discussed in the previous two chapters, the term is used to
describe many actions. Its varying components are emphasized differently according
to the discipline using the term. Thomas P. Hughes describes his frustration with the
task by asserting, “technology is messy and complex. It is difficult to define and under-
stand. In its variety, it is full of contradictions, laden with human folly, saved by occa-
sional benign deeds, and rich with unintended consequences.”35 Ian Barbour more
broadly defined technology as the application of organized knowledge to practical
tasks by ordered systems of people and machines.36 Barbour’s definition “reminds us
that there are major differences among technologies.”37 Read Bain maintained, “tech-
nology includes all tools, machines, utensils, weapons, instruments, housing, clothing,
97

communicating and transporting devices and the skills by which we produce and use
them.”38 Peter Thiel, an American internet entrepreneur, wrote, “properly understood,
any new and better way of doing things is technology.”39 One could argue that any
older way of doing a thing, according to Thiel’s definition, would then no longer
be a technology.40 With the many variations of, perhaps flawed, definitions of what
technology could be and their “major differences” it is clear that Thomas Hughes’
forewarning concerning this task is justified. The technology philosopher Val Dusek,
aware of the contradictions, simplified the problem by cataloging technology with
three main characterizations: (a) technology as hardware; (b) technology as rules;
and (c) technology as a system.41 What all these definitions come down to is that
technology is a tool used to supplement or enhance the desires of the user. As per
Gertsman’s earlier discussion of performative enactment, the Vierge ouvrante fulfilled
this role because it supplemented the teleological mysteries surrounding the miracu-
lous birth of Christ.
By contrast, when thinking of technology, the predominant visions are of
automobiles, smartphones, the cotton gin, and jet airplanes. In terms of medieval tech-
nologies, scholars often point to trebuchets, spinning wheels, and gunpowder. This line
of thinking reflects a hardware approach to technology. It is one of the most common
and obvious definitions of technology.42 Technology as a set of rules incorporates
the technique or the application of technology. This characterization introduces the
variations of “software” vs. “hardware.” For instance, the hammer is “hardware,” but
the “rules” or technique of swinging and hitting a nail into a board with the hammer
is “software.” Technology as a system implies that the hammer only functions as such
when it is being used within a human context.43 Therefore, if a hammer were buried
in the desert or if the handle broke rendering it inoperable, it would cease to function
as technology.44
As the practice of defining technology is complex and riddled with varying
emphases like hardware, software, and human context, it is equally difficult to
classify a medieval religious artifact as technology.45 However, the task might be
simpler if the field were narrowed. The Shrine Madonna is a specific type of techno-
logical hardware. Just as a refrigerator is a very specific type of technology, a Shrine
Madonna is a religious technology. These two terms, “religious” and “technology,”
are often viewed as incompatible. In his introductory essay, “Religion, Technology,
and the Things in Between,” Jeremy Stolow notes this dichotomy by observing that
religion and technology are viewed to exist as “two ontologically distinct arenas of
experience, knowledge, and action.”46 Here he explains the assumptions regarding
the ontological differences. Technology is deeply rooted in reason and the tangible,
material, and mechanical. It is in fact disengaged from fantasy and fabrication.
Conversely, religion is intangible and ephemeral. Religion being eeply rooted in
mystery, affect, and ritual, “religion” and “technology” exist more closely as bin-
aries than as complements. The two exist as alternatives, religion, “or” technology.47
However, many binaries are studied in tandem –for example, enchantment and dis-
enchantment. Stolow argues that technology and religion operate not in opposition
but in concert.
Technology –in the enlarged sense of materials, techniques, instruments, and

expertise –forms the gridwork of orientations, operations, and embedded and
embodied knowledges and powers without which religious ideas, experiences,
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and actions could not exist, even if such meditations are denigrated or repressed
in the name of transcendent immediacy (or an unmediated transcendent).48
Stolow’s conclusions are not lost on scholars seeking the shared functions of reli-
gion and technology. This paired concept has been scrutinized by historians,
anthropologists, theologians, and technology theorists alike. David Noble in The
Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention discusses
the influences of religious fundamentalism as a foundation for the widespread enthu-
siasm for technological advances in Western society.49 Additionally, in the essay “The
Power of Virtual Space,” co-authors Katherine G. Schmidt and Derek C. Hatch outline
how technological culture has been and still is subject to Christian theology, media
practices, and methods of worship.50 The anthropologist William H. Walker, in con-
currence with Stolow, surmises that if “religion is the extension of the field of people’s
behavioral interactions with such extra-natural realms, then ritual artifacts could also
be redefined as tools within technologies deployed within those activities.”51
Technology and religion have a close-knit connection to each other as technology
offers to enhance the religious experience, erasing distance to a plane of perceived
immediacy. Vierges ouvrantes function in a similar way. When opened, the funda-
mental material form and function of the Vierges as technology emerges. Shrine
Madonnas are assembled from other preexisting technologies. These assemblages can
be unpacked to reveal the varying technological components of the primary tech-
nology. The Shrine Madonna is an odd kind of nesting doll of technology, for example,
hinges, paintings, and doors, embodying many differing components from previous
genres of art, aesthetics, and types of religious artifacts. As discussed in the begin-
ning of this chapter, a Shrine Madonna is a unique configuration of Madonna-type
artifacts. She is a tabernacle, altarpiece, and cult statue.
Much of the imagery borrowed from cult of Mary archetypes and artifacts are
remediated or “refashioned” into the Vierges ouvrantes.52 For instance, when closed,
the Vierge emulates the cult statue. Like the Golden Madonna of Essen (Figure 4.1),
the Morlaix Vierge is seated on a throne (Figure 4.6–4.6.2). Holding her infant child,
she looks out at the faithful. Offering her breast to the child, she follows the same
archetype of other Maria Lactans images. Additionally, when opened, she emulates
small triptychs and other altarpieces dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, including the
early fourteenth- century altarpiece-tabernacle from Castildelgado whose Marian
figure is now lost (Figure 4.7).53 A retablo tabernacle that has retained its Virgin statue
is the late thirteenth-century retablo-tabernáculo from Múli (Figure 4.8). The folding
wings attached to the central panel can be closed to encapsulate the Marian figure,
emphasizing the performance of revelation and visual consumption. A Madonna and
Child are surrounded by hinged panels. When closed, the Madonna and Christ Child
are contained in a box-like tabernacle, preserving the seated, sacred figures like relics.
The folding shrine dedicated to the Madonna was also a well-established member
of Marian devotional artifacts. Similar to the Shrine Madonna, both in winged con-
struction and decorative narratives, French ivories like the fourteenth-century Folding
Shrine with Virgin and Child and The Life of the Virgin share very similar aesthetic
functions (Figure 4.9 & 4.10).
It is clear then how Vierges ouvrantes encompass many divergent characteristics
of previous ritual objects and technologies, including cult statuary, tabernacles,
triptychs, traditional panel narratives, and relief sculpture. All these components
18
Figure 4.6a Vierge Ouvrante, c. 1390–1400, open. From Morlaix. Now in Eglise St.-Mathieu,
Morlaix (Photo: Jean-Yves Cordier).
28
82 Part II
Figure 4.6b Vierge Ouvrante, c. 1390–1400, closed (Morlaix). Eglise St.-Mathieu, Morlaix

(Photo: Jean-Yves Cordier).
38
Figure 4.7 Retablo-tabernáculo de Castildelgado, now without Marian figure, c. 1300 (Spain).

Museu Frederic Marès in Barcelona (Photo: Justin Kroesen).
have, individually, inhabited similar environments and have been charged with similar
functions in religious ritual. However, the Vierge is an amalgamation of all these types
expressed within a single object.54 This assemblage of technology does not stop at
the surface of the object’s aesthetics. The painted panels were formed by the technique
of panel painting whereby an artist applies paint to a surface. The pigment
itself was formed through the technique of chemical bonding of a painter’s medium
and pigment. The same breakdown could be applied to the techniques of gilding and
relief carving. The shrines are made of preexisting technologies, combined to form a
new technology.
The Vierges evolved from a steady accumulation of characteristics that form the
entire composition. A mysterious object, the Shrine Madonna is a kind of novelty in
the cult of images. There are many variations of cult statues and tabernacles devoted
to Mary, but none are fully realized with similar technological construction. No other
cult statue opens the way these shrines do. And no other Madonna tabernacle has the
Lady Queen’s arms as opening side panels. References to triptych formation and the
Madonna of Mercy (Madonna della Misericordia or schutzmantelmadonna) iconog-
raphy are all recognizable, but the Vierges form a truly novel ritual object.
A Madonna of Mercy is an iconographic trope identifiable as a Mary with
outstretched arms whose mantel covers genuflecting devout believers. The protective
cloak makes reference to the Sancta Camisia, the Virgin’s chemise that was worn
during her pregnancy, and most notably, while she gave birth to her son Jesus Christ.55
48
84 Part II
Figure 4.8 Retablo-tabernáculo de Mule, c 1250 (Iceland). Museo Nacional de Copenhague

(Photo: Justin Kroesen).
The Madonna of the Franciscans is a Misericordia by Italian painter Duccio di

Buoninsegna (c.1255–c.1319) and is one of the earliest examples of the Marian type
whose theme centers on the miraculous cloak (Figure 4.11).56 Here the Virgin shelters
a group of Franciscans under her mantel who, in addition to Mary’s protection,
receive a blessing from the Christ Child. Devotion to the Misericordia spread rapidly
throughout the fourteenth century, solidifying the iconographic genre. Simone Martini
and Lippo Memmi’s Madonna della Misericorida (1308–1310) presents a diversified
community of supplicant believers huddled under Mary’s mantel (Figure 4.12).
The Madonna and her protective mantle spread throughout Italy, France, Germany,
and the rest of Europe. The Ravensburg Madonna of Mercy is a German sculptural
example of this type (Figure 4.13). The theme of these “protective mantle Madonnas”
or Schutzmantelmadonna, is oriented toward the combined power of virginal purity.57
Although these sheltering Madonnas are similar to the Trinity Shrine Madonna, ori-
ginally from the Roggenhausen town chapel, there is a variation in the devotional
imagery (Figure 4.14). There are clear similarities, however, as Gertsman notes that
the dynamism is much more notable in the Vierges ouvrantes. The movement elicits a
performative evocation of the “anatomical potential of the Marian body.”58
As stated above, however, a Vierge ouvrante is a specific type of technology, a reli-
gious technology. She “performs” as software under an assumed set of rules. Consider
the object as a whole. The Shrine Madonna’s purpose is to act as a medium between
two worlds which erases the distance between the sacred and mundane. She opens to
58
Figure 4.9 Folding Shrine with Virgin and Child (open) c. 1325. Elephant Ivory and metal
mounts. Made in France. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Photo: Courtesy
of The Metropolitan Museum of Art).
reveal her secret parts, whereby viewers can venerate and take in her holy narrative
and iconography. She acts as an access point, enhances viewership, and memory. The
Morlaix Vièrge acts as an intercessor on behalf of her son. Even more, she is a point of
contemplation. When closed, Mary offers her breast to the Christ Child, enabling the
viewer to witness the intimate act between Savior and the Blessed Virgin while medi-
tating on her perfect flesh. In addition, the Virgin’s milk itself is an actual metaphoric
trope of intercession known as the Double Intercession.59 A mother’s milk and blood
had congruous parallels within medieval anatomical thought. Additionally, milk from
the breast was viewed as processed blood.60 Therefore, Mary’s breast milk intertwined
with life, birth, and nourishment, both in and outside of the womb. It has also become
an analogous complement to Christ’s blood. In a mid- fifteenth-century altarpiece
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The Life of the Virgin, c. 1325–

Figure 4.10 1350. Ivory, traces of gilding. From France.
Now in Cleveland Museum of Art, purchase from the J.H. Wade Fund 1951.450
(Photo: Courtesy of The Cleveland Art Museum).
78
Figure 4.11 Duccio di Buoninsegna, Madonna of the Franciscans, c. 1255–1319. Tempera on

wood, 13.5 × 16 cm. Franciscan order, from Siena. Now in Pinacoteca Nazionale,
Siena (Photo: Public Domain).
8
88 Part II
Figure 4.12 Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, Madonna della Misericordia, 1308–1309.
Panel, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena (Photo: Public Domain).
98
Michael Erhart (a. 1469–

Figure 4.13 1522 in Ulm), the Ravensburg Madonna of Mercy,
c. 1480. Polychromed limewood (Germany). Now in The Staatliche Museen, Berlin
(Photo: Courtesy of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin).
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90 Part II
Shrine Madonna, c. 1390. Polychrome and gilding on wood. From the

