medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Christopher,
I can't exactly answer your question, but I have a photocopy of an
article that illustrates both Amiens pilgrims' badges or tokens and
seals with images of St John's head: Hella Arndt and Renate
Kroos, 'Zur Ikonographie der Johannesschüssel', Aachener
Kunstblätter, 38 (1969), 248-308 (this is all I've got;
unfortunately, the notes follow 308). The images are too small and
sketchy for me to make out inscriptions, but all the badges seem to
feature a large face surrounded - and perhaps held by - three small
figures (there appear to be further bibliographic references in the
notes). None of the several seals illustrated, depicting the face on
a platter, belong to Amiens; they are mostly German (I have Durand's
monograph on Amiens currently on order from Interlibrary Loans,
however; if anything turns up there, I'll let you know). The
frontally placed head, or face, on a platter, however, is a very
widespread image in various media.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
>
> there is, on a surviving badge from Amiens, this inscription: HIC EST SIGNUM
> FACIEI BEATI IOHANNIS BAPTISTE AMI.
>
> i have not seen this badge, but i presume that it has on it some kind of image
> of the face of JB --or, perhaps, the image of an image of the face (there
> seems to be some confusion in the few secondary sources i've
> looked at as to whether the relic venerated at Amiens was the "head,"
> part of the head, or, somehow, the "face" of John).
>
> the question i have is, to what does "HIC" refer, here:
>
> 1) the badge itself, as one list member suggested, i.e., the inscription
> intends something like: "This [badge] is the token/ensigne/_signum_ of [the
> relic of?] the face of J.B."
>
> or,
>
> b) the image of the face depicted on the badge, i.e., some kind of
> painted or sculpted (whatever) "image" which was, itself, an object of
> veneration, perhaps as part of a reliquary housing the actual remains of the
> saint, in which case the inscription means approximately: "This image you see
> here depicted [on this badge] is [of] the image [_signum_] of
> J.B. [which can be seen at Amiens]."
>
> or,
>
> iii) could _signum_ refer to something like a "seal," which incorporates the
> face of the saint, i.e., "This [picture you see here] is the [official] signet
> of J.B. of [the church of] Amiens."
>
>
> i bring up the latter posssibility because there are badges from Chartres
> which bear a similar inscription, a simple S[IGN]VM BEATE MAR[I?][A??] above
> an image of (an image of) an enthroned Virgin and Child being carried in,
> apparently, a liturgical procession (a bad repro of one of these is to be
> found here: http://ariadne.org/centrechartraine/badges/badges.html ).
>
> and, as it happens, we know that there was a seal in use by the church
> (chapter?) of Chartres around the same time (early 13th c.) which displayed a
> similar device (_signum_?), apparently an image of the major cult statue of
> the Virgin in the church (sorry, i don't have a picture of the seal to
> share).
>
> hoping others are not as confused by this as am i, and looking forward
> gratefully to any help or suggestions anyone might have to offer,
>
> best from here,
>
> christopher
>
>
>
>
>
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