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125-507: The Gero Cross is important to medieval art for the unique way it depicts Christ. The figure appears to be the earliest, and finest, of several life-size German wood sculpted crucifixions that appeared in the late Ottonian or early Romanesque period, later spreading to much of Europe. It is the first monumental depiction of the crucified Christ on the Cross and the first monumental sculpture dating from this period. Standing over six feet tall, it

250-498: A city or sanctuary might claim to possess, without necessarily displaying, the remains of a venerated hero as a part of a hero cult . Other venerable objects associated with the hero were more likely to be on display in sanctuaries, such as spears, shields, or other weaponry; chariots , ships or figureheads ; furniture such as chairs or tripods ; and clothing. The sanctuary of the Leucippides at Sparta claimed to display

375-482: A wax seal . In Catholic theology, sacred relics must not be worshipped, because only God is worshipped and adored. Instead, the veneration given to them was " dulia ". Saint Jerome declared, "We do not worship, we do not adore, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the Creator, but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore Him whose martyrs they are." Until 2017,

500-486: A German one in England". The church of St George at Oberzell on Reichenau Island has the best-known surviving scheme, though much of the original work has been lost and the remaining paintings to the sides of the nave have suffered from time and restoration. The largest scenes show the miracles of Christ in a style that both shows specific Byzantine input in some elements, and a closeness to Reichenau manuscripts such as

625-486: A band; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha; and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet. Also cited is the veneration of relics from the martyr and bishop Saint Polycarp of Smyrna recorded in the Martyrdom of Polycarp , written sometime from 150 to 160 AD. With regard to relics that are objects, an often cited passage is Acts 19:11–12, which says that Paul

750-581: A century later in date, and it is indeed innovative for its date. The dating was confirmed by dendrochronology in 1976, ending the controversy. Contrary to long-held tradition, the studies in 1976 revealed that there is no space in the back of the head to place relics . According to the Luccan local histories, the Holy Face of Lucca in Italy is considerably older, though that sculpture had to be recreated in

875-558: A certificate of authentication, signed and sealed by someone in the Congregation for Saints , or by the local Bishop where the saint lived. Without such authentication, relics are not to be used for public veneration. The Congregation for Saints, as part of the Roman Curia , holds the authority to verify relics in which documentation is lost or missing. The documents and reliquaries of authenticated relics are usually affixed with

1000-530: A change in Christian teaching in the late tenth century that put salvation through Christ's death at the heart of Christian doctrine. The beam and the corpus are original; however, the gold sun and the marble altar it stands in were donated in 1683 by Canon Heinrich Mering. Until the 1920s, despite local tradition, and the reference in Thietmar's chronicle associating it with Gero, it was thought to be at least

1125-809: A foot in Trier , and gold altar frontals for the Palace Chapel, Aachen and Basel Cathedral (now in Paris). The Palace Chapel also has the pulpit or Ambon of Henry II . The late Carolingian upper cover of the Lindau Gospels ( Morgan Library , New York) and the Arnulf Ciborium in Munich were important forerunners of the style, from a few decades before and probably from the same workshop. Large objects in non-precious metals were also made, with

1250-673: A fourth cross, the Theophanu Cross came some fifty years later. The Cross of Lothair ( Aachen ) and Imperial Cross ( Vienna ) were imperial possessions; Vienna also has the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire . The book cover of the Codex Aureus of Echternach ( Germanisches Nationalmuseum , Nuremberg ) is in a very comparable style. Other major objects include a reliquary of St Andrew surmounted by

1375-459: A great church built just outside the walls of Tours. When Saint Martin died on November 8, 397, at a village halfway between Tours and Poitiers , the inhabitants of these cities were ready to fight for his body, which the people of Tours managed to secure by stealth. Tours became the chief point of Christian pilgrimage in Gaul, a place for the healing of the sick. Gregory of Tours travelled to

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1500-569: A handle. An aspergillum was dipped in the situla to collect water with which to sprinkle the congregation or other objects. However the four Ottonian examples from the 10th century are made from a whole section of elephant tusk, and are slightly larger in girth at their tops. All are richly carved with scenes and figures on different levels: the Basilewsky Situla of 920 in the Victoria & Albert Museum , decorated with scenes from

1625-437: A new location. Offerings made at a site of pilgrimage were an important source of revenue for the community who received them on behalf of the saint. According to Patrick Geary , "[t]o the communities fortunate enough to have a saint's remains in its church, the benefits in terms of revenue and status were enormous, and competition to acquire relics and to promote the local saint's virtues over those of neighboring communities

1750-569: A ninth-century Italian deacon named Deusdona, with access to the Roman catacombs, as crossing the Alps to visit monastic fairs of northern Europe much like a contemporary art dealer. Canterbury was a popular destination for English pilgrims, who traveled to witness the miracle-working relics of St Thomas Becket , the sainted Archbishop of Canterbury who was assassinated by knights of King Henry II in 1170. After Becket's death, his successor and

1875-755: A priest by his bishop as a means of bestowing faculties upon him (i.e., granting him permission to celebrate the Sacred Mysteries). The antimens is kept on the Holy Table (altar), and it is forbidden to celebrate the Divine Liturgy (Eucharist) without it. Occasionally, in cases of fixed altars, the relics are built in the altar table itself and sealed with a special mixture called wax-mastic . The necessity of provide relics for antimensions in new churches often necessitates continuous division of relics. An account of this process can be found in

2000-431: A renewed faith in the idea of Empire and a reformed Church, creating a period of heightened cultural and artistic fervour. It was in this atmosphere that masterpieces were created that fused the traditions from which Ottonian artists derived their inspiration: models of Late Antique, Carolingian, and Byzantine origin. Surviving Ottonian art is very largely religious, in the form of illuminated manuscripts and metalwork, and