Figure 4.14
Roggenhausen town chapel, Nuremberg. Now in Germanisches Nationalmuseums,
Nuremberg (Photo: Courtesy of the Germanisches Nationalmuseums).
from the School of Konrad Witz in Basel, one can observe this Double Intercessory
type (Figure 4.15). On the right side of the Saint Thomas panel, in front of a rosette-
studded, red tapestry, a kneeling Man of Sorrows and Maria Lactans appear before
God. Christ displays his devotion to God by pointing to his Passion wounds. His chest
wound, punctured by the spear of Longinus, is quite close to the right breast while
the pierced hand seems to rest over the left as if to emulate his mother’s breast. The
two are parallel figures – as Christ’s hand flows with blood, his mother’s breast flows
with milk. Elina Gertsman has observed, “beholders, therefore, secure access to God
by the very act of witnessing the scene at Morlaix: just as the statue re-presents this
vital moment, so do the viewers re-enact, each time they see the statue, the bodies of
sinners whose transgressions are expiated by Mary’s milk.”61 Referring to the previous
chapter and the discussion on Elleström’s modalities of media, the Morlaix
Vierge stands as a corporeal spatiotemporal technology.62 Through her iconographic
narrative, her materiality melts away and exists between time and space where her
actual spatial existence is relative. She is only partially fixed in time; she exists in the
divine and the viewers’ time and space as well as in her own historical timeline.
Stolow and Schiffer’s descriptions of technology and religious technology have
provided valuable and profitable avenues for examining and unpacking the techno-
logical object that is the Vierge ouvrante into its technological parts. However, Schiffer
notes that, because technologies are so deeply fixed in society, “one can take technology
as the dependent or independent variable.”63 In this instance, technology is more than
a sum of artifacts or assemblages of material.64 Frederick Ferré defined technolo-
gies as “practical implementations of intelligence” (with the caveat that “ ‘practical’
requires that they not be wholly ends in themselves; ‘implementations’ entails that a
newgenrtpdf
19
Figure 4.15 School of Konrad Witz, Double Intercession, Saint Thomas Panel, c. 1450. Now in Basel, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Kunstmuseum
(Inv. Nr. 1590). (Photo: Courtesy of Öffentliche Kunstsammlung).
29
92 Part II
technology be somehow concretely embodied, normally in implements or artifacts,
sometimes simply in social organization”).65 Therefore, technology is infused with
meaning and social context, and is “culturally constructed and socially constituted.”66
Technology brings order to chaos. It orders and provides orientation. The Vierge
orders the abstract concepts of the mysteries of the Church that the penitents are
asked to contemplate. However, it cannot exist only as an independent variable, but
as one dependent on social understanding, social unanimity, social practice, social
importance, and social meaning. “Technology is the combination of artifacts together
within social practices.”67 Socio-technical systems, not just their “inventors,” shape
technology.
Like the hammer, Vierges are a part of a larger system that cannot function outside
of a human context. A systematic approach to technology and the Vierge ouvrante is
more comprehensive. Technology is the amalgamation of socio-technical systems68
where artifacts are embedded, not only in human interactions, but also in a wider
range of issues and social factors.69 It is not only an apparatus. Nor is it simply an
autonomous entity which develops independently of any pervasive factors. This
approach encompasses all three characterizations of technology.70 As stated early in
the chapter, Vierges ouvrantes were at the center of much controversy. Criticized by
Jean Gerson, these objects endured censorship, modification, and condemnation from
the Tridentine Council.71 The public perspective toward these objects changed and
had to change to survive. The essence of the object, its “technology-ness,” had little to
do with its post-Gerson modifications. It was societal demands which formed the ori-
ginal object and later its sixteenth-century self. By approaching a Vierge ouvrante as
a kind of assemblage of technologies, it becomes clear that this is a construct closely
connected with the social systems that technology inhabits.
In his essay “Sociohistorical Technology Studies,” Wiebe E. Bijker describes tech-
nology as not following a momentum or a sort of rational, goal-directed, problem-
solving path, but as instead shaped by social factors.72 The Vierges are intimately
connected and shaped by their social constructs because they are formed almost
purely by theoretical, political, practical, and regional tastes.73 A hammer is a tool
that is used to hammer nails into a board. That is its function. However, the rules of
its application, its aesthetic properties, and when it is used are wholly dependent on
its socio-technical systems or ensembles.74
The artifact has an interdependent relationship with social relations in socio-
technical systems. Technology, after all, is “human-made.”75 It is an ensemble of tech-
nology. The socio-technical network or ensemble is a non-hierarchical web-like system
of people and technology.76 In the case of the Vierge ouvrante, the ensemble here is the
religious object, Church, the community, the viewer, and the operator. The “actors”
within each ensemble can be listed indefinitely as each system is infinite. This is how
a Madonna Lactans or Virgin Lactans is associated with good harvest, connecting
perceptibly heterogeneous events and actors within a homogeneous and fluid net-
work. Often saints’ attributes or characteristics are associated with each other in ways
that may initially seem unrelated. In the fourteenth century, a Virgin nursing was
associated with good harvests. Breast milk was a very important form of nourishment
for infants. A good harvest equated to plentiful milk. The survival of the mother and
infant was wholly dependent on the good harvest.77
The Church delineated beliefs, rules, rites. It disseminated a complex theology, such
as the Double Intercessory concept discussed above. Then, those understandings of
39

the mysteries of faith and the saints were depicted in visual narrative or icons –for
example, in the Vierge ouvrante. On feast days, or based on community need, the
priest operated the sculpture by opening and closing it and instructing viewership for
veneration.78 The viewers, in seeing, received the divine mediation they were seeking.
As this is not a cyclical system, the components of the ensemble did not necessarily
follow a particular order. For instance, the community or “network” that owned
and operated the sculpture could and did influence the aesthetic of the Vierges, over
any church dogma. In her essay, “Sorting out the Question of Feminist Technology,”
Deborah Johnson points out that “in actor- network theory (ANT), artifacts are
treated as actants, equal to human actors in their potential influence on the system.”79
Architectural theorist Albena Yaneva explains ANT as it draws on the ways “technical
objects take part in the making of culture, that is, the anthropology of technology,
ANT shows how every single technical feature of an object accounts for a social,
psychological and economic world.”80 ANT is a useful method of understanding the
actors within a system or ensemble. It has been used in sociology and recently by the
art historian Michael Zell in his article on Rembrandt’s relationships with his patrons
and collectors.81 Though it is underutilized in art history, Zell maintains that the use
of ANT complements social art history.82 “The approach seems to me a method of
conceptualizing social ties that may offer a productive model for art historians.”83 In
ANT, objects are not subordinate to society but have an equal share in agency.
A socio-technical ensemble is made up of material and immaterial objects, human
and non-human. There is an additional component or player. This additional “actor”
in the social system in which the Vierges reside is the divine. The Vierge is a non-
human component within this ensemble. In this instance, the body of the Virgin acts
as a kind of doorway, a transcendent passageway between systems. “The body of the
Virgin acts as mediator in the liminal transition … it is not by chance that the spir-
itual concept of transformational liminality derives from the term limen meaning the
threshold.”84 This threshold convention was literally translated into medieval archi-
tecture, as often tympanum, architectural jambs, and trumeaux were decorated with a
relief of a Madonna figure or Last Judgment scene.85 In addition, the Morlaix Vierge
acts as a kind of votive figure of ritual activity and metaphor connecting an assem-
blage of actors. Within the Morlaix Vierge the members of the Trinity are among the
divine actors as well. These subjects were not aligned casually, but through literary
inspiration which dates back well before the twelfth century.86 A verse from Adam of
Saint Victor is typically cited as the source for the Trinitarian construction found with
many Vierges. “Salve, mater pietatis, et totius trinitatis nobile triclinium: verbi tamen
incarnati speciale maiestati praeparans hospitium.”87
A fifteenth-century reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary as the carrier of the Trinity
is observable in metaphoric language such as the “chamber of the trinity,”88 and “shel-
terer of the entire Holy Trinity.”89 This textual practice had taken widespread popu-
larity within both religious manuscripts and vernacular poetry, firmly solidifying the
four figures as actors within a single religious system. Furthermore, the interior scenes
of the Vierge ouvrante are a kind of narrative reflection, constructing complex themes
or motifs that connect the hidden images. In its closed state, the lactating Morlaix
Vierge demonstrates one of the many great favors that the Blessed Virgin bestowed
upon the Son of God. When opened, individual scenes from the Passion and a cruci-
fied Christ illustrate a larger narrative of redemption and the Eucharist. Aligning the
Blessed Virgin and Christ’s triumph over death, one observes parallels between the
49
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prominently displayed flesh of Christ and that of the Virgin, both having been offered
freely for the salvation of the world.
The Vierge ouvrante’s existence and function as a religious object is an integral
component in the ensemble. During ritual, the viewer intends to interact with the
actors and to interface with the divine. However, she does not function merely as a
wired technology tethered to a CAT10. Like Wi-Fi, the Vierge is a signal, remotely
transmitting through the passageway between two systems. When that “signal” is
accessed during ritual viewing, when she is opened and gazed upon, the divine essence
of Mary can connect with the mundane world as well. The saintly spirit world then
joins the ensemble, extending a vastly larger network. However, as ANT describes,
there is no hierarchy, each component is on equal ground.90 Therefore, the vener-
ation of the divine with these objects has a flexible axis. Exchanging and distributing
agency, the Morlaix Vierge ensemble may switch from a human-centric, to a divine-
centric, to an object-centric point of ritual activity.
As seen here, technology is not as predictable as the two-way light switch. Latour
realized this when he discussed the relationship between mediators and intermediaries.
In Reassembling the Social, Latour discussed these two concepts as both human and
non-human components where an intermediator is predictable and stable. It performs
predictable tasks and produces predictable outcomes. Ford’s Model T assembly line
may be viewed as an intermediary system. On the other hand, mediators “trans-
form, translate, distort, and modify the meaning or the elements they are supposed to
carry,”91 while an intermediary transports a meaning without distorting it. The medi-
ator then challenges the flow. Latour warns that a mediator, though seemingly simple,
may become unpredictable and unstable, like a banal conversation, “where passions,
opinions, and attitudes bifurcate at every turn.”92 Much like the “Trinitarian” Vierges,
whose rather clear-cut iconography inspired intense feelings in Gerson which later
resulted in the calculatedly “sanitize[d]‌” figures after the Treatise on Sacred Images.93
These modifications forcefully altered the iconographic narrative read within Mary’s
belly, which has resulted in our shifting understandings of the iconographic purpose
of these unique statues.
Notes
1 Anne Marie Rasmussen and Markus Stock, “Introduction: Medieval Media,” Spectrum 52,
no. 2 (May 2016): 98.
2 Michael B. Schiffer, “Toward an Anthropology of Technology,” in Anthropological
Perspectives on Technology, ed. Michael B. Schiffer (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 2001), 7.
3 Henk Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces 1215–1460: Form, Content, Function, vol. I: 1215–1344
(Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1988), 21.
4 Barbara Newman, God and the Goddess: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 269.
5 Gudrun Radler, Die Schreinmadonna, “Vierge ouvrante”: von den bernhardinischen Anfangen
bis zu Frauenmystik im Deutschordensland: mit beschreibenden Katalog (Frankfurt am
Main: Kunstgeschichtliches Institut der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, 1990); Elina
Gertsman, “Performing Birth, Enacting Death: Unstable Bodies in Late Medieval Devotion,”
in Visualizing Medieval Performance: Perspectives, Histories, Contexts, ed. Elina Gertsman
(New York and London: Routledge, 2008), 100.
59

6 Melissa R. Katz claims to know of 72 Vierges ouvrantes in existence that range from the
thirteenth century to replicas from the nineteenth century. However, only 44 have been
cataloged and published. Melissa R. Katz, “Behind Closed Doors: Distributed Bodies,
Hidden Interiors, and Corporeal Erasure in ‘Vierge ouvrante’ Sculpture,” Anthropology
and Aesthetics 55/56 (2009): 196.
7 Katz, “Behind Closed Doors,” 198.
8 Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary
(New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1976), 352.
9 Aelred of Rievaulx, “Sermon 39: For the Annunciation of the Lord,” in The Liturgical
Sermons: The Second Clairvaux Collection Sermons 29–46, trans. Marie Anne Mayeski
(Athens, OH: Cistercian Publications, 2016), xlvi–xlvii.
10 Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, 133.
11 Newman, God and the Goddess, 269.
12 Gonzalo de Berceo, “Profecias del Antiguo Testamento,” verse 12, Loores de Nuestra
Senora, in Gonzalo de Berceo, Obras Completas III: El duelo de la virgen; Los himnos; Los
loores de nuestra senora; Los signos del Juicio Final, ed. Brian Dutton (London: Tamesis
Books, 1975), 75.
14 One may notice the hole across God’s chest and along the shaft of the cross where these
figures were once attached, reading from top to bottom in a linear axis –Father, Holy
Spirit, Son.
15 Radler, Die Schreinmadonna, 203–209.
16 Catálogo general de la Exposición Histórica Europea 6, no. 81. Madrid: Museo Arqueologico
Nacional, 1892; Sarrète, J. “Vierges ouvertes, Vierges ouvrantes, et la Vierge ouvrante de
Palau-del-Vidre.” Ruscino, Revue d’histoire et d’archéologie de Roussillon et des autres pays
Catalans 2 (1912): 5–59 and 450–547; Radler, Die Schreinmadonna; Melissa R. Katz, “The
Non-Gendered Appeal of Vierge Ouvrante Sculpture: Audience, Patronage, and Purpose
in Medieval Iberia,” in Reassessing the Role of Women as “Makers” of Medieval Art and
Architecture, ed. T. Martin (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 37–92.
17 See note 16 above which she cites in her literature review.
18 Maria und ihre Teilhabe am Erlösungswerk, Marienleben, Maria und ihr verhaltnis zur
Trinitat. Radler, Die Schreinmadonna, 29.
19 Radler, Die Schreinmadonna, 29.
20 Radler, Die Schreinmadonna, 30. [‘Maria wird zum Schrein des Erlosungsmysteriums.’]
21 Bernhard Siegert, Cultural Techniques: Grids, Filters, Doors and Other Articulations of the
Real (New York: Fordham University Press, 2015), 193–194. Other further reading: Melissa
Katz’s dissertation from 2010, Interior Motives: The Vierge Ouvrante/Triptych Virgin in
Medieval and Early Modern Iberia. In addition to being an impressive index, which some
scholars might consider in supplement to Radler’s Die Schreinmadonna, Interior Motives
expands the corpus of Vierges sculptures to include sixteenth-century “triptych Virgins,” a
type of Marian sculpture best characterized as folding breast tabernacles.
24 Elina Gertsman, “Performing Birth, Enacting Death: Unstable Bodies in Late Medieval
Devotion,” in Visualizing Medieval Performance: Perspectives, Histories, Contexts, ed.
Elina Gertsman (New York and London: Routledge, 2008), 83.
25 Gertsman, “Performing Birth,” 87–91.
26 Gertsman, “Performing Birth,” 88.
28 Gertsman, “Performing Birth,” 90–91.
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96 Part II
31 Elina Gertsman, Worlds Within: Opening the Medieval Shrine Madonna (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015); Jean Gerson (d. 1429) was a French
scholar, theologian, and reformer in the fifteenth century. While the chancellor of the
University of Paris, he famously opposed the devotion surrounding “Shrine Madonnas.” He
took particular issue with the Trinitarian figures. He expressed opposition for the perceived
implications that the Trinity was conceived within Mary’s womb. [“[S]‌emblables qui ont
dedans leur ventre une Trinité comme se toute la Trinité eus prins cher humainne en la
Vièrge Marie... a mon petit jugement il n’y a beauté ne devocion en telle ouverture, et
peut etre cause d’erreur.”] Jean Gerson, “Puer natus est nobis (Sermon 385),” in Ouevres
completes, vol. 7, ed Palémon Glorieux (Paris: Desclée: 1960–73), 963.
32 For instance, she parallels their container-like structure with contemporary tabernacles. She
also connects the visual impression of the disembodied sculpture of Mary with late medieval
symbolic mimetic reflections of the broken body of Christ, seen in Matthias Grünewald’s
Isenheim Altarpiece. Gertsman, Worlds Within, 27–29.
33 Gertsman, Worlds Within, 11. Chapter 2 also addresses the concept of a divergent trinity –
that of Christ, St. Mary, and St. Anne and their iconographic significances.
34 There are several other useful and interesting sources concerning the Vierge ouvrante,
including Barbara Newman’s references to the archetype in God and the Goddess and
Erich Neuman’s The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1963 [first ed. 1955; repr. 1970]). Both authors discuss these sculptures
as goddess types and how they relate to the greater mother goddess concept throughout
art, religious, and social histories. Newman, however, frames her discussion within a
linear Christian context, beginning with Franciscan affinity with the Virgin Mary. Also
see Christoph Baumer, “Die Schreinmadonna,” Marian Library Studies 9 (1977): 239–272,
and Kelly Holbert’s article “The Vindication of a Controversial Early Thirteenth-Century
“Vierge Ouvrante” in the Walters Art Gallery,” The Journal of the Walters Gallery 55/
56 (1997/1998): 101–121. Walter Fries and Alfred Schmid offer an organized chronology
of these objects. Katherine T. Brown discusses Shrine Madonnas as the Mary of Mercy
in Mary of Mercy in Medieval and Renaissance Italian Art: Devotional Image and Civic
Emblem (New York: Routledge, 2017), 42–44.
35 Thomas P. Hughes, Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture
(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 1. My thanks to Adam Thierer for his
most helpful technology blog in which he has compiled many definitions of technology and
also his technology bibliography. Adam Thierer, “Defining Technology,” in The Technology
Liberation Front. Accessed May 2018. https://techliberation.com/2014/04/29/defining-tec
hnology/
36 Ian Barbour, Ethics in an Age of Technology (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1993), 3.
37 Barbour, Ethics in an Age, 3–4.
38 Read Bain, “Technology and State Government,” American Sociological Review 2, no. 6
(December 1937): 860.
39 Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on How to Build the Future (New York: Random House,
2014), 8. Peter Thiel is, among other things, a venture capitalist, and the co-founder of the
online money transfer service PayPal.
40 David Kaplan offers a rather lengthy definition of technology in Ricoeur’s Critical Theory
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), 167.
41 Val Dusek, Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 31.
42 Dusek, Philosophy of Technology, 31.
43 Dusek is clear to distinguish between the animal use of tools and the human use of tech-
nology in his introduction as well as chapter 8 of Philosophy of Technology, 3 and 112–135.
45 Often, ideas of weaponry or writing are first recalled when thinking of medieval technology.
79

