Volume 80, Issue 2

A book cover encloses the manuscript inside. If it is elaborate, it distinguishes the manuscript as a precious and valuable object (as a frame does for a painting), all the more so when an old manuscript is clothed in a new and costly cover. In conjunction with added texts and other traces of use, one can grasp from this ‘reframing’ a shift of a text’s meaning. This is especially true of Gospel Books, which were handled as symbols of God in liturgical contexts. From the High Middle Ages on, treasure inventories and oath formulae were added to Gospel Books. They indicate the importance of an old Gospel Book for the religious community as a material proof of the age and rank of their church. Gospel Book covers from the High and Late Middle Ages demonstrate this by using spolia, old-fashioned forms and material, or invoking venerated founders. Often shaped as pendants, they seem to be arranged for display.

A book cover encloses the manuscript inside. If it is elaborate, it distinguishes the manuscript as a precious and valuable object (as a frame does for a painting), all the more so when an old manuscript is clothed in a new and costly cover. In conjunction with added texts and other traces of use, one can grasp from this ‘reframing’ a shift of a text’s meaning. This is especially true of Gospel Books, which were handled as symbols of God in liturgical contexts. From the High Middle Ages on, treasure inventories and oath formulae were added to Gospel Books. They indicate the importance of an old Gospel Book for the religious community as a material proof of the age and rank of their church. Gospel Book covers from the High and Late Middle Ages demonstrate this by using spolia, old-fashioned forms and material, or invoking venerated founders. Often shaped as pendants, they seem to be arranged for display.

The paper presents three case studies of ancient Gospel Books which were reworked and adapted to changing liturgical and monastic practices. The reasons for the choice of a specific older manuscript are discussed, which could be the real or presumed connection with the foundation, but also the archaic character of the script. The methods of reworking include visual signs like bookmarks, nota bene signs, or display scripts to emphasize lecture texts. Whereas these revisions concentrate on the Gospel Book as a textbook, in another case the transformations focus on the whole manuscript as an object. The introduction of miniatures, purple pages, and gold script combined modern elements with allusions to ancient practices to create a tradition of ancient fundatio .

Two church banners made from a garment of late-fourteenth-century Italian lampas display two late-twelfth-century purple veils embroidered with gold. Bishop Konrad of Krosigk, having acquired a treasure of relics, textiles, and liturgical objects during the Fourth Crusade, donated these to his cathedral. The article focuses on how the two veils, which originally had veiled the chalice and the paten in the Byzantine mass, were reused and reframed. There is evidence that at first they were displayed upon or close to the altar, representing the cathedral’s new wealth by their costly appearance and Greek inscriptions evoking the splendor of Byzantine textile production. When sewn on church banners in the fifteenth century, they assumed the role of an advertisement for the Byzantine treasure, an attempt to reaffirm the marginalized cathedral’s prestige.

The only signed work by Nicholas of Verdun, the metalwork which adorned the former ambo in the Klosterneuburg Monastery, was integrated into a foldable altarpiece around 1330 and thus transformed into a new medium. Besides being reframed, it was combined with new monumental paintings on the rear side of the triptych. It was not only handled differently and defined spatially in completely different terms, but the precious enamel- and metalwork could be hidden from sight by closing the wings. The added plates of metalwork at the center of the middle panel break up the hieratical and Eucharistic program of the original work, focusing the program on devotional affects. The metalwork and paintings form a sophisticated iconic reference system, pointing to the provost Stephan of Sierndorf, who had ordered the reframing. His painted figure, kneeling before the crucified Christ, reveals itself not only as the image of the donor, but also as the ideal beholder of the work or a further exemplum of perfect piety.

Medieval wooden sculptures were in most cases reframed several times during their history. Sculptures have thus been repainted or reused in different contexts. The reasons for these reframings have been different, for example change of taste, use, or place, or repair of damage. Sculptures of the Virgin Mary were especially subject to these later changes, because they were the focus of veneration and thus were exposed to touching hands, burning candles, and incense. In addition, the image of the Virgin was often exposed to fashionable new stylings. Medieval reframings can only be traced by very close examination of the object and are difficult to link with a specific historical context. Therefore, this study concentrates on some examples of medieval sculptures in Cologne, which have been the subjects of intense studies by restorers and art historians.

The center of the baroque altarpiece of the Augustinian Monastery of Polling in South Germany forms the so-called Holy Cross. Its current presentation, dated from 1763, is the last of a sequence of four well-documented presentations of a Romanesque wooden cross since 1230. This cross is an excellent example for analyzing and comparing several methods of re-presenting a historic art object as well as for understanding the motivation for such re-presentations, which are grounded on changes of the spiritual function of the object. In its first reframing, the cross received a covering of gilded parchment and a painting of the crucifix on this ground coat. In a fundamental publication from 1994, this covering was compared with a reliquary holding the old venerated wooden cross. However, looking at the context of medieval instructions for painters and the material evidence of extant contemporary paintings, this interpretation becomes questionable: the covering with parchment was a common and technically motivated procedure rather than a spiritually motivated one.