2125-481: A shimmering void". The group introduced the background of solid gold to Western illumination. Two dedication miniatures added to the Egmond Gospels around 975 show a less accomplished Netherlandish version of Ottonian style. In Regensburg St. Emmeram's Abbey held the major Carolingian Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram , which probably influenced a style with "an incisive line and highly formal organization of

2250-517: A ship from. A study in 1870 found that, put together, the claimed relics of the cross at that much later time weighed less than 1.7 kg. By the middle of the 16th century, the number of relics in Christian churches became enormous, and there was practically no possibility to distinguish the authentic from the falsification, since both of them had been in the temples for centuries and were objects for worship. In 1543, John Calvin wrote about fake relics in his Treatise on Relics , in which he described

2375-541: A single hollow piece. This unusual form is decorated with twenty-four scenes from the ministry of Jesus in a continuous strip winding round the column in the manner of Trajan's Column and other Roman examples. Around 980, Archbishop Egbert of Trier seems to have established the major Ottonian workshop producing cloisonné enamel in Germany, which is thought to have fulfilled orders for other centres, and after his death in 993 possibly moved to Essen . During this period

2500-419: A steady stream of work for goldsmiths, ivory carving at this period was mainly for the church, and may have been centred in monasteries, although (see below) wall-paintings seems to have been usually done by laymen. Ottonian monasteries produced many magnificent medieval illuminated manuscripts. They were a major art form of the time, and monasteries received direct sponsorship from emperors and bishops, having

2625-503: A striking intensity and expressiveness emerge in many works, as "a solemn monumentality is combined with a vibrant inwardness, an unworldly, visionary quality with sharp attention to actuality, surface patterns of flowing lines and rich bright colours with passionate emotionalism". Following late Carolingian styles, " presentation portraits " of the patrons of manuscripts are very prominent in Ottonian art, and much Ottonian art reflected

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2750-405: A symbolic rather than naturalistic rationale, the size of figures reflects their importance, and in them "emphasis is not so much on movement as in gesture and glance", with narrative scenes "presented as a quasi-liturgical act, dialogues of divinity". This gestural "dumb-show [was] soon to be conventionalized as a visual language throughout medieval Europe". The group were produced perhaps from

2875-431: A testament to its authenticity. In Likeness and Presence , Belting argued that the cult of relics helped to stimulate the rise of painting in medieval Europe. Reliquaries are containers used to protect and display relics. While frequently taking the form of caskets, they have many other forms, including simulations of the relic encased within (e.g., a gilded depiction of an arm for a relic consisting of arm bones). Since

3000-742: A treatise of the pre-revolutionary Russian church historian Nikolay Romansky  [ ru ] . According to Romansky, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church operated a special office, located in the Church of Philip the Apostle in the Moscow Kremlin , where bones of numerous saints, authenticated by the church's hierarchs, were stored, and pieces of them were prayerfully separated with hammer and chisel to be sent to

3125-525: Is a style in pre-romanesque German art , covering also some works from the Low Countries , northern Italy and eastern France. It was named by the art historian Hubert Janitschek after the Ottonian dynasty which ruled Germany and Northern Italy between 919 and 1024 under the kings Henry I , Otto I , Otto II , Otto III and Henry II . With Ottonian architecture , it is a key component of

3250-473: Is a record of bishop Gebhard of Constance hiring lay artists for a now vanished cycle at his newly foundation (983) of Petershausen Abbey , and laymen may have dominated the art of wall-painting, though perhaps sometimes working to designs by monastic illuminators. The artists seem to have been rather mobile: "at about the time of the Oberzell pictures there was an Italian wall-painter working in Germany, and

3375-600: Is an example of this type. The development of a tradition of free-standing monumental sculpture was crucial in Western art; in Byzantine art such images were and are avoided. The cross has always been in Cologne Cathedral; it now hangs in its own chapel near the sacristy – now a different, Gothic , building from the one it was made for. The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg , written 1012–1018, said that it

3500-422: Is because the mortal remains of the deceased are associated in some manner with the holiness of their souls which await reunion with their bodies in the resurrection ." Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) pointed out that it was natural that people should treasure what is associated with the dead, much like the personal effects of a relative. In an interview with Catholic News Service , Fr. Mario Conte, executive editor of

3625-571: Is clear from documentary records that many churches were decorated with extensive cycles of wall-painting, survivals are extremely rare, and more often than not fragmentary and in poor condition. Generally they lack evidence to help with dating such as donor portraits, and their date is often uncertain; many have been restored in the past, further complicating the matter. Most survivals are clustered in south Germany and around Fulda in Hesse ; though there are also important examples from north Italy. There

3750-544: Is due to God alone. Thus Orthodox teaching warns the faithful against idolatry and at the same time remains true to scriptural teaching (vis. 2 Kings 13:20–21) as understood by Orthodox Sacred Tradition . The examination of the relics is an important step in the glorification (canonization) of new saints. Sometimes, one of the signs of sanctification is the condition of the relics of the saint. Some saints will be incorrupt , meaning that their remains do not decay under conditions when they normally would (natural mummification

3875-408: Is not the same as incorruption) . Sometimes even when the flesh does decay the bones themselves will manifest signs of sanctity. They may be honey-coloured or give off a sweet aroma . Some relics will exude myrrh . The absence of such manifestations is not necessarily a sign that the person is not a Saint. Relics play a major role in the consecration of a church . The consecrating bishop will place

