medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Well, Marjorie, you're in good company with that Trinity
conjecture. Thomas Aquinas (a name we've been hearing about lately) does a
riff on the number of the keys in Summa Theologica, Supplement, quaestio
17, art. 1, using the Trinity as an argument for the hypothetical (which he
then refutes) that there should be not one or two but three keys. See,
e.g., at
http://www.ccel.org/a/aquinas/summa/XP/XP017.html#XPQ17OUTP1
objection 5 under the rubric "Whether there are two keys or only one?"
But this too is hardly good evidence for conceptions current in Merovingian
Gaul. Nor in all likelihood (and to go along with Avignon) are the arms of
the Abbey of Saint Peter in Gent (Ghent):
http://www.deruyver.net/flanders/wijlegemkerkpic.html
though as the abbey (now an art mseum) was one of Amandus' foundations
(another name we've been hearing about), its three-keys device +could+
conceivably be that old.
Older still, however, is this 6th or 7th-century icon of St. Peter from St.
Catherine's in Sinai:
http://www.interknowledge.com/egypt/sinai/monart12.htm
where Peter is holding three keys (count the shafts; in other reproductions
these are not as distinct as they are here).
So reifying the Bible's indeterminate number as three is at least this
early. A possible +Carolingian+ example was part of the apse mosaic work
of Leo III's "Triclinium" at the Lateran. Isaac Newton (now there's a name
probably less talked about on this list!) reports from a drawing in "a
small book printed at Paris A.C. 1689, entitled, An historical dissertation
upon some coins of Charles the great, Ludovicus Pius, Lotharius, and their
successors stamped at Rome" that
>In the Mosaic work there appeared Peter with three keys in his lap,
>reaching the Pallium to the Pope with his right hand, and the banner of
>the city to Charles the great with his left.
(http://www.historicist.com/Newton/p1c7.htm)
But a 16th-cent. drawing of the same work seems to show only one key in
Peter's lap:
http://www.arch.uiuc.edu/courses/arch312/II/ii.html
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~huma103/lec12I_II.html#D4E4
Someone who's in Rome could have a look at the copy in Federico Fuga's 1743
tribune at the Lateran:
http://www.italycyberguide.com/Geography/cities/rome2000/L15.htm
Be that as it may, in the absence of a stated number we at liberty to
imagine three keys just as easily, perhaps, as two. Obviously, some have
done so. But I too would find puzzling a matter-of-fact reference to "the
three keys" unless some specific, verifiable context were present.
Best,
John Dillon
PS: It seems unlikely that +these+ are the three keys of St. Peter that
Moreira is talking about:
http://incolor.inebraska.com/kramsey/archive/3keys.htm
At 06:31 AM 1/29/2003 -0800, Marjorie Greene (replying to Chris Daniell) wrote:
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
>It's a question of what inspired what. Moreira's focus
>is on Merovingian Gaul. I suggest that Merovingian and
>Avignonnais Petrine/papal iconography had a common
>source. But what that source is, I have no clue. It
>could be as simple as the Trinity. I gave a cursory
>glance at the apocryphal Gospel of Peter with no
>result.
>Thanks for the response.
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