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The Blood of Christ in the Later Middle Ages
Author(s): Caroline Walker Bynum

Source: Church History , Dec., 2002, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Dec., 2002), pp. 685-714
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church
History
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4146189
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The Blood of Christ in the Later
Middle Ages'
CAROLINE WALKER BYNUM
In one of our earliest descriptions of meditation on the crucifix, Aelred

of Rievaulx (d.1166) described the body on the cross, pierced by the
soldier's lance, as food and urged the female recluses for whom he wrote
not only to contemplate it but also to eat it in gladness: "Hasten, linger
not, eat the honeycomb with your honey, drink your wine with your
milk. The blood is changed into wine to inebriate you, the water into milk
to nourish you."2 Marsha Dutton, who has written so movingly of
Cistercian piety, speaks of this as a eucharistic interpretation of the literal,
physical reality of the crucifixion and points to the parallel with Berengar
of Tours' oath at the synod of Rome in 1079: "The bread and wine which
are placed on the altar.., .are changed substantially into the true and
proper vivifying body and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord and after the
consecration there are the true body of Christ which was born of the
virgin... and the true blood of Christ which flowed from his side... in
their real nature and true substance."3
1. I worked on this paper in the spring of 2000 when I was Aby Warburg Visiting Professor
at the Warburg Haus in Hamburg; I am grateful to the staff there for assistance. An
earlier version was given as a talk at the New England Medieval Conference at Yale
University in October, 2000. For helpful comments, I thank my host, Paul Freedman,
and the conference participants, especially Frederick Paxton. Portions of sections 3-5
appeared in different form in German as "Das Blut und die Korper Christi im spiten
Mittelalter: Eine Asymmetrie," Vortriige aus dem Warburg-Haus 5 (2001): 75-119. I am
grateful to Guenther Roth, Dorothea von Miicke, and two anonymous readers for
Church History for many valuable suggestions.
2. Aelred of Rievaulx, De institutione inclusarum, c. 31, in Aelred, Opera omnia, vol. 1, ed. A.
Hoste and C. H. Talbot, Corpus christianorum: continuatio medievalis 1 (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1971), 671; trans. M. P. Macpherson, "Rule of Life for a Recluse," in The Works
of Aelred of Rievaulx 1: Treatises and Pastoral Prayer, Cistercian Fathers Series 2 (Spencer,
Mass.: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 90. And see Marsha Dutton, "Eat, Drink, and Be
Merry: The Eucharistic Spirituality of the Cistercian Fathers," in Erudition at God's
Service, ed. John R. Sommerfeldt, Studies in Medieval Cistercian History 11 (Kalamazoo,
Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1987), 9, and Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother:
Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1982), 122-24.
3. Dutton, "Eat, Drink and Be Merry," 29, n. 28, quoting Berengar from Gary Macy, The
Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period: A Study of the Salvific Function of the
Sacrament According to the Theologians, c. 1080-c. 1220 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), 37.
Caroline Walker Bynum is University Professor at Columbia University in the City

of New York.
? 2002, The American Society of Church History

Church History 71:4 (December 2002)
685

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686 CHURCH HISTORY
Dutton's interpreta
standard one. Inde
eucharistic references in medieval devotional literature wherever eat-
ing and drinking, bread and wine, body and blood, occur.4 Some
work in literary studies has been inclined to take eucharistic change as
the semiotics of early modern Europe. (In a book recently published
on the "new historicism," eucharist becomes a way of thinking about
everything.)5 And some art historians have used the rise of ocular
communion or Augenkommunion (the idea that one receives the eu-
charist by viewing the consecrated host) as their central evidence for
the visuality of late medieval culture." Recent work seems to find the
eucharist everywhere.
4. On the eucharist, see Macy, Theologies of the Eucharist; David Burr, Eucharistic Presence
and Conversion in Late Thirteenth-Century Franciscan Thought, Transactions of the Amer-
ican Philosophical Society 74.3 (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society,
1984); Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food
to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Miri Rubin, Corpus
Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991); Charles Caspers, Gerard Lukken, and Gerard Rouwhorst, eds., Bread of Heaven:
Customs and Practices Surrounding Holy Communion: Essays in the History of Liturgy and
Culture (Kampen, Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1995); and Andre Haquin, ed., Fete-Dieu
(1246-1996) 1. Actes du Colloque de Liege, 12-14 Septembre 1996, Universite catholique de
Louvain: Publications de l'Institut d'Etudes Medievales (Louvain-la-Neuve: College
Erasme, 1999).
5. Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, Practicing New Historicism (Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 2000).
6. On visuality or "Schaufrdmmigkeit," see Uwe Westfehling, Die Messe Gregors des
Grossen: Vision, Kunst, Realitdt: Katalog und Fiihrer zu einer Ausstellung im Schniitgen-
Museum der Stadt Kiln (Cologne: Wienand, 1982), esp. 37; Robert Scribner, "Vom
Sakralbild zur sinnlichen Schau," in Klaus Schreiner and Norbert Schnitzler, eds.,
Gepeinigt, begehrt, vergessen: Symbolik und Sozialbezug des Kdrpers im spditen Mittelalter und
derfriihen Neuzeit (Munich: Fink, 1992), 309-336; Anton Legner, Reliquien in Kunst und
Kult zwischen Antike und Aufkldrung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1995), 256-77; Judith Oliver, "Image et devotion: le r61le de l'art dans l'institution de la
Fete-Dieu," in Haquin, ed., Fite-Dieu, 153-72; and Bruno Reudenbach, "Der Altar als
Bildort: Das Fluigelretabel und die liturgische Inszenierung des Kirchenjahres," in
Goldgrund und Himmelslicht: Die Kunst des Mittelalters in Hamburg (Hamburg: Stiftung
Denkmalpflege: Dolling und Galitz, 1999), 26-33. For intelligent caveats about this, see
Paul Binski, "The English Parish Church and Its Art in the Later Middle Ages: A Review
of the Problem," Studies in Iconography 20 (1999): 1-25, esp. 13-14, who agrees with me
about recent overemphasis on the eucharist.
On the rise of spiritual communion, see Jules Corblet, Histoire dogmatique, liturgique et
archeologique du sacrement de l'eucharistie, 2 vols. (Paris: Societe Generale de Librairie
Catholique, 1885-86); Edouard Dumoutet, Le Desir de voir l'hostie et les origines de la
devotion au Saint-Sacrement (Paris: Beauchesne, 1926); Dumoutet, Corpus Domini: Aux
sources de la piete eucharistique medievale (Paris: Beauchesne, 1942); Peter Browe, Die
Verehrung der Eucharistie im Mittelalter (Munich: Hueber, 1933); F. Baix and C. Lambot,
La Devotion a' la eucharistie et le VIIle centenaire de la Fete-Dieu (Gembloux: Duculot, 1964);
Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 31-69; Rubin, Corpus Christi, 35-82; and Charles
Caspers, "The Western Church During the Late Middle Ages: Augenkommunion or
Popular Mysticism?," in Bread of Heaven, ed. Caspers et al., 83-98.

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THE BLOOD OF CHRIST 687
But, if we turn again

thing odd. Aelred does
that blood changes to w
the blood from Christ's
Moreover, no change is
comb," writes Aelred,
told that the flesh beco
the side become milk a
recluse is urged to enter
drink there the preciou
ering up "the drops o
then, in Aelred's meditat
on blood more than o
change (blood to wine)
blood); and third, an im
on grains pulled togeth
but on blood that spills i
body.
There is, in other words, in this imagery, an asymmetry between the
body and blood that may at first escape our attention. To Aelred and
his Cistercian contemporaries, indeed in twelfth-century piety gener-
ally, the food of Christ, whether honeycomb or bread, is food and
overwhelmingly an image of union and community, of members like
grains of wheat gathered into Ecclesia.7 But the blood is blood, changed
into wine to hide the horror of sacrifice,8 a complex image of violence
7. Macy, Theologies of the Eucharist, sees the ecclesiological interpretation of the eucha-
rist as dominant from about the middle of the twelfth century on. For an example of
the eucharistic elements as symbols of the pious gathered into one church, see
Rupert of Deutz, Commentaria in Joannem, bk. 6, sect. 206, in J.-P. Migne, ed.,
Patrologiae cursus completus: series latina, 221 vols. (Paris; Migne, 1841-64) [hereafter
PL] vol. 169, cols. 468-69 and 483D-484A. Macy tends, however, to underestimate
the element of sacrifice, which remained crucial in eucharistic devotion and theol-
ogy; see Jaroslav Pelikan, The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300), vol. 3 of The
Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press, 1978), 129-44 and 184-204, and P. J. Fitzpatrick, "On Eucharistic
Sacrifice in the Middle Ages," in Sacrifice and Redemption: Durham Essays in Theology,
ed. S.W. Sykes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 129-56.
8. As Dutton points out, the argument that the eucharist should be veiled because of
its horror was traditional and went back to Ambrose; see Dutton, "Eat, Drink and Be
Merry," 9-10. See also Macy, Theologies of the Eucharist, 28-51, 72 and 108; Pelikan,
Growth of Medieval Theology, 199; Rubin, Corpus Christi, 91 n. 56; Brian Stock, The
Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and
Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 290-91; and Klaus
Berg, "Der Traktat des Gerhard von K61n iiber das kostbarste Blut Christi aus dem
Jahre 1280," in 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung in Weingarten 1094-1994: Festschrift
zum Heilig-Blut-Jubillium am 12. Miirz 1994, ed. Norbert Kruse and Hans Ulrich
Rudolf, 3 vols. (Sigmaringen: Thorbeke, 1994), vol. 1, 442, 449-50. As Roger Bacon,