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4000-508: Is possible, to remind them that the Buddha was a real person, and to also promote good virtue. One of the earliest sources that purports to show the efficacy of relics is found in 2 Kings 13:20–21: And Elisha died, and they buried him. Now the bands of the Moabites used to invade the land at the coming in of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied

4125-657: Is reserved for the display of the Blessed Sacrament (host or prosphora and Eucharistic wine after consecration in the sacrament of the Eucharist). The importance of relics in the Byzantine world can be seen from the veneration given to the pieces of the True Cross . Many great works of Byzantine enamel are staurothekes , or relics containing fragments of the True Cross. Other significant relics included

4250-595: Is the pair of church doors, the Bernward Doors , with biblical figure scenes in bronze relief, each cast in a single piece, where the powerfully simple compositions convey their meanings by emphatic gestures, in a way comparable to the Reichenau miniatures of the same period. There is also a bronze column, the Bernward Column , 3.79 metres (12.4 ft) high, originally the base for a crucifix, cast in

4375-511: The Crucifixion of Jesus as the most common subject. These and other subjects very largely continue Carolingian iconography, but in a very different style. A group of four Ottonian ivory situlae appear to represent a new departure for ivory carving in their form, and the type is hardly found after this period. Situlae were liturgical vessels used to hold holy water , and previously were usually of wood or bronze, straight-sided and with

4500-593: The Golden Legend or the works of Caesarius of Heisterbach . These miracle tales made relics much sought-after during the period. By the Late Middle Ages, the collecting of, and dealing in, relics had reached enormous proportions, and had spread from the church to royalty, and then to the nobility and merchant classes. The Council of Trent of 1563 enjoined bishops to instruct their flocks that "the holy bodies of holy martyrs ... are to be venerated by

4625-899: The Life of Christ on two levels, the "Situla of Gotofredo" of c.  980 in Milan Cathedral , one in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury, and one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. All came from the milieu of the Ottonian court: an inscription says that Archbishop Gotfredus presented the Milan example in anticipation of a visit by the Emperor, also referred to in the London example which

4750-769: The Catholic Church and the Byzantine Empire . In crucifixions of the Gothic period, a still more slumped and curved figure of Christ, with knees bent sideways, was to become the standard depiction. Earlier large figures of Christ on the Cross appear to have been in metal, or metal on a wooden core; there was said to be one in Charlemagne 's Palatine Chapel in Aachen , and the Golden Madonna of Essen

4875-508: The Ottonian Renaissance (circa 951–1024). However, the style neither began nor ended to neatly coincide with the rule of the dynasty. It emerged some decades into their rule and persisted past the Ottonian emperors into the reigns of the early Salian dynasty , which lacks an artistic "style label" of its own. In the traditional scheme of art history, Ottonian art follows Carolingian art and precedes Romanesque art , though

5000-578: The Palace of Theoderic in Ravenna and reused them in his new cathedral at Magdeburg . The one thing the ruler portraits rarely attempt is a close likeness of the individual features of a ruler; when Otto III died, some manuscript images of him were re-purposed as portraits of Henry II without the need being felt to change the features. In a continuation and intensification of late Carolingian trends, many miniatures contain presentation miniatures depicting

5125-452: The catacombs of Rome . These places were always outside the walls of the city, but martyriums began to be built over the site of the burial. Since it was considered beneficial to the soul to be buried close to the remains of saints, several large "funerary halls" were built over the sites of martyr's graves, including Old Saint Peter's Basilica . These were initially not regular churches, but "covered cemeteries" crammed with graves, wherein

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5250-457: The girdle worn by the Virgin , and pieces of the body or clothing of saints. Such relics (called contact relics , or secondary relics) were, however, scarce and did not provide most believers with ready access to proximity to the holy. The growth in the production and popularity of reproducible contact relics in the fifth and sixth centuries testifies to the need felt for more widespread access to

5375-563: The 960s, when books known as the " Eburnant group " were made, perhaps at Lorsch , as several miniatures in the Gero Codex (now Darmstadt ), the earliest and grandest of the group, copy those in the Carolingian Lorsch Gospels . This is the first stylistic group of the traditional " Reichenau school ". The two other major manuscripts of the group are the sacramentaries named for Hornbach and Petershausen . In

5500-588: The 990s to 1015 or later, and major manuscripts include the Munich Gospels of Otto III , the Bamberg Apocalypse and a volume of biblical commentary there, and the Pericopes of Henry II , the best known and most extreme of the group, where "the figure-style has become more monumental, more rarified and sublime, at the same time thin in density, insubstantial, mere silhouettes of colour against

5625-575: The Apostle 's handkerchiefs were imbued by God with healing power. In the gospel accounts of Jesus healing the bleeding woman and again in the Gospel of Mark 6:56, those who touched Jesus' garment were healed. The practice of venerating relics seems to have been taken for granted by writers like Augustine , St. Ambrose , Gregory of Nyssa , St. Chrysostom , and St. Gregory Nazianzen . Dom Bernardo Cignitti, O.S.B., wrote, "[T]he remains of certain dead are surrounded with special care and veneration. This

5750-500: The Canterbury chapter quickly used his relics to promote the cult of the as-yet-uncanonized martyr. The motivations included the assertion of the Church's independence against rulers, a desire to have an English (indeed Norman English ) saint of European reputation, and the desire to promote Canterbury as a destination for pilgrimage. In the first years after Becket's death, donations at the shrine accounted for twenty-eight percent of

5875-627: The Catholic Church divided relics into three classes: In 2017, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints abolished the relics of the third degree, introducing a two-stage scale of classification of relics: significant (insigni) and non-significant (non insigni) relics. The first are the bodies or their significant parts, as well as the entire contents of the urn with the ashes preserved after cremation. The second includes small fragments of

