At 23:36 13.01.99 +0000, you wrote:
>* Agrecius, bishop of Trier (329?)
>- received from St Helen (mother of emperor Constantine)
>numerous relics, including [snip, snip] the seamless robe of Christ
>
>I must say that I've never heard of the seamless robe of Christ, but
>it brings to mind the relic of the Virgin's seamless tunic which was
>given to Chartres Cathedral, I believe by Charles the Bald. Does
>anyone know if seamless garments constitute some kind of medieval
>topos of sartorial sanctity?
>Cheers,
>Jim Bugslag
Dear Jim,
The seamless robe of Christ is the "tunica inconsutilis" of John 19,23-24.
According to a medieval legend, Mary had woven this robe. Could it be that
the relic at Chartres was believed to have been made by Mary but worn by
Christ? In any case, there were and still are many, many relics for which
there was or still is made the claim to be the seamless robe of Christ. Yet
the one at Trier seems to be the most prominent of them, at least from the
time of its rediscovery on. I append an account which some time ago I had
posted to another list:
>the seamless robe of Trier is said to have been donated to the Church of
>Trier by Constantine's mother Helena (while the MHG _Orendel_ tells that it
>was brought by a king Orendel from the Holy Land to Trier). According to the
>continuation of the _Gesta Trevirorum_, archbishop John I. in 1196 provided
>that it was immured together with other relics in the High Altar of the
>Dome. During the following centuries, its whereabouts where not totally
>unknown to local ecclesiastics and popular rumours, but there was no special
>devotion of this relic in Trier until the Reichstag of 1512, when Maximilian
>I. had it brought back to the light and exhibited to the people.
> The altar was opened on the Wednesday (14 April) after Easter 1512 in the
>presence of Maximilian. The first public exhibition took place on 3 Mai and
>lasted 14 or 23 days. According to a contemporary source, more than a
>hundred thousand pilgrims came to see it. From 1513 until 1516 it was
>exhibited every year first in the night of Maundy Thursday and again for a
>period of 14 days beginning with Monday of Pentecoast. In 1515, Pope Leo X
>ordered that the exhibitions had to adopt the turnus of the exhibitions at
>Aix, which took place every seven years. The next date for Aix was 10 July
>1517, and the exhibitions at Trier were taken up in this year, but started
>three days earlier (7 July) in order to make it possible for the pilgrims to
>visit both places. I don't remember the development during the later
>centuries, but I believe that the regular exhibitions were abbandoned in
>later times and taken up again late in the 19th century. My sources are
>incomplete photocopies and handwritten notes taken many years ago from the
>two following publications:
>
>BEISSEL, Stephan:
> Geschichte der Trierer Kirchen, ihrer Reliquien und Kunstscha"tze,
> II. Theil: Geschichte des hl. Rockes. Zweite vielfach vermehrte und
> verbesserte Auflage, Trier 1889
>
>RIES, Hermann:
> Trierer Ereignisse aus den Jahren 1512 bis 1517. Biblio- und biogra-
> phische Studien zu einem Kapitel trierischer Kirchengeschichte. In:
> AA.VV., Festschrift fu"r Bischof Dr. Matthias Wehr, dargebracht von
> der Theologischen Fakulta"t Trier, Trier: Paulinus Verlag, 1962
> (Trierer Theologische Studien, 15), p.181-211
>
It seems interesting to note that Maximilian's rediscovery of the relic had
been prophecized in advance, as it seems, in Sebastian Brant's _Tugent
Spyl_, a play about Hercules in bivio which Brant seems to have directed in
1512 and of which there has survived only a unique exemplar of a posthumous
print of 1544, rediscovered in 1967 by Hans-Gert Roloff, _Sebastian Brant,
Tugent Spyl. Nach der Ausgabe des Magister Johann Winckel von Strassburg
(1544)_, ed. Roloff, Berlin 1968 (= Ausgaben deutscher Literatur des XV.
