medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Does anyone know whether there's anything published on the iconography of the Hildesheim Cope? (Victoria & Albert Museum, #17-1873, not on public display).
The cope has, not untypically, a field divided into medallions each of which contains a scene of a saint's martyrdom. A colleague asked me whether I could identify any of the saints, but from what I can see (and she has really excellent photos: the individual embroidery stitches are easily counted), the scenes shown are not very detailed. An example -- re-drawn, but from what I can tell, no significant details are missing -- can be seen at:
http://home.flash.net/~wymarc/asoot/stitch/larg.htm
As in this scene, most of the saints seem to be shown actually in the process of being martyred. As a result, there are an awful lot of beheadings -- or I presume that's what is meant by a scene with a kneeling or standing haloed figure and someone brandishing a sword. (Amusingly, the executioner appears to be the same fellow wearing the same tunic in many of the scenes.)
The only details I can see that would differentiate one saint from another are the style of robe, indications of gender (which are often not very clear) and the occasional presence of a bishop's mitre or other accessory. There are a very few scenes that show a distinctive mode of death, such as the one I referred to above, which shows someone hung up by the heels and being sawn in half. (According to my reference books, likely candidates are the prophet Isaiah and the apostle Simon.) We were also able to identify St. Lawrence on his gridiron and whoever it was that supposedly had his entrails wound on a spit :( -- which leads me to think most of the saints pictured are probably well known ones.
To make a long story short, it appears that the vital information on who was who was in most cases on a "name tag," a ribbon or scroll carried by the saint. These can still be seen, but they are all blank, the silk having mostly disintegrated.
Can anyone with better search facilities than I have turn up any references to this piece in the literature?
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0 Chris Laning
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+ Davis, California
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