The Altar and its Environment, 1150-1400

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 Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages
vol. 4

Series Editor:

Kathryn A. Smith, New York University

Editorial Board:

Sharon E. J. Gerstel, University of California, Los Angeles

Adam S. Cohen, University of Toronto
Finbarr Barry Flood, New York University

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 The Altar and its Environment,
1150-1400

Justin E.A. Kroesen and Victor M. Schmidt (eds.)

H
F

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 © 2009 Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium and the authors.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permis-
sion of the publisher.

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ISBN 978-2-503-?????-?

Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper

IV

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 Table of Contents

Justin E.A. Kroesen and Victor M. Schmidt

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Michele Bacci
Side Altars and “Pro Anima” Chapels in the Medieval Mediterranean:
Evidence from Cyprus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Paul Binski
Statues, Retables, and Ciboria: The English Gothic Altarpiece in Context, Before 1350 . . . 31
Sible de Blaauw
Altar Imagery in Italy Before the Altarpiece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Andrea De Marchi
La postérité du devant d’autel à Venise: retables orfévrés et retables peints . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Francesca Español
Tabernacle-Retables in the Kingdom of Aragón . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Fabienne Joubert
Un recours aux retables sculptés en pierre, à l’abbatiale de Saint-Denis (XIIIe siècle) . . . . . 109
Stephan Kemperdick
Altar Panels in Northern Germany, 1200-1350 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Justin E.A. Kroesen
Recentering Side Altars in Medieval Church Interiors:
The Example of Late Romanesque Churches in Groningen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Pierre-Yves Le Pogam
Le retable de Carrières . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Ebbe Nyborg
Retables with Two Spires: A Contribution on the Early Development of the Altarpiece . . . . . 183
Victor M. Schmidt
Ensembles of Painted Altarpieces and Frontals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Peter Tångeberg
Retables and Winged Altarpieces from the Fourteenth Century:
Swedish Altar Decorations in Their European Context. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Rosa Terés i Tomás
The Origin and Development of Stone Retables in Fourteenth-Century Catalonia . . . . . . . 241
Louis van Tongeren
Use and Function of Altars in Liturgical Practice According to the Libri ordinarii
in the Low Countries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

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svcma4_tekst.indd 6 25-11-2009 08:11:29
 Introduction
Justin Kroesen and Victor Schmidt
Groningen, August 2009

Recent decades have witnessed a modest “liturgical turn” in art history. The Greek term “lei-
tourgia”, literally meaning ‘public work’, was used in Byzantium as a specific reference to the celebration
of the Eucharist. In the Latin West, is was usually employed to designate all rites, observances, or
procedures prescribed for public worship. These ceremonial acts, which are often translated as ‘min-
istry’ or ‘worship’, centered around the twofold core of Mass (or Eucharist) and choral prayers (or
Divine Office). Increasingly, scholarship no longer focuses on objects of ecclesiastical art exclusively
in terms of their aesthetic and technical qualities, but also in relation to the practical requirements of
those who used them. However beautiful an object might be, it remained an implement, with its own
liturgical or nonliturgical application. In view of the fact that the lion’s share of surviving medieval art
was created in the ecclesiastical context of liturgy and devotion, the perspective of Christian ritual in
the setting of the church building is fundamental to our understanding of medieval works of art. Over
the last decades, this approach has resulted in a fruitful collaboration between art historians and litur-
gical scholars, who, in the past, tended to operate rather independently of one another.1
An integral approach of art and liturgy is especially useful in the analysis of the altar, the focal
point of liturgical action in the church building. It is here that the priest celebrates the Mass, the cen-
tral act of public worship, with its composed nature as a sacrificial meal. From the fourth century
onwards, three main types of altar developed. Firstly, there was the table altar, consisting of a slab or
mensa with one central support or with four supports at its corners and sometimes a fifth in the mid-
dle. Secondly, there was the chest altar, a slab supported by four side panels often with columns at the
corners. Thirdly, the block altar evolved, the most common type in medieval church buildings, consist-
ing of a slab resting on a block-shaped base, the stipes. An altar was consecrated by the placement of
one or more relics in it, usually in a cavity in the slab or in the block just below the slab. Sometimes,
the stipes was richly sculpted. In the Middle Ages it was not unusual to make a niche in the side of the
altar block for storing objects which played a role in the Mass, such as candles, ampullae and books.
Medieval altar blocks have been preserved in hundreds of churches all across Europe.2
From an early date, the ritual significance of the altar was reinforced by a range of decorations.
From the fourth century onwards, the altar was covered on top and on all sides with cloths out of
reverence for the ritual which took place there. Most conspicuous was the frontal or antependium
covering the front. Besides, this type of decoration could be executed in a variety of materials, not just
textiles. Other altars were visually emphazised by a ciborium in the shape of a canopy, a small open
temple supported by columns. Sometimes, relics connected to the altar were kept in large and richly
decorated reliquaries which attracted extra attention to the altar, thus strengthening the veneration
for it. Furthermore, in many churches, the spatial context of the altar was further enhanced by means
of wall and vault paintings or mosaics. These categories, which could be applied alongside one another
or in combinations, may be considered precursors of the altarpiece or retable, which in turn united a
number of their properties. The term ‘retable’ (a contraction of the Latin words retro and tabulum)

1 2
Sible de Blaauw pointed out the first steps in this The fundamental study of the altar in all its material
development in 1991; see “Architecture and liturgy in late aspects is Joseph Braun, Der christliche Altar in seiner ge-
Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Traditions and trends in schichtlichen Entwicklung, 2 vols. (Munich: Karl Widmann,
modern scholarship,” Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 33 1924).
(1991), pp. 1-34, here 1-3.

