Civitas Hierusalem: Representing Presence in Scandinavian Golden Altars

Image and Altar 800-1300

PNMPublications from the National Museum

Studies in Archaeology & History Vol. 23

Copenhagen 2014

Papers from an International Conference in Copenhagen 24 October – 27 October 2007

Edited byPoul Grinder-Hansen

98933_image_and_altar_001-145_.indd 3 27-11-2014 08:45:47

CONTENTS 5

CONTENTS

Poul Grinder-HansenIntroduction. The conference on Image and Altar and the Scandinavian Golden Altars 7

Nils Holger PetersenThe Role of the Altar in Medieval Liturgical Representation : Holy Week and Easter in the Regularis Concordia. 15

Nicoletta IsarVeiled Word(s) – Sacred Silence Screening the Mystery in the Byzantine Altar 27

Cynthia Hah nPortable Altars (and the Rationale): Liturgical Objects and Personal Devotion 45

Annika Elisabeth FisherSensing the Divine Presence: The Ottonian Golden Altar in Aachen 65

Signe Horn FuglesangThe panels from Flatatunga – Some decorated panels from Iceland and their iconographical context 81

Manuel CastiñeirasThe making of the Catalan Romanesque altar frontal (1119-1150): Issues of tech nical training, authorship and patronage 97

Anna OrriolsEpiscopal iconography in the twelfth-century Tavèrnoles altar frontal 121

Ulla HaastrupReflections on the interplay between altar decorations and contemporary frescoes in Romanesque churches in Denmark – based on an analysis of the chancels in Lyngsjö Church, Scania, and the churches of Raasted and Lisbjerg in Jutland 147


6 CONTENTS

Ebbe NyborgThe arched retable – meaning and origin 161

Kristin B. AavitslandCivitas Hierusalem: Representing Presence in Scandinavian Golden Altars 179

Unn PlahterMaterials and techniques for rendering precious appearance in Norwegian painted frontals and the Danish golden altars 195

Mona Bramer SolhaugChrist as King and Priest on Limoges crucifixes: reflections of liturgy and materiality 207

Kaja Kollandsrud & Nadine HuthBeyond the precious with painterly effects – The thirteenth century sculpted frontal from Komnes, Buskerud in Norway 229

List of authors 247


CIVITAS HIERUSALEM: REPRESENTING PRESENCE IN SCANDINAVIAN GOLDEN ALTARS 179

CIVITAS HIERUSALEM: REPRESENTING PRESENCE

IN SCANDINAVIAN GOLDEN ALTARS

Kristin B. Aavitsland

The body of Scandinavian Romanesque golden altars offers intriguing answers to this question. In this paper, I will investigate but one of the golden altars’ strategies for representing sacred presence; a strategy which, however, employs iconographic, epigraphic as well as material means. This strategy is the visual, verbal and material evocation in the altars of Civitas Hierusalem, the City of Jerusalem. Being the site of Christ’s sacrificial death and the typological forerunner of the Kingdom of God, Je-rusalem gained paramount theological and liturgical significance and gave rise to a rich literary, architec-tural and artistic symbolic language.3 This symbol-ism was especially favoured during the eleventh and the twelfth centuries. It may be significant that the increased frequency of references to Jerusalem in literature and works of art work occurs at a point in history when the city was again accessible to Western Christendom (1099-1187) and the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount were converted to Chris-tian churches.4 In any case, the idea of Jerusalem is extensively reflected, directly and indirectly, in Romanesque altar decoration, reliquaries and other liturgical objects, as well as in liturgical texts and commentaries. My thesis is that the idea of Jerusalem provided a conceptual model for thinking about the twofold sacred presence of the Christian altar. I find that the Scandinavian golden altars offer particularly good examples.5

Sacred presence human and divineThe Christian altar has a double character. It is pri-marily the table on which the Eucharist is offered, when the Trinitarian God becomes fully present to his faithful under the guise of bread and wine. At the same time, every altar contains the earthly remains of men and women who number among God’s saints. According to ecclesiastical legislation from the eighth century onwards, consecrated altars were to contain the authentic bones of two or more martyrs or confessors.1 The doctrine of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is essential to Christian faith and forms the nucleus of its cult.2 The relics below or inside the altar also embody sacred presence, although of another order than the Eucharistic. Fundamentally different both in prominence and essence, the cult of Christ’s sac-rifice and the cult of relics are intimately connected in Christian tradition. This concept of a “double” cultic presence, one divine, the other human, defines the altar as the chief locus of Christian worship. Any student of medieval altars should therefore generally assume that the belief in sacred presence conditions the appearance of the altar’s adornment in one way or another. Accordingly, a question of great conse-quence is how these two forms of presence, the sacra-mental of the Eucharist and the physical of the relics, relate to each other and become manifest in the altar decoration. How is sacred presence represented?