46 Jeremy Stolow, “Religion, Technology, and the Things in Between,” in Deus in
Machina: Religion, Technology, and the Things in Between, ed. Jeremy Stolow
(New York: Fordham University Press, 2013), 2.
47 Stolow, “Religion, Technology, and the Things in Between,” 2.
49 David Noble, The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention
(New York: Random House, 1997).
50 Katherine G. Schmidt and Derek C. Hatch, “The Power of Virtual Space,” Collefe Theology
Society Annual Volume 62 (2016): 188–204.
51 William Walker, “Ritual Technology in an Extranatural World,” in Anthropological
Perspectives on Technology, ed. Michael B. Schiffer (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 2001), 87. Also see Heather Margaret-Louise Miller, Archaeological Approaches to
Technology (New York: Routledge, 2017) for a more general and comprehensive approach
to archaeological studies on ancient technologies.
52 Bolter and Grusin define remediation as “the way in which one medium is seen by our
culture as reforming or improving upon another.” Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin,
Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 59; it is
“the formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms.” Bolter and Grusin,
Remediation, 273.
53 Justin E.A. Kroesen and Peter Tångberg, Helgonskåp: Medieval Tabernacle Shrines in
Sweden and Europe (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2021). This source is a beautiful
collection of this type of altar decoration. I would like to acknowledge the kind generosity
of Justin Kroesen who corresponded with me and provided these tabernacle images.
54 There are many other congruous Marian images including Visitation scenes with a small
Christ floating in a mandorla around the Virgin’s pregnant stomach. See also the Utretcht
Visitation which is now at the Aartsbichoplijk Museum. Egon Verheyen, “An Iconographic
Note on Altdorfer’s Visitation in the Cleveland Museum of Art,” The Art Bulletin 46, no. 4
(Dec. 1964): 540.
55 Nicholas Terpstra, “Civic Religion,” in The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity, ed.
John H. Arnold (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 160.
56 Terpstra, “Civic Religion,” 161.
57 Katherine T. Brown, Mary of Mercy in Medieval and Renaissance Italian Art: Devotional
Image and Civic Emblem (New York: Routledge, 2017), 25.
58 Gertsman, Worlds Within, 21.
59 Newman, God and the Goddess, 245–273.
60 As few Marian relics were left behind on earth after the Virgin’s assumption the collection
of Mary’s milk was hard to come by. Cistercians are known for having a few clumps of
white “milk rocks.” The Cistercians are also known for several Maria Lactans commissions,
including Pere Lembrí’s (?) The Virgin Nursing the Child between Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
and Saint Benedict, 1410–1415, in the Prado Museum, Madrid. www.museodelprado.es/
en/the-collection/art-work/the-virgin-nursing-the-child-between-saints/9b376cb9-cb0b-
4fb1-80c2-12da1fdd09f6. Quite a bit of recent research has formed our understanding of
Mary’s body and the role of blood and milk. For instance, a child was thought to be born
from her mother’s blood, having been nourished by maternal blood. Jennifer Welsh, The
Cult of St. Anne in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (New York: Routledge, 2017),
38. For additional reading see Caroline Walker Bynum, Wonderful Blood: Theology and
Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2007).
61 Gertsman, “Performing Birth”, 96.
62 For more on Lars Elleström’s four modalitites of media please see Chapters 1 and 2 and
Lars Elleström, “Introduction”, in Media Borders, Multimodality and Intermediality
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 1–10.
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98 Part II
63 Michael B. Schiffer, “Toward an Anthropology of Technology,” 3.
65 Frederick Ferré, Philosophy of Technology (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988), 30.
66 Schiffer, “Toward an Anthropology of Technology”, 3.
67 Deborah Johnson, “Sorting Out the Question of Feminist Technology,” in Feminist
Technology, ed. Linda Layne et al. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 3.
68 Socio-technical systems are described by the technology historian Thomas P. Hughes
in “Technology Momentum,” in Does technology Drive History? The Dilemma of
Technological Determinism, eds. M.R. Smith and L. Marx (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
1994). “Technological system, as I shall explain, includes both the technical and the social.
I name the world outside of technological systems that shapes them or is shaped by them
the ‘environment’.”, Hughes, “Technology Momentum,” 103.
69 Pieter E. Vermaas et al., eds., A Philosophy of Technology: From Technical Artefacts to
Sociotechnical System, vol 6 (San Rafael, CA: Morgan & Claypool, 2011), 2.
71 The Council of Trent: The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred Oecumenical Council of
Trent, trans. J. Waterworth. (London: Dolman, 1848) (accessed April 10, 2018). www.docu
mentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/1545-1545,_Concilium_Tridentinum,_Canons_And_Decr
ees,_EN.pdf
72 Wiebe E. Bijker, “Sociohistorical Technology Studies,” in Handbook of Science and
Technology Studies, eds. S. Jasanoff, Gerals E. Markle, James C. Petersen, and Trevor Pinch
(London: Sage Publications), 241.
73 Bijker, “Sociohistorical Technology Studies,” 241.
74 The term socio-technical ensemble was coined by Wiebe Bijker in “Sociohistorical
Technology Studies,” 679. If a fork, for example, is rendered inoperable as a fork, it is
no longer a technology with which to consume food. It ceases to be that technology and
therefore forfeits its position in its socio-technical system. However, if it is reshaped, or
“hacked,” if you will, and used to apply makeup, prop up a smart device, or act as a note
holder, then it joins an entirely new socio-technical system. It will then exist there as a
different technology.
75 Johnson, “Sorting Out the Question of Feminist Technology,” 4.
76 Bijker, “Sociohistorical Technology Studies,” 282.
77 Sarah Jane Boss, Empress and Handmaid: On Nature and Gender in the Cult of the Virgin
Mary (New York: Cassell, 2000), 37.
79 Johnson, “Feminist Technology,” 3.
80 Albena Yaneva, “Border Crossing, Making the Social Hold: Towards an Actor-Network
Theory of Design,” Design and Culture 1, no. 3 (2009): 267. For more on ANT see: Bruno
Latour, “On Technical Mediation –Philosophy, Sociology, Genealogy,” Common Knowledge
3, no. 2 (Fall 1994): 29–64.
81 Michael Zell, “Rembrandt’s Gifts: A Case Study of Actor-Network-Theory,” Journal of
Historians of Netherlandish Art 3.2, no. 2 (Summer 2011): 1–25; Nick Couldry, “Actor
Network Theory and Media: Do They Connect and On What Terms?” in Connectivity,
Networks, and Flows: Conceptualizing Contemporary Communications, eds. A. Hepp,
F. Krotz, S. Moores and C. Winter (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2008), 93–110; Bruno
Latour, “Networks, Societies, Spheres: Reflections of an Actor- Network Theorist,”
International Journal of Communications, 5 (2011): 796–810.
82 Zell, “Rembrandt’s Gifts,” 2.
83 Zell, “Rembrandt’s Gifts,” 1.
9

85 See the west façade tympanum of the Incarnation Portal of Chartres Cathedral, France (c.
1145) and the Madonna and Child statue on the trumeau of the portal of the south transept
of Notre-Dame cathedral of Amiens (c. 1255).
87 Adam of Saint Victor, Marial for the Nativity of the Virgin, “Salue mater saluatoris,” verse
11, in Oeuvres poétiques d’Adam de S. Victor, ed. Leon Gautier (Paris: Julien, Lanier,
Cosnard et cie., 1858–1859), vol. 2, 192; Katz “Behind Closed Doors,” 200.
88 “Sancta in mulieribus /Tu, mater pietatis /Pura, plena virtutibus, /Camera trinitatis. Codez
Taurinen,” KV 31, indexed as “Super Ave Maria,” Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, Hymn
21, ed. C. Blume and Guido Maria Dreves (Leipzig: O.R. Reisland, 1989; repr. New York/
London: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1961), vol. 30, 235. My translation.
89 “Bis grust muter alter milte /vnd de ganzcen driualt schilte /edler, einer, kuscher schrin.”
Heinrich von Laufenberg, cited in Peter Kern, Trinität, Mariam Inkarnation. Studies zur
Thematik der deutschen Dichtung des späteren Mittelalters (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag,
1971), notes 21, 128–138, and 135. My translation.
90 Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (Oxford,
New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 69.
91 Latour, Resembling the Social, 39.
92 Latour, Resembling the Social, 39.
93 Katz, “Behind Closed Doors”, 199. Johannes Molanus De Historia SS. Imaginum et
Picturarum pro vero erum usu contra abuses, libri iii, bk. 2 (Lyons: Lauretti Durand,
1619), 55–65.
01
5 Virtually There
Expounding the Tensions Between Planar
and Virtual Space Within the Ghent
Altarpiece
Discussions concerning medieval altarpieces have mostly centered on iconography,