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688 CHURCH HISTORY
and division as well

even ecstasy. What
sions on the para
devotional literatur
competition. In this
this asymmetry. Fir
to a factor that has
the existence of a n
ond, I want to expl
symbols themselves
I. EUCHARISTIC BACKGROUND
There are many reasons for this disjunction or asymmetry be-

tween body and blood, and some lie in liturgical and theologi
developments concerning the eucharist itself. Work done over th
past fifty years has revealed to us the complicated process by wh
university theologians and preachers attempted to focus the atte
tion of the faithful on the host."1 As the cup was withdrawn fro
the laity, ostensibly for disciplinary reasons (the fear of spillag
the doctrine of concomitance was employed to explain that t
whole Christ (totus Christus) was present in each of the two ele-
ments and in every fragment.1" Moreover, despite the legal r
quirement of at least yearly communion (actual partaking of the
eucharistic elements), reception with the eyes at the moment
consecration or elevation (so-called ocular or spiritual communion
became for many the focal point of eucharistic devotion. Th
The Opus maius of Roger Bacon, tr. Robert Belle Burke, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Th
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1928), vol. 2, 822, expressed it: "[If the body a
blood were visible,] we could not sustain it from horror and loathing. For the huma
heart could not endure to masticate and devour raw and living flesh and to drin
fresh blood. And therefore the infinite goodness of God is shown in veiling th
sacrament."
9. Since I wrote this paper, an excellent full-length study of the blood relic at Westmi
has appeared: Nicholas Vincent, The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster B
Relic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Vincent's study focuses on w
the relic at Westminster did not give rise to a cult. Although it attempts to pu
English phenomenon in a European context, it has little about blood cult in Germa
in which I have been particularly interested in this paper.
10. See n. 6 above.
11. James J. Megivern, Concomitance and Communion: A Study in Eucharistic Doctrin
Practice, Studia Friburgensia, n.s. 33 (Fribourg, Switzerland: University Press, 1963
Megivern points out, the old argument that the doctrine of concomitance was devel
to justify the withdrawal of the cup is untenable. The roots of the idea are in
medieval efforts to refute the notion that receiving communion divides Christ
pieces.

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liturgy increasingly em
of Corpus Christi dev
Blood and was much
never attained the ritu
miracles of the chalice
Nonetheless, blood fren
have discussed elsewhe
were denied access to th
flooding of ecstasy throu
mouths as blood.13 Cath
in her mouth or pourin
host.14 The priest John
crucified Christ bleeding
replaced by the form of
the sacrament, "totally
denly, in a miraculous m
Lord Jesus Christ, whom
uous rushing river thr
12. Peter Browe, Die Eucharisti

rischen Theologie, NF 4 (Bresl
vol. 1, 447-515; Caroline Wal
the Thirteenth Century," Wo
Heilig-Blut-Verehrung im Ub
(1094-1803)" in 900 Jahre Hei
"Der bleibende Gehalt der He
1, 382.
13. See Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast; Reginald Gr6goire, "Sang," Dictionnaire de
spiritualitd, ascetique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, ed. M. Viller et al., vol. 14 (Paris:
Beauchesne, 1990), cols. 324-33; Rubin, Corpus Christi, especially chapters 2 and 5;
Peter Dinzelbacher, "Das Blut Christi in der Religiositait des Mittelalters," in 900
Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung, vol. 1, 415-434; and Danible Alexandre-Bidon, "La d&-
votion au sang du Christ chez les femmes medievales: des mystiques aux laiques
(XIIIle - XVIe siecle)," in Le Sang au moyen age: Actes du quatrihme colloque international
de Montpellier, Universite Paul Valery (27-29 novembre 1997), ed. Marcel Faure
(Montpellier: Universite Paul Valery, 1999), 405-13. Dinzelbacher maintains that the
substitution of blood for communion wine in visions was fairly infrequent ("Das
Blut Christi," 425).
14. Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 177; on Catherine's blood mysticism generally, see
ibid., 174-79, and Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, "'Die Braut auf dem Bett von Blut und
Feuer': Zur Bluttheologie der Caterina von Siena (1347-1380)," in 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-
Verehrung, vol. 1, 494-500.
15. Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 399, n. 49. See also ibid., 62, n. 128, for Mechtild of
Hackeborn (d. ca. 1298) who received Christ's heart "in the form of a cup" contain-
ing "the drink of life" at "the hour of communion." On the blood mysticism (with
strong eucharistic overtones) of the Helfta nuns generally, see Bynum, Jesus as
Mother, chapter 5.

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690 CHURCH HISTORY
intimate parts of he
wafer, she experienc
Symbolically speak
breached, threaten
streets in the new f
round white whole
menaced by Jews, in
story, it dripped m
trine of real presen
those who violated
it, Jews who desecra
of God.17 When Geo
heresy in 1525, saw
it to hold in the b
much medieval dev
one hand, bread-bo
munity, and, on th
sacrifice, reproach.1
16. "Les 'Vitae Sororum

liotheque de Colmar," ed.
raire du moyen age 5 (19
spirituelle Theologie: zu M
seiner Zeit (Munich: Art
Visionary (New York: Zon
drawing of St. Bernard a
has drawn our attention, shows such inundation. The fact that the nun's hands are
over the gushing flood may suggest that the adherent is still at some distance from
immersion-union, but it may also suggest that access to the Christ of blood and suffering
is through touch, grasping, physical encounter. See Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Nuns as
Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1997), plate 1. There is, in this period, a strong devotional emphasis on touching as well
as seeing the precious blood-an emphasis found especially in the references (both
visual and textual) to Thomas putting his hand into Christ's side and touching his heart;
see Horst Appuhn, "Sankt Thomas," Kunst in Hessen und am Mittelrhein 5 (1966): 7-10,
and "Der Auferstandene und das Heilige Blut zu Wienhausen: Ober Kult und Kunst im
spiten Mittelalter," Niederdeutsche Beitriige zur Kunstgeschichte 1 (1961): 90-94.
17. See the works cited in n. 77 below. For a number of examples of objects that accuse and
threaten by bleeding, see Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 329 nn. 135 and 138. Medieval
writers occasionally understood unworthy reception as itself killing Christ; see, for
example, Gerald of Wales, Gemma ecclesiastica, c. 50, in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. S.
Brewer, J. F. Dimock, and G. F. Warner, 8 vols., Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scrip-
tores, 21 (London: Longman, 1861-91; Kraus reprint, 1964-66), vol. 2, 139. I owe this
reference to an anonymous reader for Church History.
18. Edward Peacock, "Extracts from Lincoln Episcopal Visitations in the 15th, 16th, and 17th
Centuries," Archaeologia: or Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity 48 (London: The
Society of Antiquaries, 1885), 251-53, and see Rubin, Corpus Christi, 344-45.

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II. BLOOD RELICS
Body/blood asymmetry is then profoundly eucharistic. But

reasons for the asymmetry lie beyond eucharist as well. There i
obvious element we have tended to overlook because of our recent
concentration on eucharistic devotion-that is, a second blood tradi-
tion in medieval Europe, the devotion to the blood relics of Christ. The
first point I wish to make in this essay, then, is that the two traditions,
that of blood relic and that of eucharistic blood, influenced each other
profoundly, crossing and recrossing in the course of the Middle Ages.
Theological discussions of concomitance inflected discussions of
blood relic, providing a defense against skeptical objections to its
historicity;19 eucharistic practices influenced its cult, so much so that
we find, by the late-thirteenth century, a sort of quasi-eucharistic rite
of drinking the blood of the relic (rather like the use of the ablutions
cup after Mass).20 Similarly, traditions concerning the collecting and
revering of Christ's blood as relic undergirded and encouraged the
stress in eucharistic devotion on blood as sacrifice, violation and
access-pulled the eucharist, so to speak, away from Last Supper and
toward crucifixion.21 Some of the rather puzzling devotional asym-
metry I mentioned earlier has roots in the fact that there were in the
European tradition, to put it simply, two bloods and one body.22
And the bloods could compete. In a poem composed for the abbey
of F&camp just at the time Aelred was writing his meditation on the
crucifix, pilgrims were urged to behold the relic of precious blood
"not as you do in the sacrament" but just as it flowed from the Savior's
19. For two examples, see n. 56 below.

