medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I thought this was interesting.
Rosemary Hayes
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From: "The Medieval Review" <[log in to unmask]>
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Sent: Monday, October 28, 2013 3:49 PM
Subject: TMR 13.10.26 Jung, The Gothic Screen (Raguin)
Jung, Jacqueline E. <i>The Gothic Screen: Space, Sculpture, and
Community in the Cathedrals of France and Germany, ca.1200-1400</i>.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xix, 282. $99.00.
ISBN-13: 9781107022959.
Reviewed by Virginia C. Raguin
College of the Holy Cross, Worcester
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This book has been long awaited and it does not disappoint in the
breadth and richness of its exposition. Jung presents a systematic,
although not exhaustive study of choir screens. She is explicit in her
methodology, noting that she sees her work as a reversal of the
approach of a number of previous scholars. Michael Camille, for
example, identified superficially charming iconography in manuscripts
which he subsequently demonstrated to embody marginalization of class,
ethnicity, religion, and gender. Jung takes what superficially appears
to be a divider, and endeavors to explain that these screens operated
as a place of intersection, inclusion, and exchange: "functional
furnishings for public communication" (2). The text interweaves
analysis of the architectural structure, liturgy, stylistic and
iconographic issues of sculpture, the particular problems of outreach
to women, and also the depiction of the Jew. A marvelous series of
large-scale black and white and color illustrations, many by the
author, make it possible for the reader to follow her diverse
arguments. The book, undoubtedly, will become a standard reference for
studies of both the built environment and iconography of the Middle
Ages.
Jung's text is divided into six sections, each quite distinct,
enabling transition from architectural space, to liturgy, sculptural
program, then patronage and reception. "The Screen as Partition" is
easily the most obvious to her audience. Here, however, the author
explains that screens are "permeable thresholds" (2). Her excursus,
arguably, is connected to the principle that except in rare cases,
architecture demands consensus from a large number of constituencies.
Most of the buildings included are of significance size, including the
cathedrals of Paris, Chartres, Bourges, Strasbourg, Nuremberg, Mainz,
Meissen, Magdeburg, Halberstadt, and Havelberg, that supported the
intersection of resident clergy, ranks of nobility, and a laity of
many levels of status, many with the ability to make significant
donations, especially in the later Middle Ages. For many of these
sites the screens have succumbed to a modern predilection for
uninterrupted interior space and need to be reconstructed from
fragmentary remains and drawings and descriptions. The following
chapter, "The Choir Screen as Bridge," further defines the screen as
enabling transition between the nave of the laity, often referred to
in medieval texts as the "church" and choir of the clergy, "two
distinct sacred zones." Choir screens frequently served as platforms
with space for life-size sculpture and ritual. Here Jung focuses on
the image of Christ on the cross as facilitating the understanding of
the "bivalent body" of the redeemer, both suffering and triumphant.
The chapter on "The Choir Screen as Frame" may be one of the most
revealing to an audience infrequently accustomed to connecting real
architecture and its depictions in the pictorial arts. Jung
effectively demonstrates the reciprocity between paintings, particular
by fifteenth-century artists such as Jan Van Eyck, Rogier Van der
Weyden, and the Master of the <i>Hours of Mary of Burgundy</i>. These
works often place their subjects in settings with complex views of
interiors that suggest a keen awareness of the importance of framed
spaces as actually experienced. Solid connections to the critical
literature, such as Millard Meiss's seminal article "Light as Form and
Symbol in Some Fifteenth-Century Paintings" resonate throughout this
exploration. Here, especially for the discussion of Naumburg, more
emphasis might have been given to the observation of stained glass and
sculpture. See, for example, one of the best argued proofs for the
development of medieval architecture and glazing together by Madeline
Caviness, <i>Sumptuous Arts at the Royal Abbeys in Reims and Braine:
Ornatus Elegantiae, Varietate Stupendes</i> (Princeton, 1990). The
glazing program in Naumburg is a vital element of the experience of
the screen and choir space. The visitor passes through the screen with
its intense representation of the corporeal weight of matter through
the suspended flesh of the suffering Lord, to an enclosure. There the
living bodies of the canons and nobility witnessing services intersect
with both the stone sculptures of ancestral donors and the saints and
virtues depicted in the stained glass--a heavenly, transparent choir,
glowing with the brightness of the reflected Godhead. Equally
compelling is the effect of the colored glass to either side of
Titian's <i>Assumption of the Virgin</i> as viewed through the choir
screen in Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari of Venice.
The second half of the book focuses on sculpture. In "Women, Men, and
the Social Order" Jung reconstructs rituals of viewing. In the
thirteenth century, we observe a burgeoning urban population and the
rise of new orders such as the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) and
Franciscans. There is a much stronger, and necessary, involvement of
the laity in the support of the church. The screen concomitantly
becomes a vital means of modeling public behavior through imagery that
is more focused and deeper than that portrayed in the exterior
sculptural programs. The pictorial thrust emphasizes both affective
piety inspired by the humanity of Christ and effective moral actions.