narrative, construction, patronage, and liturgical function. As the altarpiece is an intrinsic
part of the decoration of the altar and of the liturgy, this church furniture acts as a mystic
backdrop for the miraculous Paschal supper celebrated during ritualistic Mass. Medieval
scholars, including Justin Kroesen, Kees van der Ploeg, and Donald L. Ehresmann, have
extensively considered the role of the altarpiece within the liturgy as well as how, con-
versely, the sacrament has shaped the altarpiece.1 In a volume that highlights the rela-
tionship between liturgical practice and altar imagery, Justin Kroesen and Victor Schmidt
conclude in their introductory chapter that “all altars and altar decorations originated in
response to liturgical ritual.”2 Though these investigations are quite extensive and have
substantially contributed to the understanding of the liturgy, scholars have yet to consider
the altarpiece as a virtual medium and technological apparatus, which was an essential
part of the medieval Paschal celebration. Studies in new media have neglected the altar-
piece as well. J. David Bolter, Richard Grusin, and Marshall McLuhan have referred to
medieval print media without even a passing mention of these Christian artifacts. In this
chapter, I consider ritual objects to be religious media, and I consider the altarpiece’s vir-
tuality. I argue for van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece as the culmination of changes in the con-
figuration of “planarity” and “virtuality,” within the long-term evolution of the reliquary
cabinet into the painted altarpiece (Figures 5.1 and 5.2).
Commissioned by Jodocus (known as Joos) Vijdt and his wife Elizabeth Borluut
for their personal use in St. John’s parish church (now St. Bavo Cathedral), the Ghent
Altarpiece was housed in their private chapel along the west wall of the left aisle.
When opened, this large-winged altarpiece illustrates a brightly colored sacrificial lamb
on an altar. Three colossal figures known as the Deësis (an intercessory icon of God
the Father, the Virgin Mary, and Saint John the Baptist) preside over the celebration.3
When closed, prophets, sibyls, and the patrons themselves witness a monochromatic
Annunciation. Commission documents indicate that the couple endowed the Cathedral
with the private chapel and altarpiece to secure a regular celebration of the Mass for
their benefit, in the hope they would bear children and impress their Spanish allies.4
Many altarpieces are viewed as providing a framework for the Mass, especially for
the Paschal supper. The altarpiece acted as a point of symbolic symmetry between the
presentation of Christ’s flesh with the consecrated Eucharist. The Ghent Altarpiece
functioned in much the same way. Along this line of inquiry, art historians used to
think of the Ghent Altarpiece mainly in terms of its painted representations, and only
iconographically.5 I approach the altarpiece as a medieval medium which supported
the engagement of both the clergy and laity by enhancing viewer participation. The
DOI: 10.4324/9781003305279-8
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Virtually There: The Ghent Altarpiece 101
Figure 5.1a Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece (Adoration of the Mystic Lamb) (open). c. 1426–1432. Oil on wood panel.
From St. John’s Parish church, now St. Bavo Cathedral, Vijdt Chapel, Ghent. Now in Ghent, Cathedral
baptistry (Photo: Public Domain).
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Figure 5.1b Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece (Annunciation and Patrons) (closed) (Photo: Public
Domain).
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Figure 5.2 Master of Saint Giles, Triptych wing with the Mass of St. Giles, c.1480–1490. Oil
on panel. Now in London, National Gallery (Public Domain).
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104 Part II
act of visually enhancing the Christian altar first emerged in the fifth century in the
eastern Mediterranean with ciboria and baldachin altar decorations.6 Shifts in the
celebrant’s position during Mass around the early thirteenth century may have led
to the placement of large, permanent adornments on the altar. These objects first
originated as frontals and dossals.7 These types of ornamentation changed and evolved
into the spectacular fifteenth-century altarpiece variations that art historians are now
acquainted with.
During the High Middle Ages, the convention for altar decoration included reli-
quaries, relic cabinets, and some altar sculptures. Sculpted portals and choir screens
were the regional norms for churches. Sculptures of saints or the Madonna were
often placed on the altar table. By the thirteenth century, they were often perman-
ently attached to columns near the altar. A fifteenth-century oil painting by the Master
of Saint Giles gives scholars a glimpse into how altar environments may have been
assembled (Figure 5.3). Large and often multileveled reliquary cabinets were a typical
element of these assemblages. Such storage units were closely associated with the altar
and adoration. The Sacristy Cabinet from the Doberan Abbey Church in Germany is
a fourteenth-century example of this format (Figure 5.4). The cabinet exhibits conven-
tional winged panels and boasts six tiers of relic cubicles. In the later medieval period,
winged altarpieces were often incorporated into the liturgical practice and became a
trope of medieval altar decoration. Donald L. Ehresmann notes, “the winged altarpiece
was developed as a cabinet to house and display collections of relics on the altar.”8
It is important to note that the development of altar decoration was not a linear
trajectory. Once actual kinetic movement was introduced to winged altarpieces, ritual
movement was incorporated into the performance of the Mass, such as the opening
and closing of the wings during feast days. In Germany, multiwinged altars called
wandelaltar (changing altar) could be folded into a prescribed pattern of imagery
constructing a kind of iconographic programming in support of the liturgy.9 The
Altenberg Altarpiece from Frankfurt is an exquisite example of this intricate type of
folding altarpiece (Figure 5.5).10 When its center panels are opened it reveals a statue
of the Madonna among four images from the life of Mary. It is important to think
of this assortment of altar decorations as more than individual pieces that have been
pushed together. On the contrary, it is more appropriate to consider these objects to
be an ensemble, each object in dialogue with other objects and the church environ-
ment. Ensembles or assemblages are meant to connote a coming-together of entities
without an overall unity.11 Victor Schmidt discusses altarpieces and frontals as altar
“ensembles,” describing the dialogue created between them as often pertaining to the
“performance” of the Mass.12 The church space functions in much the same way. Side
chapels, cult statuary, reliquaries and their relics, ornamented tombs, altarpieces, and
frontals are artifacts that actively participate in religious ceremonies and rituals.
The original configuration of the Ghent Altarpiece has troubled scholars for years.
The art historian Erwin Panofsky noted discrepancies in the construction of the altar-
piece.13 Among other things, the inconsistent alignment of the upper and lower panels
as well as their lack of axial cohesion has aroused suspicions as to the original config-
uration of the altarpiece (Figure 5.6). When opened, the picture planes of the angelic
choruses and the Adam and Eve panels on either side of the Deësis do not align with
the picture planes of the flocks of penitents below. If one were to follow the line
that extends downward from the right side of Adam’s panel to the panel of the “Just
Judges,” it would divide the white horse in the foreground nearly in half (Figure 5.6,
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Figure 5.3 Sacristy cabinet, c. 1305. Carved relief and tempera on panel. Doberan Abbey
Church, Germany (Photo: Martin Heider, Bad Doberan).
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Figure 5.4 Rhenish Master, The Wings of the Altenberg Altarpiece, c. 1330. Mixed technique on fir –fully open. Now in Frankfurt, Städel
Kunstinstitut (Photo: Courtesy of the Städel Museum).
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Figure 5.5 Diagram of the Ghent Altarpiece (Image: Courtesy of Francisco Ortega).
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108 Part II
Figure 5.6 Tower retable of St. John the Evangelist, c. 1480–1490, open. Carved relief and oil
on panel. Now in Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Photo: Courtesy
of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya).
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line ab). Griet Steyaert posits in her 2015 essay, “The Ghent Altarpiece: New Thoughts
on its Original Display,”14 that the altarpiece was conceived as a whole and not as two
compositions amalgamated into one, as previously thought. Steyaert does not follow
the conclusions of Panofsky and others that the altarpiece was the result of patch-
work alterations to preexisting works. In order to explain the misalignments of the
top and bottom wings, she argues that the traditional understanding of the altar as a
flushed wall retable is entirely incorrect, contending that the Ghent Altarpiece is a re-
envisioned tower retable.15 She suggests that the lower tier was indeed flush with the
chapel wall and elevated on an altar table, but then the upper tier was arranged under
a large Gothic tracery baldachin and around a hexagonal plinth, which, when shut,
would create a kind of cabinet space. Tower retables, like the Sacristy Cabinet, often
housed some sort of tabernacle or reliquary or an altar sculpture. The earlier altarpiece-
tabernacles from Castildelgado and the Retablo-tabernáculo de Mule, discussed in the
previous chapter, are similar to this type of construction (Figures 4.7 & 4.8). The late
fifteenth-century Tower Retable of St. John the Evangelist is an example of typical
construction where the statue of Saint John stands on a more pronounced pedestal or
plinth (Figure 5.7). Panofsky saw discrepancies because he privileged an overall unity
(in a modernist way). Steyaert saw these discrepancies as, in fact, logical or functional,
and that the overall unity allows or admits a certain internal disharmony. I share
Steyaert’s dissatisfaction with previous explanations and concur with her proposition
because this new perspective reveals an intriguing tension between real/illusionistic
and symbolic/allegorical/emblematic space.16 Though her theory and many previous
proposals have recently been disproven by Bart Fransen and Jean-Albert Glatigny in
2020, Steyaert’s proposition supports an exploration into the altarpiece’s virtuality.
That is, with her proposed display of the Ghent Altarpiece, Steyaert aligns the three-
dimensional feel and juxtaposition of the sculpture with the painted panels of the
tower retable. This highlights the exchange in planar and virtual spaces.
David Summers addresses the tensions between what he calls “planar” and “vir-
tual” space in his 2003 publication, Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of
Western Modernism. “Planar” and “virtual” describe spatial attributes that span the
history of art. Summers submits that planar orders are the fundamental elements of an
object and how they are organized.17 Planar surfaces are so fundamental to the realm
of human form that they bolster what is perceived to be the most basic of human pro-
duction, “presupposing the pages, scrolls and tablets on which the linear, sequential
order of writing, computing and record-keeping is possible.”18 Concepts that follow
from planarity include order, which is one of the basic relations between parts of a
whole, but is also “analogous to the order of the parts of something to which the
image refers,”19 such as measurement and proportion, hierarchy, framing, symmet-
ries, harmony, and ratio. As such, planar order is a universal variant which, Summers
argues, is legible across the global history of images. Within his study he traces this
basic element from cave drawings, medieval altarpieces, to Chinese hanging scrolls.
One walks down the street, drives down a highway, writes on a piece of paper, and
sits on the seat of a chair without a thought of surfaces and planes (which are there
and functioning).20 The use of planes is a fundamental human action. Planes are not
naturally occurring but humanmade.21
Virtual space is the imagined or represented space on a two-dimensional surface,
space we “seem to see,”22 like the linear perspective executed in the Deësis panel of
the Ghent Altarpiece. It is important to note that the terms planarity and virtuality
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110 Part II
Figure 5.7 Cimabue (active 1240–1302), Santa Trinita Maestà, c. 1290–1300. Tempera on

wood, gold background, 384x223cm (Inv. 1890 no. 8342). From church of Santa
Trinita, Florence. Now in Florence, Galerie degli Uffizi (Photo: Public Domain).
1