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 justin kroesen and victor schmidt

refers to a permanent, upright ornamental screen featuring sculptures or paintings, raised up above
or behind an altar with which it forms a visual unity. From the thirteenth century on, the retable came
to dominate the altar to such an extent that in both common usage and scholarly discourse the word
“altar” is often used where “retable” or “altarpiece” is meant. However, the rise of the retable was always
gradual, could differ from one region to another, and did not completely supplant the aforementioned
decorations. Moreover, church authorities never formulated general stipulations about the placement
and design of retables. Therefore, their erection must be seen as no more—and certainly no less—than
a widespread custom that created a proper environment for the ritual.
The last decades have seen the publication of the proceedings of a number of conferences that
addressed such themes as altar decorations, particularly altarpieces or retables, and the relationsship
between art and liturgy.3 Most of the papers in the present volume grew out of a symposium held at
the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, from June 8-10, 2006, hosted by the Department of Art
and Architectural History at the Faculty of Arts and the Institute for Liturgical Research at the Faculty
of Theology and Religious Studies. The title of the conference, “The Altar and Its Decorations, 1200-
1400,” and that of this volume, “The Altar and Its Environment, 1150-1400,” may suggest that this col-
lection of papers is similar to the proceedings of those conferences. Although the authors are, of course,
indebted to them all in varying degrees, it will be useful to define more precisely the specific time span,
scope, and theme of the present volume.
The time span indicated in the title (1150-1400) is not strictly fixed and does not imply the start
and ending of a well-defined phase in the history of altar decorations; it serves only to indicate that
the emphasis in the volume lies neither in the period preceding 1150, i.e., the early Middle Ages, nor
in that after 1400, i.e., the late Middle Ages. We wished to focus not on the origin of the main types of
altar decoration—i.e., the ciborium, the frontal or antependium, and the retable or altarpiece—for this
subject has been relatively well studied, especially compared to the small number of preserved objects.4
In late medieval altar decorations, the two most conspicuous types to be discerned—in a permissable
oversimplification of real developments—are the fixed polyptych in the south and the winged altarpiece

3 On the Dynamics Between Image and Altar in the Middle

Including Italian Altarpieces, 1250-1550. Function and
Design, ed. by Eve Borsook and Fiorella Superbi Gioffredi
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); L’altare: la struttura,
l’immagine, l’azione liturgica (Milan, 1991), published as Arte
cristiana 80 (1991), no. 753, a monographic issue; Figur und
Raum. Mittelalterliche Holzbildwerke im historischen und
kunstgeographischen Kontext, ed. by Uwe Albrecht and Jan
von Bonsdorff (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1994); Cathédrales.
Liturgie et patrimoine (Paris: Desclée/Mame, 1998); Heiliger
Raum. Architektur, Kunst und Liturgie in mittelalterlichen
Kathedralen und Stiftskirchen, ed. by Franz Kohlschein and
Peter Wünsche (Münster: Aschendorff, 1998); Kunst und
Liturgie im Mittelalter, ed. by Nicolas Bock, Sible de Blaauw,
Christoph Luitpold Frommel, and Herbert Kessler (Munich:
Hirmer, 2000); Liturgical Installations from Late Antiquity
to the Gothic Period (Motovun, 1998), published as Hortus
Artium Medievalium 5 (1999), a monographic issue; Arredi
di culto e disposizioni liturgiche a Roma da Costantino a Sisto
IV (Rome, 1999), published as Mededelingen van het
Nederlands Instituut te Rome 59 (2000), a monographic
issue; Art, cérémonial et liturgie au Moyen Âge, ed. by Nicolas
Bock, Peter Kurmann, Serena Romano, and Jean-Michel
Spieser (Rome: Viella, 2002); Decorating the Lord’s Table:
Ages, ed. by Søren Kaspersen and Erik Thunø (Copenhagen:
Museum Tusculanum and University of Copenhagen,
2006); Objects, Images and the Word: Art in the Service of
the Liturgy, ed. by Colum Hourihane (Princeton: Index of
Christian Art, Department of Art and Archaeology,
Princeton University, 2003); Kunst und Liturgie. Choranla-
gen des Spätmittelalters – ihre Architektur, Ausstattung und
Nutzung, ed. by Anna Moraht-Fromm (Ostfildern: Jan
Thorbecke, 2003); The Altar from the 4th to the 15th Cen-
tury (Motovun, 2004), published as Hortus Artium Medie-
valium 11 (2005), a monographic issue; Zeremoniell und
Raum in der frühen italienischen Malerei, ed. by Stefan Wep-
pelmann (Petersberg: Michael Imhof, 2007).
4
See, for example, Christian Beutler, Die Entstehung des
Altaraufsatzes. Studien zum Grab Willibrords in Echternach
(Munich: Prestel, 1978); Jacques Bousquet, “Des antepen-
diums aux retables. Le problème du décor des autels et de
son emplacement,” Les Cahiers de Saiont-Michel de Cuxa 13
(1982), pp. 201-32; and Verena Fuchß, Das Altarensemble.
Eine Analyse des Komospitcharakters früh- und hochmittel-
alterlicher Altarausstattung (Weimar: VDG, 1999)
.