6000-488: The Church flanking the emperor, with a lengthy imperial iconographical history. As well as the reuse of motifs from older imperial art, the removal of spolia from Late Antique structures in Rome and Ravenna and their incorporation into Ottonian buildings was a device intended to suggest imperial continuity. This was clearly the intention of Otto I when he removed columns, some of porphyry , and other building materials from

6125-521: The Eastern Empire, though still prohibited in the West. The Eastern capital was therefore able to acquire the remains of Saints Timothy , Andrew and Luke , and the division of bodies also began, the 5th century theologian Theodoretus declaring that "Grace remains entire with every part." In the West, a decree of Theodosius only allowed the moving of a whole sarcophagus with its contents, but

6250-690: The Gothic period after being nibbled away by pilgrims, which makes this claim difficult to verify by art historians. A replica of the crucifix hangs in the St. Alphonsus Chapel located in the Alphonse J. Schwartze Memorial Catholic Center in Jefferson City , Missouri . A smaller replica adorns the High Altar of St. Benedict’s Parish in Fort Worth , Texas . Ottonian art Ottonian art

6375-732: The Liuthar Gospels, give their name to the third " Liuthar group " of manuscripts, most from the 11th century, in a strongly contrasting style, though still attributed by most scholars to Reichenau, but by Dodwell also to Trier. The outstanding miniaturist of the "Ruodprecht group" was the so-called Master of the Registrum Gregorii , or Gregory Master , whose work looked back in some respects to Late Antique manuscript painting, and whose miniatures are notable for "their delicate sensibility to tonal grades and harmonies, their fine sense of compositional rhythms, their feelings for

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6500-550: The Messenger of St. Anthony magazine in Padua , Italy , said, "Saints' relics help people overcome the abstract and make a connection with the holy ... Saints do not perform miracles. Only God performs miracles, but saints are intercessors." In the early Church the disturbance of the remains of martyrs and other saints was not practiced. They were allowed to remain in their often unidentified resting places such as in cemeteries and

6625-467: The Munich Gospels of Otto III ; they are therefore usually dated around 980–1000. Indeed, the paintings are one of the foundations of the case for Reichenau Abbey as a major centre of manuscript painting. Very little wood carving has survived from the period, but the monumental painted figure of Christ on the Gero Cross (around 965–970, Cologne Cathedral ) is one of the outstanding masterpieces of

6750-611: The Ottonian age include those at Salzburg , Hildesheim , Corvey , Fulda , and Cologne , where the Hitda Codex was made. This scene was often included in Ottonian cycles of the Life of Christ. Many show Jesus (with crossed halo) twice, once asleep and once calming the storm . Objects for decorating churches such as crosses, reliquaries , altar frontals and treasure bindings for books were all made of or covered by gold, embellished with gems, enamels, crystals, and cameos. This

6875-426: The Romano-Christian concepts that gave relics such a powerful draw. He distinguished Gregory's constant usage of sanctus and virtus , the first with its familiar meaning of "sacred" or "holy", and the second as "the mystic potency emanating from the person or thing that is sacred... In a practical way the second word [virtus] ... describes the uncanny, mysterious power emanating from the supernatural and affecting

7000-398: The advice of the Delphic Oracle , the Spartans searched for the bones of Orestes and brought them home, without which they had been told they could not expect victory in their war against the neighboring Tegeans . Plutarch says that the Athenians were likewise instructed by the oracle to locate and steal the relics of Theseus from the Dolopians . The body of the legendary Eurystheus

7125-440: The availability of access to the divine but were not infinitely reproducible (an original relic was required), and still usually required believers to undertake pilgrimage or have contact with somebody who had. The earliest recorded removal, or translation of saintly remains was that of Saint Babylas at Antioch in 354, but, partly perhaps because Constantinople lacked the many saintly graves of Rome, they soon became common in

7250-566: The back with a new relief. Many objects mentioned in written sources have completely disappeared, and we probably now only have a tiny fraction of the original production of reliquaries and the like. A number of pieces have major additions or changes made later in the Middle Ages or in later periods. Manuscripts that avoided major library fires have had the best chance of survival; the dangers facing wall-paintings are mentioned above. Most major objects remain in German collections, often still church libraries and treasuries. The term "Ottonian art"

7375-479: The best in equipment and talent available. The range of heavily illuminated texts was very largely restricted (unlike in the Carolingian Renaissance ) to the main liturgical books, with very few secular works being so treated. In contrast to manuscripts of other periods, it is very often possible to say with certainty who commissioned or received a manuscript, but not where it was made. Some manuscripts also include relatively extensive cycles of narrative art, such as

7500-413: The bodies, as well as objects used by saints and blesseds. The sale or disposal by other means of "sacred relics" (meaning first and second class) without the permission of the Apostolic See is now strictly forbidden by canon 1190 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law . However, the Catholic Church permitted the sale of third-class relics. Relics may not be placed upon the altar for public veneration, as that

7625-496: The care of the church which were kept and valued for their connections with either royal or church figures of the period. Very often the jewels in metalwork were pilfered or sold over the centuries, and many pieces now completely lack them, or have modern glass paste replacements. As from other periods, there are many more surviving ivory panels (whose material is usually hard to re-use) for book-covers than complete metalwork covers, and some thicker ivory panels were later re-carved from

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7750-456: The cathedral's total revenues. In the absence of real ways of assessing authenticity, relic-collectors became prey to the unscrupulous, and some extremely high prices were paid. Forgeries proliferated from the very beginning. Augustine already denounced impostors who wandered around disguised as monks, making a profit from the sale of spurious relics. In his Admonitio Generalis of 789, Charlemagne ordered that "the false names of martyrs and