operate in relation to each other. These concepts, then, are not mutually exclusive
but trade off in any given image. Where one interprets an object to be highly planar,
there may also be virtual elements, and vice versa. Summers even suggests that these
concepts may wax and wane within a given art form and may be linked to an image’s
state of “dependence” or “independence” on the viewer.23 Where an independent
image’s planar surface is relatively dominant, the opposite is true of a virtual image
which is highly dependent on the viewer. In Summers’ re-reading of the standard
development from medieval to early modern art he asserts that imagery shifted from
relatively more planar to highly virtual while, at the same time, never entirely negating
the other element. Cimabue’s Santa Trinità Maestà, from the late thirteenth century,
stands as a familiar exemplar of how planar concepts functioned within medieval
artifacts (Figure 5.8). The Madonna seen here shares many of the established and rec-
ognizable elements which distinguish her as the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child.
Surrounded by eight colorful seraphim, the divine couple is supported by the heavenly
choir while, below, four prophets of the Old Testament lend their support, imparting
authority and continuity to the Christian Church. The blues and reds of the figures’
tunics, the golden throne upon which Mary sits, and the benevolent blessing from
Christ all affirm this independent state of a planar surface. Additionally, these elem-
ents further distinguish this image’s independence through distinctions of hierarchy
and ornamentation. The central and rather sizable Madonna is hierarchical in the
painting and displays a proportional clarity. Repetitive ornamentation and patterning
along her throne also set her apart from the secondary angels and prophets.
Yet despite the planar dominance within this image, virtual components are pre-
sent, albeit to a lesser degree. The arrangement of the arcade above the prophets and
below Mary’s feet leaves room for virtual seeing. These surfaces can be read as flat
or they might be read as implicit three-dimensional forms, a kind of virtual volume.
That is, the arches below Mary’s feet may be interpreted as curved steps receding into
space, and the arcade above the prophets as a porch advancing beyond the throne
into the viewer’s space.24 This ambiguity of space is dependent on the viewer’s state
of movement, whether in motion or still. A real/virtual space sediments out of gold
space. Summers distinguishes virtual space as “an apparent space (and time) neces-
sarily different from that in which we are standing.”25
Steyaert’s proposed reconstruction of the Ghent Altarpiece, in tandem with
Summers’ explanation of planar and virtual planes, allows for a new avenue of scru-
tiny. The “addition” of actual space afforded by a plinth in front of Mary, God, and
John the Baptist, much like Cimabue’s throne, plays on their incipient virtuality and
yet seems to point to some sort of insufficiency in the painted images, as though they
should be sculptures (see Figure 5.7). While Steyaert proposes this tower retable con-
struction, she does not maintain that the top tier ever held a cult statue. In fact, there
is no record of any kind of sculpture being housed near the altarpiece. Interestingly,
van Eyck seems to simulate sculpture in the Deësis figures. When viewed from below,
the three holy figures placed under golden architraves are rendered in such a way
that they seem to occupy real space, the space that a viewer shares with real objects
and people.26 Another example: at first the crown at the feet of God merely appears
to be a planar, trompe l’oeil illusion of a crown. But when viewed “correctly” –that
is, looking up from below –the crown seems to exist on the perspectival tiles, gener-
ating a virtual object. The Deësis in the Ghent Altarpiece is radically dependent on the
viewer’s location. It is as though she is being made, more and more, to stand in that
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Figure 5.8 Ghent Altarpiece, lower tier details of grisaille figures –Sts. John the Baptist and John the Apostle, closed. From left to right,
Jodocus (Joos) Vijd, St. John the Baptist, St. John the Evangelist, and Elizabeth Borluut (Photo: Public Domain).
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central viewing position in front of, and at a precise distance from, the altarpiece (as
per linear perspective). And yet the sculptural/painted uncertainty of the Deësis panels
gestures to some still resonant need for a kind of presence or tangibility (of these reli-
gious figures) that perspectival realism cannot solve.
The painted crown itself resembles one of the relics in a sacristy cabinet, as though
awaiting its future enclosure. Van Eyck multiplies the staging of virtuality in this
section of the altarpiece because it is the site of the greatest religious intensity (God,
Mary, and John the Baptist). Another reason for the incessant virtuality of the Deësis
group is perhaps that the artist did not feel that his audience would be ready for “full”
virtuality in the group; the Deësis group feels like indecision on van Eyck’s part.
Van Eyck’s manipulation of space in the upper tier central panels, contrasted with
the upper tier side panels of singing angels, connotes a reproduced carved relief altar-
piece. Consider the painted representations of altar sculpture in the lower tier of the
closed altarpiece. The figures of Saints John the Baptist and John the Apostle are
painted in a technique known as grisaille (Figure 5.9).27 This monochromatic ton-
ality creates a trompe l’oeil illusion of marble sculpture within a two-dimensional
medium.28 Van Eyck extends the illusion of space by arranging these “sculptures” in
Gothic traced arches, a technique observably similar to the construction of the tower
retable figure and altar sculpture (see Figures 5.4, 5.7, and 5.9 for examples of altar
sculpture under Gothic tracery). Shadows and modeling of the figures not only create
the illusion that these altar sculptures are real but that the space which they occupy
is also real. The “sculptures” seem to be rotating within their niches. Furthermore,
van Eyck pairs each painted sculpture with a painting of a real person, Jocobus and
Elizabeth. Here, van Eyck forces the tension between reality and illusion, confronting
the undecidability between painting and sculpture, or virtuality and planarity. While
the viewer contemplates this dichotomy, they are struck with another revelation. The
“sculptures” of the Saints John the Baptist and John the Apostle are closest to the ver-
tical center, where the panel doors are opened (Figure 5.10). When opened, the panels
interrupt and prolong the virtuality. This paradox would be a rather intruding and
jolting effect for the viewer who has been convinced of the congruity of space.
The most intriguing aspect of the grisaille figures is how, in comparison to the
Deësis, the Mystic Lamb, or the Annunciation, they have a distinguishable realness to
them, a more palpable illusion. The virtual volume of the niches deviates from that of
the golden archivolts above the Deësis. God the Father is positioned frontally, toward
the foreground of the picture plane. The planarity is emphasized by the layers of the
archivolts that recede but create a shallow space. The space is pushed further forward
by the three cloths of honor. Although van Eyck harnesses the illusion of linear per-
spective to create a “real space” into which viewers may peer, the grisaille figures are
rendered in such a way as to appear to exist in actuality.
Van Eyck repeats this “trick.” The open altarpiece generates nearly endless divine
bodies, including saints, martyrs, angels, and even God the Father. Nevertheless, within
the overall ensemble, Adam and Eve, along with the sacrifice and murder scenes of
Cain and Abel in the upper spandrels above, seem to stand apart from their divine
counterparts, not only in their order of spiritual rank but in their divergent styles.
Existing within painted niches, the first Man and Woman occupy recessive spaces that
are similar to the bottom tier of the closed altarpiece. Adam appears to be in the act
of stepping forward and out of his niche. The divine bodies of the Deësis appear more
planar in comparison to the seemingly more virtual Adam and Eve. What is quite
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Figure 5.9 Ghent Altarpiece, lower tier detail of grisaille figures as officials unveil the restored
exterior panels of The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb at St. Bavo Cathedral in Ghent
on October 12, 2016 (Photo: Emmanuel Dunand).
captivating is that van Eyck does not simply dominate the visual field with virtuality,
but plays with the two modes of planarity and virtuality. He continually shifts the
emphasis throughout the altarpiece and at times appears to unify them within a single
cell. Within the Deësis, for instance, a tiled floor appears to recede into a space under-
neath the divine figures. The floor here, as well as the exquisite designs of the floors
in the adjacent panel, are executed to the same degree of verisimilitude as the Gothic
traceries above Saint John and the patrons. Yet, the virtual plane here intersects with
the planar configuration above. Van Eyck constructs an unceasing paradox of planes
that continues in perpetuity. The juxtaposition of modes within the same field is also
observable in Rogier van der Weyden’s Miraflores Triptych (c. 1440), painted only a
few years after van Eyck’s completion of the Ghent Altarpiece (Figure 5.11). The gri-
saille “sculpture” along the arches of the triptych seems like tangible sculpture.
When the Ghent Altarpiece is observed in its closed state, the threshold between
divine and earthly body is ordered in two planes. In the middle tier, the Annunciation
figures are clothed in exaggerated drapery, much like the aesthetics of the heavenly
figures of the Deësis and Mystic Lamb, while the bottom register reflects the same
format of the earthly Adam and Eve panels in the open position. That is not to say
that John the Baptist and John the Apostle are not divine, in the way in which they
are presented by van Eyck, as cult statuary is an earthly type of representation. In
this capacity, their position in the viewer’s space is highlighted by their companion
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Figure 5.10 Rogier van der Weyden, Miraflores Triptych, c. 1440. Now in Berlin, Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen (Photo: Public Domain).
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Figure 5.11 Jan van Eyck, Madonna in the Church, 1438–1440. Now in Berlin, Gemäldegalerie
Staatliche Museen (Photo: Public Domain).
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figures in the niches beside them. The patrons Jocobus and Elizabeth, in sharing the
same plane as the illusory cult statuary, cause a suspension between the two planes. By
this, van Eyck intensifies the liminal border between them. The axis which separates
these planes is literalized in the Gothic traced archways surrounding the niches. This
manifests visions of church architecture from this period, another nod to an earthly
character as it greatly contrasts with the architecture above within the Annunciation.
Within the narratives of the closed and open panels, van Eyck forces the suspension
of planes for the viewer to “decide” between planarity and virtuality. That is, it is not
a straightforward shift from planarity to virtuality. The shutting, or indeterminacy,
between the two, is key and seems to be of interest to van Eyck. At the beginning of
this chapter, I described the virtual qualities of the Deësis only to now describe its
planarity. Van Eyck institutes a visual hierarchy where planarity seems to be rendered
as more divine while virtuality is earthlier.
Scholars have noted the primacy of vision in the later Middle Ages. This is evident,
for example, in the thirteenth-century popular phenomenon of the visual consump-
tion of the Eucharist during the ritual elevation of the Host.29 Viewing the Eucharist
during the elevatio substituted for actual consumption. Caroline Walker Bynum
addressed “visuality,” the piety of seeing, and representation, in noting that devo-
tional images, whether sculpture or painting, were not meant to exist as realistic or
mimetic depictions of that martyr, saint, or any holy collective. “The power of such
a painting lies not in any realistic depiction ... [but] in its representation of (in the
sense of standing for and conveying) the holy person.”30 Therefore, to be an effective
figure of devotion, an image only needs have the essential indexical attributes of that
person. That is, the planar representation is enough to evoke their presence. This
explains the contrast between the representation of divine bodies and space against
the naturalistic depictions of the grisaille figures. Robert William Scribner observes
that people of the later Middle Ages believed that the “visible world was a sign of the
invisible, and that the way to knowledge of the supernatural was through the signi-
fying quality of the natural.”31 Therefore, the very presence of the naturalistic Adam
and Eve proves the existence of the divine company that they flank within the altar-
piece. This substantiates van Eyck’s intellectual construction of multiple visual modes.
This idea of divine bodies ambiguously inhabiting earthly space is evident in other
work by the artist from around the same time. The Madonna in the Church from the
Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (c. 1438–1440) demonstrates this very concept (Figure 5.12).
This small panel, which is likely the left panel of a dismantled diptych, features a col-
ossal Madonna and Child standing among the light-filled architecture of a Gothic
church. Surrounded by sumptuous tracery and pointed arches, Mary is framed by trad-
itional Gothic baldachins, quite similar to the format of the proposed original display
of the Ghent Altarpiece by Steyaert. The Virgin’s jewel-studded crown and robes imply
a celebrated personification of Mary as the Ecclesia triumphans, or Regina coeli.32
Panofsky notes that the aisle is flooded with an unnatural beatific glow, illuminating
the elegant lady as a representation of her divine station.33 Her colossal size in pro-
portion to her surroundings has led many art historians to trace van Eyck’s aesthetic
influences to Italo-Byzantine types, including Cimabue’s Maestà discussed above.34
Other images by van Eyck, including the Madonna of Chancellor Rolin (1435) or
the Suckling Madonna Enthroned (1436), use a similar spatial arrangement showing
interiors which are perceptibly too small for their inhabitants. Craig Harbison suggests
that the lack of congruity and irrational proportions is designed to evoke a Marian
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Figure 5.12 Figure Floor plan of the Cathedral of St. Bavo A) Vijdt Chapel; B) Baptistry (Diagram: Michel De Paepe).
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apparition.35 A kind of supernatural materialization of the Virgin appears before the
donor who was likely depicted in the altarpiece’s companion wing. Van Eyck plays
with the tension between planar and virtual space to similar effect. Mary and the
Christ Child have entered the nave, beyond the arches of the choir screen where the
angels reside. In terms of the hierarchy of religious architecture, the divine figures
are now arranged in an arguably more secular space within the consecrated church.
Mary and Christ have moved away from the altar into both the congregants’ and the
viewer’s space. She stands as a divine figure among an earthly frame of church archi-
tecture. This may demonstrate the anxiety on the part of the church during this period,
that they are in a more secular world.36 The Madonna figure is compensatory, in other
words. Similar to the juxtaposition of the Deësis and grisaille figures depicted in the
Ghent Altarpiece, van Eyck’s Madonna in the Church stresses the tension between
what is divine and earthly, or what is religious and increasingly secular.
Van Eyck deliberately engaged with the notion of secularity within a religious
work. Of course, there are other circumstances at play. While the late Middle Ages
emphasized the connection between the visible and the invisible world, given for sev-
eral centuries by planarity, it was also breaking down. Van Eyck was not just reflecting
existing practice, he was trying to find a solution to a current social and cultural
problem.37 As shifts from medieval superstition were replaced with nationalism and
intellectualism, previous religious ideals slowly gave way to secularization which was
carried on into the Enlightenment. The concentration of the rising middle class in
the North only fueled the economic and cultural transformations of the late fifteenth
century, shifting power away from the Mediterranean. Fussner notes, however, that
despite the progress and economic expansion, there were undertones of discontent.
Innovation brought class warfare, often resulting in violence.38 Van Eyck was painting
amid these shifting tides, synthesizing them for himself in his work. Here this dialogue
between planar and virtual –religious and worldly –is not defined as a contradiction,
but as a reflection of cultural shifts. This back and forth is further perpetuated by the
Ghent Altarpiece’s original installation in the Vidjt chapel which is tucked along the
east ambulatory behind the main altar. Though the altarpiece resided in a space of
heightened sanctity, the worldly figures virtually extend further to the viewer’s space.
The present installation of the altarpiece in the baptistry, in the southwest corner
of the church, reflects the realization of secularization in our contemporary world
(Figure 5.13).39
Despite van Eyck’s play of planar and virtual spaces, the sheer size of the Ghent
Altarpiece, presiding over the small side chapel, promotes the erasure of the barriers
between the real space of the side chapel and the virtual space of the imagery contained
within it. The massive altarpiece, when opened, stretches out its folding imagery,
wrapping landscape and figures around the viewer. It overwhelms the line of sight,
enveloping even the viewer’s peripheral surroundings, thus solidifying the imagined
space and virtual sculpture. However transparent, the virtuality is interrupted by
actual objects. Each panel is framed in wood. The frame of the altarpiece interrupts
the picture plane, grouping the narratives and figures in a planar method. This is
achieved, quite literally, by isolating each component to obtain clarity. Summers
argues that these frames work to “represent the limits of the [virtual] field of vision of
a viewer.”40 From the point of view of religion, however, God’s sight is not constrained
by the frames within the Annunciation. In his treatise, The Vision of God, the fifteenth-
century theologian Nicholas of Cusa wrote of God’s infinite perspectives:
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Figure 5.13 Jan van Eyck, Virgin and Child with Sts. Catherine and Michael and a Donor (Dresden or Giustiniani Triptych), 1437. Oil on
oak panel. Now in Berlin, Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen (Photo: Public Domain).
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But the angle of Thine eye, O God, is not limited, but is infinite, being the angle
of a circle, nay, of an infinite sphere also, since Thy sight is an eye of sphericity
and of infinite perfection. Wherefore it seeth at one and the same time all things
around and above and below.41
This limiting effect arises from the planar surfaces. Instead of looking at a flat plane,
one looks into a space and beyond the framing, much like Alberti’s perspectival
concept of “seeing through.”42 But unlike the fully realized linear perspective of the
Renaissance, this late medieval utilization of the frame and a virtual plane is not an
extension, per se, of the viewer’s own space. It is not as if the Madonna is merely on
the other side of the frame, but that the viewer is peering into an entirely different
world. These frames disrupt the virtual view of the Annunciation or the Mystic Lamb
and the Adoration of the Faithful where the relative metric space and the continuity
perceived by the gestures from the varying figures engage with each other and the
viewer.43 These wooden structures motion to viewers as if to encourage them to engage
with the virtual dimension and join them in pilgrimage. Then, the frames are situated,
very self-consciously, as frames. They do not disappear when the viewer stares into
the virtual space. They make the viewer aware of the threshold or hinge between this
world and the next. As described earlier, these tensions between the frame and picture
plane highlight the separation between the earthly viewer and the divine body. Van
Eyck uses the frame similarly in what is known as the Dresden Triptych (1437) from
the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (Figure 5.14). The framing of the triptych slices through
the virtual side aisles, reminding the viewer that the scene is an illusory vision and
not a representation of real space. Similar to when the Ghent Altarpiece side panels
are moved, the tension between planar and virtual is heightened. It is not only the
movement “from” illusion “to” reality, but a back and forth. There is not a prioritiza-
tion of virtual space.
The Ghent Altarpiece itself resides within the Vijdt chapel which is a “frame” within
the larger context of the Cathedral. The altarpiece is situated within an altar niche that
is also framed with real architecture. It is telling that van Eyck frames his visual fields
with wooden moldings, which plays off the actual architecture of the church. The
planes of space might allude to a window. The wooden stripping and illusory tracery
in the bottom tier of the closed altarpiece are like the mullioned lancet windows of
the ambulatory in St. Bavo Cathedral (Figure 5.15). Rendered in the lancet windows
above the high altar, a blessing Christ, other saints, and a Madonna and Child pre-
side over the sanctuary. Although these mullioned surfaces are transparent windows
for letting light into the space, they have an additional function to act as a threshold,
thereby forcing the viewer’s gaze to stop abruptly on the surface. Van Eyck plays with
the duality of windows in the Annunciation scene. The view of the Flemish land-
scape beyond a depicted windowsill invites the gaze to move past the wooden frame
into the locus of the Annunciation scene, and beyond. In the closed position of the
altarpiece, the landscape is quite minimal, and distant, whereas in the open position,
the landscape is expanded to envelop the viewer across multiple, movable panels, as
though we are in the landscape. Lynn Jacobs notes the Eyckian opposition of surface
and depth that results in an emphasis of “different zones.”44 She argues that this then
constructs a metaphor of the duality of open and closed doors. Here, van Eyck is
working with a paradox in the open altarpiece: he must find a way to transform the
worldly into the paradisal. He does this through the placement and separation of these
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Figure 5.14 St. Bavo Cathedral Gothic windows in ambulatory behind the high altar (Photo: Public Domain).
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Figure 5.15 Rogier van der Weyden, detail of Mass against chancel screen in Seven Sacraments,
central panel, c. 1440–1445. Oil on panel. Now in Antwerp, Royal Museum
of Fine Arts (Photo: Courtesy of Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten
Antwerpen).
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planes. The hyperrealistic Adam and Eve and the grisaille figures are placed along
the perimeters of the image, as if they are the guardians or gatekeepers of the heav-
enly domain within. Although there is a clear delineation, it is slightly blurred by the
shifting emphasis within the Deësis scene discussed above. In this way, the painting
is trying to convey both states (religious/worldly) simultaneously or, better, absorb
the worldly into the religious. It dissolves, if you will, the visual boundaries of space.
Anita Albus observed of van Eyck’s work that these heavenly scenes he created were
not heaven on earth, “but a world that has ascended into heaven, and that it is almost
indistinguishable from the real one.”45 The viewer is transported through a religious
space that has no “physical beginning, middle, or end.”46
Though Justin Kroesen refers to the altarpiece as a “backcloth to the mass,”47 the
characteristics discussed above facilitate and extend the object to the point of virtuality.
Van Eyck plays with the tensions between planarity and virtuality in several instances
throughout the altarpiece. Kroesen describes the liturgical furniture as the background
to and climax of the Mass which is the miracle of transubstantiation. The procession in
the bottom tier of the Ghent Altarpiece’s open state is as important as the Eucharistic
lamb at the center. All parts of the ritual are equally important. The Eucharistic supper
is prepared on the altar table and, in traditional liturgical practice, the Eucharistic wafer
is then elevated in acknowledgment of the miracle.48 When closed, as it was most of the
liturgical year, the figures of Saint John the Baptist who prepared the Body of Christ
through baptism, and John the Evangelist who witnessed the sacrifice of that body,
frame the elevation of the Host by the priest. Above, the scene of the Annunciation
would preside over the elevation, aligning a spiritual timeline beginning with Christ’s
Incarnation and ending with the sacrifice of his flesh. This creates a kind of vertical axis
between the altar table and the altarpiece. When opened during the Paschal season, this
spiritual metaphor is fully realized. Like the revelations of opening Vierges ouvrantes
discussed in the previous chapter, there is a dramatic moment of visual consumption.
The elevated Host would then be aligned with an actual sacrificial lamb set upon an
altar. This teleological alignment is another instance that is fundamentally difficult to
describe but is transmitted through visual storytelling. Efficaciously conveyed, this
effect would by no means have been lost on the viewers who were encouraged to look
upon the altar panels as a mode of meditation and focus.49
The priest uses the altarpiece as an extension of the Mass rather than as a mere
“backcloth.” Regarding media, McLuhan considered any medium to be an extension
of the senses.50 Like a carpenter and his hammer, the priest extended his own body
upward toward the altarpiece while simultaneously extending the viewer’s conscious-
ness using altar imagery. Two instances of extension then take place: the Eucharistic
wafer acts as an adjunct, supplementing the connection between the priest in the chapel
and the virtual space of the Adoration of the Lamb. The viewers, while witnessing the
miracle, follow this extension with their senses which mediates their viewing space
to a spiritual plane. The miracle of transubstantiation will take place whether an
altarpiece is present or not; the Ghent Altarpiece, acting as a mediator, facilitated the
viewers’ extension. In this instance, the altarpiece then stood as a liturgical technology
meant to amplify the miracle from the priest and altar to a metaphysical space. The
technological operations of an altarpiece and its supplemental function are illustrated
in the central panel of Rogier van der Weyden’s Seven Sacraments (Figure 5.16). The
mediating object contains within itself the very process or program of the ritual. It
closes, or helps close, the gap between seeing and doing.
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Figure 5.16 Ghent Altarpiece, upper tier Annunciation with sybils and prophets above, closed.
Showing detail of Mary’s words (Photo: Public Domain).
As Summers has noted, the virtual is a state of apparent space and time that is
divergent from the viewer. Within the Annunciation scene, two interior panels sep-
arate the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary. Gabriel gestures in salutation and speaks
aloud – AVE GRACIA PLENA D(OMI)N(U)S TECU(M) (“Hail who art full of
grace, the Lord is with thee”); Mary answers him –ECCE ANCILLAM D(OMI)NI
(“Behold the handmaiden of the Lord”) (Figure 5.17). Although the exchange
is between the holy messenger and Mary, van Eyck elects to represent Mary’s dialogue
in a manner that diverges from Gabriel’s. Her words flow from her mouth
facing upward toward the heavens. It is understood by scholars that the inscription of
Mary’s response is upside down so that God can read her obedient words. The viewer
sees these words manifest in type and then move through space. Here the planar time
is instantaneously contrasting the linear quality of virtual time. Although the spoken
vow is present within the scene, this instantaneous action is not actually present. The
viewer is a witness to a moment in time and space that visually unifies and extends
the private chapel to Mary’s locus. In this instance, the viewer is not only privy to the
encounter but to the exact time of holy conception. Even in this presentation of an
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Annunciation, where time and space are not factors, van Eyck emphasizes planar reli-
gious time versus virtual, secular time.
When the Ghent Altarpiece is opened, the Adoration of the Lamb continues the
immediacy of planarity in the new non-immediate virtuality. Across the landscape,
several processions of Christian archetypes gather around the Paschal table, and
martyrs, clergy, hermits, righteous judges, knights of Christ, and a choir of angels
make pilgrimage to venerate the central figure, a lamb on a sacrificial altar. The spir-
itual Supper of the Lamb models the Christian practice of congregation. The angels
that surround the bleeding lamb mirror the viewer’s gesture within the private chapel.
On the upper portion of the front of the altar, the faithful are introduced: ECCE
AGNUS DEI QUI TOLLIT PECCATA MUNDI (“Behold the Lamb of God who
takes away the sins of the world”). The lamb and the altar are arranged within the
middle ground and the viewer centers their meditation on this point. In joining the
figures in the foreground, completing the open space at the bottom of the panel,
the viewer interfaces with the virtual space. By extending themselves past the real altar
to the virtual altar, the viewer then receives the chalice prepared by the Mystic Lamb.
The space of the Deësis and the relationship of the altarpiece with the Vijdt chapel
enhance the tension between, but also harmonize, the two spaces.
The virtual qualities of the Ghent Altarpiece outside of the Mass are not deactivated
with the conclusion of the Paschal supper. When in recess, and the Eucharist is not
prepared or presented on the Vijdt altar, it is still simulated, where the image has
replaced action through the presence of the bleeding lamb.51 When the altarpiece is
open, the viewer enjoys the virtual presence of the Host as the altarpiece replicates tran-
substantiation and the Eucharistic lamb substitutes the real for the virtual. Alongside
the grisaille saints on the panels in the closed position are the kneeling portraits of
the donors (Figure 5.8). Acting as votive figures, these representations of the viewer
perpetually venerate the Host.52 The patrons then witness the conception of the Word
made flesh through the transubstantiated miracle within the liturgy.
The Ghent Altarpiece is not only a liturgical accessory but also an intricately linked
virtual medium. Referring to media via a medial and technological analysis, I have
revealed the van Eyck altarpiece as a medium whose intricacies erase media bound-
aries. As a technological apparatus it is utilized by clergy and laity alike to extend the
Mass celebration into a virtual space, which perpetually remediates the liturgy itself.
This case study of the Ghent Altarpiece specifically yields new theoretical insights
into media studies. Many of these discussions surrounding liturgical technology and
media can be applied to other medieval altarpieces and their ritualistic interaction.
The paradigm of virtual pilgrimage, for instance, and McLuhan’s relational prox-
imity are constructs that are necessary to further examine these medieval media. In
addition, this case study illustrates the trajectory of representing space in the Middle
Ages. From Cimabue’s Maestà to Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece it is observable how
planar and virtual surfaces shifted from a relatively more planar to a relatively more
virtual form. But why was there a discernible switch in dominance? Why is there not a
consistent trajectory from the early medieval all the way to modernism? As Summers
points out in his own discussions, there is not a constant trajectory but one where
the balance shifts over time and throughout cultures. So, what is there about this
specific time frame of the Middle Ages leading up to the Renaissance that causes the
balance to shift? Early medieval imagery was dominated by planar imagery that then
succumbed to virtual dominance after the fourteenth century. It is also known that,
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with the Reformation and the decline of devotional imagery, the religious emphasis
turned toward what was invisible, that of interior and individual spirituality.53 For the
late medieval viewer, the celebration of the Mass was an intensely visual performance
and experience. Materiality and visual piety were cornerstones of fourteenth-and
fifteenth-century worship, evident in some of the multisensorial elements. What if
van Eyck was not just “reflecting” increased secularization in Northern Europe and
changing church practices of his time, but recalling an older and more archaic mode?
Neoplatonic ideas of spiritual and intellectual seeing emerged during this period of the
later Middle Ages. Scribner notes that this was a period of merging the ideas “of the
ascent from the visible and the bodily to the invisible and the divine.”54 That is, pious
seeing should move beyond physical sight, beyond the naturalism demonstrated in the
more virtual, earthly aesthetic observed in the Adam, Eve, and donor panels. In the
sixteenth century, Martin Luther even preached of looking past the literal and physical
image to its metaphorical nature.55
Notes
1 In the monograph, Staging the Liturgy: The Medieval Altarpiece in the Iberian Peninsula