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 introduction

in the center and north of Europe.5 Since both have received extensive treatment in the past,6 we wanted
to shift the focus to the phase preceding these developments: mainly the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, a period that has hitherto received only limited scholarly attention. When some contribu-
tions slip into the fifteenth century, it is to discuss phenomena of a longue durée rather than new de-
velopments. The period under scrutiny starts when the altarpiece was well established and ends with
the great regional diversification of object types. The retable of the thirteenth and fourteenth century
in turn is characterized by a relative uniformity stretching across media and regions that enables com-
parisons to be made. Many altarpieces originated as formal versions of low dossals, even as altar
frontals remained largely in use. Other objects that served as models for the retable include shrines
containing a sculpted image of the Madonna or a saint, few examples of which have been preserved.
However, their survival in such far-flung regions as Norway, Sweden, Slovakia, Castile, and central
Italy indicates that they were once current throughout Europe.
These sometimes remarkable similarities have often been neglected because, traditionally, the
study of this material has tended to restrict itself to specific regions. In southern Europe, it was Italian
altarpieces that aroused the most interest among scholars, both Italians and non-Italians. Ever since
Hellmut Hager’s fundamental study on altarpieces in Tuscany,7 a steadily growing body of literature
on various types of panel painting in Italy, particularly early polyptychs, has come into existence.8 But
even here one notices a strong emphasis on central Italy, while other regions, such as the Veneto, have
only recently received scholarly attention.9 Outside Italy, the rich Romanesque and early Gothic herit-
age of Catalonia should be mentioned, of which a great deal can now be admired in museums in
Barcelona, Vic, and other Catalan cities.10 The rich corpus of fourteenth-century Catalan stone retables,

5 8
On morphological developments in the art of medieval
retables, see Braun, Der christliche Altar in seiner geschicht-
lichen Entwicklung, vol. 2, pp. 277-544; Piotr Skubiszewski,
“Le retable gothique sculpté: entre le dogme et l’univers
humain,” in Le retable d’Issenheim et la sculpture au nord des
Alpes à la fin du Moyen Âge, actes du colloque de Colmar (2-3
novembre, 1987), ed. by Christian Heck (Colmar: Musée
d’Unterlinden, 1989), pp. 13-47; Justin Kroesen and Regne-
rus Steensma, The Interior of the Medieval Village Church /
Het middeleeuwse dorpskerkinterieur (Louvain: Peeters,
2004), pp. 59-104; Rainer Kahsnitz and Achim Bunz, Carved
Splendor. Late Gothic Altarpieces in South Germany, Austria
and South Tirol (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2006), pp.
9-39.
6
Recent publications include: Caterina Limentani Virdis
and Mari Pietrogiovanna, I polittici (Venice: Arsenale,
2001); Flügelaltäre des späten Mittelalters, ed. by Hartmut
Krohm and Eike Oellermann (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer,
1992); Antwerpse retabels 15e-16e eeuw, 2 vols., ed. by Hans
Nieuwdorp (Antwerp: Kathedraal and Museum voor
Religieuze Kunst, 1993); Lynn Jacobs, Early Netherlandish
carved altarpieces 1380-1550. Medieval Tastes and Mass
Marketing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998);
Francis Cheetham, Alabaster Images of Medieval England
(Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003); and Kahsnitz and Bunz,
Carved Splendor.
7
Hellmut Hager, Die Anfänge des italienischen Altarbildes.
Untersuchungen zur Entstehungsgeschichte des toskanischen
Hochaltarretabels, Römische Forschungen der Bibliotheca
Hertziana 17 (Munich: A. Schroll, 1962).
Joanna Cannon, “Simone Martini, the Dominicans and the
Early Sienese Polyptych,” Journal of the Warburg and Cour-
tauld Institutes 55 (1982), pp. 78-82; eadem, “The Creation,
Meaning, and Audience of the Early Sienese Polyptych:
Evidence from the Friars,” in Italian Altarpieces 1250-1550.
Function and Design, pp. 41-79; Henk van Os, Sienese Altar-
pieces. 1215-1460. Form, Content, Function, 1215-1460, 2 vols.
(Groningen: Bouma’s Boekhuis and Egbert Forsten, 1984-
90); Klaus Krüger, Der frühe Bildkult des Franziskus in Ita-
lien. Gestalt und Funktionswandel des Tafelbildes im 13. und
14. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1992); the various
contributions in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and
Trecento, ed. by Victor M. Schmidt (Washington, D.C.:
National Gallery of Art, 2002); Victor M. Schmidt, “Tipo-
logie e funzioni della pittura senese su tavola,” in Duccio.
Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico, ed. by Ales-
sandro Bagnoli, Roberto Bartalini, Luciano Bellosi, and
Michel Laclotte (Siena: Monte dei Paschi di Siena, 2003),
pp. 531-69; Andrea De Marchi, “La tavola d’altare,” in Il Tre-
cento, Storia delle arti in Toscana, ed. by Max Seidel (Flo-
rence: Edifir, 2004), pp. 15-44.
9
Andrea De Marchi, “Polyptiques vénitiens. Anamnèse
d’une identité méconnue,” in Autour de Lorenzo Veneziano.
Fragments de polyptiques vénitiens du XIVe siècle (Cinisello
Balsamo: Silvana; Tours: Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2005), pp.
13-43; Cristina Guarnieri, Lorenzo Veneziano (Cinisello Bal-
samo, 2006), pp. 73-96.
10
The most important collections are in Barcelona (Museu
Nacional d’Art de Catalunya and Museu Frederic Marès),
Girona (Museu d’Art), Solsona (Museu Diocesà i Comarcal),
and Vic (Museu Episcopal).