KRISTIN B. AAVITSLAND180

Iconographic and material evocations of JerusalemI shall take as my starting point the focal image in the frontal of the altar from Lisbjerg, dated to 1135 (fig. 1).6 Contrary to most of the other golden altars, where the central figure is the Maiestas Do-mini, the central figure here is the Virgin and Child, represented as the sedes sapientia, the throne of wis-dom. Liturgical relations between the Virgin and the Incarnation of Christ on the one hand, and the sacrifice of the Eucharist on the other, have a long tradition in medieval theology, and became increasingly important during the twelfth century in the wake of the Gregorian reform.7 According to for example Peter Damian, the mystery of Christ

becoming flesh in Mary’s womb is repeated each time Christ becomes flesh through the Eucharistic office.8 The role of the Virgin in the mystery of the incarnation is thus mirrored in the role of the cel-ebrating priest.9 On the Lisbjerg frontal, the Virgin and Child’s immediate surroundings are remarkable. The figures are placed beneath an arched doorway carrying the inscription Civitas Hierusalem. As the Virgin and Child represent the entrance to the holy city, the concept of Jerusalem is very explicitly con-nected to the sacrament of the Eucharist. The theme of Jerusalem is also alluded to by the numerous architectural elements in the Lisbjerg al-tar’s design. Not only the Virgin, but also the fron-tal’s female saints and personified virtues are placed within architectural settings, as are the apostles of the retable (fig. 2). Being an iconographic commonplace inherited by medieval Europe from early Christian art, elements of urban architecture are used with great consistency in the churches of rural Jutland during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. One example is the retable from the golden altar in Sahl Church, where an elaborate architecture forms the foundation for the retable arch (fig. 3). Another is seen in the frescoes in Råsted Church, contemporary with the Lisbjerg altar, where urban architecture surrounds the three chancel windows, accentuating the light sources to the altar and at the same time framing the sacred space of the chancel on three sides (fig. 4). The instances of represented urban architecture testify, I think, to a conscious articulation of the altar and the chancel as images of Jerusalem, whose temple of course is the typological prefiguration of any Christian church10 – and, one could add, whose golden altar, described in 1 Kings 5.22, prefigures any medieval golden altar, the one from Lisbjerg included. There are still further suggestions of Jerusalem in the Lisbjerg altar, apart from the inscription and urban architecture. Although no exact parallels to its iconographic programme are known, many of its iconographic elements seem to belong to a conven-tional Romanesque visualisation of the City of God. The guarding angels flanking the city gate, the Lamb of God above it, the row of apostles on the retable, the prophets on the frontal, the conspicuous per-sonified virtues – these are all elements required in a proper representation of the Heavenly Jerusalem,

Fig. 1. Madonna enthroned. Lisbjerg altar frontal, detail. Photo: J. Lee, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.



if we are to believe the clerical goldsmith Theophilus and his treatise on the crafting of church decorations and liturgical objects. Writing his Schedula diversa-rum artium at about the time of the manufacture of the Lisbjerg altar, Theophilus thoroughly instructs on how to form and cast a censer.11 After having de-scribed how the upper and lower cores of the censer

are made of clay, formed as a complex, cruciform architectural structure of many levels, Theophilus goes on to describe the iconographic programme and how this is crafted in a layer of wax covering the clay core. He lists gates and gabled towers, guarding angels, apostles standing under arches in the upper section, prophets and virtues in the lower, and the

Fig. 2. Altar from Lisbjerg Church, Eastern Jutland. Photo: J. Lee, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.



Fig. 3. Altar in Sahl Church, Western Jutland, Denmark. Present display. Photo: H. Ginding, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.



Fig. 4. Urban architecture framing a chancel window in Råsted Church, Eastern Jutland, Denmark. Photo: Author.



Lamb of God crowning the architectural structure.12 Although less complexly conceived than the Lisb-jerg altar, Theophilus’ censer shares a number of its iconographic features. An educated theologian, the author-craftsman quotes the authoritative descrip-tion of the Heavenly Jersualem in Ezhiekiel and the Book of Revelation in order to explain his design.13 He also describes how to “fashion representations of the twelve precious stones” corresponding to the twelve precious corner stones mentioned in Rev. 21.14 There is reason to believe that the Lisbjerg altar’s evocation of the Heavenly Jerusalem also in-cluded representations of precious stones. Originally, the frontal was adorned with polished rock crystals,

mounted on the crossings of the grid separating the picture fields. On some of the other Danish altars, the rock crystals are still intact in their mountings, some of them set against pieces of coloured parch-ment in order to imitate differently coloured pre-cious stones (fig. 6). A similar arrangement for the Lisbjerg altar is probable. In particular, the twelve crossings in the grid of diamond-shaped fields sur-rounding the door of Civitas Hierusalem are likely to have carried imitation coloured gems correspond-ing to the biblical description. The gilt surface of the altar is itself suggestive of Heavenly Jerusalem, which is, as we learn from the book of the Revela-tion, civitas auro mundo simile vitro mundo – a city

Fig. 5. Altar from Broddetorp Church, Västgötaland, Sweden. Museum of National Antiquities, Stockholm. Photo: Lennart Karlsson.



of “pure gold, like unto clear glass” (Rev. 21.18).15 Together with the material splendour of the altar, the choice of a seemingly established iconographic programme must overtly have suggested the concept of Jerusalem in the chancel of Lisbjerg Church in the first half of the twelfth century.