(Leuven: Peeters, 2009), Justin Kroesen categorizes and defines the various types of altar
decorations, including winged retable, panel retable, baldachin, etc. He also breaks down
the history of altar decorations in Spain and their aesthetic influences throughout the rest
of Europe and the British Isles. This immense project unpacks altar imagery and ornamen-
tation, surveying key historical and dogmatic shifts which shaped these objects as well as
regional and social practices. Kroesen and other scholars of altarpieces largely employ his-
torical and iconographic methodologies to their analyses of these objects. For further schol-
arship on altar decorations, see Victor Schmidt, ed., Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento
and Trecento (Washington, DC, New Haven, CT, and London: National Gallery of Art
and Yale University Press, 2002); Eve Borsook and Fiorella Superbi Gioffredi, eds., Italian
Altarpieces 1250–1550, Function and Design (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); Peter
Humfrey and Martin Kemp, eds., The Altarpiece in the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990); Judith Berg Sobre, Behind the Altar Table: The Development of the
Painted Retable in Spain, 1350–1500 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989); Jacob
Burckhardt, The Altarpiece in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1988); Henk van Os, Sienese Altarpieces 1215–1460: Form, Content, Function, vol. I: 1215–
1344 (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1988); Chandler Post Rathfon, A History of Spanish
Painting, Vol. 10 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970). See also Kees van der
Ploeg, “How Liturgical Is a Medieval Altarpiece?” in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento
and Trecento, 102–212; Julian Gardner, “Altars, Altarpieces, and Art History: Legislation
and Usage,” in Italian Altarpieces 1250–1550: Function and Design, 5–40; Joanna Cannon,
“Simone Martini, the Dominicans, and the Early Sienese Polyptych,” Journal of the Warburg
and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982): 69–93; and Donald Ehresmann, “Some Observations
on the Role of Liturgy in the Early Winged Altarpiece,” The Art Bulletin 63, no. 3 (Sept.
1982): 359–369.
2 Victor Schmidt and Justin Kroesen, “Introduction,” in The Altar and Its Environment, eds.
Justin Kroesen and Victor Schmidt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 7.
3 A Deësis is usually a representation of the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist (even
though it is John the Baptist in the Ghent Altarpiece), and Christ. Traditionally, Mary and
John implore Christ to restore the salvation of man. In this instance, Jan Eyck plays with
this concept by placing God the Father in the center and references Christ in the metaphor
of a crown and the Mystic Lamb.
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128 Part II
4 Penny Howell Jolly, “More on the Van Eyck Question: Philip the Good of Burgundy, Isabelle
of Portugal, and the Ghent Altarpiece,” Oud Holland 101, no. 4 (1987): 237. The patrons
were barren and hoped that daily prayer and devotion would cause a saint to intercede on
their behalf.
5 An example of iconographic methodology can be seen in Penny Howell Jolly, “More on
the Van Eyck Question: Philip the Good of Burgundy, Isabelle of Portugal, and the Ghent
Altarpiece,” Oud Holland 101, no. 4 (1987): 237–253, and Grantley McDonald, “A Further
Source for the Ghent Altarpiece? The ‘Revelations’ of Bridget of Sweden,” Oud Holland 128,
no. 1 (2015): 1–16. For additional reading see: Penny Howell Jolly, “Jan van Eyck’s Italian
Pilgrimage: A Miraculous Florentine Annunciation and the Ghent Altarpiece,” Zeitschrift
für Kunstgeschichte 61 (1998): 369–394; Lotte Brand Philip, The Ghent Altarpiece and the
Art of Jan Van Eyck, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971); Herman Willem
Hoen, and M.G. Kemperink, Vision in Text and Image: The Cultural Turn in the Study of
Arts, Groningen Studies in Cultural Change, vol. 30 (Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2008); Otto
Pächt and Maria Schmidt-Dengle, Van Eyck: and the Founders of Early Netherlandish
Painting (London: Harvey Miller, 1994); Erwin Panofsky, “The Friedsam Annunciation and
the Problem of the Ghent Altarpiece,” The Art Bulletin 17, no. 4 (1935): 433–473; Lien De
Backer, Arnold Janssens, et al., “Evaluation of Display Conditions of the Ghent Altarpiece
at St. Bavo Cathedral,” Journal of Cultural Heritage 29 (2018): 168–72.
7 Van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical Is a Medieval Altarpiece?”, 108; Victor Schmidt, “Ensembles
of Painted Altarpieces and Frontals,” in The Altar and Its Environment 1150–1400, eds.
Justin Kroesen and Victor Schmidt (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 203.
8 Donald L. Ehresmann, “Some Observations on the Role of Liturgy in the Early Winged
Altarpiece,” The Art Bulletin 64, no. 3 (1982): 359.
10 Ehresmann, “Some Observations on the Role of Liturgy,” 362–363.
11 Schmidt, “Ensembles of Painted Altarpieces and Frontals,” 205.
12 Schmidt, “Ensembles of Painted Altarpieces and Frontals,” 205.
13 Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1953), 208.
14 Griet Steyaert, “The Ghent Altarpiece: New Thoughts on its Original Display,” The
Burlington Magazine 157, no. 1343 (February 2015): 74–84.
15 Typically, a tower retable is a small, winged altarpiece whose painted wings are attached
to and usually close in on a central architectonic spire or baldachin. Arranged around a
plinth, the central niche is equipped with a decorative panel that thematically aligns with
the imagery of the whole. In many cases, however, the central panel is a sculptural niche
that would originally have housed a cult statue of some kind. The latter is indeed the case
for the Tower Retable of Saint John the Evangelist (Figure 4.7) Also see examples of tower
retables throughout Rogier van der Weyden’s Seven Sacraments and the detail within this
chapter (Figure 4.15).
16 Recent scholarship by Bart Fransen and Jean-Albert Glatigny in their essay on its original
display published in The Ghent Altarpiece: Research and Conservation of the Exterior
takes issue with Steyaert and previous proposals of the Ghent Altarpiece’s original dis-
play. Even though previous, including Steyaert’s, proposals are not considered “accepted
proposals,” her proposal does highlight the virtual nature of the Ghent Altarpiece –and
other fifteenth-century Netherlandic works. Bart Fransen and Jean-Albert, “Imagining the
Original Display,” in The Ghent Altarpiece: Research and Conservation of the Exterior,
309– 336, Bart Fransen and Cyriel Stroo, eds. (Brussels: Royal Institute for Cultural
Heritage, 2020).
17 David Summers, Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism
(New York: Phaidon Press, 2003), 358 and 549.
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18 Summers, Real Spaces, 343.
21 They are our attempt to imagine concepts in an image, and in the world around us, by
pointing to the act of writing ideas onto flat surfaces or a tabula, and the capturing of
images onto a plane with a camera obscura. Summers, Real Spaces, 345.
23 Summers, Real Spaces, 350–355.
24 Or even on top of the mensa as the cult statue of the Madonna would likely have been
placed, on occasion, on top of the altar table.
27 A French term meaning “in shades or tones of gray.”
28 Lynn Jacobs notes van Eyck’s ability to simulate a multitude of sculptural materials,
including ivory and marble. Lynn Jacobs, Opening Doors: The Early Netherlandish
Triptych Reinterpreted (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012) 80.
29 Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality, 19. For further reading concerning late
medieval visuality see Caroline Walker Bynum, “Seeing and Seeing Beyond: The Mass of
St Gregory in the Fifteenth Century,” in The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument
in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey F. Hamburger and Anne- Marie Bouché (Princeton,
NJ: Department of Art and Archaeology in cooperation with Princeton University
Press, 2006), 208–240; R.W. Scribner, Religion and Culture in Germany (1400–1800)
(Leiden: Brill, 2001).
31 Scribner, Religion and Culture, 115.
32 The rise of Marian devotion in the thirteenth century also saw the increased association of
Mary as Queen of Heaven. A studded crown and sumptuous robes are the usual attributes
for this Marian type. Daisy Delogu, Allegorical Bodies: Power and Gender in Late Medieval
France (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 31. Episodes from the Life of the
Virgin are depicted in the tracery along the arch at the rear of the nave. One can observe an
Annunciation scene above the Madonna and Child statue in the niche of the choir screen
altar behind the figures’ left shoulder. Two angels behind the choir screen sing exaltations to
the Bride of Christ. Millard Meiss, “Light as Form and Symbol in Some Fifteenth-Century
Paintings,” The Art Bulletin 27, no. 3 (1945): 180.
33 Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1953), 147–148.
34 Nineteenth- century art historians suggested that these irrational proportions were the
errors of an immature artist. Panofsky later suggested that her dominating size was delib-
erate as it brought to mind the metaphor of Mary as the Church. Til-Holger Borchert, Van
Eyck (London: Taschen, 2008), 63.
35 Craig Harbison, The Art of the Northern Renaissance (London: Laurence King, 1995), 101.
For an additional interpretation see Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, Anachronic
Renaissance (Zone Books, 2010).
36 The shifting cultural emphasis on secularity is discussed in F. Smith Fussner, The Historical
Revolution: English Historical Writing and Thought 1580–1640 (New York: Columbia
37 An economic revision from feudalism to the beginnings of capitalism took place toward the
end of the Middle Ages. The historian F. Smith Fussner maintained that economic develop-
ment resulted in inevitable cultural change, including the rise of the middle class, mercan-
tilism, the “level and distribution of income, in tastes, and in a variety of institutional and
organizational arrangements.” Fussner, The Historical Revolution, 2–3.
38 Fussner, The Historical Revolution, 4.
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130 Part II
39 The Ghent Altarpiece was returned to St. Bavo in 1946 and installed in its present location
in 1986. Anton Yernin, “The Mysic Lamb” (accessed July 1, 2019) www.sintbaafskathedr
aal.be/en/art/the-mystic-lamb.html.
41 Nicholas of Cusa, De visione Dei, as cited in J.P. Dolan, Unity and Reform, Selected Writings
of Nicholas de Cusa (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1962), 147. Written
in 1456, the first publication of De visione Dei was in Strasbourg in 1489. It was based on
paintings by his acquaintance, Rogier van der Weyden.
42 Jolly, “Jan Van Eyck’s Italian Pilgrimage,” 377.
43 Jolly, “Jan Van Eyck’s Italian Pilgrimage,” 392.
44 Lynn Jacobs notes Van Eyck’s ability to simulate a multitude of sculptural materials,
including ivory and marble. Lynn Jacobs, Opening Doors: The Early Netherlandish
Triptych Reinterpreted (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012) 70.
45 Anita Albus, The Art of Arts (New York: Knopf, 2000), 21. Though Albus was specifically
referring to the Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, it is just as applicable here in the Ghent
Altarpiece.
46 Bolter and Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media, 31.
48 This is a tradition that has been practiced since the thirteenth century. Kroesen, Staging the
Liturgy, 324.
51 Philip Auslander, Liveness in a Mediatized Culture, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2008), 17.
52 Jay David Bolter et al., “New Media and the Permanent Crisis of Aura,” The International
Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 12, no. 1 (2006): 28.
53 Scribner, Religion and Culture, 104. The act of spiritual seeing became too intense for
Protestant reformers. With the growing popularity of naturalism in fifteenth-century reli-
gious artwork, gazing upon an artwork became so passionate that Scribner refers to it as
“greedy gaze” or “ecstatic gaze,” Scribner, Religion and Culture, 116–117.
1
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6 Reflections
As our social, academic, and professional environments have shifted these recent years
to more virtual modes of communication, in the era of COVID-19 novel corona-
virus the human experience has drastically evolved to that of virtual existence. Virtual
platforms have become indispensable media that reconstruct human relationships,
business, and even methods of religious ritual. I wrote the first draft of this manuscript
pre-pandemic and, like many of us, I have had a lot of time to think about the ideas
in this work as well as observe the multitude of changes that we have had to face. It
has been remarkable to witness how imperative technology is to our daily lives and
the powerful influence that media have on society, civility, culture, legislation, and
religion. During the initial shutdown, Pope Francis launched a campaign of virtual
penitence. While travel was restricted due to COVID-19, the Vatican granted many
exceptional plenary indulgences during the pandemic for those joining in global ros-
aries, feast-day celebrations, and virtual pilgrimages. In July of 2020 the office of Pope
Francis announced the first virtual world pilgrimage hosted by the Marian Shrine at
Lourdes.1 In 2021, the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, a custodian fraternity
of the order of Friars Minor in Jerusalem, launched a virtual Way of the Cross project
titled “Hic –On the Way of the Cross.”2 There are many other examples of modified
veneration due to the drastic shifts in post-pandemic society. This contemporary and
the premodern examples discussed in this work demonstrate that religious operations
are not static. Modifications and shifts like these have operated within a religious
context where technological apparati have been utilized to venerate and commune
with the divine. As concluded in Chapter 5: Virtually There, by the fifteenth century
there are observable shifts in the visual plane. As the pandemic has shifted contem-
porary methods of worship, so Neoplatonic ideas of spiritual and intellectual seeing
shifted toward increasing secularization. Medieval economy and ideologies gave way
to early modern social and cultural reforms. Religious reform and the reinvigoration
of humanist ideas in Florence influenced and shifted the aesthetic of religious imagery
throughout Europe.
The chapters of this book differentiate types not only of liturgical apparati, but also
of different applications of technology and media theory. Chapter 2 tackled the term
medium, demonstrating its complexity not only as a “thing” but also as a concept.
Topographical imagery and Holy Land relics acted as a medium or bridge to connect
the viewer’s locus to that of the object’s origins. Functioning much like YouTube or
Skype, the viewer’s consciousness left their body behind and was transported to the
Loca Sancta. Many early medieval relics, like the Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box,
functioned in this manner. In Chapter 3: Mass Media and Liturgical Performance,
DOI: 10.4324/9781003305279-9
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I demonstrated that concepts of media were not peculiar to relics but were included in
liturgical practices. In fact, the Eucharist is a medium connecting the penitent directly
with God. The liturgy was and is a multifaceted and multimodal medium. Music, light,
procession, theater, and material objects were utilized during the Romanesque period
to create a metaphysical experience for the viewer to facilitate this mediation. Like the
Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box, feast-day performances transported the viewer to the
Loca Sancta, or more specifically, to the tomb of Christ itself. In Chapter 4 I defined
technology and its subcategory –religious technology. I unpacked the technological
side of religious apparati and revealed how Vierges ouvrantes functioned within
several technological systems, even, possibly, infinite systems. Marian imagery was
combined to express complex themes or motifs of redemption and the Eucharist. The
Vierge ouvrante functioned as a tether, not only between dogma and allegory, but
also between the sacred and the mundane. The final chapter contested the concept of
a linear trajectory toward naturalism. In so doing I presented the tensions between
planarity and virtuality in the medieval altarpiece as a wider expression of the social
and religious climate of the later Middle Ages, mainly in Northern Europe.
Although each chapter discusses a diverse collection of ritual objects and
performances throughout the medieval and early modern epochs across Europe –
the Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box, intercessory performance of the Mass, Vierges
ouvrantes, and the Ghent Altarpiece –I emphasize European examples and their
ability to mediate through imagery. The selections demonstrate the implementation of
media to achieve connections with the divine. The threads that bind these objects and
performances together along with society and religion shape meaning into a specific
aesthetic. It is important to think of these objects less as art and more as tools. Like
any tool, they are formed out of societal shifts and functional needs. In terms of com-
monality, we see that reliquary boxes, liturgical performance, and their accoutrements,
cult objects, and altarpieces evolved based on various uses and regional needs. Beyond
that, these religious apparati consistently functioned to connect one space with another
and one state of existence with another. They have transformative potentials that
lend them great agency. Not only are these objects shaped by their creators, but the
ways in which they are aesthetically constructed and used, in turn, shape the viewer.
This agency can be exchanged and distributed by the object. As seen with the Vierge
ouvrante from Morlaix, from one moment to the next it can be human-centric, divine-
centric, object-centric, or omni-centric.
These are not merely objects that exist as symbols of divinity or divine space, they
also have the power to transport. The viewer perceives and reacts to this agency in a
very real and fervent way. In Chapter 2 the stones of the reliquary box conjure visions
of Jerusalem in a way that transports experience. Images of the Passion overlaid on
the sacred materials from where the depicted events occurred hundreds of years prior
solidify them as agents of continuous performances of those happenings. The media
of the images and rocks transfer the holiness of the Loca Sancta to the viewer’s own
locus. We see something very similar in the way in which liturgical performance has a
similar transportive agency to join the viewer with a distant space. Space is constructed
through visual cues such as an altar being transformed into the holy sepulchre or the
theatrical performance of finding Christ missing from his tomb. This liturgical aes-
thetic connects the viewer to the sacred in similar if not the same ways as the stones
from the box reliquary. This ritual performance of the Mass, lay veneration, recreated
sepulchres, and staged angelic voices in church architecture are not only transmission
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Reflections 133
of media as objects but also methods of creating and generating media. Acting as a
bridge as the “interspace” 3 of here and there, they are simultaneously tethered by
a between space of “metaphoric significance.”4 Altarpieces, tabernacles, sepulchres,
and other religious media are the “extension” about which McLuhan writes.5 Media
redefine time and space to generate an immediacy between image and viewer.
Shrine Madonnas and other cult statuary work similarly. The likenesses of divine
bodies are fixed within a figure of stone, ivory, gems, and precious metals. Mary the
Mother of God intercedes not only as a saint but as a shrine statue. Multiple layers of
mediation are found in the Ghent Altarpiece. These objects are multilayered in their
transmission of the divine. The Ghent Altarpiece and the Trinitarian Shrine Madonna
allow the viewer to see beyond mere location into the fundamental beliefs of the
Church, including the phenomenon of the Eucharist or the mystery of the Trinity.
Ideas that are fundamentally difficult to describe through language are harnessed
through visual storytelling. Like a meme or GIF these objects describe incredibly
complex teleological ideas to the illiterate masses through visual simultaneity. Like
film or television and other forms of mass communication, the information conveyed
through these objects creates a kind of sameness; it creates an even playing field for
the viewer.6 Whether priest or layman, the viewer can glean new, or reinforce funda-
mental, didactic particulars of what it is to be Christian, a saint, God, Christ, Mary,
and the mysteries therein.
Like the Shrine Madonna, media are socially constructed. As McLuhan posits, the
ground shapes the figure. Each artifact discussed in these chapters functioned as tech-
nology, mediating between the sacred and mundane. I will quote McLuhan here again
for emphasis: “This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any
medium –that is, of any extension of ourselves –result from the new scale that is
introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.”7
This monograph is organized into two parts. Chapter 2: Media, Mediator, and
Intercessor and Chapter 3: Mass Media and Liturgical Performance were generalized
discussions of the definitions of media and their multitudinous manifestations in
medieval Europe. While these two chapters function similarly, the second half of the
monograph delved deeper into the action of mediation and considered the social
and technological networks which shape these objects and their larger environ-
ment. Christian understanding, philosophy, and dogma shift and develop over time.
Through the previous chapters, instances of materiality and performance have fallen
into categories or types. First, there is a notable discussion between private and public
devotion. The liturgy was a mass medium, consumed by the masses in a very public
way. Being in a private chapel in a public space, the Ghent Altarpiece skirts the line
between private and public. It is shared in the liturgical performance at the high altar
while still existing as a private object in situ in the west end of the church, far from
the sanctuary in the baptistry. Even so, it could be viewed by anyone entering St.
Bavo. So, what does that say about private chapels and their objects? Should they be
considered separately from the entire liturgical environment, separate from the high
altar? Vierges ouvrantes often functioned outside of the liturgy, only being taken out
for feast days, or as the community may have had the need to view and venerate them.
The Sancta Sanctorum box reliquary was the most private of all. Initially collected for
personal devotion, the reliquary was housed in the pope’s private chapel in Rome for
centuries. Second, like any technology, there is an interesting mix of daily and inter-
mittent interaction. If we can imagine our regular usage of telephones, MP3 players,
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134 Part II
toasters, remote controls, coffee makers, computers, televisions, and typewriters, we
would also note an interesting mix of personal and social intervals of usage.
Each object in this study is a product of its time and region. This monograph
tackles nearly the entire spectrum of the thousand years of the medieval period. This
selection of objects and examples is intentional to demonstrate that medieval apparati,
the act of mediation, and the use of religious technology are widespread phenomena
not unique to a specific object, time, or space. What future research can come from
this? Examining medieval artifacts in this way has proven to be useful in revealing a
new understanding of what a religious object was and is still tasked to do. This meth-
odology can also be applied in examining other rituals or religious objects. As Martin
Foys has demonstrated in Virtually Anglo Saxon, media concepts can also be applied
to non-religious objects, including print and maps. Even beyond European studies, the
history of mediation is embedded in the spiritual practice of many premodern cultures.
Therefore, the elasticity of these methodologies may prove beneficial to other discip-
linary fields outside of medieval or art-historical studies. Modern and digital theories,
more specifically, are not going anywhere. These are frameworks for asking questions
in an academic field but that does not mean that their nature is purely academic.
Media, technology, religion, ritual, and materiality are concepts that are concurrently
relevant to everyday life and integral parts of what it is to be human. Technology has
shaped the way we function as a society. Much of my own research was performed
with computers, reading digital scans from archives, or viewing Google images and
Google Books. We produce these things, we consume them, activate them, and ana-
lyze them. These are methods that we use to analyze the present and should be used
to scrutinize the past.
My methodology within this monograph addresses the problem of mediation and
reveals a new understanding of medieval religious art. Though it is often implied
and then glossed over with a mere passing mention, medievalists have yet to venture
deeply into what exactly it means to mediate. The concepts of saintly intercession are
widely understood by scholars but have yet to be widely applied to the objects which
house and personify them. I have asked and answered the following questions: Are
there medieval media? How does religious imagery mediate? What is religious tech-
nology? And how do these works generate virtual interfaces? These chapters have
explained medieval mediation and a distributed agency through mediation within
a larger system or assemblage throughout much of Europe. Media manifest and
manipulate space through telepresence and intercession with the divine. The process
of mediation configures real and ephemeral space. This book examines the relation-
ship between space, people, objects, and all the in-betweens of those relationships.
These chapters reveal how medieval persons confronted and utilized liturgical
apparati. They were not merely pedagogical tools or divine representations but sacred
conduits. Further, this work builds on the concepts of virtuality and reveals that the
precepts of what we might perceive as a linear trajectory toward verisimilitude were in
a constant state of flux. There is a remarkable exchange of what was visible and invis-
ible and what was individual and spiritual. It is fluid and waxes and wanes according
to contemporaneous religious emphasis. But liturgical apparati also transcend time,
space, and themselves, changing the viewer and the larger systems of which they are a
part. Therefore, the medieval person could transcend these earthly principles of time
and space as well. I hope that The Virtual Liturgy will inspire other scholars to turn
toward this method of analysis, to conceptualize new modes of study, and that this
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Reflections 135
discussion will provide fruitful insight into how humans commune with God through
media and media performance. In the ways that Marshall McLuhan encouraged
scholars to think of media in terms of their environmental ground over the figure, in
the way Caroline Walker Bynum broached the paradox of Christian materiality, and
in the way that the digital humanities has transformed methods of “reading” the past,
I aspire to spearhead a new direction in the study of medieval and early modern vir-
tual liturgy.
Notes
1 “Lourdes to Host First Online World Pilgrimage, Vatican News, July 15, 2020, www.vati
cannews.va/en/church/news/2020-07/lourdes-to-host-first-online-world-pilgrimage.html.
The Lourdes virtual pilgrimage was launched from July 10 to 17, 2020. “Vatican gives
plenary indulgence for virtual pilgrimage!” Archdiocese of St. Andrews & Edinburgh, July
08, 2020, https://archedinburgh.org/vatican-gives-plenary-indulgence-for-virtual-pilgrimage/
2 “Holy Land: Franciscans Offer Virtual Way of the Cross During Lent,” Vatican News,
February 19, 2021, www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2021-02/holy-land-lent-way-of-
the-cross-virtual.html. See other Vatican news releases: “Global Rosary is Centerpiece of
Mary’s Meals Virtual Pilgrimage,” Vatican News, November 13, 2020, www.vaticannews.
va/en/world/news/2020-11/global-rosary-centrepiece-of-mary-s-meals-virtual-pilgrimage.
html., “Pope to Marian pilgrims: ‘Mary embraces us all’,” Vatican News, September 28,
2020, www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2020-09/pope-francis-video-message-lujan-pil
grimage-argentina.html.
3 Lars Elleström, “Media, Modality and Modes,” in Media Borders, Multimodality and
Intermediality (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 13.
4 Alexander Nagel, Medieval Modern: Art Out of Time (New York: Thames and Hudson,
2012), 121.
6 In Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Benjamin
described the accessibility of mass-produced images, that satisfied the masses’ desire to bring
things closer. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,”
trans. Harry Zohn, in Video Culture: A Critical Investigation, ed. John G. Hanhardt (Layton,
UT: Peregrine Smith Books, 1986 [1936]), 31–32.
6
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6
4
1
Index
Note: Endnotes are indicated by the page number followed by “n” and the note number
e.g., 129n32 refers to note 129 on page 32.
acoustic space ix, 21, 29, 44, 55–8, 60, 138 crucifixion viii, ix, 13, 18, 32, 35, 38, 40
actor network theory 69, 93, 137, 141, 145 cult imagery 22, 51
Adam 56, 93, 104, 113–14, 117, 124,
127, 136 Deësis 100, 104, 109, 111, 113–14, 117,
Agnus Dei 45, 126 119, 124, 126
Alberti, Leon Battista 30, 121 digital: humanities 21, 135; interface 37;
ampulla 34 photography 29; scans 134; theories 134
ancona 5 divine presence 43, 46, 60
apparati 12, 131–4 Dominicans 5, 8
apse 5, 13, 58 doors 49, 77–8, 80, 113, 121
ascension 32, 56, 74–5 Dossale 5
assemblages i, 4, 19, 22, 80, 90, 104 double intercession x, 85, 91
Augustinians viii, 9, 12
Ecclesia triumphans 117
Bayeux Tapestry 20 Egeria 34
Berengar of Tours 43, 45, 60 Ehresmann, Donald L. 19, 100, 104
Blood of Christ 43, 45, 46 electronic technology 3
Body of Christ 43, 46, 124 Elleström, Lars 4, 29–30, 32, 45, 57, 90
Bolter, J. David 29–30 entombment 75
Born, Erik 3–4 environment i, 4, 12–13, 18, 19, 22, 44, 46,
boundaries 19, 22–3, 124, 126 48–50, 56, 83, 104, 131, 133, 135
brandea 34–5 Ernst, Wolfgang 3
Bynum, Caroline Walker 4, 34, 51, 117, 135 Eucharist 5, 13, 18, 43–6, 48–51, 60, 72, 77,
93, 100, 117, 124, 126, 132–3
camera obscura 29, 46, 47 evangelical 49
canonical 12, 18 evangelist x–xi, 75, 108–9, 112, 124
Carmelite 5 eve 104
channel 4, 30, 32, 40, 45–6, 69 extension 32, 44, 56, 80, 145, 121, 124, 133
ciborium 13, 16, 18
Cimabue x, 110, 111, 117, 126 figure (figure ground relationship) 46–50, 56
Cistercians viii, 12, 13, 16, 21, 70 Franciscan viii, x, 9, 13–15, 21, 87, 131
colonized 22
communication 4, 29, 32, 34, 44, 45, 51, Gardner, Julian 18
131, 133 Gerson, Jean 92, 94
computer games 29 Gertsman, Elina xii, 35, 37, 77–9, 84, 102
consecration 5, 18, 43, 45, 46 Gesamtkunstwerk 13
cool (hot and cool media) 32 Gloria laus 57–8
coronation 74–5 Godhead 70, 75
corporeal 30, 77, 78, 90 Greenberg, Clement 30
Council of Trent 21 Grisaille xi, 112–14, 117, 119, 124, 126
7
4
1
Index 147
ground (figure ground relationship) 46, Madonna of Allariz 75; Madonna and
48–50, 56 Child 53–5, 69, 74–5; Madonna Lactans
Grusin, Richard 100 92; Mercy x, 83, 84, 89
Madonna del Bordone 53
haptic 49, 78 Madonna del Canto 53
hardware 79 Madonna del Terremoto 51
hierarchy 48, 94, 109, 111, 117, 119 Madonna della Misericordia x, 83–4, 88
historiography 3–4, 20, 22, 29 Madonna delle Grazie, 52
Holy Land ix, 21, 29, 32, 33, 35–8, 40, 46, Maestà x, 5, 21, 110, 111, 117, 126
77, 131 Maiestas domini ix, 58–9
hot (hot and cool media) 32 Mailer, Norman 45
hypermediacy 30, 50 manuscript 20, 29–30, 51, 70, 93, 131
Maria Lactans 75, 80, 90
iconography 9, 12, 18–19, 22, 69, 75, 77, Marian x, 5, 69–70, 78, 80, 83–4, 119, 129
83–5, 90, 94, 100, 104 n32, 131, 132; Marian cult 22, 51, 70
illuminate 20, 22, 30, 32, 37 martyria 37
immediacy 21, 29–30, 37, 50, 80, 126, 133 Master of Saint Giles x, 103–4
Incarnation of God 38 material 3–5, 20–2, 29–30, 32, 35, 37, 40,
indexical 32, 117 43, 45–6, 48, 51, 60, 77–80, 90, 93, 119,
intercessor vii, 21, 29, 35, 85, 133 127, 132–5; material modality 30
intercessory 92; icon 100; link 21; medium McLuhan, Marshall 4, 20, 29–30, 32, 44–6,
51; performance 132; type 90 48–51, 55–8, 100, 124, 126, 133, 135
interface 12, 21–2, 29, 30, 35, 37–8, 43, 45, media studies 3, 21, 29, 126
49–50, 94, 126, 134 media technologies i, 4
Itinerarium 34 medial 3, 21, 32, 126
mediating 4, 18, 22, 29, 45, 124, 133;
Jacobs, Lynn 121 mediating ages 4, 22
Jerusalem 22, 34, 57–8, 131, 132 mediation 3–4, 21–2, 29, 32, 35, 37, 40,
John the Apostle xi, 112–14 43–6, 49–50, 54, 78, 93, 132–4
Joys of Mary 69, 75, 77 medieval media vii, 3, 6, 19–21, 29, 126, 134
Jung, Jaqueline 19, 49, 57 mendicant 5, 9, 18, 69
mensa 4–5, 12–13, 18
Katz, Melissa R. 70, 77–8 metaphysical 44–6, 48–50, 54–5, 60, 62 n23,
Kings 48, 70 77, 124, 132
Krauss, Rosalind 32 mnemonic 35
Kroesen, Justin E. A. xii, 5, 83–4, 100, 124 modality 30
modes 30, 34, 60, 70, 114, 117, 131, 134
laity 19, 44, 49, 53, 57, 100, 126 multilocational 21, 57
Lanfranc of Bec 43 multimodal 21, 29–30, 44, 53, 56, 58,
Last Supper 45 60, 132
Lateran Council 5, 18, 21, 45 music 21, 48, 50, 55–8, 132
LaTour, Bruno 94 Mystic lamb 101, 113, 114, 121, 126
Laudesi 53
Libri ordinarii 20 Nagel, Alexanger 21, 35
Life of Mary 72, 74–5, 87, 116 Nativity 32, 35, 75
linear perspective 30, 109, 113, 121 new media 3, 4, 20, 29, 30, 32, 37, 40, 100
liturgy i–iii, 5, 13, 18–19, 21–2, 43–6, 48–50, Noli me tangere 75
56, 100, 104, 126, 132–5 non-site-specificity 35
liturgical vii, 4, 13, 18–22, 43–60, 100, 104,
124, 126, 131–4 old media 3, 20, 29
Loca sancta vii, 21, 29, 32, 34, 37, 40, optic 49
131, 132 Ong, Walter 20
Madonna viii, ix–xi, 5–9, 11–13, 22, 53–5, Paliotto 5