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 justin kroesen and victor schmidt

which were analyzed in the 1930s by Augustí Duran i Sanpere,11 have recently been studied by Rosa
Terés i Tomás,12 while their painted counterparts were analyzed by María Luisa Melero Moneo, among
others.13 The imposing Spanish “retablo” in its painted form was studied by Judith Berg Sobré, while
the medieval altarpiece in the Iberian Peninsula in general was more recently treated by Justin
Kroesen.14
German panel paintings from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, including frontals and al-
tarpieces, were discussed during two recent conferences,15 while early carved altarpieces are the subject
of a recent monograph by Norbert Wolf.16 Many of these art works, together with the still relatively
little-known wealth of medieval church furnishings in the Scandinavian countries, point to a phenom-
enon that has been termed “the conserving power of Lutheranism”: nowhere in Europe has more
medieval church art been preserved than in the Lutheran churches of Germany and Scandinavia.17
Many of these art works may still be seen in churches, whereas others were transferred to museums.18
A case in point is the Swedish island of Gotland, which after a considerable economic and cultural
florescence experienced a serious crisis after its conquest by the Danish king Valdemar IV Atterdag in
1361, resulting in the preservation of many church furnishings from the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries.19 Since 1995, and seven decades after Poul Nørlund’s study on Denmark’s Romanesque
“Golden Altars,”20 several comprehensive Scandinavian studies have been published: on Norwegian
altar frontals (Unn Plahter)21 and on early Swedish altarpieces (Peter Tångeberg).22 English painted
altarpieces have been the object of studies by Paul Binski, among others.23 Only very recently a survey
of early French sculpted retables was undertaken, in the wake of an important exhibition at the Musée

11
Augustí Duran i Sanpere, Los retablos de piedra, 2 vols.
(Barcelona: Alpha, 1932-34).
12
Rosa Terés i Tomás, “La producción de retablos de piedra
en Cataluña durante el período gótico,” in Retablos escul-
pidos en Aragón. Del gótico al barroco, ed. by María del Car-
men Lacarra Ducay (Zaragoza: Institución “Fernando el
Católico”, 2002), pp. 213-58.
13
María Luisa Melero Moneo, La pintura sobre tabla del
gótico lineal. Frontales, laterales de altar y retablos en el reino
de Mallorca y los condados catalanes (Bellaterra: Universitat
de Barcelona, Servei de Publicacions, 2005)
14
Judith Berg Sobré, Behind the Altar Table: The
Development of the Painted Retable in Spain, 1350-1500
(Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1989); Justin
E.A. Kroesen, Staging the Liturgy. The Medieval Altarpiece
in the Iberian Peninsula (Louvain: Peeters, 2009).
15
Proceedings published as Das Aschaffenburger Tafelbild.
Studien zur Tafelmalerei des 13. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Erwin
Emmerling and Claudia Ringer (Munich: K.M. Lipp, Bay-
erisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, 1997); Das Soester
Antependium und die frühe mittelalterliche Tafelmalerei.
Kunsttechnische und kunsthistorische Beiträge, Westfalen 80,
ed. by Joachim Poeschke, Hermann Arnhold, Manfred
Luchterhandt and Hans Portsteffen (Münster: Aschendorff,
2002).
16
Norbert Wolf, Deutsche Schnitzretabel des 14. Jahrhun-
derts (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft,
2002). See also Entstehung und Frühgeschichte des Flügelal-
tarschreins. ed. by Hartmut Krohm, Klaus Krüger and Matt-
hias Weniger (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert, 2001).
17
Cf. the thought-provoking volume Die bewahrende Kraft
des Luthertums. Mittelalterliche Kunstwerke in evangelischen
Kirchen, ed. by Johann Michael Fritz (Regensburg: Schnell
& Steiner, 1997).
18
Among the most important collections are the Bergen
Museum, the Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm, and
the Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen.
19
Among the scant international literature on the churches
of Gotland, Erland Lagerlöf and Gunnar Svahnström, Die
Kirchen Gotlands (Kiel: Conrad Stein Verlag, 1991) deserves
mention.
20
Poul Nørlund, Gyldne Altre. Jysk Metalkunst fra
Valdemarstiden, 2nd ed. with a postscript by Tage E.
Christiansen (Højbjerg: Wormianum, 1968).
21
Norwegian Medieval Altar Frontals and Related Materials,
Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia 11
(Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider, 1995), and, more recently,
Unn Plahter, Painted Altar Frontals of Norway. An Art-
historical and Technical Study of the 31 Painted Panels
Preserved, 3 vols. (London: Archetype, 2004).
22
Peter Tångeberg, Holzskulptur und Altarschrein: Studien
zu Form, Material und Technik: mittelalterliche Plastik in
Schweden (Munich: Callwey, 1989); Retabel und Altar-
schreine des 14. Jahrhunderts. Schwedische Altarausstattun-
gen in ihrem europäischen Kontext (Stockholm: Kungl. Vit-
terhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, 2005).
23
Christopher Norton, David Park, and Paul Binski,
Dominican Painting in East Anglia. The Thornham Parva
Retable and the Musée de Cluny Frontal (Woodbridge:
Boydell, 1987); The Thornham Parva Retable. Technique,
Conservation and Context of an English Medieval Painting,
Painting and practice 1, ed. by Anne Massing (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2003).

