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Dear Maddy, Although I do not yet know well the historiography of the subject, I am becoming more and more convinced that no very systematic study of the development of saints' attributes exists. While I do think your reader is correct that such elements have to be read in context, that does not necessarily mean that it is always appropriate or even possible to reduce the situation to one of "fundamental and secondary meanings". The more I consider this, the more I am struck by the rich possibilities of meaning in medieval art that require, perhaps, a more complex methodology than simply "identifying" what an image means, or even what it meant to the "author" of the image. Since medieval art was usually conceived by highly educated and creative people who knew the Bible (and saints' lives) well, who had studied exegesis, who listened to sermons, and who were used to biblical imagery being used to justify all sorts of arguments (I am thinking, e.g., of the letters of Innocent III), the possible range of intentions behind image selection was vast. Perhaps this is not a problem for "simple" images, but for more complex ones, the possibilities of meaning are so rich that the best one can do is to make a reading comparable in (reconstructed) receptive scope to the audience or audiences for whom it was intended. And some medieval images were indeed intended to provide more than one meaning, or reading, either to enrich an exegetical programme, or in a manner which depended on the education and status of the various audiences who would have had access to it (somewhat along the lines of simultaneous sermons "ad status"). And particularly with the rise of art intended for private devotion in the 13th century, it is even possible that no circumscribed meaning or set of meanings was intended, but rather the work was designed to function as an open-ended "machine" for devotional speculation. Such an approach to "multivalency" or "polysemy" in medieval art is certainly, I believe, being more and more widely recognized, and it is unfortunate that you seem to have got a reader who appears more impressed with the authority of "Dictionaries of Symbols" than with new scholarship. It is no accident that reception theory originated in the study of medieval literature, yet it is apparently still the case that many modernists look down their nose at medieval studies and consider "contemporary theory" to reside in the "modern period". I'm sorry in any case if I inadvertently became a stumbling block to your study. Cheers, Jim Bugslag > Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 14:11:08 +0100 > Subject: identifying attributes of saints > From: [log in to unmask] > To: [log in to unmask] > Reply-to: [log in to unmask] > Back last August, we had a discussion about the identifying attributes of > some of the Apostles. It was then suggested that the sword was St Paul's > attribute, initially because it was the instrument of his martyrdom, but > that it may then have acquired an additional significance because of his > status as a writer inspired by 'the sword of the Spirit which is the word > of God' (Ephesians 6, 17). Jim Bugslag made the point that 'exegetical > habits of mind were > adept at according objects multiple meanings'. This all had bearing on what > I was writing on medieval Welsh iconography and I included it (properly > attributed, naturally!) in a discussion of the emblems of the apostles on > the sacrarium at Gyffin, near Conwy. One reader has challenged what we said > about multivalent images, saying 'It is unhistorical to read such complex > literary meanings into it ... although objects can and do mean different > things in different contexts, they do not always mean everything, and > Paul's sword [here the notes break off]'.The same reader also says in a > general note that we have to distinguish between fundamental and secondary > meanings and present a coherent understanding of what particular images > mean in particular circumstances. > > My reading of the sermon literature of the period (limited, because so > little of it is relevant to Wales) suggests that medieval preachers > certainly were adept in multiplying meanings - but whether I should be > reading this into the visual imagery, I don't know. Comments, anyone? > > Maddy > > > Dr Madeleine Gray > Department of Humanities and Science > UWCN > > 'Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought' > > > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%