69, 72–3, 75, 77, 80, 84, 93, 104, 111, Paschal 43, 57, 100, 124, 126
116–17, 119, 121; Chancellor Rolin periodization 20, 22
117; Essen 70, 80; the Franciscans x, 87; physical presence 40
8
4
1
148 Index
pilgrim 34–5, 37; pilgrim badge 34 Shrine Madonna ix, x, 22, 70, 73, 75, 77–9,
pilgrimage 32, 37, 121, 126, 131 80, 83–4, 90, 133
planar vii, 22, 100, 109, 111, 113, 114, 117, Skype 32, 37, 131
119, 121, 124–6, 132 social media 30
planarity see planar socio-technical 22, 32, 92–3
plinth 5, 109, 111 software 79, 84
post-medial 32 Sorrows of Mary 69
pre-digital 20 souvenirs 34–5, 37
procession 19, 48–50, 53, 57–8, 60, 124, spatiotemporal 20, 30, 45, 57, 90
126, 132 spiritual presence 40, 43, 51
profane 4, 19 Steyaert, Griet 22, 109, 111, 117
prophets xi, 111, 100, 125 stones ix, 21, 29, 32–5, 37, 132
Summers, David 22, 109, 111, 119, 125–6
Radler, Gundrun 70, 75 surface 30, 35, 46, 49, 70, 83, 109, 111,
real presence 43 121, 126
real space 21, 109, 111, 113, 119, 121 sybils xi, 125
Regina coeli 117
relic i, ix, 4, 12, 21, 29, 34–8, 40, 46, 48, 57, tabernacle ix, 13, 16, 39, 40, 54, 69–70, 80,
77, 80, 104, 113, 131 83, 109, 133
religious apparati 132 talismans 34
religious technology 22, 69, 78–9, 84, 90, television 4, 29–30, 44, 56, 133, 134
132, 134 tetrad 57–8
remediation 29 transference 22, 38, 40, 45, 53, 57
resurrection 32, 57, 75, 77 Transsubstantiatio 45
retable viii, x, 5, 9, 12–13, 17–18, 108–9, transubstantiation 43, 60, 124, 126
111, 113 trinitarian 22, 93, 94, 133
retrotabularium 5 trinity 69, 70, 75, 78, 84, 93, 133
Rhenish Master x, 106 Trompe l’oeil 111, 113
Rhine Valley ix, 70–1, 75 true presence 43, 45
typological viii, 13, 16
sacred contagion 35, 40, 53
sacred space 48–50, 55 Van der Ploeg, Kees 5, 18, 100
sacristy 49; cabinet x, 13, 16, 104, 105, Van der Weyden, Rogier xi, 114, 115,
109, 113 123, 124
Saint Bavo, 100, 101, 114, 118, 121, 122, Van Eyck, Jan 22, 100–2, 111, 113–14,
128, 130, 133 116–17, 119–21, 124–6
Saint Francis 9 Van Os, Henk 9
Saint John the Apostle 113 Vierge Ouvrante vii, x, 22, 69–71, 73, 75,
Saint John the Baptist viii, 17, 100, 124 77–9, 81–2, 84, 90, 92–4, 132
Saint Luke the Evangelist 75 Virgen abrideras ix, 72, 74
Saint Mary 70 Virgin and Child ix, x, xi, 5, 9, 39–40, 51,
Saint Paul 9 80, 85, 120
Saint Peter 9 Virgin Lactans 92; Virgin Mary 51, 53, 75,
Saint Stephen 51 93, 100, 111, 125
Sancta Sanctorum ix, 19, 21, 29, 33, 35, Virtù 53
37, 131–3 virtuality 20, 22, 40, 49, 56, 57, 100,
Santa Caterina viii, 9–10 109, 111, 114, 117, 119, 124, 126,
Santa Clara ix, 74 132, 134
Santa Chiara viii, 9, 13 virtual reality 29, 37
Santa Maria Novella viii, 11; dei Servi viii, Visitatio Sepulchri 56–7, 65
6–7; delle Laude 53 visual space 55–6
Santa Trinita x, 110–11 visuality 117
Schmidt, Victor 18, 49–50, 56, 80, 100, 104
Schutzmantelmadonna 83–4 Wandelaltar 104
semiotic 30 winged altarpiece 5, 12, 18, 19, 22, 69,
sensorial 30, 56 100, 104
Sepulchri 21, 56–7
servite viii, 5–7 Zielinski, Siegfried 3