Cultic presence and the fourfold significance of JerusalemHowever, referring to Jerusalem is not only a question of setting the scene, so to speak, for the Christian cult. In his Gemma animae, a widespread commentary on liturgy, church buildings and eccle-siastical furnishings from c. 1100, Honorius Augus-todunensis sees a conceptual image of Jerusalem not only in the church building and its ornaments, but also in the liturgical performance and its mystery of sacred presence.16 One of many instances is found in Honorius’ comments on the ritual for church dedications. Describing the priest incensing the cross above the altar to the antiphon Confirma hoc deus quod operatus es in nobis a templo sancto tuo quod est in Hierusalem, Honorius states: “Thus Jerusalem is the Church, where the temple of Christ stands, in which the fullness of the divinity resides corpore-ally”.17 Here, Jerusalem is associated with sacred, corporeal presence. The idea of Jerusalem seems to directly involve the cult itself. In patristic and medieval exegesis is it well es-tablished that Jerusalem can be interpreted on more than one level of reality. Writing in the fourth cen-tury, St Joh n Cassian states that Jerusalem can be understood historically as the city of the Jews, al-legorically as the Church of Christ, anagogically as the celestial city and tropologically or morally as the human soul.18 This was to become a locus classicus for medieval commentators and provided them with an understanding of Jerusalem that pervades not only exegetic works, but also liturgical poetry. The

fourfold significance of Jerusalem comprises earth and heaven; past, present and future; individuality and community. It is essential that the four levels of interpretation lead to an intimate union of all these dimensions. History, allegory, tropology, and anagogy are mutually interdependent and mutually reflective. Thus, Jerusalem becomes a point in which all levels of reality merge and fulfil. Another such point of convergence is Eucharist. Celebrated on the altar, the sacrament of the Eucha-rist activates and comprises all four levels of reality. As a remembrance and repetition of Christ’s sacrifice, it is a memoria passionis (historia). As the common cult of the universal church, it is a communio sancto-rum (allegoria). As a sacramental meal, it is a union with Christ for the faithful and God-seeking soul (tropologia). Finally, it is a celebration of the heavenly majesty of Christ resurrected, “who lives and reigns with God in the unity of the Holy Spirit”, as said in the Mass Ordinal (anagogia). And as liturgical com-mentators from Gregory the Great (sixth century) to William Durand (thirteenth century) clearly state, the glorification of the Lord in the divine office is consonant with the celestial liturgy eternally taking place before the throne of the Lord on high.19 The Eucharistic celebration unites historical past, con-temporary present and eschatological future. Time dissolves into eternity, earth into Heaven. Through the consecrated host and through the consonance between liturgy earthly and celestial, the godhead becomes present at the altar in proprietate naturae et veritate substantiae – “in the property of nature and truth of substance”.20

Being a covenant between God and his people, the Eucharistic offer (Christ) strongly involves Jeru-salem (his Church), giving all four levels of interpre-tation a cultic significance. Two of these, the histori-cal and the anagogical, are commonly alluded to in altar iconography. As the historical site of Christ’s sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection, the past events of Golgotha are frequently depicted. The Lisbjerg altar has already been mentioned. With its complete Calvary group on the retable, superim-posed on the frontal’s magnificent Maiestas Domini, the golden altar from Sahl Church provides another example (fig. 3). Forming a central axis, the Calvary group and the Maiestas Domini together illustrate that Christ’s Eucharistic presence is simultane-

Fig. 6. Detail of altar in Stadil Church, Western Jutland, Denmark. Rock crystals mounted on coloured parchment. Photo: Roberto Fortuna, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.



ously a repetition of his sacrifice, as related in Joh n 19.17-30, and a celebration of his glorious celestial reign, as described in the Book of Revelation. The other two cultic dimensions of Jerusalem, the al-legorical and the tropological, are perhaps less evi-dently perceived in the altar decoration, at least for modern iconographers. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss the ways in which these dimensions manifest themselves and suggest sacred presence.

Allegory and ecclesiology: The living stones of Jerusalem’s wallsThe allegorical and tropological significance of Je-rusalem does not so much refer to Christ himself as the relationship between Christ and his faithful – the Church as a whole (allegoria) and the individual soul (tropologia). Accordingly, these dimensions do not so much refer to the historical past and eschatological future as the binding significance of past and future to the present. In order to depict such relations, one cannot draw on biblical narratives alone. Other means of expression are needed. One of them is metonymy. The representation of the apostles on most of the altars is conspicuous – at the Sahl altar they are actually depicted twice, once on the retable and then again on the frontal. The presence of the apostles on the altars is, I think, best explained in the light of ecclesiology: metony-mously, they depict the Church, and thus illustrate Jerusalem’s allegorical meaning. It is not as individual saints, but as an assembly, that the apostles gain iconographic and liturgical significance. As a col-lective body, the apostles are the beginning of the Church of Christ, because the Church, according to medieval ecclesiology, is a communion, a common matter. The group of apostles becomes an image of the Apostolic Church, mirroring the celebrat-ing clergy at the altar – and thereby demonstrating the union of past, present and future, of heavenly and earthly cult. This representative connection be-tween the apostles and the celebrating clergy is made very explicit at the Swedish altar from Broddetorp Church in Västgötaland (fig. 5). The inferior zone of the frontal is occupied by the row of apostles, accom-panied by an inscription that reads: ordo senatorum sacer adstat apostolicorum – the sacred order of the apostolic elders is standing by. Being co-celebrants

of the Eucharist once offered on the altar in Brod-detorp Church, the apostles connected the Church triumphant with the Church militant in time.21