bis XVIII. Jahrhunderts, Reihe Drama, 1). Towards the end of this play the
Nine Worthies (recently discussed on this list: Josua, David, Judas
Maccabaeus; Hector, Alexander, Julius Caesar; Artus, Charlemagne, Geoffrey
of Bouillon) help Hercules to dethrone Dame Vice (Voluptas), and Geoffrey,
presenting himself as the one who had recovered the Holy Land, announces
that the Holy Land, in the meantime lost again to the Saracenes, will not
be recovered again unless a certain emperor with name Maximilian will first
bring the Holy Robe to the light, just as in his own times the rediscovery
of the Holy Spear had preceded the recovery of Jerusalem (vv.2340ss.):
Ich bin genant Gottfridt von Bulion
Das heilig Land ich erstritten hon /
Ein Ku"nig zuo Hierusalem bei meinen tagen
Wiewol ich khein Kron auff wolt tragen /
Auff das Gott sein dornen Kron
In derselben Statt hatt auffgehon
Der Sper ward funden bei meinen zeiten
Domit ich das heilig grab moecht erstriten /
Das sithar bei vierhundert jaren
Der Christenheit ist wider verloren
Und mag nit wider werden gewunnen
Unsers Herrgotts rock kumm dan wider an dsunnen
Das wu"rt thuon ein Keyser lobesan
Der wu"rt heissen Maximilian /
Der wu"rt der thu"rest Keyser genannt
Der ye auff erden ward erkannt.
It is attested by Wimpfeling in autumn 1512 that Brant had "recently"
("nuper") directed a play on Hercules in Strassburg, and given that the
extant play phrases its prophecy in the future tense it seems that the
above prophecy was in fact put in stage *before* the altar was opened on 14
April 1512. The prologue also mentions an earlier version of the same play,
and so it could be that Wimpfeling's remark refers rather to this earlier
version which, in this case, was put on stage in 1512 (or earlier) and did
not necessarily contain the prophecy in question, but I think that in this
case the prophecy would have had a strange effect if Brant had added it
only post eventum. Given that the rediscovery was a carefully staged
propagandistic event with political implications and which was probably
preceded by a thorough investigation of the possible whereabouts of the
relic, it seems more likely that Brant with his good contacts to
Maximilian's court had informations about what was going on and used his
prophecy in 1512 in order to give better effect to the forthcoming event.
As regards Mary's weaving, she was more commonly supposed (in the tradition
of the infancy gospel known as the Protoevangelium Jacobi) to have woven
the curtain of the Temple which was rent in two at the moment of Christ's
death
(Mt 27,51), and this is the textile she is usually weaving in figural
representations of the Annunciation scene, but it seems that this came to
be the starting point to see her also as the one who wove the seamless robe
of Christ. For this latter legend Beissel cites, among others, Euthymios
Zigabenos (ca. 1100): "Hanc vero tunicam e traditione Patrum accepimus opus
fuisse Dei Matris" (PG 129,723); a hymn about the relic of Argenteuil:
"Vestis haec est manuale | Matris opus virginale, | Actum sine sutura"
(cited by Beissel with reference to Gerberon, _Histoire de la robe
d'Argenteuil_, Paris 1677, p.13s.); and the MHG _Orendel_, a German legend
about king Orendel of Trier, which may have originated in the 12th century
but is attested for the first time in a Strassburg Ms. from 1477. It tells
how Orendel during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem came into possession of the
relique, and, after many adventures, donated it to the church of Trier.
There we read (ed. Hans Steinger, _Orendel_, Halle: Niemeyer, 1935 (=
Altdeutsche Textbibliothek, 36), p.1s., vv.20ss., that Mary spun the
lambswool which then was woven, by a curious anachronism, by St. Helena:
Nu wil ich mir selber beginnen
von dem grawen rocke singen.
er wart gewurket zware
von eines schonen lambes hare.
[den hat gespunnen die edel und frie
die kunigin sant Marie]
min frouwe sant Marie in [selber] span,
sant Helene in selber wurken began.
er wart gewurket und nit genat
und wart gewurkt mit flize[n],
er wart gewurkt uf dem berge Olliueti...
Best regards,
Otfried
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