medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Please excuse the rather colloquial renaming of this thread! Bishops and also saints
seem in the high to ate Middle Ages regularly to be portrayed standing on (and/or spearing with croziers, or
whatever) other living figures, human or otherwise. My favorite is a statue of St. Olaf standing on a
dragon with a human head that looks like his own. Clearly there is a general message of overcoming
evil (in the case of the St. Olaf statue the reading is that he overcame his own evil nature),
and my question is probably too broad to be answerable, but I wondered if anyone had studied these
'stepped on' creatures, when and where they appear, and if there are abt written texts that might
relate to them.
Meg
________________________________
From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture on behalf of John Dillon
Sent: Fri 11/4/2011 14:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [M-R] Walter de Gray and dragon
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear All,
My e-mail client has been very uncooperative lately. Herewith (if it comes through) the message that I thought I had saved and then sent:
To add to what christopher has said below, herewith an example that will
have been seen by many travelers to Venice after ca. 1172: Theodore of
Amasea (the city's earliest patron saint) astride a crocodile on one of
those raised columns next to the Doges' palace:
http://tinyurl.com/ybs64g3
http://tinyurl.com/ylg8wf8
http://tinyurl.com/38xgrr
http://tinyurl.com/yjksnaw
That's a replica. Here's the original, on display _in_ the Palazzo Ducale:
http://www.museumplanet.com/tour.php/venice/dp12
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeanty/4245202968
To narrow the question, when do recently deceased bishops begin so to be portrayed?
Best
John Dillon
On 11/04/11, Christopher Crockett wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> From: "Cormack, Margaret Jean" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> >Can you (or other list members) comment on how common it is for a saint to
> be portrayed treading on a dragon, and when the motif starts to appear?
>
>
> the motif is, of course, quite ancient --think: an Egyptian god or Pharaoh
> striding on the back of a crocodile (symbol of Seth, an evil god), holding a
> lance and stabbing the beast in the mouth with it.
>
> (an interesting variation is in a Coptic relief, 2,000 years later, in the
> Louvre depicting a mounted "Roman" soldier stabbing a crocodile, under his
> horse, in the mouth.)
>
> but, it is may be that the English tomb sculptor did not have Egyptian
> artifacts before his eyes, or even in mind.
>
> closer in time (and space) might be somewhat later manifestations of the
> theme, as on the South porch of Chartres cathedral:
>
> http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/getimage-idx?cc=chartres;entryid=x-fcsp333610220;viewid=FCSP333610220.TIF;quality=m800;view=image
>
> http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/getimage-idx?cc=chartres;entryid=x-fcsp333610225;viewid=FCSP333610225.TIF;quality=m800;view=image
>
> the figure of the bishop on the right has been identified by Clarke Maines
> (and, perhaps largely accepted) as Becket, standing on Hank 2 and, as it were,
> Giving him the Shaft.
>
>
> the Chartres figure is only a generation or so before the York tomb, and the
> Becket connection might have particularly resonated with an English bishop.
>
> did Walt de Gray ever make a pilgrimage to Chartres?
>
> but, failing that, i would think that the motif is just too common to be able
> to say with any certainty that Chartres was the "model" for the tomb effigy.
>
> i'm sure that there is literature on the de Gray tomb which will probably run
> all this to Earth.
>
> c
To narrow the question, when do recently deceased bishops begin so to be portrayed?
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