medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
From: Henk <[log in to unmask]>
> Writing desks have about the same slant, sometimes a little lower (ca 25
degrees) but often up to 45 degrees or more. They are never as low as the
Radegund 'desk'.
maybe:
http://classics.uc.edu/~johnson/hum98/slides/set2/slide038.jpg
>This has a very practical reason: feather quils have to be
held quite horizontally to prevent ink from spilling from them.
maybe:
http://classics.uc.edu/~johnson/hum98/slides/set2/slide038.jpg
> Besides that: footstools or -rests were often a bit sloping, as modern piano
or guitarists footrests. That the Radegund one is not damaged or doesn't look
worn is probably because it's a relic.
that's about the best thought yet (and i believe that Jim mentioned something
very close to the same idea, calling it a "contact relic" --see below).
>And if she used it as a fooststool in her capacity both as a queen or an
abbess, don't forget that medieval shoes are soft. They have thin leather
soles and make no impression
on wood, except when you use a stool like that for a long long time.
> I'm still not sure about the crosses on them, but could it be that the stool
was carved after she died and so made all the more symbolic? Or is that too
far fetched a notion?
well, Hank, you can't have it both ways: either the decoration was carved on
the thing in the beginning --in which case your "soft shoes" notion *could* be
applicable-- or...
assuming you can get your mind around the idea that *any*one in the m.a. would
put their feet up on a group of images which included the Lamb of God, His
four Evangelists, and the very Symbol of the Passion of the Son of God.
my mind, ossified as it is, no longer stretches to such an extent, and i'm too
close to my own Maker to go round stomping all over His Symbols.
so, i would submit that, *if* it were/is indeed a "footstool", it *never* saw
service as such, not ever, no way, no how.
if a footstool at all, it *might* have been some kind of "symbolic" [what's
the word/concept i'm looking for here?] footstool, i.e., the Sainte might have
been famous for her footstool (she had gout, i presume), and the present
artifact was made --and decorated-- to "represent" her famous "attribute."
in other words, it's "ceremonial", never used, nor intended to have been used
--hence the sacred decoration.
a careful reading of her Lives might help, at this point (John D., that's your
bailiwick).
Jim wrote:
> In Peter Lasko's, The Kingdom of the Franks, pp. 74-75, he calls it "St
Radegund's so-called reading desk"
note that my brilliant argument re the "ceremonial/symbolic" nature of the
artifact would apply equally well to a writing/reading desk as to a
footstool.
>...[Lasko] judges it "almost certainly" a gift from the East, the imagery on
the top showing distinctly eastern Christian features
and suchlike fine carving/figural representation wasn't all that common in the
West, in R.'s day --at least amongst survivals.
>(Radegund is known to have written to the Byzantine
Emperor Justin II, who on her request sent her a relic of the True Cross in a
reliquary, which is also preserved in Poitiers).
the carving doesn't particularly look Byzantine, either, but, hey, Any Port in
a Storm.
>....Had this object, whatever it actually is, been used as a footstool, one
might expect more wear on the top surface.
and, it might be said, one might expect considerably less Sacred Imagery.
>In fact, had it been used much at all,
in any capacity
>one might have expected it to be in far worse shape than it appears to be in
currently (surviving works made of wood from this early period are extremely
rare).
speaks in favor of the inspired "ceremonial object"
argument/observation/proposal.
>Whatever its original function, it appears to have come quite early to have
been regarded as a "secondary relic"
yes, or a "primary symbolic attribute."
>of the saint who apparently owned it and thus carefully preserved, rather
than regularly used.
sounds good, to me.
c
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