svcma4_tekst.indd 4 25-11-2009 08:11:30

 introduction

du Louvre, Paris, organized by Pierre-Yves Le Pogam, who is also a contributor to the present volume. 24
Similar discussions of such material in other parts of Europe, particularly eastern Europe, is, if we are
not mistaken, rare or nonexistent.
It must be said that interregional relationships have not gone unnoticed altogether. In par-
ticular, a word of praise is owed to the connoisseurs of the Scandinavian frontals and altarpieces. In
his writings, Peter Tångeberg has consistently maintained that Swedish altarpieces and tabernacles
from the fourteenth century reflect traditions well established in other parts of western and northern
Europe. This holds particularly true for England, the Low Countries, and parts of Germany, where
almost all contemporary examples have vanished as a result of iconoclasm and/or subsequent artistic
renewal, which makes Scandinavian medieval church art all the more significant. It is precisely these
kinds of interregional artistic relationships that we would like to bring to light in the present volume,
which combines scholarship on altar decorations in many parts of Europe. Indeed, this is probably the
first time that studies on altars and their decorations in such diverse locations as Iceland, Sweden,
Denmark, Germany, England, the Low Countries, central France, Catalonia, Mallorca, northern and
central Italy, and Cyprus have been gathered in a single volume. We hope that this pan-European scope
will reveal connections that for many have always gone unnoticed, and that it may thus contribute to
a new perspective on European art that transcends modern national boundaries.
Although the word “altar” figures large in the title of this book, the reader should not expect
detailed discussions of altars and their formal typology. Instead, the focus is on the “environment” of
the altar, by which is meant the often heterogeneous character of the altars’ decoration, the objects
themselves as well as their physical and spatial environments. Ideally, of course, both aspects should
be given equal weight, but for very practical reasons this is not always possible. After all, only rarely
does one find altars and their decorations well preserved and fully in situ: quite often, if at all, only the
movable altar decorations survive in churches or museums, while their original contexts have been
destroyed or at least greatly altered. This circumstance leads almost naturally to a study of their mate-
rial quality and formal typology. Indeed, a fair number of the contributions in this volume discuss
particular types of altar decorations, such as wooden retables with two spires (Ebbe Nyborg), openwork
tabernacle-retables (Francesca Español Bertrán), and carved stone altarpieces (Fabienne Joubert,
Pierre-Yves Le Pogam, Rosa Terés i Tomás). Such studies are very useful but, at the same time, limited
if the interaction with the original spatial context is not (or cannot be) considered at least hypotheti-
cally.
At the other end of the spectrum are the altars and their decorations that themselves have
disappeared while the architectural context they once belonged to has been preserved. In the present
volume, Michele Bacci studies the often neglected or heavily altered medieval churches on Cyprus,
while Justin Kroesen focuses on a group of churches in the Netherlands, where all altars were cleared
away by Calvinist Protestants. Naturally, here the approach is rather archaeological, aimed at recogniz-
ing traces of vanished altars and their decorations, such as wall paintings and niches, windows, and
scars in church walls. For the detective, these traces may serve as “circumstantial evidence” for altar
situations that have long since disappeared. Somewhere halfway between these two extremes is the
contribution by Fabienne Joubert, which focuses on a group of altarpieces in the radial chapels of the
abbey church at Saint-Denis. Although not all of these retables have been preserved in situ, and not
every chapel still has its original decoration, the strong physical and iconographic relationship among
altar, altarpiece, and the other decorations, such as the stained-glass windows, is evident.
In his contribution, Sible de Blaauw reminds us that before the establishment of the altarpiece,
other decorative elements, including apse paintings and mosaics, were applied to the altar, the pergola,

