medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
The sister of Sts. Willibald and Wynnebald and the daughter of the implausibly named St. Richard of England, Walburg (also Walburga, Walpurga, Walpurgis; d. 779) left England for Germany to assist St. Boniface in his missions. She settled in at Tauberbischofsheim in the northeast of today's Baden-Württemberg and moved on to Heidenheim in Bavaria, where she was put in charge of the sisters at a double convent founded by Willibald. Later she ruled the entire establishment (both sexes). Walburg is the patron saint of the Abtei Sankt Walburg in Eichstätt, founded by count St. Liutger / Leodegar of Lechsgemünd in 1035 on property adjacent to a church that had housed her relics since the late ninth century.
Some period pertinent images of St. Walburg:
a) as depicted (at center; at left, abbess Hitda) in the dedication illumination of the seemingly earlier eleventh-century Hitda Gospels (Darmstadt, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Hs. 1640, fol. 6r):
http://www.public.asu.edu/~cschleif/12%20%5B640x480%5D.jpg
A closer view:
http://tinyurl.com/h7r4b2h
b) as depicted in a late thirteenth-century glass window (ca. 1295) in the Walburgiskirche in St. Michael in Obersteiermark (Land Steiermark):
http://www.burgenseite.com/faschen/walburgis_faces_11.jpg
c) as depicted in a late thirteenth-century fresco (ca. 1300) in the Walburgiskirche in St. Michael in Obersteiermark (Land Steiermark):
http://www.burgenseite.com/faschen/walburgis_faces_1.jpg
d) as depicted in a mid-fourteenth-century fresco (ca. 1340-1350) in the choir of the Evangelische Pfarrkirche St. Nikolaus in Dornstadt, a locality of Auhausen (Lkr. Donau-Ries) in Bavaria:
http://tinyurl.com/gnqkc9b
e) as depicted (at upper right; at lower left, St. Liutger / Leodegar of Lechsgemünd; at lower right, abbess Sophia of Hüttingen) in what appears to be a cropped reproduction of modern copy of a later fourteenth-century painting on parchment (ca. 1360) at the beginning of the _Salbuch_ (register of property transfers) of the Abtei Sankt Walburg in Eichstätt:
http://tinyurl.com/z2367nq [as widely used in Wikipedia, without indication of source]
http://tinyurl.com/j3g5262 [not cropped; with metadata calling it "copy 20 of 20"]
For more on the abbey and on this image see:
http://tinyurl.com/j5k5k79
f) as portrayed in a fifteenth-century polychromed and gilt wooden statue in the Pfarrkirche St. Walburga in Beilngries (Lkr. Beilngries) in Bavaria:
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7021157.JPG
g) as portrayed in a fifteenth- or earlier sixteenth-century polychromed and gilt wooden altar statue in the Katholische Pfarrkirche St. Michael in Großweingarten (Lkr. Roth) in Bavaria:
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7021260.JPG
h) as portrayed (second from right) by the Master of the High Altar of Eichstätt's Cathedral in the frequently repainted later fifteenth-century statues of sainted members of the founding family of the diocese (ca. 1470-1480?) now placed in the central shrine of the high altar of the east choir of Eichstätt's Dom St. Salvator, Unserer Lieben Frau, und St. Willibald (from left to right, the other statues are of St. Richard of England, St. Willibald, the BVM, and St. Wynnebald):
http://tinyurl.com/pbdsuwq
i) as portrayed (top center, with angels at her bier) in a later fifteenth-century relief above the door to her resting place in the upper crypt of the Kloster- und Pfarrkirche St. Walburg in Eichstätt:
http://tinyurl.com/huceaek
j) as portrayed (at center) in the later fifteenth- or earlier sixteenth-century polychromed gilt statues of Walburg(a) and her immediate family in the upper crypt of the Kloster- und Pfarrkirche St. Walburg in Eichstätt (the others, from left to right, are of St. Richard of England, St. Willibald, St. Wynnebald, and St. Wunna [in diocesan hagiography the mother of Sts. Walburg, Willibald, and Wynnebald]):
http://tinyurl.com/neo5qva
k) as portrayed in relief on a late fifteenth- or earlier sixteenth-century polychromed ceiling boss (ca. 1480-1520) in the Mortuarium of Eichstätt's Dom St. Salvator, Unserer Lieben Frau, und St. Willibald:
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7021102.JPG
l) as portrayed by Clement of Baden in a late fifteenth-century polychromed and gilt wooden statue in the église Sainte-Walburge in Walbourg (Bas-Rhin):
http://tinyurl.com/hntfe2h
m) as portrayed in a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century wooden statue (ca. 1490-1510) in the Katholische Stadtpfarrkirche St. Jakobus der Ältere in Ornbau (Lkr. Ansbach) in Bavaria:
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7021612.JPG
n) as depicted (at center in the upper register, betw. Sts. Willibald und Wynnebald) in a modern copy, in the Kloster- und Pfarrkirche St. Walburg in Eichstätt, of an earlier sixteenth-century tapestry (ca. 1520) of her family (here dubiously including St. Sualo / Sola of Solnhofen, the town that archaeopteryx made famous) and a few others (including St. Benedict of Nursia, whom with becoming modesty the tapestry does not style _cognatus_):
http://www.abtei-st-walburg.de/fileadmin/_processed_/csm_Teppich_b40d1ad2f6.jpg
The original is kept in Eichstätt's dioscesan museum. In this reduced view it shows lacunae not present in the copy:
http://www.kirchliche-museen.org/fotos/museum13/eichstaett1.jpg
Ah, the holy kinship of Eichstätt!
Best,
John Dillon
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