7875-415: The cremated remains or ringsel of prominent Buddhists. In rare cases, the whole body is conserved, as in the case of Dudjom Rinpoche . A year after his death in 1987, his physical body was moved from France and placed in a stupa in one of his monasteries near Boudhanath , Nepal. Pilgrims may view his body through a glass window in the stupa. The Buddha's relics are used to show people that enlightenment

8000-399: The cross at different heights, are found neither in Carolingian nor Byzantine art , and were to be slow to influence Western depictions, although the long hair spread over the shoulders is found in some Carolingian works. The style of the Gero Cross shows a great deal of Byzantine influence, most likely stemming from Otto II's marriage to a Byzantine princess, creating a cultural link between

8125-409: The cross by W. Batzem. This, along with several other layers of paint below it, concealed many of the original details from the piece. However, modern day x-ray technology has determined that the eyes on the original layer of paint were indeed closed. This is unique because the artist did not depict Christ as idealized and overcoming death, but vulnerable and humanized. This is most likely because of

8250-458: The crown worn by Otto III as a child, which he presented to the Golden Madonna of Essen after he outgrew it. Examples of crux gemmata or processional crosses include an outstanding group in the Essen Cathedral Treasury ; several abbesses of Essen Abbey were Ottonian princesses. The Cross of Otto and Mathilde , Cross of Mathilde and the Essen cross with large enamels were probably all given by Mathilde, Abbess of Essen (died 1011), and

8375-454: The dioceses that needed to place them into new antimensions. Many churches were built along pilgrimage routes. A number in Europe were either founded or rebuilt specifically to enshrine relics, (such as San Marco in Venice ) and to welcome and awe the large crowds of pilgrims who came to seek their help. Romanesque buildings developed passageways behind the altar to allow for the creation of several smaller chapels designed to house relics. From

8500-399: The divine. These contact relics usually involved the placing of readily available objects, such as pieces of cloth, clay tablets, or water then bottled for believers, in contact with a relic. Alternatively, such objects could be dipped into water which had been in contact with the relic (such as the bone of a saint). These relics, a firmly embedded part of veneration by this period, increased

8625-432: The donors of the manuscripts to a church, including bishops, abbots and abbesses, and also the emperor. In some cases successive miniatures show a kind of relay: in the Hornbach Sacramentary the scribe presents the book to his abbot, who presents it to St Pirmin , founder of Hornbach Abbey, who presents it to St Peter, who presents it to Christ, altogether taking up eight pages (with the facing illuminated tablets) to stress

8750-414: The dynasty's desire to establish visually a link to the Christian rulers of Late Antiquity , such as Constantine , Theoderic , and Justinian as well as to their Carolingian predecessors, particularly Charlemagne . This goal was accomplished in various ways. For example, the many Ottonian ruler portraits typically include elements, such as province personifications, or representatives of the military and

8875-432: The earliest surviving wheel chandeliers from the end of the period, a huge candelabra in Essen, and in particular a spectacular collection of ambitious large bronze works, and smaller silver ones, at Hildesheim Cathedral from the period of Bishop Bernward (died 1022), who was himself an artist, although his biographer was unusually honest in saying that he did not reach "the peaks of perfection". The most famous of these

9000-501: The egg of Leda . The bones were not regarded as holding a particular power derived from the hero, with some exceptions, such as the divine shoulder of Pelops held at Olympia . Miracles and healing were not regularly attributed to them; rather, their presence was meant to serve a tutelary function, as the tomb of Oedipus was said to protect Athens . The bones of Orestes and Theseus were supposed to have been stolen or removed from their original resting place and reburied. On

9125-593: The eleventh and twelfth centuries, substantial numbers of pilgrims flocked to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, in which the supposed relics of the apostle James, son of Zebedee , discovered c. 830, are housed. Santiago de Compostela remains a significant pilgrimage site, with around 200,000 pilgrims, both secular and Christian, completing the numerous pilgrimage routes to the cathedral in 2012 alone. By venerating relics through visitation, gifts, and providing services, medieval Christians believed that they would acquire

9250-503: The events of Christ's life in a western European manuscript, were made by two monks from Reichenau, who are named and depicted in one of the miniatures. The style of the "Liuthar group" is very different, and departs further from rather than returning to classical traditions; it "carried transcendentalism to an extreme", with "marked schematization of the forms and colours", "flattened form, conceptualized draperies and expansive gesture". Backgrounds are often composed of bands of colour with

9375-404: The exterior, this collection of small rooms is seen as a cluster of delicate, curved roofs at one end of the church, a distinctive feature of many Romanesque churches. Gothic churches featured lofty, recessed porches which provided space for statuary and the display of relics. Historian and philosopher of art Hans Belting observed that in medieval painting, images explained the relic and served as

9500-461: The faithful, for through these [bodies] many benefits are bestowed by God on men". The Council further insisted that "in the invocation of saints, the veneration of relics and the sacred use of images, every superstition shall be removed and all filthy lucre abolished." There are also many relics associated with Jesus . In his introduction to Gregory's History of the Franks , Ernest Brehaut analyzed

9625-456: The gems do not merely create an impression of richness, but served both to offer a foretaste of the bejewelled nature of the Celestial city , and particular types of gem were believed to have actual powerful properties in various "scientific", medical and magical respects, as set out in the popular lapidary books . The few surviving pieces of secular jewellery are in similar styles, including

9750-520: The group of four presentation miniatures in the former described above "we can almost follow ... the movement away from the expansive Carolingian idiom to the more sharply defined Ottonian one". A number of important manuscripts produced from this period onwards in a distinctive group of styles are usually attributed to the scriptorium of the island monastery of Reichenau in Lake Constance , despite an admitted lack of evidence connecting them to