20. Wine or water was poured over the relic and drunk; see Rainer Jensch, "Die Weingar-
tener Heilig-Blut- und Stiftertradition: Ein Bilderkreis kl6sterlicher Selbstdarstellung"
(Diss. Phil., Tuibingen, 1996), 23-24, and Adalbert Nagel, "Das Heilige Blut Christi," in
Festschrift zur 900-Feier des Klosters: 1056-1956 (Weingarten, 1956), 201-03. Edmund Rich
of Abingdon (d. 1240), archbishop of Canterbury, washed the wounds of a crucifix with
wine and then drank it; see Louis Gougaud, Devotions et pratiques ascetiques du moyen age
(Paris: Descle6, de Brouwer, 1925), 77-78. On the general relationship between eucharist
and relic, see Godefridus J. C. Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Mutual
Relationship (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995).
21. There are, however, a few Holy Blood altars that relate the blood closely to the Last
Supper; see Barbara Welzel, Abendmahlsaltdire vor der Reformation (Berlin: Gebr. Mann
Verlag, 1991), 24, 26, and 116-31. It is important to note that such depictions of the Last
Supper are usually of the moment of Judas's betrayal, not of the consecration.
22. The devotion to Christ's foreskin was, in a sense, a body-devotion parallel to the
devotion to blood relics. But it was far rarer. See Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 377 n.
135. Charroux provides an example of devotion to parallel bodily relics of foreskin and
blood from the circumcision: see X. Barbier de Montault, Oeuvres complates, vol. 7: Rome,
part 5.2 (Paris: Vives, 1893), 528.
23. Dinzelbacher, "Das Blut Christi," 415.

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692 CHURCH HISTORY
side when he died fo

passage "demonstrat
of Christ was a for
seems, however, to h
itly competed with
Fecamp poet, who say
not veiled by specie
("en sa fourme propr
to save the world.
To make clear the complex relationship between eucharist an
blood relics, I wish to sketch the history of these relics and then t
examine a little-known thirteenth-century polemical treatise by on
Gerhard of Cologne that demonstrates the ways in which the theology
of the blood of Christ competed with, absorbed, and influenced eu
charistic theology and imagery.26
Our earliest reference to a relic of the blood Christ shed at the
Passion may be in a letter from Braulio of Saragossa about 649, w
expressed concern that such veneration might overshadow the m
Blood relics proliferated in the west in the Carolingian period not lo
before theologians such as Paschasius Radbertus and Ratramnus
gan to discuss the Eucharist. Holy blood was supposedly discove
at Mantua in 804 in Charlemagne's presence. Its fate is unknown,
another vial, found in the mid-eleventh century, became the center
an important cult and was later claimed to be the source of the fam
relic at the German cloister of Weingarten near Ravensburg. T
oldest surviving western blood relic is probably the cros
Reichenau, supposedly acquired in 925 from the countess Swanah
24. "Non pas comment u Sacrement/Mes en sa fourme proprement/Vermel comment

sengna/Quant pour nous mort soufrir dengna." In Oskari Kajava, ed., Etudes sur d
pokmes franpais relatifs a' l'abbaye de Fecamp (Helsinki: Sociat6 de Litterature Finn
1928), 95.
25. Jonathan Sumption, Pilgrimage: An Image of Medieval Religion (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman
and Littlefield, 1975), 48. The competition is all the more interesting in light of the fact
that the cult at Fecamp appears to have originated in a eucharistic miracle that was later
re-figured as a blood relic; see Vincent, Holy Blood, 57-58.
26. On blood relics generally, see Barbier de Montault, Oeuvres completes, vol. 7, 524-37;
Johannes Heuser, "'Heilig-Blut' in Kult und Brauchtum des deutschen Kulturraumes.
Ein Beitrag zur religiosen Volkskunde" (Diss. Phil., Bonn, 1948); Nagel, "Das Heilige
Blut Christi," 197-98; Sumption, Pilgrimage, 44-49 and 312; Thomas Stump and Otto
Gillen, "Heilig-Blut," in Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunst-Geschichte, ed. Otto Schmitt, vol.
2 (Stuttgart: Alfred Druckenmiiller, 1948) [hereafter RDK], cols. 947-58; R. Haubst, "Blut
Christi," R. Bauerreiss, "Bluthostien," A. Winklhofer, "Blutwunder," in Lexikon fir
Theologie und Kirche, ed. Josef H6fer and Karl Rahner, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Freiburg: Herder,
1958) [hereafter LTK], cols. 544-49; and Vincent, Holy Blood, 31-81 (see 51-52 n. 76 for
more bibliography).

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who had received it fr

then streamed into Eur
many, after the First C
Bruges only a little later
blood for Westminster
elevating the claims of
(since Louis had only
is ... holy... on account
made upon it, not the bl
Indeed relics often expre
in Henry III's gift to W
Hapsburg acquired for
relic of the holy blood
and was clearly intende
bor Weingarten suppos
Not all blood relics in th
however, derived in th
disputed bleeding host
spilled chalices. (Thes
fraudulent-that Marg
see.)32 And blood could
27. On Braulio, see Caroline Wa

tianity, 200-1336 (New York
early cult, see Jensch, "Die
30-31; Nagel, "Das Heilige B
Ojberblick;" Helmut Binder, "
Verehrung, vol. 1, 337-47, an
ibid., 331-36.
28. Stump and Gillen, "Heilig-
und Stiftertradition," 31.
29. Jacques Toussaert, Le sentim
1963), 259-67. Although obtai
receive regular processions un
explosion of miracles and dev
30. Matthew Paris, Chronica
Britannicarum medii aevi sc
and vol. 5, 29, 48, and 195;
Iconography of the Thirteent
in England in the Thirteenth
W. M. Ormrod (Woodbridge
Vincent, Holy Blood.
31. Jensch, "Die Weingartener
Blut," 197; and Binder, "Das
Verehrung, vol. 1, 348-58. Not
was also patron of Weingarte
32. The Book of Margery Kemp
Bowdon, ed. S. B. Meech wit
Oxford University Press for

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694 CHURCH HISTORY
images-crucifixes, a
ple, the cathedral at
supposedly went bac
by Jews, out of whi
greatly revered.33
Although modern a
from blood relics and to sort out three distinct sources of the blood
revered in late medieval cult,34 it is clear that adherents often care
little on which traditions the relics drew. We do not know, for exam-
ple, what kind of blood the relic revered at Cloister Wienhausen wa
despite the convent's pride in it, indulgences connected to it, and
stories in the surviving chronicle of the miracles it worked.35 Th
source was not important to the nuns: Christ's blood was Christ's
blood.
Indeed, in this conflation of types of blood, we see one of the most
sinister aspects of blood-cult. Whether Christ himself, the consecrated
host, or a devotional object, the victim is increasingly in the years
Wunder, 166-71; Jensch, "Die Weingartener Heilig-Blut- und Stiftertradition," 37-39;

Hartmut Boockmann, "Der Streit um das Wilsnacker Blut: zur Situation des deutschen
Klerus in der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts," Zeitschrift fiir historische Forschung 9 (1982):
385-408; Charles Zika, "Hosts, Processions and Pilgrimages: Controlling the Sacred in
Fifteenth-Century Germany," Past and Present 118 (1988): 25-64; and Hartmut Kiihne,
"'Ich ging durch Feuer und Wasser....' Bemerkungen zur Wilnacker Heilig-Blut-
Legende," in Gerlinde Strohmaier-Wiederanders, ed., Theologie und Kultur: Geschichten
einer Wechselbeziehung: Festschrift zum einhundertfiinfzigjaihrigen Bestehen des Lehrstuhls fiir
Christliche Archiiologie und Kirchliche Kunst an der Humboldt-Universitiit zu Berlin (Halle:
Andre Gursky, 1999), 51-84. On frauds generally, see Franti~ek Graus, "Fdilschungen im
Gewand der Fr6mmigkeit," in Fdilschungen im Mittelalter: Internationaler Kongress der
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Miinchen, 16.-19. September 1986, 5 vols. (Hannover:
Hahn, 1988), vol. 5, 261-80. It is significant that the goal of pilgrimage at Wilsnack was
known at the time as the "blood of Christ," although the objects revered were wonder-
hosts.
33. Stump and Gillen, "Heilig-Blut," col. 956, figure 7; M.-D. Chenu, "Sang du Christ," in
Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, ed. A. Vacant, E. Mangenot, and E. Amann, vol. 14
(Paris: Letouzey et And, 1939), col. 1094-97; Jensch, "Die Weingartener Heilig-Blut- und
Stiftertradition," 31. In the fifteenth century, Nicolas V (wrongly) attributed the story to
a sermon of Athanasius cited at II Nicaea (787). In the eleventh century, Siegebert of
Gembloux tells the miracle of Beirut under the year 765, and it was often celebrated in
the high Middle Ages; the Roman martyrology mentions it for November 9.
34. See, for example, the articles from LTK cited in n. 26 above, which strain to divide the
surviving stories into categories according to the source of the blood.
35. The seventeenth-century chronicle from Wienhausen, which draws on earlier traditions,
has been edited by Horst Appuhn, Chronik des Klosters Wienhausen (Celle: Bomann-
Archio, 1956); the blood miracles are on 140-42. We have records of several fourteenth-
century donations to maintain an eternal light before the holy blood; see Appuhn, "Der
Auferstandene und das Heilige Blut," 98. Contemporary accounts from Rothenburg ob
der Tauber also show some confusion about the source of the blood relic there. And see
n. 25 above on F~camp.