The apostles are, however, not the only figures representing the Church on behalf of the clergy and the attendant congregation. Another inscrip-tion on the altar from Broddetorp testifies that “Clement, Marcellinus, Botolph, Sebastian … the 11000 virgins of Cologne, those are the names of the saints whose relics are housed in this church”.22 The physical, but hidden presence of these saints is made evident by the mention of their names. This invisible presence of martyrs and confessors, whose relics were contained in the altar, should also be un-derstood in the light of allegory, of Jerusalem as the united presence of the Church earthly and celestial, militant and triumphant. As blood witnesses, the martyrs were the most prominent representatives of the Church on its terrestrial pilgrimage; being beatified, they now enjoy the bliss of the Church in Heaven. Together with the confessors, the mar-tyrs are lapides vivi, living stones, making up the temple of the Lord (1 Peter 2.4-5). A connection between the Petrine metaphor of the living stones and the concept of the Heavenly Jersualem is close at hand, and this connection was extensively com-mented upon in theology and liturgical poetry from patristic times onwards, favoured by twelfth-century authors such as Honorius Augustodunensis, Bernard of Clairvaux and Hildegard of Bingen. The hymn Urbs beata Iersualem, used for church dedications, is but one reflection of this thought.23 The convention of placing saints in architectural frames on altars and reliquaries can be interpreted as another. On the Lisbjerg altar, no inscription explicitly identifies whose relics were contained within the altar, but four named saints are depicted: the medical twin saints Cosmas and Damian, St Bridget of Ireland and St Tecla, probably an Anglo-Saxon Benedictine who accompanied St Boniface to Germany and be-came abbess of Kitzingen and Ochsenfurt (fig. 1). Although impossible to certify, it is not unlikely that relics from at least one of the represented saints were buried in the altar.24 How, then, is their sacred pres-ence – dead bones, still living stones in the City of God – suggested and perceived? Following Romanesque convention, the golden figures of saints and virtues on the Lisbjerg altar are



rendered as austere, decorous and dignified person-ages, with sober faces and gloriously dressed bodies (fig. 7). This way of representing the saints is not only a matter of artistic preference; it also accords with hagiology – Christian reflection on the saints. A text of great importance to this discipline of me-dieval thought is the First Letter to the Corinthians. Here, St Paul pays much attention to questions con-cerning the body and its resurrection. We shall be changed, he states. Our earthly, ignoble body dies; the glorious body rises: “It (the body) is sown in dis-honour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power” (1 Cor. 15.43). The hope for transformation of ignoble bodies to glorious ones is reflected in the liturgy of the Eucharist, as one of the preface prayers of the Gregorian sacramentary quotes almost verbatim 1 Cor 15.43.25 It is hard not to see an intended interplay between those words said by the altar, the corrupted relics crumbling within it and the shining, golden images of the saints in front and above it. It is not the previous, earthly life of the saints that is the subject of the representation, but rather their present state of perfection in the glory of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Within this heavenly context, the depicted saints play different roles. As pointed out by Søren Kaspersen, the martyrs Cosmas and Damian, who are given a prominent position at the top of the retable arch, are among the martyrs mentioned in the Canon of the Mass.26 Thus, they take part in the heavenly liturgy which, according to the theology of the Eucharist, constantly takes place in the Heavens and which, during the sacramen-tal celebration at the altar, is made present for the congregation. Depicted on the frontal, Briget and Tecla play a different role. They are represented in complete correspondence with the personifications of virtues, thereby appearing as exempla virtutis, in-carnations of virtue and piety. This idea is in fact for-mulated in the eighth-century Vita Sancta Brigida, where Briget, designated the Mary of Ireland, is said to have personified virtue through her saintly life. The function of Cosmas and Damian, Briget and Tecla in the pictorial programme of the Lisbjerg altar is primarily rhetorical: The twin martyrs and the holy women play different roles in the stated theo-logical argument, which is focused on soterology and the mystery of the Eucharist. They are witnesses of the sacrificial cult of Christ, on earth and on high.

At the same time they are, through their saintly lives, imagines Christi and representatives of God’s people, i.e. the Church. As such they are commemorated and venerated. In a way, the representation of the saints in heavenly glory makes them more present to the pious beholder than any representation of hagiographic events, because in heavenly glory they are depicted in their actual state. To quote 1 Cor-inthians again: “And as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly”.27

The most overt ecclesiological image on the Scandinavian golden altars is, however, the Lisbjerg Virgin in the Gate of Jerusalem (fig. 1). The Virgin and Jerusalem are both allegories of the Church. In patristic tradition, as well as in the liturgy, both appear as the bride of Christ, as the virgin mother of the faithful, as the abode of grace and the seat of the Lord (sedes sapientiae).28 On the Lisbjerg al-tar, the architectural rendering of Gate of Jerusalem peculiarly rests on a column (fig. 8). The effect of this arrangement is that the Virgin seems elevated, framed and presented to the viewer as a reserved host

Fig. 7. St Tecla. Lisbjerg altar frontal, detail. Photo: J. Lee, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.


in an ostensorium.29 Being enclosed by the words Civitas Hierusalem, the allegorical identity between the Virgin and the holy city is manifested.

