medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
According to his extensive hagiographic tradition (BHL 7113, etc.), Remaclus (in French, Remacle; in German, Remaklus) was an Aquitanian who entered religion at Luxeuil and who later became abbot at Solignac. In about 650 he founded, at the behest of king St. Sigebert III, the double monastery of Stavelot / Stablo and Malmédy in what was then Austrasia and today is in southeastern Belgium. Laid to rest at Stavelot, he was canonized (locally, of course) some ten or fifteen years after his death in about the year 673. By the middle of the ninth century Remaclus had obtained a reputation for miraculous cures that achieved imperial recognition from both Louis the Pious and Lothar II and that led, shortly before the latter's visit to Stavelot in 862, to a compilation of _Miracula_ that continued to grow over the centuries. From this time through to the dissolution of 1794 Stavelot was a major pilgrimage site as well as the capital of an independent ecclesiastical domain within the empire.
Some period-pertinent images of St. Remaclus:
a) as portrayed (at left) on a twelfth-century pilgrim's badge in the Musée communal de Huy:
http://www.musee-huy.be/photos-html/B07.html
NB: The link takes one only as far as the museum's splash page. Once there, click on "COLLECTIONS". On the page that comes up next, the badge is in the second row from the bottom. Or use this link instead:
http://tinyurl.com/cajtsmy
b) as portrayed (standing at far right in the second register from top) on the now lost mid-twelfth-century Remaclus retable in the abbey of Stavelot as represented in a drawing from the early 1660s in the Museum Grand Curtius in Liège:
http://tinyurl.com/plqcy5n
The retable was made to surround a reliquary shrine, seen in the drawing at bottom center with Remaclus portrayed at right (at left, St. Peter) on the visible narrow end.
c) as portrayed (fourth from left) on his later thirteenth-century copper gilt châsse (completed betw. 1263 and 1268) in the église Saint-Sébastien in Stavelot:
http://expo67.ncf.ca/expo_belgium_p8.html
Detail views (zoomable images):
http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=Z007682&objnr=10074187&lang=fr-FR&nr=30
http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=Z007690&objnr=10074187&lang=fr-FR&nr=30
http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=Z007696&objnr=10074187&lang=fr-FR&nr=30
d) as portrayed in a recently restored fifteenth- or earlier sixteenth-century polychromed wooden statue said to have been photographed in the église primaire Saint-Sébastien in Stavelot but apparently the property of the église Notre-Dame et Saint-Remacle in Spa, where it is kept on display in the transept:
http://tinyurl.com/qbbutu8
Many views:
http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=G004679&objnr=10068726&nr=1
e) as portrayed in an earlier or mid-sixteenth-century oak statue (ca. 1500-1560), attributed to the Maître de Waha, in the église Saint-Remacle in Grimbiémont, a locality of Marche-en-Famenne (prov. de Luxembourg):
http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=KM12037&objnr=10031689&nr=8
f) as portrayed in an earlier sixteenth-century oak statue (ca. 1520-1540), attributed to Maître Balthazar, in the église Saint-Remacle in Ocquier, a locality of Clavier (prov. de Liège):
http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=B156868&objnr=10119245&nr=83
g) as portrayed in a sixteenth-century wooden statue -- given its pronounced "Gothic sway", probably fairly early in that century -- in the église Assomption-de-la-Sainte-Vierge in Bra(-sur-Lienne), a locality of Lierneux (prov. de Liège):
http://balat.kikirpa.be/photo.php?path=M036548&objnr=10105889&nr=12
Another view (in color):
http://simone.lagoutte.free.fr/marcourt/statue_st_remacle.jpg
Best,
John Dillon
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