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i

The Virtual Liturgy and Ritual Artifacts in

Routledge Research in Art History

American Art in Asia

Bauhaus Effects in Art, Architecture and Design

Art History at the Crossroads of Ireland and the United States

Nature and Imagination in Ancient and Early Modern Roman Art

Erasures and Eradication in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design

Egon Schiele and the Art of Popular Illustration

State Construction and Art in East Central Europe, 1918–​2018

Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà and its Afterlives

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routle​dge.com/​Routle​dge-​

The Virtual Liturgy and Ritual

First published 2023

List of Figures  viii

1 There are No Medieval Media?  3

2 Media, Mediator, and Intercessor: Remembering the Loca Sancta  29

3 Mass Media and Liturgical Performance  43

4 Religious Technology and the Vierge Ouvrante  69

5 Virtually There: Expounding the Tensions Between Planar and

1.1 Coppo di Marcovaldo (active c. 1225–​1276), Madonna del Bordone,

1 There are No Medieval Media?

There are No Medieval Media? 5

Figure 1.1 Coppo di Marcovaldo (active c. 1225–​1276), Madonna del Bordone, tempera on

There are No Medieval Media? 7

Figure 1.3 Guido da Siena (active c. 1270–​1280), Enthroned Madonna, tempera on panel,

There are No Medieval Media? 9

There are No Medieval Media? 11

Figure 1.5 Duccio di Buoninsegna (active 1278–​1318), Rucellai Madonna, 1285, tempera on

Maestro di Città di Castello (attributed, active 1290–​

It is important to think of the chancel (or presbytery or sanctuary) as a cooperative

There are No Medieval Media? 13

There are No Medieval Media? 15

There are No Medieval Media? 19

There are No Medieval Media? 21

There are No Medieval Media? 23

There are No Medieval Media? 25

2 Media, Mediator, and Intercessor

As made evident in the introductory chapter, media are an important component of

Media, Mediator, and Intercessor 35

Media, Mediator, and Intercessor 37

A fourteenth-​century reliquary triptych from Siena is a later example of the con-

Media, Mediator, and Intercessor 39

Media, Mediator, and Intercessor 41

3 Mass Media and Liturgical Performance

“What remains of people is what media can store and communicate.”

The liturgy as mediation

Mass Media and Liturgical Performance 45

The medium is the message

Mass Media and Liturgical Performance 49

The “sung” liturgy

The liturgy and images

Mass Media and Liturgical Performance 51

Mass Media and Liturgical Performance 53

Channeling the virtù

Mass Media and Liturgical Performance 55

is reflected in the thirteenth-​century laude Rayna possentissima whose final stanza

Recòrdive de l’anima che sta mortificata.

(Remember the soul that is mortified.

Visual Space Acoustic Space

Figure 3.4 Visual vs. Acoustic Space (Table: K. Scherff).

Mass Media and Liturgical Performance 57

Angels in the architecture

State Construction and Art in East Central Europe, 1918–2018

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-

List of Figures viii

1 There are No Medieval Media? 3

2 Media, Mediator, and Intercessor: Remembering the Loca Sancta 29

3 Mass Media and Liturgical Performance 43

4 Religious Technology and the Vierge Ouvrante 69

1.1 Coppo di Marcovaldo (active c. 1225–1276), Madonna del Bordone,

1 There are No Medieval Media?

Figure 1.1 Coppo di Marcovaldo (active c. 1225–1276), Madonna del Bordone, tempera on

Figure 1.3 Guido da Siena (active c. 1270–1280), Enthroned Madonna, tempera on panel,

Figure 1.5 Duccio di Buoninsegna (active 1278–1318), Rucellai Madonna, 1285, tempera on

Maestro di Città di Castello (attributed, active 1290–

2 Media, Mediator, and Intercessor

A fourteenth-century reliquary triptych from Siena is a later example of the con-

3 Mass Media and Liturgical Performance

is reflected in the thirteenth-century laude Rayna possentissima whose final stanza

Figure 3.4 Visual vs. Acoustic Space (Table: K. Scherff).

4 Religious Technology and the

Technology –in the enlarged sense of materials, techniques, instruments, and

Figure 4.6b Vierge Ouvrante, c. 1390–1400, closed (Morlaix). Eglise St.-Mathieu, Morlaix

Figure 4.7 Retablo-tabernáculo de Castildelgado, now without Marian figure, c. 1300 (Spain).

Figure 4.8 Retablo-tabernáculo de Mule, c 1250 (Iceland). Museo Nacional de Copenhague

The Life of the Virgin, c. 1325–

Figure 4.11 Duccio di Buoninsegna, Madonna of the Franciscans, c. 1255–1319. Tempera on

Michael Erhart (a. 1469–

Figure 5.7 Cimabue (active 1240–1302), Santa Trinita Maestà, c. 1290–1300. Tempera on

Madonna viii, ix–xi, 5–9, 11–13, 22, 53–5, Paliotto 5