Tropology: The call for conversion and the Gate of JerusalemAccording to the fourfold exegetic interpretation of Jerusalem, the city also exists on a fourth level of reality: the moral or tropological. This is the dimen-sion of the individual soul striving for conversion and hoping for redemption. Interplaying with the other layers of meaning, the tropological dimen-sion is also suggested in the inscriptions and images on Scandinavian golden altars. A pervading feature of the inscriptions is the use of the second person singular or plural, as if Christ on the altar directly addresses the spectator(s). One of many instances is the inscription on the frontal from Lisbjerg. Here, the Lord calls to conversion: “I urge you to enter the rest as you still have time, so it does not hap-

pen that, when the doors are closed, my ear will not hear you” (hortor ut intretis requiem dum tempus habetis ne foribus clausis mea vos non audiat au(ri)s).30 Furthermore, He invites the righteous to enter the blissful Kingdom of God which is the goal of the Christian soul: venite benedicti patris mei, p(er)cipite regnum q(uod) vobis paratum est ab origine mundi, di-cet dominus – Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, the Lord shall say. This latter phrase quotes the judging Christ in Matthew 25.34 and is commonly found in representations of the Last Judgement together with the corresponding phrase which condemns the unjust. Here, however, the con-demned are totally absent: In the representation of the perfect City of God, they have no place. The verbs used in both inscriptions promote action: in-trare (enter) and venire (come). The action we – and the donors and original beholders of the altar – are encouraged to take, is entering the golden Gate of Jerusalem in the middle of the altar. The virtues sur-

Fig. 8. The frontal of the Lisbjerg altar. Photo: J. Lee, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.



rounding the Gate of Jerusalem (fig. 8) are guides and pathfinders on the way to the Gate of Heaven, hence assistants to conversion.31

The gate itself is represented twice on the Lisb-jerg altar. It is of course depicted “literally” as a city gate, but also metaphorically as the Virgin Mary. On the allegorical level, the Virgin/Ecclesia is her-self Jerusalem, as shown above. On the tropological level, however, she is the gate by which we enter Jerusalem.32 The unity of Christ and his Church makes this paradoxical fusing of images and mean-ing possible. Among many other poetic designations the Virgin is called the porta coeli: By her obedience to God’s will and by her merciful intercession, she is the means by which post-lapsarian man is given access to paradise. Her intermediary role in the rela-tionship between God and his believers is suggested in a most concrete manner on the Lisbjerg altar. In contrast to all the other figures on the altar, which are crafted in repoussé relief, the Virgin is cast in bronze. Quite literally, her body is more substan-tial and carries greater weight than any of the other figures depicted. Being sculpted in the round, her figure is also closer to the eyes of the viewer and to a greater extent shares the viewer’s space. Thus, her role as mediator in the conversion of man is visually and materially reinforced. By conversion, the individual soul becomes itself a part of the temple of God, as St Paul states in 1 Corinthians 3. This text is seminal with regard to the tropological interpretation of Jerusalem.33 Here, metaphors of building and architecture prevail in describing the standing of the individual members of the Corinthian assembly. The faithful are addressed as Dei aedificatio, God’s building, and the apostle as the sapiens architectus, the wise master builder (1 Cor. 3.9-10). St Paul’s mention of building materials is interesting in this context: Those who have built upon the foundation that is Christ with “gold, silver, precious stones” will be given a reward on the Day of Judgement, as their building shall survive the trial by fire.34 Together with the architectural framings, the sumptuous use of materials in Romanesque li-turgical furnishings echoes the words of St Paul. On the Lisbjerg altar, the reference is especially close at hand. The inscriptions invite the beholder to enter the peace (requiem) of the Lord. The golden images of the holy men and women suggest this blissful

state; their crumbling earthly bodies transformed into glorious lapides vivi in the heavenly city. By their example, the intended beholder is encouraged to make himself into precious building material in Jerusalem, the aedificatio Dei.35