129.219.247.33 on Fri, 19 Feb 2021 17:25:19 UTC
around 1300 seen as vio

such stories involve not
but the quite frequent
tian women and crimin
became a kind of crucif
cases on the iconographic
Christ's torture). What
Golgotha, images that e
that display bloody sp
containers for repeated
any tale of violation, t
proaches and accusation
If those who flocked to
those who propagated t
type of blood from ano
the point of rejecting
relics especially raised
treatise on the eucharis
can be asked whether C
blood which he poured
shall not perish (Luke
perish which was of the
however, rejected entir
remained on earth after the ascension.37
In the course of the thirteenth century, queries about Christ's blood
were raised in discussions of visions, eucharist, resurrection, the
nature of the hypostatic union, and relics. According to Matthew
Paris, Grosseteste defended veneration of the heart's blood from
Christ's right side.38 Aquinas argued, in contrast, that the red and
living blood of the heart shed at death was part of Christ's core human
nature (as opposed to material, such as fingernails, sloughed off in
growth). It thus remained united with his divinity during the triduum
36. Romuald Bauerreiss, Pie Jesu: Das Schmerzensmann-Bild und sein Einfluss auf die mittel-
alterliche Frimmigkeit (Munich: Karl Widmann, 1931); see also n. 17 above and n. 77
below.
37. Innocent III, De sacro altaris mysterio, bk 4, c. 30, PL 217, col. 876D-877B. Almost
hundred years earlier, Guibert of Nogent had raised objections to relics of Christ's milk,
teeth, and foreskin; see Klaus Guth, Guibert von Nogent und die hochmittelalterliche Kritik
an der Reliquienverehrung, Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktiner-
Ordens und seiner Zweige, Supplement 21 (Augsburg: Winfried, 1970).
38. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, vol. 4, 643, and vol. 6 (reprint 1964), 138-44; see als
Roberts, "Relic of the Holy Blood," 141. Franciscans generally took this position; see
Chenu, "Sang du Christ." And on the entire controversy, see Vincent, Holy Blood,
82-117.

129.219.247.33 on Fri, 19 Feb 2021 17:25:19 UTC
696 CHURCH HISTORY
(the period between

him from the dead
assumed in assumi
venerated contemp
was easier for Franc
to think that the bo
corporeitatis and th
whip up the devoti
who later followed
pelled to maintain
held together only
could escape.
The doubts of theologians sometimes reached other blood sources.
As is well known, stories of eucharistic visions proliferated in the
thirteenth century and were used, often by preachers and occasionally
by university theologians, to support the doctrine of the real pres-
ence.41 But Dominicans were in general suspicious of such visions and
went to great lengths to argue that such miracles were owing to a
deep spiritual impact on the beholder, not to a change in the host.42 If
39. For a thorough discussion of the concept of the "truth [or core] of human nature" in
twelfth- and thirteenth-century theology, see Philip Lyndon Reynolds, Food and the Body:
Some Peculiar Questions in High Medieval Theology (Leiden: Brill, 1999).
40. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, pt III, quaestio 54, art. 3, in S. Thomae Aquinatis
opera omnia, ed. Robert Busa, 7 vols. (Stuttgart and Bad Cannstadt: Friedrich Frommann,
1980), vol. 2, 853-54; Quaestiones quodlibetales, Quodl. 5, quaestio 3, art. 1, in ibid., vol. 3,
466.
41. See, for example, the numerous eucharistic miracles in Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dia-
logus miraculorum, ed. J. Strange, 2 vols. (Cologne: Heberle, 1851), esp. distinctio 9, and
Gerald of Wales, Gemma ecclesiastica. And see n. 12 above.
42. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, pt III, quaestio 76, art. 8, in Opera omnia, ed.
Busa, vol. 2, 896; In Quattuor libros sententiarum, bk 4, distinctio 10, quaestio 1, art. 4b, in
Opera omnia, ed. Busa, vol. 1, 473-74; and Berg, "Der Traktat des Gerhard von Kaln," 436
and 441-44. For a detailed discussion of the theology of the "real presence" in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries and of the concern to avoid too literalist an interpre-
tation, see Hans Jorissen, Die Entfaltung der Transsubstantiationslehre bis zum Beginn der
Hochscholastik (Muinster: Aschendorf, 1965). On eucharistic theology generally, see also
James F. McCue, "The Doctrine of Transubstantiation from Berengar through the
Council of Trent," Harvard Theological Review 61 (1968): 385-430; Edith Dudley Sylla,
"Autonomous and Handmaiden Science: St. Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham
on the Physics of the Eucharist," in John E. Murdoch and Edith D. Sylla, eds., The
Cultural Context of Medieval Learning: Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on
Philosophy, Science and Theology in the Middle Ages-September 1973, Boston Studies in the
Philosophy of Science 36 (Boston: D. Reidel, 1974), 349-91; Stock, Implications of Literacy,
241-325; Burr, Eucharistic Presence and Conversion; Macy, Theologies of the Eucharist; Macy,
"The Dogma of Transubstantiation in the Middle Ages," Journal of Ecclesiastical History
45.1 (1994): 11-41, reprinted in Treasures from the Storeroom: Medieval Religion and the
Eucharist (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1999), 81-120; and "Reception of the
Eucharist According to the Theologians: A Case of Diversity in the Thirteenth and
Fourteenth Centuries," in ibid., 36-58.

129.219.247.33 on Fri, 19 Feb 2021 17:25:19 UTC
in transubstantiation on
Christ's body could no
thirteenth- and fourtee
versus annihilation in eu
not just to support real p
Christus) on the altar a
other words, to protect
fragmentation.44
Indeed historians have
theologians to the wond
Ages. For example, when
logian and member of
hosts of Wilsnack in th
visual evidence in the m
theological issues. Tocke
it [the wonderhost] in my
pieces that were already
certainly not red or red-l
And even if it were red
and even if it were blood
Christ... to be venerated
years."45 In 1451, the pa
We have heard from man
how the faithful stream to
worship the precious blood
a transformed red host..
greed for revenue.... [But
43. Thomas Aquinas, Summa the

4, in Opera omnia, ed. Busa, vo
substance and accidents to ar
accidents of bread, whereas th
well; see Andre Goossens, "R
Haquin, ed., Fate-Dieu, 173-91,
the Poetry and Art of the Cath
44. Burr, Eucharistic Presence an
tionslehre; and n. 42 above. Th
Dominicans) for trans-substant
undergirded by their desire to a
and to adhere as well to the Bo
two poles in a relationship of c
Identity (New York: Zone, 200
The Mass of St. Gregory in the
in the Middle Ages, Proceeding
2001, ed. Anne-Marie Bouche a
45. Hartmut Kiihne, " 'Ich ging
from Tocke's Notiz.

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698 CHURCH HISTORY
it without damage t
glorified body of Ch
glorified veins. In or
tion of simple folk,
no longer promulga
In late-fifteenth-ce
eucharist" maintain
flesh or a child or
is a miracle for the
The priest should t
individual claim is
the priest should r
miraculous one sho
nity for a crowd to
Debates over visio
blood in triduum an
Middle Ages. In the
Paul II halted some
veneration of bloo
Nicolas V indeed im
blood came from d
the church permitt
the increasingly fre
less, the phenomen
nounce on their ont
46. Peter Browe, "Die eu

Quartalschrift 37 (1929):
47. Wolfgang Brtickner,
zum historischen Verstin
(1996): 139-66, esp. 151.
48. R. Haubst, "Blut Chris
im Mittelalter," Theologis
vol. 6 (Berlin: de Gruyt
Rudolf, "Die Heilig-Blut-
halt;" and Berg, "Der Tr
49. Chenu, "Sang du Chris
39-40; and Kasper, "De
permitted blood veneratio
forbade further discussi
Passion. In the early sixt
was poured out did part
Verehrung im Uberblick
came to think that anyt
hypostatic union; see K
sixteenth century, Pete
came not from the veritas humanae naturae of Christ but rather from the excess blood of
humors; see Berg, "Der Traktat des Gerhard von Kiln," 454-55.