24
Les premiers retables (XIIe-début du XVe siècle). Une mise clet, “Corpus des retables français sculptés (XIIe-début XVe
en scène du sacré, ed. by Pierre-Yves Le Pogam (Paris: Musée siècle),” pp. 195-264.
du Louvre Éditions, 2009), particularly Christine Vivet-Pi-

svcma4_tekst.indd 5 25-11-2009 08:11:30

 justin kroesen and victor schmidt

and the ciborium. In her previously mentioned book Das Altarensemble, Verena Fuchß rightly speaks
of using the term “ensembles” as a means of indicating the often multilayered and heterogeneous
character of such works.25 In fact, during the Middle Ages, altar decorations showed an almost con-
tinuous interplay of various object types and art forms. Some types, such as the winged reliquary shrine,
seem to have been created literally to encapsulate and systematize existing altar decorations. To a
certain extent, the fixed polyptych may also be regarded as an integrating format; the architecturally
shaped tabernacle-retables from Catalonia and Mallorca discussed by Francesca Español in this volume
may serve as examples.26 In a number of contributions there is mention of the ciborium, in the shape
of a canopy supported by columns, most extant examples of which are found in Italy and, to a much
lesser extent, in Spain. During the symposium the question was raised as to what extent the ciborium
represented a pan-European phenomenon. Whereas most surviving ciboria in Germany and Norway
were erected over side altars, archaeological evidence from Denmark seems to suggest that ciboria
were also known in country churches in northern Europe. At any rate, a comprehensive study of the
ciborium is still a desideratum.
Because of their strong visual presence at the ritual heart of the church, altarpieces, tabernac-
les, and frontals have always received considerable attention in art history, as is shown abundantly by
the works mentioned in notes 2-18. Therefore, it may be useful to point out that many altars actually
did not have such rich decorations. Contemporary depictions make sufficiently clear that, quite often,
altars were decorated “just” with cloths, a cross, and two candlesticks. Liturgical texts such as the well-
known treatises by Durandus of Mende and Sicardus of Cremona, among others, as well as the Dutch
ordinals discussed by Louis van Tongeren in this volume, demonstrate that altars could be splendid
enough even without altarpieces proper. On major festive days, they could be turned into real “show-
cases” by the cultic display of reliquaries and other precious objects. It would seem that the establish-
ment of larger and, therefore, heavier altar decorations ruled out their temporary display. There is
ample evidence, however, that even heavy antependia of precious metals could be installed on the main
altars on the occasion of major feasts. Other sources suggest that large altarpieces were even used
outdoors, carried in processions; thus, for example, on June 27, 1461, the painter Juan Reixach signed
a contract to make a retable for the Corpus Christi procession in Valencia.27 One might argue that a
certain aspect of “temporariness” of many altar decorations is, to some extent, preserved in object types
with shutters and wings, such as tabernacles, reliquary shrines, and so-called “Flügelaltäre” (winged
altarpieces), which could be opened and closed according to the occasion.28 Similarly, fixed painted
altarpieces without movable elements were often wholly or partly covered with cloths and curtains.29
From a taxonomic point of view, medieval art, and altar decorations in particular, offer fasci-
nating material. The traditional distinctions in the visual arts maintained still by art museums and
libraries—into painting, sculpture, and an almost infinite range of “decorative” or “applied arts,”—had

25
See note 4.
26
Klaus Krüger, “‘Aller zierde wunder trůgen die altaere’:
Zur Genese und Strukturentwicklung des Flügelaltar-
schreins im 14. Jahrhundert,” in Entstehung und Frühge-
schichte des Flügelalterschreins, pp. 69-85. Cf. also Hans
Belting, Bild und Kult. Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem
Zeitalter der Kunst (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1990), pp. 446-52.
27
Asunción Alejos Morán, La eucaristía en el arte valen-
ciano, 2 vols. (Valencia: Diputación provincial de Valencia,
1977), 1, p. 297; Victor M. Schmidt, “Feste und bewegliche
Tafelbilder im Kirchenraum: Einige Überlegungen zur Kir-
chenausstattung des späten Mittelalters und der frühen
Neuzeit in Mittelitalien,” in Zeremoniell und Raum in der
frühen italienischen Malerei, pp. 106-15; Machtelt Israëls,
“Altars on the Street: the Wool Guild, the Carmelites and
the Feast of Corpus Domini in Siena (1356-1456),” Renais-
sance Studies 20 (2006), pp. 180-200.
28
Donald L. Ehresmann, “Some Observations on the Role
of Liturgy in the Early Winged Altarpiece,” Art Bulletin 64
(1982), pp. 359-69; Johannes Tripps, “Studien zur Wandlung
von Retabeln südlich der Alpen,” in Zeremoniell und Raum
in der frühen italienischen Malerei, pp. 116-27.
29
Johannes Tripps, “Retabel und heilige Schau. Funde zur
Inszenierung toskanischer Retabel im Tre- und Quattro-
cento,” Das Münster 67 (2004), pp. 87-95; Victor M. Schmidt,
“Curtains, Revelatio, and Pictorial Reality in Late Medieval
Renaissance Italy,” in Weaving, Veiling and Dressing: Textiles
and their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages, ed. by Kathryn
M. Rudy and Barbara Baert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp.
191-213.