Representing presence: The limits of representationThe references to Jerusalem in iconography, epig-raphy, design and choice of materials in the Scan-dinavian altars explicitly respond to the liturgy and evoke both the sacramental presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the physical presence of the holy relics. Representing their invisible presence is a question of bridging the gap between the visible world and the invisible, between the realm of the world and that of the divine. Through the idea of Jerusalem, the visual language strives to connect the visible to the invisible, the temporal to the eternal and the human to the divine. The perceptible language of earthly things has, however, its limits. Guibert of Nogent writes of the splendour of liturgical song, altar vessels and shining reliquaries that all these things “are not according to the truth of spiritual nature, but corre-sponding to the quality of visible things”.36 Between the heavenly and the terrestrial spheres exits only a relationship of analogy or proportional similitude, not of identity. Alertness towards misunderstand-ings in this matter can be traced in the golden altars themselves. The inscription of the retable arch at Lisbjerg reads “in crucis hoc signo dantvr medicamenta ligno” – in this sign of the cross, cure is given by the tree (fig. 2). Apart from being a possible indication of a relic of the holy cross inside the crucifix, the inscription carefully reminds us that the image of the cross is but a sign. In the frontal from Broddetorp, the issue of God’s invisibility is, I think, suggested by stylistic and icon-ographic means (fig. 5). The epiphany of the Maiestas Domini is represented according to convention, the Lord appearing in a mandorla carried upwards by four angels. However, the extraordinarily broad and heavy frame of the mandorla is not only evoking an impression of golden light, it also insists on the heaviness and hardness – the very materiality of the metal. Material weight, not spiritual immaterial-ity, is what is suggested here. The Maiestas Domini



of Broddetorp is an image within the image. The seal-like mandorla overlaps and thereby breaks with the grid of the frontal’s narrative and representative scenes.37 This is further emphasised by the support-ing angels, who are actually lifting the mandorla by ropes or wires in some kind of mechanical device, the body language of the lower pair of angels even expressing great effort in managing their burden (fig. 9). The Lord in Majesty is not a true vision of God, it is an image made with human hands. The representation here insists on its own limited force to represent God’s mystical presence. To quote Herbert Kessler: “The faithful can approach the image of the celestial world only within a fixed structure that includes the ministrants of Christ’s established or-der and the Divine Liturgy.”38 By pointing to God’s bodily absence, his cultic presence is articulated.

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Fig. 9. Maiestas Domini. Central field of the altar from Broddetorp Church, Västgötaland, Sweden. Museum of National Antiquities, Stockholm. Photo: Lennart Karlsson.

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between Image and Altar in the Middle Ages. Copen-hagen 2006: 79-127.

Kendall, Calvin B. The allegory of the Church. Romanesque portals and their verse inscriptions, Toronto 1998.

Kessler, Herbert L. “Real Absence: Early Medieval Art and the Metamorphosis of Vision”, in: idem. Spiritual Seeing. Picturing God’s Invisibility in Medieval Art, Philadelphia 2000: 104-148.

Kilmartin, Edward. The Eucharist in the West. History and Theology. Collegeville, Minnesota, 1998.

Nørlund, Poul. Gylne altre. Jysk metalkunst fra Valdemars-tiden. Aarhus: Wormianum 1968 (1926).

Saxon, Elisabeth. The Eucharist in Romanesque France. Iconography and Theology. Woodbridge: Boydell Press 2006.

Schein, Sylvia. Gateway to the heavenly city: Crusader Je-rusalem and the Catholic West (1099-1187), Aldershot: Ashgate 2005

Smalley, Beryl. The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, Notre Dame, Indiana 1978 (1964).

Speer, Andreas and Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen. “Ein Handbuch mittelalterlicher Kunst? Zu einer relecture der Schedula diversarum artium”, in: Chris-toph Stiegermann und Hiltrud Westermann-Anger-hausen (eds.). Schatzkunst am Aufgang der Romanik, Munich 2006: 249-258.

Stemann-Petersen, Karen, Søren Kaspersen, Poul Grinder-Hansen and Niels Bonde. “Guldets tale. Gamle og nye blikk på middelalderens gyldne altre”. Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark 1907-2007, Copenhagen: Nationalmu-seet 2007: 131-46.

Theophilus Presbyter. De diversis artibus/ The various arts. Edition and translation by C.R. Dodwell, London 1961

Van Dijk, Ann. “Domus Sanctae Die Genetricis Mariae. Art and Liturgy in the Oratory of Pope Joh n VII”, in: Søren Kaspersen & Erik Thunø (eds.): Decorating the Lord’s Table. On the Dynamics between Image and Altar in the Middle Ages. Copenhagen 2006: 13-42.

Westermann-Angerhausen, Hiltrud. “Zwei romanische Thuribula im Trierer Domschatz – und Überlegun-gen zu Theophilus und dem Gozbert-Rauchfaß”. Zeitschrift des deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft, 42, 1988: 45-60.

Walther, Hans. Proverbia sententiaeque Latinitatis medii aevi, vol. 1-9, Göttingen 1963-67.

Wirth, Jean., L’image à l’epoque romane, Paris 1999.

Notes1 As ratified in for example Corpus iuris canonici, can.

1198, can. 1200. For a historical account of relics in or below the altar, see Braun 1924: vol. I, 525-661. See also Gardner 1994.

2 Despite its overtones of Reformation debate, the term “real presence” will be used in the following for lack of a conventionally accepted alternative wording. Twelfth century commentaries, however, employ other and varying terms to designate Christ’s presence in the Eu-charist. For a short overview of the theological reflec-tion on the Eucharist from the early Church until the Fourth Lateran Council, see Saxon 2006: 13-47. See also Kilmartin 1998.

3 De Lubac 1959: 1re parte, tome 2: 645. A use-ful overview to the theme of Jerusalem in medieval thought and art is offered in Gousset 1981.

