A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image

Erscheinungsjahr 2004
ISBN: 978-90-04-13944-2
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 22, 566 Seiten, Format (B × H): 167 mm x 243 mm, Gewicht: 1184 g

Reihe: Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions: Medieval and Early Modern Peoples

In the fourth century the idea arose that the Cross on which Christ was crucified had been found by Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine. Thus began a legend that would grow and flourish throughout the Middle Ages and cause the diffusion of countless splinters of holy wood. And where there is wood, there was once a tree. Could it be that the Cross was made from that most noble species, the Tree of Life? So, gathering characters along the way, the legend evolved into a tale that stretches from the Creation to the End of Time.
A Heritage of Holy Wood is the first reconstruction of the iconographic and literary tradition of the Legend of the True Cross. Its broad scope encompasses relic cults, pilgrimages, travellers’ tales and the Tree of Life and involves Church Fathers, crusader kings, Teutonic Knights and mendicant orders, all of which influenced the legend’s depiction from its earliest representation in manuscripts, reliquaries and altarpieces, to the great monumental cycles of the high Middle Ages. If the holy wood was the medium of medieval memory, A Heritage of Holy Wood reveals the growth rings of fifteen centuries of imagery.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Baert, Barbara

Weitere Mitwirkende

Preedy, Lee

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Bibelwissenschaften Historisch-Kritische Jesusforschung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
List of Diagrams
List of Tables

Introduction

1. Helena and the Jews. The Legend of the Finding of the Cross
Constantine the Great, the cross, and the Inventio crucis
The Judas Cyriacus legend
2. The Finding of the Cross in Carolingian and Romanesque art
The iconographic roots. Identity and diversity
The Meuse region and Rhineland in the twelfth century. Expansion and enhancement
3. Heraclius and the Persians. The Legend of the Exaltation of the Cross
Exaltatio crucis. Worldviews in conflict
Heraclius as exemplar. Loci sancti, crusades and pilgrimage
4. The spreading of the Finding and Exaltation of the Cross in the late Middle Ages
The Legenda Aurea
Northern Germany and the Teutonic Order. Between Tempzin and Marienwerder
Southern Germany and the Danube basin. Nuremberg, insignia of state and new iconographic formulas
The Netherlands. A periphery?
5. From Paradise to Golgotha. The Legend of the Wood of the Cross
Between typologia and narratio
Seth and the return to Paradise
The Queen of Sheba, the sibyl and the Wood of the Cross
6. The monumental programmes of the Legend of the Cross in Italy, Germany and Switzerland (1388–ca. 1495)
Italy. Tradition and innovation
North of the Alps. Neglected and diverse

Conclusion

Epilogue

Colour Plates

Bibliography
Photographic Acknowledgements
Index of Works
Index of Names

Über Autor(innen)

Barbara Baert, Ph.D. (1997) in History of Art, Catholic University of Leuven, is Professor of Medieval History of Art at the Catholic University of Leuven. She published on the Legend of the True Cross, holy places in Jerusalem, Image-Theory of the Middle Ages, such as the True Face of Christ and gender issues in Iconology, such as Mary Magdalene.