129.219.247.33 on Fri, 19 Feb 2021 17:25:19 UTC
on the subject, second,

hosts be displayed alon
idolatry,50 and third,
hidden, even their conta
For all the popular ent
struggled to pull a spir
back toward wholeness
toward host, body, Ecc
As increasing demands f
authorities to limit blood cult were understood as an assertion of
clerical control, a move against the people's access.52 To some
logians and prelates, Christ was to be encountered most powerf
his unseen eucharistic presence at mass. The real blood w
Nicholas of Cusa stressed, "completely un-seeable in glorified
Access for laity should be via the host at mass, either taken rever
from the hands of priests or viewed from afar at the mome
elevation. Body and blood were seen only through-that is, beh
beyond-the species on the altar. And blood was doubly veiled
the laity received it only by concomitance, in the round white wa
the body of Christ. Nevertheless, many Christians, suppor
clergy (including bishops, friars, and even popes), cried out for a
physical, a more labile and multivalent, presence. "Blood of C
save me!" They journeyed across Europe to sites such as Wilsn
Weingarten, Orvieto, and Andechs, seeking the holy blood
fluid, scintillating redness carried overtones both of violatio
hence vengeance against enemies) and of breach (hence access
very heart of God). Whatever they saw in the vials and monst
held out to them, they revered it as sanguis Christi offered pro n
Calvary.
III. GERHARD OF COLOGNE
As this brief overview suggests, the relationship of blood venera-

tion to eucharistic devotion in the high Middle Ages was complex an
highly problematic. In order to demonstrate this further, I turn to the
Tractatus de sacratissimo sanguine domini, composed in 1280 by Gerhar
(called Saxo), a Dominican from Cologne. The treatise, which h
50. Boockmann, "Der Streit," 391-92.

51. Briickner, "Liturgie und Legende."
52. See n. 74 below for a Reformation image that makes clear the demand for return of
blood to the laity. As both my brief account here and the large bibliography on Wilsnack
(see n. 32 above) should make clear, differing opinions about blood relics, wonderhosts,
and bleeding images do not fall into an elite versus popular or a clerical versus lay
pattern.

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700 CHURCH HISTORY
recently been publ

of abbot Hermann
relic against skepti
Gerhard's treatise
(His recent editor w
anti-Semitic, polem
example of how co
and eucharistic pie
most certainly Ge
Albert the Great),
eucharistic theolog
and in an apocalypt
practices. It thus u
front in these mat
generalizations abou
tion.
Gerhard's treatise falls into five parts: praise of the precious blood,
a defense against critics, an account of its history from Longinus to the
reception at Weingarten, a call for pilgrimage to the Weingarten relic,
and a short confirmation of the abbey's friendship with Mantua, from
which the blood came. Gerhard begins by arguing that Christ has left
believers both Testaments, the Jews themselves (spared by the church
to serve as an eternal reminder of Christ's suffering), the sacrament of
the altar, and the instruments that took his life (cross, nails, lance, and
thorns). Yet despite all these signs, some Christians remain lazy,
complacent, numb, even in the last days Gerhard fervently believes
are upon them. So Christ, "who knew all beforehand," has left his
blood itself that those sleeping "may come again to love" through "the
sight of blood drops before their eyes."55 We can thus be like Doubt-
ing Thomas, "who came to belief later than the others and had to
touch the scars;" but we are more than Thomas, for he felt only
wounds whereas we "see the blood itself, rose-colored and shining
red." There are, says Gerhard, "pseudo-philosophers," followers of
Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Hippocrates, who argue that Christ could
53. On Gerhard, see Berg, "Der Traktat des Gerhard von K61n," 435-57. There is no
evidence that he is the same person as the Gerhard of Cologne whose sermons have
been edited by Ph. Strauch or the Gerhard who wrote the De medulla animae. Gerhard's
Tractatus de sacratissimo sanguine domini is edited and translated into German (somewhat
freely) by Berg, in "Der Traktat des Gerhard von Kaln," 459-76. On Weingarten, see 900
Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung, ed. Kruse and Rudolf, 3 vols.
54. Berg, "Der Traktat des Gerhard von K61n," 453-55; on Gerhard see also Nagel, "Das
Heilige Blut," 193-94.
55. Gerhard argues that the name "Weingarten" was prophetic; Christ knew there would be
a blood relic there. See Tractatus de sacratissimo sanguine, 474.

129.219.247.33 on Fri, 19 Feb 2021 17:25:19 UTC
not have risen whole (

and living blood (the bl
naturae). Yet we know
the Mount of Olives, an
saw there true blood. H
blood on earth to inflam
make his subtle and gl
ciples, so he could not
and yet left it behind
Cannot one and the sa
moment be changed in
priests, really here prese
[in heaven]?"56
Complex theological ar
of Christ in resurrection and in eucharist are here used to bolster the
claims of relic against eucharist. If by concomitance, all Christ is i
every particle, then (argues Gerhard) Christ's blood can be totally
heaven and yet present both in the eucharist and in relic. If Christ
body after the resurrection was so glorified and subtle that it could go
through doors and yet was touch-able by Thomas the Doubter, so h
blood can be glorified (almost immaterial) in heaven and yet palpab
drops (see-able, touch-able and even drink-able) here on earth.
Gerhard's account, the visual piety (Schaufrbmmigkeit) so emphasiz
recently by scholars as a characteristic of eucharistic devotion
turned against eucharist: yes, the sacrament can be received by th
eyes, but it is under a veil, whereas the throbbing, shimmering, living
blood is see-able without a covering.57 Subtle arguments about sub
tilitas and wholeness are all very well for pseudo-philosophers, sa
Gerhard, but Christ is himself a doctor who appeals directly to ord
nary hearts. Gerhard thus aligns himself not only with the monks
Weingarten who commissioned his treatise but also with popul
piety and against his fellow Dominicans.
Around these anti-intellectual uses of quite learned arguments (n
always very fairly deployed) floods a plethora of images for the ho
56. Gerhard, Tractatus de sacratissimo sanguine, 467. Thomas of Chobham in his treatise
preaching (ca. 1210) makes similar use of the eucharistic analogy. Discussing ho
Christ's foreskin can both remain on earth and be resurrected, Thomas asserts: "just
by a miracle the body of Our Lord can be at one and the same time in several places,
that body can exist in several forms. ... Christ's foreskin, glorified as part of his integ
body, may exist in another place unglorified." Cited in Vincent, Holy Blood, 85.
57. See Jensch, "Die Weingartener Heilig-Blut- und Stiftertradition," 23, and Nagel, "D
Heilige Blut," 200-201. The late-thirteenth-century indulgences at Weingarten were f
seeing the relic; and the crystal form of the reliquary clearly corresponded to th
devotional emphasis.

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702 CHURCH HISTORY
blood. It is dew, se
quencher of thirst,
tilla), from which a
is suffering, tortu
yet an indictment
it is accusation as well as violation. It accuses the Jews who (in
Gerhard's view) killed Christ, but it also charges the Christians of
Gerhard's own day with being the "new Jews," who kill Christ again
by their lethargy and neglect. In contrast to many other theologians,
Gerhard's word of choice for the relic he defends is cruor (bloodshed)
not sanguis.
At the end of the treatise, in a passage reminiscent of Aelred's
depiction of the crucifixion, Gerhard suddenly shifts to blood as wine.
The imagery undoubtedly reflects the ritual known as "blood-
drinking" (that is, imbibing of wine that had been poured over the
reliquary or into which the relic had been dipped-a ritual we know
was practiced at Weingarten).58 Gerhard writes:
You, the true vineyard [that is, Weingarten], surpassing all others,
[are] where the health-bringing wine out of the side of the Lord
makes believers intoxicated with the wonderful drunkenness of
which the Psalmist speaks.... You, fertile and fecund vineyard, [a
planted by God. ... So that you are made fertile, God has let his mil
rain flow out of the highest clouds, his flesh, which never bore sin
But so that you may become drunk with the juice of the grape,
same Christ has poured out his totally pure blood from the winecel
lar of his flesh; and the Lord wanted this intoxicating wine, th
fructifying rain, this soul-cleansing water to be drunk and stored u
in his most glorious vineyard [Weingarten].59
But blood as wine comes in Gerhard's treatise almost as an after-

thought, following blood as dew and water, fructifying and clean
blood as fire, inflaming and inebriating; blood as reproach, ac
Jews and Christians of violating Christ. There is eucharistic im
here, it is true. But this eucharistic imagery (like the eucha
58. See above n. 20, and Hans Ulrich Rudolf, "Heilig-Blut-Brauchtum im Uberblick
Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung, vol. 2, 553-74. The earliest miracles at Weingarten
have come from being touched by the Holy Blood reliquary or from visitin
Meingoz's grave or both; see Norbert Kruse, "Der Bericht von den ersten Wund
Heiligen Bluts im Jahre 1200," in 900 Jahre Heilig-Blut-Verehrung in Weingarten,
124-36.
59. Gerhard, Tractatus de sacratissimo sanguine, 474-75.