4 Most prominent of the churches of the Latin kingdom was the Dome of the Rock that became known as Templum Domini, heart of the newly established Latin Church of Jerusalem. For the impact of Jerusalem on Western spirituality during the twelfth century, see Schein 2005.

5 To a certain extent, the following paragraphs para-phrase the argument in my article “Defending Jerusa-lem: Visualizations of a Christian Identity in Medieval Scandinavia”, Aavitsland, forthcoming.

6 A dendrochronological analysis in 1992 established 1135 or shortly after, as a probable date for the manu-facture of the Lisbjerg altar, cf. Stemann-Petersen et al. 2007: 136. For a thorough discussion of artistic style on the Lisbjerg altar, see Nørlund 1926: 73-98. For the altar’s iconographic programme, see de la Fuente Pedersen 1988 and Kaspersen 2003.

7 See Van Dijk 2006 for this idea in the early Middle Ages. For the twelfth century in particular, see refer-ences in Jean Wirth 1999: 195-200.

8 “Illud siquidem corpus Christi quod beatissima Virgo genuit, quod in gremio fovit, quod fasciis cinxit, quod maternal cura nutrivit, illud, inquam, absque ulla du-bietate, non aliud, nunc de sacro altari percepimus, et eius sanguinem in sacramentum nostrae redemptionis haurimus”, Peter Damianus, Sermones, CCCM, vol. 25: 267.

9 Caroline W. Bynum quotes a widespread twelfth-cen-tury text testifying to this idea: “Oh revered dignity of priests, in whose hands the Son of God is incarnated as in the Virgin’s tomb…”, Bynum 1982: 11.

10 Before the Muslim reconquest of Jerusalem in 1187, the identification of the church building as the Temple of Jerusalem may be twofold: without doubt, it points

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to the Old Testament temple of Solomon, but it might additionally refer to the twelfth-century Tem-plum Domini in the actual city. This possibility is close at hand in churches with donors who had been on crusade or Jerusalem pilgrimage.

11 Theophilus’ identity has been a much-discussed issue in scholarly literature: Identification with the priest and goldsmith Roger von Helmarshausen has been suggested and largely accepted, although aspects of this question remain open, cf. Speer & Westermann-Angerhausen 2006. The complicated design described in De variis artibus is not found in any extant medi-eval censer. The famous Gozbert censer in Trier shares, however, several features with Theophilus’ description. See Westermann-Angerhausen 1988.

12 “Deinde pertrahe in singulis frontibus singulos arcus, et in obliquis parietibus similiter, et sub singulis arcubus ex utraque parte singulas ualua quartam partem spatii contineat et duae partes in medio remaneant. In quibus spatiis pertrahes sub unoquoque arcu singulas imagines apostolorum… In spatiis uero triangulis, qui tecto-rum pinnas sustinent, formabis similtudines duodecim lapidum, disponens unicuique apostolo contuenientem lapidem secundum significationem nominis sui; quorum nomina scribes in inferiori limbo eiusdem spatii…In quatuor autem angulis, qui sunt inter diuisiones por-tarum, formabis in cera singulas turriculas rotundas, per quas catenae transibunt. His ita dispositis facies in proxima superiori turri singulas imagines angelorum integras in quadrangulis spatiis cum scutis et lanceis suis quasi ad custodiam murorum stantes…et [facies] in sum-mitate turris propugnacula in circuitu, in quorum medio formabis agnum, et in capite eius coronam et crucam, et circia dorsum eius breuem arcum, in cuius summitate sit anulus, cui imponetur media catena… Inferiori uero parte simili modo cooperta cera, formabis in singulis spatiis singulas imagines prophetarum cum suis breui-bus… Circa prophetas uero non facies portas, sed tantum spatia eorum sint quadrangula, et in limbis super capita scribantur eorum nomina… In inferiori uero rotundo spatio facies circulos quot potueris uel uolueris, in quibus formabis singuals imagines uirtutum dimidias specie feminea, quarum nomina scibes in circulis.” De diversis artibus, Book 3, chapter 60.

13 “Haec erit similtudo, de qua propheta dicit: “Ab oriente portae tres, et ab occidente portae tres, et ab meridiano portae tres, et ab septentrione portae tres.” De diversis artibus, Book 3, chapter 60.

14 Quoted in note 5.15 “L’orfèvrerie est la tech nique la plus apte à concrétiser

la vision de saint Jean. Regroupant les avantages de

la sculture et de la peinture, elle offre la possibilité de fabriquer des images a trois dimensions évoquant l’aspect coloré de la vision à l’aide de matériaux précieux: or, argent, gemmes, perles, cristal…”, Gous-set 1981: 81.

16 Honorius’ Gemma animae was certainly disseminated in Scandinavia before 1200, and parts of the text were incorporated into other works, e.g. in the Old Norse and Old Icelandic homilies, cf. Gunnes 1971. For a discussion on Honorius and his reflections on Mass as sacred theatre, see Dox 2002.

17 “Hierusalem enim est Ecclesia., in qua templum est Christi, in quo habitavit plenitudo divinitatis corporali-ter,” Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, cap. CLXIV. PL 172, col. 595. Translation by the author.