9875-630: The human form ... [and] facility in handling the material". A very important group of plaques , now dispersed in several collections, were probably commissioned (perhaps by Otto I) for Magdeburg Cathedral and are called the Magdeburg Ivories , "Magdeburg plaques", the "plaques from the Magdeburg Antependium" or similar names. They were probably made in Milan in about 970, to decorate a large flat surface, though whether this

10000-691: The manuscripts of Reichenau were in 2003 added to the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register. The most important "Reichenau school" manuscripts are agreed to fall into three distinct groups, all named after scribes whose names are recorded in their books. The "Eburnant group" covered above was followed by the "Ruodprecht group" named after the scribe of the Egbert Psalter ; Dodwell assigns this group to Trier. The Aachen Gospels of Otto III , also known as

10125-503: The monastery there. C. R. Dodwell was one of a number of dissident voices here, believing the works to have been produced at Lorsch and Trier instead. Wherever it was located, the "Reichenau school" specialized in gospel books and other liturgical books , many of them, such as the Munich Gospels of Otto III ( c.  1000 ) and the Pericopes of Henry II (Munich, Bayerische Nationalbibl. clm. 4452, c.  1001 –1024), imperial commissions. Due to their exceptional quality,

10250-678: The most important churches in Europe for religious pilgrimages, containing not only the Gero Cross, but also the Magi reliquary and the Madonna of Milan. When it was decided to rebuild it, the old building was taken down piece by piece before the new building could be put up in 1248. In 1322, the Gero cross was placed in the new building where it remains today. In 1904, a new layer of paint was added to

10375-480: The most significant art forms. In 2003 a reviewer noted that Ottonian manuscript illustration was a field "that is still significantly under-represented in English-language art-historical research". Relic In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint or other person preserved for

10500-622: The mystical life of the Church, and especially by receiving the Sacred Mysteries ( Sacraments ). In the Orthodox service books , the remains of the departed faithful are referred to as "relics", and are treated with honour and respect. For this reason, the bodies of Orthodox Christians are traditionally not embalmed . The veneration of the relics of the saints is of great importance in Orthodoxy, and very often churches will display

10625-665: The natural... These points of contact and yielding are the miracles we continually hear of." Rome became a major destination for Christian pilgrims as it was easier to access for European pilgrims than the Holy Land . Constantine the Great erected great basilicas over the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul. A distinction of these sites was the presence of holy relics. Over the course of the Middle Ages, other religious structures acquired relics and became destinations for pilgrimage . In

10750-648: The north, though there are more examples in Italy, such as the stucco reliefs on the ciborium of Sant' Ambrogio, Milan , and also on that in the Abbey of San Pietro al Monte , Civate , which relate to ivory carving of the same period, the large silver cross of the Abbess Raingarda in the Basilica of San Michele Maggiore in Pavia and some stone sculpture. Surviving Ottonian works are very largely those in

10875-478: The original set. The plaques include background areas fully cut through the ivory, which would presumably originally have been backed with gold. Apart from the spaces left beside buildings, these openwork elements include some that leave chequerboard or foliage patterns. The style of the figures is described by Peter Lasko as "very heavy, stiff, and massive ... with extremely clear and flat treatment of drapery ... in simple but powerful compositions". Although it

11000-415: The outline of the figure had been recessed. The Essen cross with large enamels illustrated above shows both these techniques. Much very fine small-scale sculpture in ivory was made during the Ottonian period, with Milan probably a site if not the main centre, along with Trier and other German and French sites. There are many oblong panels with reliefs which once decorated book-covers, or still do, with

11125-500: The page", giving in the Uta Codex of c.  1020 complex schemes where "bands of gold outline the bold, squares circles, ellipses, and rhombs that enclose the figures", and inscriptions are incorporated in the design explicating its complex theological symbolism. This style was to be very influential on Romanesque art in several media. Echternach Abbey became important under Abbot Humbert, in office from 1028 to 1051, and

11250-534: The pages (as opposed to the cover) of the Codex Aureus of Echternach were produced there, followed by the Golden Gospels of Henry III in 1045–46, which Henry presented to Speyer Cathedral (now Escorial ), the major work of the school. Henry also commissioned the Uppsala Gospels for the cathedral there (now in the university library). Other important monastic scriptoria that flourished during

11375-635: The period, they have left less trace than their predecessors in Carolingian times. The manuscripts were both scribed and illuminated by monks with specialized skills, some of whose names are preserved, but there is no evidence as to the artists who worked in metal, enamel and ivory, who are usually assumed to have been laymen, though there were some monastic goldsmiths in the Early Medieval period, and some lay brothers and lay assistants employed by monasteries. While secular jewellery supplied

11500-532: The period. Its traditional dating by the church, long thought to be implausibly early, was finally confirmed by dendrochronology . The Golden Madonna of Essen (about 1000, Essen Cathedral , which was formerly the abbey) is a virtually unique survival of a type of object once found in many major churches. It is a smaller sculpture of the Virgin and Child , which is in wood which was covered with gesso and then thin gold sheet. Monumental sculpture remained rare in

11625-534: The protection and intercession of the sanctified dead. Relics of local saints drew visitors to sites like Saint Frideswide's in Oxford , and San Nicola Peregrino in Trani . Instead of having to travel to be near to a venerated saint , relics of the saint could be venerated locally. Believers would make pilgrimages to places believed to have been sanctified by the physical presence of Christ or prominent saints, such as

11750-510: The purpose of veneration as a tangible memorial. Relics are an important aspect of some forms of Buddhism , Christianity , Islam , shamanism , and many other religions. Relic derives from the Latin reliquiae , meaning "remains", and a form of the Latin verb relinquere , to "leave behind, or abandon". A reliquary is a shrine that houses one or more religious relics. In ancient Greece ,