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practice of blood-drink
the relic by which it is
To Gerhard, therefor
Christ's side to provide
"The blood is changed i
a hundred and thirty
bringing wine out of t
cated.... Christ has po
winecellar of his flesh.
of the grape." To Aelre
logically, figuratively,
blood as inflamer of m
Christ, but, initially and
There are many facto
horror of what some h
piety. I am not able to
the history of blood r
may have read languag
too narrowly or exclusi
true that liturgy and t
host central to practic
out-leaping from hos
goating, those who did
pressure to keep bloo
symbol of community
such as Gerhard-who
charist. The way in wh
body was magnified by
that is, by the fact th
spirituality centered on
based in physical contin
words of consecration a
historical filiation, the
has elegantly put it, "rea
was available in two
60. Dinzelbacher, "Das Blut Ch

religious at Wilsnack that the
crated wine.
61. Peter Dinzelbacher, "Die 'Realprisenz' der Heiligen," in Heiligenverehrung in Geschichte
und Gegenwart, ed. P. Dinzelbauer and D. Bauer (Ostfildern: Schwabenverlag, 1990)
115-74. One must not, however, take the point too far; relics were also, even to simple
adherents, triggers of remembrance-that is, mnemonic as well as thaumaturgic.

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704 CHURCH HISTORY
through the matte

and torment-bloo
IV. THE ASYMMETRY OF SYMBOLS
The asymmetry of body and blood is, however, rooted in something

deeper than the historical traditions of blood relic and eucharist, and
this is the second point I wish to underline in my essay. From the
eleventh century, blood took on, so to speak, a life of its own. Blood
visions and blood devotions proliferated, flowing free of any anchor-
ing to eucharist or relic. In 1010 Ademar of Chabannes saw a great
crucifix "high against the southern sky.., .as if planted in the heav-
ens" and on it hung the crucified one "the color of fire and deep
blood."62 In ca. 1060, the reformer Peter Damian, contemplating alone
in his cell, saw Christ "pierced with nails, hanging on the cross" and
wrote, in what may be the first example of such visionary drinking
"with my mouth I eagerly tried to catch the dripping blood."'63 In the
late twelfth century, an English monk from Evesham abbey was found
as if lifeless on Good Friday with "the balls of his eyes and his nose
wet with blood." Once recovered, the monk recounted to his brothers
a vision of the cross.
While I was kneeling before the image and was kissing it on the
mouth and eyes, I felt some drops falling gently on my forehead.
When I removed my fingers, I discovered from their color that it was
blood. I also saw blood flowing from the side of the image on the
cross, as it does from the veins of a living man when he is cut for
blood-letting. I do not know how many drops I caught in my hand
as they fell. With the blood I devoutly anointed my eyes, ears and
nostrils. Afterward-if I sinned in this I do not know-in my zeal I
swallowed one drop of it, but the rest, which I caught in my hand, I
was determined to keep.
Following this encounter, the monk traveled in vision through th
places of punishment, graphically described, and thence to the place
of glory. But even in the midst of glory, there was blood. "The tongue
cannot reveal nor human weakness worthily describe what we saw a
we went on.... In the middle of endless thousands of blessed spirit
62. Ademar of Chabannes, Historia 3.46, trans. in Richard Landes, Relics, Apocalypse and t
Deceits of History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), 87. See below n
65.
63. Peter Damian, Opusculum 19: De abdicatione episcopatus [Letter 72], c. 5, PL 145, col. 432B,
trans. Owen J. Blum, The Letters of Peter Damian, 1-120, The Fathers of the Church,
Mediaeval Continuation, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America
Press, 1989-98), vol. 3, 129-30; Dinzelbacher, "Das Blut Christi," 425, n. 147, says this is
the first such vision.

129.219.247.33 on Fri, 19 Feb 2021 17:25:19 UTC
who stood round,... the

It was as if he were han
from scourgings, insulte
driven into him, pierced
over his hands and feet
side!"64
Scholars have usually b
blood mysticism and t
eleventh century, of so
question of the origin
affective mysticism or b
particular asymmetry w
find a clue in the natu
gists tell us, "natural
connotations brought f
symbols are multivalen
physiological sense con
boundaries, intricately
through eating and th
munity and of self. Bl
more complex and labi
and death. It is sanguis
European languages a
64. "The Monk of Evesham's V

Heaven and Hell Before Dante
65. Both Rachel Fulton and Phy
origins of the devotion to the
Passion: An Intellectual Histor
Columbia University Press,
Chabannes and Peter Damian
66. See, for example, Mary Dou
intro. (New York: Pantheon,
Hurley (New York: Vintage,
society as "a society of blood,
stresses the symbolic importa
on. I pointed out the symbolic
chapter of Holy Feast and Hol
There are some interesting ide
(Paris: Fayard, 1988) but it is
moyen dge, ed. Faure, are usef
attempts no overview of bloo
67. Hence Miri Rubin's argume
Christi, 3-5, 11, 288, etc.) see
polyvalent and culturally c
particular perspective. But th
everything. The symbol itself
empirical question into which

129.219.247.33 on Fri, 19 Feb 2021 17:25:19 UTC
706 CHURCH HISTORY
sense, life) and out

between bloods is e
To speak in this wa
language causes se
agents who bring th
is to argue that sym
they totally constru
Going back throug
the Hebrew Script
was thus equated
writing, the body/
the opposition bod
fertile, curative,7
eval clergy came t
the chalice. Small wonder too that reformers from the fourteenth to
the sixteenth centuries, whatever their technical theologies of euch
ristic presence, saw the administering of the cup to the laity as a
68. Georges Dumezil, "Le sang dans les langues classiques," Nouvelle revue franqai
d'hdmatologie 25 (1983): 401-4. (Interestingly enough, German does not have th
distinction.)
69. As it is in many religions; see A. Closs, "Blut," LTK, vol. 2, cols. 537-38; Schumann,
"Blut: religionsgeschichtlich," in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Handwarter-
buch ftir Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Tiibingen: Mohr [Siebeck],
1927), cols. 1154-56; and Kasper, "Der bleibende Gehalt," 377-80. Grosseteste (according
to Matthew Paris) states this explicitly; see Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, vol. 6, 143.
70. For example, Alger of Liege, De sacramentis corporis et sanguinis Dominici, bk 2, c. 8, PL
180, col. 826D. For other examples, among them Peter Lombard, Rupert of Deutz,
Gerald of Wales, and Peter the Chanter, see Macy, Theologies of the Eucharist, 64-70, and
Dinzelbacher, "Das Blut Christi," nn. 58 and 67. Medieval authors themselves explored
the connection of the physical object and its religious significance. Robert of Melun (d.
1167), for example, argued that God can change anything into anything but in fact he
converts bread to flesh and wine to blood because wine has more "similitude" with
blood; see Jorissen, Die Entfaltung der Transsubstantiationslehre, 27-28.
71. In the later Middle Ages, the blood was sometime carried in procession aroun
sown fields to protect crops and increase fertility; see Rudolf, "Die Heili
Verehrung im Uberblick," 16. And on women's blood as food to fetus and suckl
Caroline Walker Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the
Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone, 1991), 181-238.
72. Hans Wissmann, Otto Bbcher, and Walter Michel, "Blut...," TRE, vol. 6, 727-38; and
Mitchell B. Merback, The Thief, the Cross, and the Wheel: Pain and the Spectacle of Punish-
ment in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (London: Reaktion, 1999), 97-98. Note the
prominence of blood as healing in the story of Longinus. See also R. Po-chia Hsia, The
Myth of Ritual Murder: Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1988), 9, 143-51.
73. For the power of cannibalistic images, see Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 319, n. 75, 412, n. 77;
and Schumann, "Blut: religionsgeschichtlich," cols. 1154-56. For the motif of blood-
eating in popular piety, see Frederic C. Tubach, Index exemplorum: A Handbook of
Medieval Religious Tales, FF Communications 204 (Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Sciences
and Letters, 1969), number 761.

