medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
... in which case the last para of my last email is the relevant bit.
I've just looked up 'gates' and 'doors' in the Nilson index but neither show
up, so the evidence for cathedrals in England, at least, must be pretty
limited.
It's worth noting though that the phenomenon may be as much to do with ease
of access as the moment of arrival. Key cult images at St Paul's London (the
image of St Uncumber and the Black Rood (I may have got this name slightly
wrong, it's 2.30am here in the UK)) where grouped just inside and around the
north transept door, which was also the main lay point of entry to the
cathedral. Some visitors may indeed have been pilgrims to the other shrines
within - others may just have been passing.
Then there is the extraordinary Outer North Porch at St Mary Redcliffe in
Bristol, probably built to house an image of Mary that presumably had a
miraculous reputation. The porch is positioned on the nw side of the
church, near to both a major thoroughfare and one of Bristol's most
important quaysides, and it has an unusual arrangement of three doors around
three sides of a hexagon, strongly suggesting that people entered the porch,
visited the image, and left again, without ever actually entering the church
itself.
Here again however there could be an 'arrival'/departure element. It is easy
to imagine such an image being popular with merchants about to leave for (or
having just come back from) a perilous voyage. Indeed the building appears
designed to encourage such a use. Simply leaving Bristol through Clifton
Gorge took some guts, as WIlliam of Worcestre shows. He also cites prayers
(not to Mary) apparently directed at other saints whose cult sites were
visible on the way in/out of the city. For medieval people, one suspects,
any journey could have an element of pilgrimage, just as pilgrimages could
include what we woudl call tourism or a 'business trip' among their
motivations.
For more ritualised 'arrivals' and their architectural expression, see the
considerable literature on the use of English cathedral west fronts as
backdrops for the Palm Sunday liturgy, when many of these structures doubled
up as the Gate of Jerusalem, replete with choristers singing from hidden
sound holes, as a procession re-enacted Christ's arrival outside the city
gates. England's magnificently impressive and oddly un-beautiful 'screen'
west fronts can thus perhaps be seen as collossal stone images of the sacred
significance of arrival.
I'm rambling. Hope this is of some help. Ask if you'd like more detail. But
right now, this time I really *am* going to bed.
Jon Cannon
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