11875-426: The relationship of figures in space, and above all their special touch of reticence and poise". He worked chiefly in Trier in the 970s and 980s, and was responsible for several miniatures in the influential Codex Egberti , a gospel lectionary made for Archbishop Egbert of Trier , probably in the 980s. However, the majority of the 51 images in this book, which represent the first extensive cycle of images depicting

12000-442: The relics of Theseus, the bones are sometimes described in literary sources as gigantic, an indication of the hero's "larger than life" status. On the basis of their reported size, it has been conjectured that such bones were those of prehistoric creatures , the startling discovery of which may have prompted the sanctifying of the site. The head of the poet-prophet Orpheus was supposed to have been transported to Lesbos , where it

12125-548: The relics of saints prominently. In a number of monasteries , particularly those on the semi-autonomous Mount Athos in Greece, all of the relics the monastery possesses are displayed and venerated each evening at Compline . As with the veneration of icons , the veneration ( Greek ; δουλια, dulia ) of relics in the Orthodox Church is clearly distinguished from adoration (λατρεια, latria ); i.e., that worship which

12250-400: The relics on a diskos (paten) in a church near the church that is to be consecrated, they will then be taken in a cross procession to the new church, carried three times around the new structure and then placed in the Holy Table (altar) as part of the consecration service. The relics of saints (traditionally, always those of a martyr) are also sewn into the antimension which is given to

12375-518: The saints reflects a belief that the saints in heaven intercede for those on earth. A number of cures and miracles have been attributed to relics, not because of their own power, but because of the holiness of the saint they represent. Many tales of miracles and other marvels were attributed to relics beginning in the early centuries of the church. These became popular during the Middle Ages . They were collected in books of hagiography such as

12500-620: The shrine when he had contracted a serious illness. Later, as bishop of Tours, Gregory wrote extensively about miracles attributed to the intercession of St Martin. Nestorian Christianity utilized the hanānā –a mixture made with the dust of Thomas the Apostle 's tomb–for healing. Within the Assyrian Church of the East , it is consumed by a couple getting married in the Mystery of Crowning . The Second Council of Nicaea in 787 drew on

12625-516: The sick, to seek intercession for relief from famine or plague, to take solemn oaths, and to pressure warring factions to make peace in the presence of the sacred. Courts held relics since Merovingian times. St Angilbert acquired for Charlemagne one of the most impressive collections in Christendom. An active market developed and relics entered into commerce along the same trade routes followed by other portable commodities. Matthew Brown likens

12750-618: The site of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem . As holy relics attracted pilgrims and these religious tourists needed to be housed, fed, and provided with souvenirs, relics became a source of income not only for the destinations that held them, but for the abbeys, churches, and towns en route. Relics were prized as they were portable. They could be possessed, inventoried, bequeathed, stolen, counterfeited, and smuggled. They could add value to an established site or confer significance on

12875-476: The sixteen pages of the Codex Aureus of Echternach devoted to "strips" in three tiers with scenes from the life of Christ and his parables . Heavily illuminated manuscripts were given rich treasure bindings and their pages were probably seen by very few; when they were carried in the grand processions of Ottonian churches it seems to have been with the book closed to display the cover. The Ottonian style did not produce surviving manuscripts from before about

13000-474: The state of affairs with relics in Catholic churches. Calvin says that the saints have two or three or more bodies with arms and legs, and even a few extra limbs and heads. Due to the existence of counterfeit relics, the Church began to regulate the use of relics. Canon Law required the authentication of relics if they were to be publicly venerated . They had to be sealed in a reliquary and accompanied by

13125-407: The suffering of Jesus Christ's crucifixion, with the slumped head, lifeless body, and closed eyes. Other depictions are idealized and do not show Christ as vulnerable and disfigured. This was a major influence on later crosses, especially in 11th-century Germany, where you see more crosses that follow this rounded, natural style. The slumped head and twisted body, which arises as the hands are nailed to

13250-460: The teaching of St. John Damascene that homage or respect is not really paid to an inanimate object, but to the holy person, the veneration of a holy person is itself honour paid to God. The Council decreed that every altar should contain a relic, making it clear that this was already the norm, as it remains to the present day in Catholic and Orthodox churches. The veneration of the relics of

13375-679: The town of Libretha, whence the people of Dion had transferred the relics to their own keeping. According to the Chronicon Paschale , the bones of the Persian Zoroaster were venerated, but the tradition of Zoroastrianism and its scriptures offer no support of this. In Buddhism , relics of the Buddha and various sages are venerated. After the Buddha's death, his remains were divided into eight portions. Afterward, these relics were enshrined in stupas wherever Buddhism

13500-641: The transitions at both ends of the period are gradual rather than sudden. Like the former and unlike the latter, it was very largely a style restricted to a few of the small cities of the period, and important monasteries , as well as the court circles of the emperor and his leading vassals . After the decline of the Carolingian Empire , the Holy Roman Empire was re-established under the Saxon Ottonian dynasty. From this emerged

13625-422: The uncertain memorials of saints should not be venerated." The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) of the Catholic Church condemned abuses such as counterfeit relics and exaggerated claims. Pieces of the True Cross were one of the most highly sought-after of such relics; many churches claimed to possess a piece of it, so many that John Calvin famously remarked that there were enough pieces of the True Cross to build