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audacious act of rebelli

diate access to God.74
But blood was also cruor: death, discord, suffering, horror, division.
It was escape from body and destruction of body; it breached body. It
was the drops, bits, fragments, of which Aelred and Gerhard so
insistently speak. Throughout medieval miracle collections stream
stories of bits of hair, walls, utensils-as well as, of course, the host
itself-that bleed in order to display insults and accuse perpetrators.75
Christian sin itself was represented as bodily transgression, blood-
shedding-for example, in the late medieval devotional image known
as the Feiertagschristus, which depicts peasants and peasant imple-
ments bloodying Christ by disobeying the Third Commandment.76
However horrifying it is, it is (alas!) not surprising that blood relics-
and hosts (bodies) breached by blood-were associated not only with
relatively innocent competition among religious houses, cities, and
monachies but also with pogroms and crusades, the slaughtering of
Jews, and the persecution of heretics.77
74. See the woodcut from 1530 in Leopold Kretzenbacher, Bild-Gedanken der spiitmittelalter-
lichen HI. Blut-Mystik und ihr Fortleben in mittel- und siidosteuropiiischen Volksilberlieferun-
gen (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997), 89, figure 10.
Here Martin Luther and Jan Hus give the Lord's Supper under both species in front of
an altar with a huge grape vine curling around a chalice or basin that contains the
crucified Christ als Blutquell.
75. For objects that accuse by bleeding, see n. 17 above, and see also Peter Browe, "Die
Eucharistie als Zaubermittel im Mittelalter," Archiv fiir Kulturgeschichte 20 (1930): 134-
54. On the theme of horror cruoris, see n. 8 above.
76. Robert Wildhaber, "Feiertagschristus," in RDK, vol. 7, cols. 1002-1010. See also Rudolf
Berliner, "Arma Christi," Miinchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 3rd ser., vol. 6 (1955):
68, who sees the motif more broadly as "Christ attacked by the sins of the world," and
Douglas Gray, Themes and Images in the Medieval English Religious Lyric (London:
Routledge and K. Paul, 1972), 51-54, who gives examples of the theme in devotional
literature.
77. See Bauerreiss, Pie Jesu; Browe, "Die Eucharistie als Zaubermittel;" Lionel Rothkrug,
"Popular Religion and Holy Shrines: Their Influence on the Origins of the German
Reformation and Their Role in German Cultural Development," in Religion and the
People, 800-1700, ed. J. Obelkevich (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1979), 20-86, esp. 27-8; F. Lotter, "Hostienfrevelvorwurf und Blutwunderfiilschung bei
den Judenverfolgungen von 1298 ('Rintfleisch') und 1336-1338 ('Armleder')," in
Fiilschungen im Mittelalter: Internationaler Kongress der Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
Miinchen, 16.-19. September 1986, 5 vols. (Hannover: Hahn, 1988), vol. 5, 533-84; Hsia,
The Myth of Ritual Murder; Rainer Erb, ed., Die Legende vom Ritualmord: Zur Geschichte der
Blutbeschuldigung gegen Juden (Berlin: Metropol, 1993), especially Friedrich Lotter, "In-
nocens Virgo et Martyr: Thomas von Monmouth und die Verbreitung der Ritual-
mordlegende im Hochmittelalter," 25-72; Diane Wood, ed., Christianity and Judaism:
Papers Read at the 1991 Summer Meeting and the 1992 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical
History Society, Studies in Church History 29 (Oxford: Published for the Ecclesiastical
History Society by Blackwell, 1992); J. M. Minty, "Judengasse to Christian Quarter: The
Phenomenon of the Converted Synagogue in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Holy
Roman Empire," in Popular Religion in Germany and Central Europe, 1400-1800, eds. R.

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708 CHURCH HISTORY
V. AN EXAMPLE FROM ICONOGRAPHY
It is this blood--complex symbolically and historically-that pou

out in late medieval art and devotion, threatening body by breachi
but also, by this same breaching, offering access. I turn for a fin
illustration to the familiar but exceedingly complex iconography o
the so-called Mass of St. Gregory, the earliest examples of which
appear about 1400.78 [See Figures 1 and 2.] Often said to go back to
story in Paul the Deacon's Life of Gregory, in which a woman
convinced of the real presence by the apparition of a bloody finger in
place of bread, the motif may, in fact, have nothing to do with ear
accounts of Gregory except insofar as they emphasize his devotion
the eucharist and his efficacy at gaining release for souls in the period
of purgation after death.79 Whatever its origins (and they may w
Scribner and T. Johnson (New York: St. Martin's, 1996), 58-86; John McCulloh, "Jewis
Ritual Murder: William of Norwich, Thomas of Monmouth, and the Early Dissemina-
tion of the Myth," Speculum 72.3 (1997): 698-740; Robert C. Stacey, "From Ritua
Crucifixion to Host Desecration: Jews and the Body of Christ," Jewish History 12.1 (1998
11-28; and Miri Rubin, Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews (Ne
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999). Blood can, of course, have denotations an
connotations of community, especially in a family or racial sense, as the rhetoric
National Socialism makes clear; see Kasper, "Der bleibende Gehalt," 378. I have di
cussed these issues in "Violent Imagery in Late Medieval Piety," Bulletin of the Germa
Historical Institute 30 (Spring, 2002): 3-36.
78. The earliest example (ca. 1400) seems to come from St. Georg, in Riziins (Graubiinden
Switzerland, although some consider this a precursor or a parallel tradition; see Berlin
"Arma Christi," plate 18 on 68. According to Marianne Lorenz, "Die Gregoriusmes
Entstehung und Ikonographie" (Diss., Masch.-Schr., Innsbruck, 1956), the earliest exam
is a relief in the parish church of Miinnerstadt (1428). On the Gregorymass generally
Herbert Thurston, "The Mass of St. Gregory," The Month 112 (1908): 303-319; J. A. Endre
"Die Darstellung der Gregoriusmesse im Mittelalter," Zeitschriftfiir christliche Kunst 30.11-
(1917): 146-56; Louis R6au, Iconographie de l'art chritien, vol. 3, pt 2 (Paris: Presses univer
sitaires de France, 1958), 609-15; Comte J. de Borchgrave d'Altena, "La Messe de saint
Gregoire: Etude iconographique," Musees royaux des beaux-arts: Bulletin; Bulletin Koninklij
Musea voor Schone Kunsten 8 (1959): 3-34; Carlo Bertelli, "The Image of Pity in Santa Croce
Gerusalemme," in Douglas Fraser, Howard Hibbard, and Milton J. Lewine, eds., Essays
the History of Art Presented to Rudolf Wittkower (London: Phaidon, 1967), 40-55; Colin Eisler
"The Golden Christ of Cortona and the Man of Sorrows in Italy," The Art Bulletin 51.2 (Jun
1969): 107-118, 233-246; Westfehling, Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, especially 16-54; Bri
itte d'Hainaut-Zveny, "Les messes de saint Gr6goire dans les retables des Pays-Bas. Mise en
perspective historique d'une image poldmique, dogmatique et utilitariste," Bulletin: Musees
royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique, Bruxelles 41-42 (1992-93): 35-61; and Flora Lewis, "Rewar
ing Devotion: Indulgences and the Promotion of Images," in Diana Wood, ed., The Chur
and the Arts, Ecclesiastical History Society (Oxford: Published for the Ecclesiastical Histor
Society by Blackwell, 1992), 179-94. Thomas Lentes and the Art History Research Group a
Miinster are preparing an extensive catalogue of Gregorymass iconography. I discuss t
iconography in Bynum, "Seeing and Seeing Beyond."
79. To say that the image does not originate as an illustration of Paul the Deacon does no
of course mean that there is no connection of Gregory to eucharistic devotion in earl
literature. There is much in Gregory's own writing about the mass, and the devotion
the arma Christi and the Schmerzensmann was early associated with Gregory's feast da
See Westfehling, Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, 16-22.

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FIG. 1. Mass of St. Gregory,

wing from the altar of the C
Museum, Luibeck.

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710 CHURCH HISTORY
FIG. 2. Mass of St. Greg

Maria zur Wiese, Soest.