svcma4_tekst.indd 6 25-11-2009 08:11:31

 introduction

no meaning whatsoever in the Middle Ages. These are no more than object types, which may be ex-
ecuted in a variety of materials and techniques. Frontals, for example, can range from textiles to pre-
cious metalwork and from panel paintings to stucco applications. Formally and technically, they
differed little from altarpieces, and the two could very well be combined, as Victor Schmidt shows in
his article in this volume. But even within a certain object type there can be a continous interplay of
various art forms; the late medieval sculpted retable with painted wings is perhaps the best-known
example. Technically, even the distinction between panel painting and polychromed wooden sculptures
becomes blurred as soon as one realizes that paint was applied likewise on both panels and wooden
sculpture. If there was a “leading” art form at all, it would have been precious metalwork, whose luster
and splendor were imitated in many other techniques.30 With a view to an understanding of the raison
d’être of these fixtures, distinctions of a too technical and formalistic kind, as is often the case in mod-
ern scholarship, are unsuitable and even anachronistic.
A categorical approach to altars and their decorations makes all the more sense when we con-
sider them in the context of liturgical practice. Moreover, by examining their functional rather than
material and stylistic aspects, we can better bring to light the above-mentioned interregional relation-
ships. In fact, all altars and altar decorations originated in response to well-circumscribed liturgical
ritual—the celebration of Mass—that followed the same basic patterns across the Latin West, from
Finland to Portugal and from Iceland to Croatia—even to Cyprus. The relationship between liturgy
and altars and their decorations is addressed in one way or another by almost all of the papers in this
volume. In recent times, as demonstrated by a number of other symposia and their proceedings, the
relationship between liturgy, on the one hand, and art and architecture, on the other, has become quite
a popular topic.31 At the same time, a tendency to broaden the scope of such investigations to include
ritual and nonreligious ceremonies has become apparent. Whether this is a useful paradigm or instead
reflects an increasing conceptual vagueness, it is certainly not our intention to problematize the con-
cept of liturgy.32 Liturgy as understood in most papers in the present volume is liturgy stricto sensu,
i.e., the ecclesiatical ritual of the Mass and the Officium Divinum.

In her paper, Fabienne Joubert shows how the specific liturgy that was developed for the abbey
church at Saint-Denis provided a context in which the furnishings of the side chapels originated. Such
a local relationship differs from the widespread view that liturgical developments, particularly those
prior to and after the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, categorically promoted the development of cer-
tain types of altar decoration, especially the altarpiece.33 In recent times, doubts have been expressed
regarding this presupposed connection between liturgical stipulations and art production. In a par-
ticularly compelling formulation, Paul Binski reminds us in his paper of the fact “that the importance
of the ecumenical legislation issued in at Lateran III and Lateran IV has recently tended to be overrated
by art historians; that canon law considered altarpieces to be adiaphora (things inessential but not
forbidden) and, hence, positioned very imprecisely within the remit of “legislation”; that the cults of
saints and related practices were much more important forces than shifts in doctrine; that retables
were, in any event, substantially older than the Gothic era; and that the type of church legislation at-
tended to by art historians needs to take into account the intellectual forces at work in the Paris schools

30
This has been observed by many authors. See, most re-
cently, Christoph Jobst, “Das Soester Kreuzigungsretabel in
der Berliner Gemäldegalerie und das Kreuz aus St. Katha-
rinental im Baseler Historischen Museum. Zur Bewertung
malerischer und kunsthandwerklicher Ausdrucksmittel in
der sakralen Kunst des Hochmittelalters,” in Fragen an ein
Kunstwerk im Museum. Kolloquium für Barbara Mundt im
Berliner Kunstgewerbemuseum (Berlin: Vorstand der Julius-
Lessing-Gesellschaft and Verein der Freunde des Kunstge-
werbemuseums, 2002), pp. 34-47, and Jean-Pierre Caillet,
“De l’antependium au retable: la contribution des orfèvres
et émailleurs d’Occident,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale
49 (2006), pp. 3-20.
31
Cf. the titles cited in note 3.
32
Colum Hourihane, “Introduction,” in Objects, Images,
and the Word, pp. 3-10 (with comprehensive bibliogra-
phy).
33
See, e.g., Van Os, Sienese Altarpieces.

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 justin kroesen and victor schmidt