13750-650: The understanding of art media other than manuscript illustrations. The 1950 Munich exhibition Ars Sacra ("sacred art" in Latin) devised this term for religious metalwork and the associated ivories and enamels, which was re-used by Peter Lasko in his book for the Pelican History of Art , the first survey of the subject written in English, as the usual art-historical term, the "minor arts", seemed unsuitable for this period, where they were, with manuscript miniatures,

13875-475: The unity and importance of the "command structure" binding church and state, on earth and in heaven. Byzantine art also remained an influence, especially with the marriage of the Greek princess Theophanu to Otto II, and imported Byzantine elements, especially enamels and ivories, are often incorporated into Ottonian metalwork such as book covers. However, if there were actual Greek artists working in Germany in

14000-515: The upheavals of the barbarian invasions relaxed the rules, as remains needed to be relocated to safer places. The veneration of relics continues to be of importance in the Eastern Orthodox Church . As a natural outgrowth of the concept in Orthodox theology of theosis , the physical bodies of the saints are considered to be transformed by divine grace —indeed, all Orthodox Christians are considered to be sanctified by living

14125-402: The workshop followed Byzantine developments (of many decades earlier) by using the senkschmelz or "sunk enamel" technique in addition to the vollschmelz one already used. Small plaques with decorative motifs derived from plant forms continued to use vollschmelz , with enamel all over the plaque, while figures were now usually in senkschmelz , surrounded by a plain gold surface into which

14250-525: Was a door, an antependium or altar frontal, the cover of an exceptionally large book, a pulpit, or something else, has been much discussed. Each nearly square plaque measures about 13x12 cm, with a relief scene from the Life of Christ inside a plain flat frame; one plaque in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York has a "dedication" scene, where a crowned monarch presents Christ with a model church, usually taken to be Otto I with Magdeburg Cathedral. Altogether seventeen survive, probably fewer than half of

14375-496: Was a much older style, but the Ottonian version has distinctive features, with very busy decoration of surfaces, often gems raised up from the main surface on little gold towers, accompanied by "beehive" projections in gold wire, and figurative reliefs in repoussé gold decorating areas between the bars of enamel and gem decoration. Relics were assuming increasing importance, sometimes political, in this period, and so increasingly rich reliquaries were made to hold them. In such works

14500-525: Was also supposed to protect Athens from enemy attack, and in Thebes , that of the prophet Amphiaraus , whose cult was oracular and healing. Plutarch narrates transferrals similar to that of Theseus for the bodies of the historical Demetrius I of Macedon and Phocion the Good . The bones or ashes of Aesculapius at Epidaurus , and of Perdiccas I at Macedon, were treated with the deepest veneration. As with

14625-504: Was celebrated funerary and memorial services. It may have been thought that when the souls of the martyrs went to heaven on resurrection day they would be accompanied by those interred nearby, who would thus gain favour with God. Some early Christians attributed healing powers to the dust from graves of saints, including Gregory of Tours . The cult of Martin of Tours was very popular in Merovingian Gaul , and centered at

14750-407: Was enshrined and visited as an oracle . The 2nd-century geographer Pausanias reported that the bones of Orpheus were kept in a stone vase displayed on a pillar near Dion , his place of death and a major religious center. These too were regarded as having oracular power, which might be accessed through dreaming in a ritual of incubation . The accidental exposure of the bones brought a disaster upon

14875-415: Was keen." Local clergy promoted their own patron saints in an effort to secure their own market share. On occasion guards had to watch over mortally ill holy men and women to prevent the unauthorized dismemberment of their corpses as soon as they died. Geary also suggests that the danger of someone murdering an aging holy man in order to acquire his relics was a legitimate concern. Relics were used to cure

15000-425: Was not coined until 1890, and the following decade saw the first serious studies of the period; for the next several decades the subject was dominated by German art historians mainly dealing with manuscripts, apart from Adolph Goldschmidt 's studies of ivories and sculpture in general. A number of exhibitions held in Germany in the years following World War II helped introduce the subject to a wider public and promote

15125-417: Was one of the largest crosses of its time. Additionally, it appears to be the oldest Western depiction of a dead Christ on the cross; in most earlier depictions, Christ holds his head erect and looks straight ahead, or in some Carolingian examples looks down at the Virgin at the foot of the cross. The shape of the Gero Cross is traditional to Carolingian religious art. However, this piece puts extra emphasis on

15250-442: Was originally displayed above Gero's grave; though no one is now sure where that was located in the old church, most scholars place it somewhere on the central axis of the nave, in which case it may have been at the chancel arch , the usual location of later roods or large crucifixes. It has long been celebrated and visited by pilgrims. The old cathedral only underwent minor changes until the 13th century. Cologne became one of

15375-681: Was possibly from the same workshop. The latest and most lavish is the Aachen example, which is studded with jewels and shows an enthroned Emperor, surrounded by a pope and archbishops. This was probably made in Trier about 1000. Among various stylistic groups and putative workshops that can be detected, that responsible for pieces including the panel from the cover of the Codex Aureus of Echternach and two diptych wings now in Berlin (all illustrated below) produced particularly fine and distinctive work, perhaps in Trier, with "an astonishing perception of

15500-539: Was produced in a small number of centres for a narrow range of patrons in the circle of the Imperial court, as well as important figures in the church. However much of it was designed for display to a wider public, especially of pilgrims. The style is generally grand and heavy, sometimes to excess, and initially less sophisticated than the Carolingian equivalents, with less direct influence from Byzantine art and less understanding of its classical models, but around 1000

15625-476: Was spread. Some relics believed to be original remains of the body of the Buddha still survive, including the relic of the tooth of the Buddha in Sri Lanka. A stupa is a building created specifically for the relics. Many Buddhist temples have stupas and historically, the placement of relics in a stupa often became the initial structure around which the whole temple would be based. Today, many stupas also hold

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