The gables of the screen at Strasbourg cathedral (now lost), for
example, depicted a series of Corporal Works of Mercy. Jung makes a
strong case for the reevaluation of outreach to women, suggesting that
in Paris, Chartres, and Bourges, the narrative sculptures presented
Jesus as closest to women. This thesis is carefully argued through a
reading of angles of visibility. At the entrance into the ambulatory
at Notre Dame of Paris, for example, the visitor first sees the three
women who greet the risen Christ. Thus the author tempers anti-
feminist interpretations by suggesting in many cases women served as
models for everyone (128).
Jung's final two chapters concern social accessibility, first by
addressing the position of "Jews, Christians, and the Question of the
Individual." Here the west choir screen of Naumburg cathedral is
detailed carefully. The well-known reliefs present thirty-six figures,
thirteen of them with the conical hats identified with Jews. These
figures are not shown as malevolent aliens but appear as "physically
interchangeable with the apostles and Romans" suggesting that the
program is "designed so as to compel the beholder to turn scrutiny
back on the self" (149). Jung is admirably conversant with the diverse
literature on the screen, including the pioneering work of Kathryn
Brush. In the sixth and final section "Nobles, Peasants, and the
Vernacular Mode" she argues that in these integrated spaces,
physicality of placement and the act of viewing construct multivalent
readings. She suggests that we might envision these medieval
narratives on their stone screens as the evoking the modern experience
of cinematic viewing.
At its core, Jung's excursus on the choir screen resonates with
studies on the importance of both concealing and revealing as elements
of sacral ritual, as well as multivalent readings of meaning. This is
the fundamental requirement of the reliquary, central to pious
practice in the Middle Ages. Sacred relics were never routinely
accessible. Even if in the later Middle Ages relics appears in
transparent containers, the fragment itself was most commonly wrapped.
At all times, these books, caskets, pendants, crosses, and statues
were invariably hidden away to make longed-for appearances at
significant moments in a community's life: patronal feasts, major
feast days of the liturgical calendar, such as Christmas, Easter, and
Pentecost, and in times of crisis such as famine, drought, or
pestilence.
The medieval church was a busy, colorful, image-redolent and even,
noisy place. The hearing the liturgy was in many ways as vital as
viewing. The voices of the clergy swept over architectural divides, as
did the sacering bell rung to signal the consecration of the host.
Recent scholarship, much of it revisionist, has broadened our
approach. Eamon Duffy has made significant contributions to the
reciprocity of the kind of staging discussed by Jung. In <i>The
Stripping of the Altars</i> (Yale, 1992) Duffy cites the Sarum
liturgical directions (111), prescribing that a veil be lowered during
Lent that blocked even the view of the elevation of the host, a
strategy building up to the theatrical revelation on Easter Sunday,
when the Sacrament became even more elided with the flesh of the risen
Christ.
<i>The Gothic Screen</i> also deserves to be read along with Roland
Recht's <i>Believing and Seeing: the Art of Gothic Cathedrals</i>
(Chicago, 2008), and a number of works by Corine Schleif including a
session twenty years ago at the Sixteenth-Century Studies Conference.
"'Against, dust, flies, bats...and such': Functions and Meanings of
Art Coverings," where she addressed the coverings used for sculptures
in St. Lorenz in Nuremberg around 1500. Jung's complex and fascinating
study makes one long for similar efforts to explore more deeply the
screens of Italian churches, illustrated so vividly in Giotto's fresco
in Assisi of St. Francis preparing the Christmas crèche in Grecchio.
More importantly, we hope for similar studies on the rood screen in
England, where Francis Bond's work <i>Screens and Galleries in English
Churches</i> (Oxford, 1908) still remains a pivotal contribution. The
screen was deeply controversial during the English Reformation but
enjoyed a vigorous revival during the nineteenth century Oxford
movement and the restoration of traditional worship. Eamon Duffy's
<i>Saints, Sacrilege and Sedition: Religion and Conflict in the Tudor
Reformations</i> (Bloomsbury/Continuum, 2012) devotes a chapter to
rood screens, observing that the western side of the screen was "the
exclusive focus of lay concern and benefaction." Reflection on the
English experience beings us again to a theme of complicity that
weaves throughout Jung's study. What caused such massive losses of so
impressive a structure? Brutal iconoclasm sometimes played its role ,
as in 1561, when Elizabeth I acquiesced to pressure and issued an
order against any surviving crucifixes by demanding that rood lofts
must be taken down to the beam (Margaret Aston, <i>England's
Iconoclasts</i>, Oxford, 1988). The motivations for most destruction,
however, were complex, rarely the result of doctrinal conviction.
Rather, we contemplate the evolving history of religious practice,
revealing how tenuous is our own understanding of sacred space and its
lived ritual.
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