18 Joh n Cassian, Collationes XIV.viii, ed. J. Pinchery, Sources chrétiennes 54 (Paris, 1958), 189-93. See also Smalley 1978:28.

19 St Gregory states: “Quis enim fidelium habere dubium possit, in ipsa immolationis hora ad sacerdotis vocem coe-los aperiri, in illo Jesu Christi mysterio angelorum choros adesse, summis ima sociari, terrena coelestibus jungi, unumque ex visibilibus atque invisibilibus fier.” Libri Dialogorum, Liber Quartus, cap. LVIII, PL 77, col. 428A. A conception of the Eucharist consonant with this one is documented in medieval Denmark through a letter by the abbot William of Æbelholt, which reads: “In templo siqidem dei, cum diuina celebrantur mysteria, cum scilicet uerbis dei per sacerdotem ora prola-tis corpus Christi conficitur, imis summa iuguntur, chorus assistit angelicus peccantibus ad dominum redeuntibus, uenia condonatur.” Diplomatarium Danicum 1. rk., 3, 493:12-15. See also Kaspersen 2006: 51.

20 This formulation is taken from one of the oaths that Berengar of Tours had to swear before Pope Gregory VII in 1079, forced to confess an orthodox faith concerning the nature of the Eucharistic species. See Kilmartin 1998: 100.

21 Point made by Kaspersen 2006: 113f. Kaspersen also draws attention to an inscription on the altar from Ølst, where the partaking in the Eucharistic sacrament and the intercession of the apostles are connected, ibid.: 111.

22 The inscription runs along the brim of the re-table and reads (partly damaged and reconstructed on basis of secondary sources): +CLEMENS: MARCELLVS:[BOTVLFVS: SEBASTIANVS] XI:M VIRGINVM IN C[OLONIA] – HEC SVNT NO-MINA SANCTORVM QVORVM RELIQVIE IN HAC ECC{LE]SIA [CONTINENTVR]. Cf. Nørlund 1926 (1968): 106f.



23 Julian 1957, vol. 2: 1198f. This hymn, based on 1 Peter 2.5, Rev. 21, and Eph. 2.20, occurs for the first time in the pontifical of Poitiers, probably ninth cen-tury, and became widely used all over Europe through the Middle Ages, cf. Congar 1968: 102, note 183.

24 When the Lisbjerg altar was moved from Lisbjerg Church to the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen in 1867, the medieval altar table was thoroughly examined before it was dismantled. The sepulchrum of the altar was described in detail. It was a square cavity in the middle of the mensa, contain-ing a box made of a thin, cross-shaped plate of lead with a human bone inside it. Nothing else about this reliquary or the altar cavity is reported. The reliquary was donated to the Århus Museum of Antiquities (Oldkammeret), but is now lost. See Danmarks kirker. Århus amt 1976: 1399f.

25 Jungmann 1986, vol 2: 107. For a discussion of the understanding of this Pauline passage and the dogma of bodily resurrection in the twelfth century, see By-num 1995: 117-155.

26 Kaspersen 2003.27 “…sicut portavimus imaginem terreni, portemus et

imaginem caelestis.” 1 Cor. 15.49.28 Congar 1968: 103; Kendall 1998: 114f.29 The likeness to thirteenth-century ostensoria is anach-

ronistic and of course not intended. Nevertheless, the ostentatious effect of the framing and the column is striking.

30 To my knowledge, there are no extant parallels to dou-ble leonine hexameter inscription. A slightly similar wording is, however, documented in a mid-fifteenth century collection of proverbs, reading “Hortor ut

intretis templum dum tempus habetis/nam cum velletis tunc forsan deficietis”, cf. Walther 1963-67, vol. 2: 353. The Lisbjerg inscription might contain an allusion to Matt. 25.1-13 on the wise and foolish virgins.

31 This is a role given the virtues in for example Bernard of Clairvaux’ parable De filio Regis; a text we certainly know circulated in Denmark in the twelfth century, cf. Haastrup 2003: 290.

32 For numerous instances of the same configuration of ideas in Romanesque church portal sculpture, see Kendall 1998: 115.

33 “Nescitis quia templum Dei estis, et Spiritus Dei habitat in vobis?”, 1 Cor. 3.16.

34 “Si quis autem superaedificavit super fundamentum hos, aurum, argentum, lapides pretiosos…”, 1 Cor. 3.12.

35 One remark on spectatorship seems necessary. Inscrip-tions and iconography in the Scandinavian golden al-tars form sophisticated and often very complex bodies of meaning, sometimes overtly addressing an intended beholder, suggested by the use of personal pronouns. Nevertheless, the actual visual access to the main altars in twelfth-century Danish parish churches was much restricted. Through the narrow chancel opening, the decorated altar frontals were barely to be seen at all, as they were placed on the floor in front of the altar, be-hind the lay altar, behind the body of the celebrating priest and the most of the year behind some form of curtain or cloth.

36 Quoted after Dahl 1982: 185.37 Other examples of similar images of the Godhead

within images are given by Kessler 2000: 104-148.38 Kessler 2000: 131.


Civitas Hierusalem: Representing Presence in Scandinavian Golden Altars

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