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have been, as Endres

may have come from
tached),80 the depiction
elements. The first and
the Schmerzensmann (th
his torture (the so-called
is little emphasized (an
indicating that the mo
second (closer to the sto
shows Christ present a
appearing at the elevat
connection to the salvat
an inscription that off
the image84 or through
mass.85
80. See the classic article by

Bertelli, "The Image of Pity in
Gregors des Grossen, 18-22.
81. See, for example, the Grego
from about 1490, in the Ger
duced in Gertrud Schiller, Iko
1966-80), vol. 2, plate 807. For
N. Nemilov, "Gedanken zur g
Beispiel der sog. Gregorsmess
Wege-Beispiel, ed. Brigitte To
blot, 1991), 126, and Westfehl
82. For an example see the altar
ches Museum, Utrecht; reprod
ing to Westfehling, Christ ble
many examples do not show t
inspection reveals, however, t
sometimes bypasses even the
times the chalice is covered by
mass (see, for example, ibid., 40
of Europe and New Spain, 115
83. For an example, see the m
Bibliotheque nationale, Cod. L
Gregors des Grossen, 24, poin
84. See, for example, the altar
of the fifteenth century (the i
Hermitage; see Nemilov, "Ge
123-33 and esp. plate 20. See a
1446; Westfehling, Die Messe
probably our earliest exampl
"Rewarding Devotion."
85. Mass of St. Gregory, attri
Libeck; see Brigitte Heise an
Erliuterung der Bildprogramm
Hansestadt Liibeck, 1993), 67

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712 CHURCH HISTORY
Once again then in

making througho
both closely connect
own as stimulator
theology, pious pre
within, the rim of t
altarpiece attribute
host almost covers the Schmerzensmann. The wounds are hidden be-
hind a circle whose rim seems to hold in the blood, as George Cart
almost contemporaneous vision suggested.86 The doctrine of conco
itance is made visual; every fragment is whole; body contains blo
In such depiction, blood is included only as part of the body fro
which it flows; it is, like body, a means of incorporation into t
community, Ecclesia, which forms that body.
But even in the Mass of St. Gregory, blood escaped. It flowed in th
Mass, and outside it as well. And it leapt away from the host as w
as leading to it.87 For example, this wing from the St. Anne altar of
Wiesenkirche in Soest, 1473, combines the elements of the Grego
mass I have carefully sorted out-vision, eucharistic celebration, a
purgatory-and yet does more. [figure 2] What we see here before
astonished Gregory is the blood leaping not only from chalice to p
but also from chalice to graveyard where the poor souls who rece
it appear to rise from the dead under its saving power. The impac
this Gregorymass is completely different from that of the alm
contemporary painting attributed to Dedeke. It is not clear whet
mass is being said. The pope wears his tiara;88 the paten is empt
there is no host on the altar linen. Blood takes on a life and direction
an energy, of its own. Although iconographically the Gregorym
was by definition connected to altar and celebrant (it is Gregory w
86. See n. 18 above.

87. Mass of St. Gregory, Wing of the St. Anne Altar, Wiesenkirche, Soest, about
reproduced in Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, vol. 2, plate 806. For
examples, see Hans Georg Gmelin, Spiitgotische Tafelmalerei in Niedersachsen und Br
(Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1974), 162, plate 22.8; 260, plate 67.1; 379, plate 1
381, plate 121.1; 430, plate 142.3; 467, plate 153.1; and 469, plate 154.2.
88. It seems that, from at least the twelfth century on, the pope would have remove
tiara (as bishops today remove the mitre) during the canon of the mass. See J
Braun, Die liturgische Gewandung im Occident und Orient nach Ursprung und Entwick
Verwendung und Symbolik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964)
87, and on the tiara as a form of mitre, see Gerhard B. Ladner, "Der Ursprung un
mittelalterliche Entwicklung der paipstlichen Tiara," in Herbert A. Cahn and
Simon, eds., Roland Hampe zum 70. Geburtstag am 2. Dezember 1978 dargebracht
Mitarbeitern, Schiilern und Freunden, 2 vols. (Mainz: Von Zabern, 1980), vol. 1, 44
and vol. 2, plates 86-93. This suggests that the Soest depiction is not of the mome
consecration.

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makes it a Gregorymas
from Christ to penitent
Dedeke version lifts so
crated by the celebran
elevated host echoes th
ders and buttocks) that
is subsumed in the ho
image from Soest, the
carries our eyes not to p
the sharp lines of blood
from chalice and towar
Our eyes go toward C
need salvation. The mo
splinters to our right. B
VI. CONCLUSION
A full exploration of blood piety would necessitate a discussio

almost every aspect of medieval devotion and medieval life
intention here has not been to give a complete history of blood
and blood mysticism but rather to point to the remarkable asymm
of body and blood historians have been inclined to label simpl
cursorily "eucharistic." Hence I have argued that body and
were different kinds of symbols and that blood was doubly
twofold historically as eucharist and relic, twofold symbolical
sanguis and cruor, life and death.
More could be said. But even the material I have explored
suggests three modifications of received wisdom. First, any gen
ization that sees in medieval blood imagery echoes of eucha
devotion must take into account the complex ways in which b
cult departed from and competed with eucharist. As the monk
Weingarten who commissioned Gerhard's treatise or the pilgrim
F camp argued, relic and vision might offer more immediate
than did the (withheld) communion cup. Not every referen
blood, to drinking and eating, to the wound in Christ's sid
89. Westfehling, Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, 24, sees support of the doctrine of t
stantiation as "der eigentliche Hauptgedanke des Bildthemas;" see also 32. F
argument against this interpretation, which (in my view) overemphasizes dogm
my "Seeing and Seeing Beyond." The basic theme of the Gregorymass is salv
especially through blood. Such an interpretation makes more plausible the clo
nection of Gregorymass iconography to Reformation uses of blood imagery
reflect, of course, a different eucharistic theology). See n. 74 above for an exam

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714 CHURCH HISTORY
sacrifice, was an
Gregorymass is, up
rather the spilling
purgatorial sufferin
Second, any genera
ical contact) with
visuality with the
medieval blood ven
of vision and visua
puts it.91 The pilgr
touched reliquaries
ages of wounds, a
medieval piety wa
seeing.92
Third, any interpretation that sees desire for the chalice as clamor
for access or stresses blood as life must also take into account the dark
side of blood mysticism. For blood was cruor as well as sanguis; it wa
a symbol of violation as well as fertility, of torture as well as birth.
And in its proclaiming of violation, it accused both self and other. The
Man of Sorrows who appeared to St. Gregory was a symbol of
resurrection as well as of torment; his sacrifice saved. But the blood
that springs into the churchyard to save the poor souls depicted on the
Soest altarwing also accused the Jewish faces that clustered around in
the conventional arma Christi. And, as Gerhard of Cologne wrote,
Christians are the new Jews. Their sins daily kill God. Medieval blood
devotion was a piety of horror, accusation, and self-accusation as well
as of encounter with God.
90. It is worth remembering in this connection that fifteenth-century devotions to the hear
and wound of Jesus sometimes relate it not to eucharist but to baptism and penance, a
that the pressing out of Christ's blood (even in the image of the winepress) is often n
associated with sacramental feeding at all but rather with the need to drain every dro
in expiation for the sins of the world. See Ancient Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Carthusian Monks of the XIV-XVII Centuries (London: Benziger Bros., 1895; 2nd ed
1920), esp. 1-4, 17-28, 47-48, 61-62, and 185.
91. Dumoutet, Le Desir de voir l'hostie, and see above n. 6.
92. For a parallel point, see Jeffrey Hamburger, "Seeing and Believing: The Suspicion
Sight and the Authentication of Vision in Late Medieval Art," in Imagination un
Wirklichkeit: Zum Verhiiltnis von mentalen und realen Bilder in der Kunst der friihen Neuzeit
ed. Alessandro Nova and Klaus Kriiger (Mainz: Von Zabern, 2000), 47-70.

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The Blood of Christ in the Later Middle Ages

Author(s): Caroline Walker Bynum

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4146189

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In one of our earliest descriptions of meditation on the crucifix, Aelred

Caroline Walker Bynum is University Professor at Columbia University in the City

? 2002, The American Society of Church History

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But, if we turn again

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and division as well

There are many reasons for this disjunction or asymmetry be-

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12. Peter Browe, Die Eucharisti

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16. "Les 'Vitae Sororum

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II. BLOOD RELICS

Body/blood asymmetry is then profoundly eucharistic. But

19. For two examples, see n. 56 below.

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side when he died fo

24. "Non pas comment u Sacrement/Mes en sa fourme proprement/Vermel comment

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who had received it fr

27. On Braulio, see Caroline Wa

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Wunder, 166-71; Jensch, "Die Weingartener Heilig-Blut- und Stiftertradition," 37-39;

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around 1300 seen as vio

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(the period between

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43. Thomas Aquinas, Summa the

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46. Peter Browe, "Die eu

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on the subject, second,

III. GERHARD OF COLOGNE

As this brief overview suggests, the relationship of blood venera-

50. Boockmann, "Der Streit," 391-92.

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recently been publ

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not have risen whole (

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But blood as wine comes in Gerhard's treatise almost as an after-

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60. Dinzelbacher, "Das Blut Ch

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through the matte

The asymmetry of body and blood is, however, rooted in something

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who stood round,... the

64. "The Monk of Evesham's V

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sense, life) and out

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audacious act of rebelli

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V. AN EXAMPLE FROM ICONOGRAPHY

It is this blood--complex symbolically and historically-that pou