quite as much as at the curia Romana.”34 Although Binski refers primarily to England, his statement
probably holds true for the whole of Latin Europe.
Another supposed development that has often been connected with the rise of the altarpiece
is the idea that the position of the celebrant changed during the Middle Ages from one facing the
congregation (versus populum) to one where his back was turned toward it.35 The former obviously
precluded the presence of an altarpiece—but did the latter promote, or even require, it? As Sible de
Blaauw has argued, the position of the celebrant vis-à-vis the congregation is a false parameter. Since
the priest was supposed to celebrate toward the east, his position in relation to the congregation sim-
ply depended on the orientation of the church building according to an east-west axis.36 However, the
principle of liturgical orientation gradually became less rigorously observed from the thirteenth cen-
tury on, at least in southern Europe. A major factor in this decline was the proliferation of side altars,
which were the first to relinquish orientation in a uniform fashion. The mendicant orders in Italy were
probably the first to give up the principle altogether. It is not surprising, therefore, that the mendicant
orders were the major, if not the exclusive, patrons of large polyptychs, which were intended for their
main altars.
Similarly, the reason why retables in central and northern Europe were provided with wings
from about 1300 has been sought in mere liturgical necessities. Thus, Harald Keller assumed that wings
were first added to altarpieces containing relics, enabling the cabinet with its sacred articles to be closed
to prevent theft or damage.37 Eventually, through force of habit, the argument continues, the presence
of wings in the structure of the altarpiece came to be regarded as essential, and even retables that did
not contain relics were equipped with wings. This reasoning does not, however, explain why medieval
retables with shutters were found almost exclusively in central and northern Europe even though rel-
ics were preserved and venerated across the continent. Another possibility sometimes mentioned is
that retables were fitted with wings in order to vary iconographic programs. The wings usually had
images on both the interior and exterior, and so the message of the imagery changed as they were
openend or closed.38 Thus, the retable could be opened in all its splendor on feast days but kept closed
for the rest of the year. In the late Middle Ages, some altarpieces had twofold or even threefold pairs
of wings; this type was particularly common in southern Germany, where it is usually called a “Wan-
delaltar” (“changing altar”). Harald Keller went so far as to typify the Gothic winged retable as “an
open book, in which the ecclesiastical calendar turns the pages.”39 More recently, such direct connec-
tions between retables and liturgy have been questioned by Kees van der Ploeg and Beth Williamson. 40
Furthermore, the relationship between winged altarpieces and image shrines with shutters, which
survive in different parts of Europe and go back to at least the twelfth century, has hitherto hardly
received attention.

34
Paul Binski, “Statues, Retables, and Ciboria: The English
Gothic Altarpiece in Context, Before 1350,” in this volume,
pp. <TK>.
35
Cf. the dense and influential study by Otto Nußbaum on
this subject: Der Standort des Liturgen am christlichen Altar
vor dem Jahre 1000. Eine archäologische und
liturgiegeschichtliche Untersuchung, 2 vols. (Bonn: Hannstein,
1965).
36
Sible de Blaauw, Met het oog op het licht. Een vergeten
principe in de oriëntatie van het vroegchristelijk kerkgebouw
(Nijmegen: Nijmegen University Press, 2000); idem,
“Innovazioni nello spazio di culto fra Basso Medioevo e
Cinquecento: la perdita dell’orientamento liturgico e la
liberazione della navata,” in Lo spazio e il culto: relazioni tra
edificio ecclesiale e uso liturgico dal XV al XVI secolo, ed. by
Jörg Stabenow (Venice: Marsilio, 2006), pp. 26-38.
37
Harald Keller, “Der Flügelaltar als Reliquienschrein,” in
Studien zur Geschichte der europäischen Plastik. Festschrift
Theodor Müller, ed. by Kurt Martin, Halldor Soehner, Erich
Steingräber, and Hans R. Weihrauch (Munich: Hirmer,
1965), pp. 125-44.
38
Ehresmann, “Some Observations.”
39
Keller, “Der Flügelaltar als Reliquienschrein,” p. 140: “Ein
offenes Buch, in dem das Kirchenjahr blättert.”
40
Kees van der Ploeg, “How Liturgical is a Medieval
Altarpiece?” in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and
Trecento, pp. 103-21; Beth Williamson, “Altarpieces, Liturgy,
and Devotion,” Speculum 79 (2004), pp. 341-406.

svcma4_tekst.indd 8 25-11-2009 08:11:31

 introduction

The sheer visual importance of altar decorations is in sharp contrast to the attention given to
them in juridical and liturgical texts. Canon law has almost nothing to say about altar decoration. The
Decretum Gratiani includes only two brief chapters on the use of images in general. The first essentially
is a quote from Pope Gregory the Great’s well-known letter to Bishop Serenus of Marseille about the
function of images of the saints, in which he explains that “what Scripture is for those who can read,
painting is to the ignorant, since they see in it what they must follow; those who cannot read in books
read in the image.”41 The pope’s remarks were quoted repeatedly by ecclesiastical writers, including
liturgical commentators such as Johannes Beleth, Sicardus of Cremona, and Durandus of Mende (see
below). In the subsequent chapter in the Decretum Gratiani, it is said that images of the saints serve to
retain their memory.42 Whereas the papal decretals are silent about altar decorations, the installation
of an altarpiece was sporadically stipulated on a local or regional level. Thus, the Leges Palatinae of
King Jaume III of Mallorca from 1337 prescribed a retrotabularium for the furnishing of any “complete”
chapel.43 About 1500, church authorities in the bishoprics of Porto and Braga in northern Portugal
were summoned to ensure that high altars were provided with an image of the patron saint, painted
on the “retavollos” or carved in stone, under penalty of a fine.44 It may well be that a systematic dépouil-
lement of synodalia across Europe may yield more interesting material.45
One could also point to the regulations concerning art formulated by the general chapters of
such monastic orders as the Cistercians, Franciscans, and Dominicans. To give just one example, the
general chapter of the Franciscans held in Paris in 1292 stipulated that “For that matter, let no glasses
and windows with images and pictures be made, except for the window over the high altar in the chancel,
which may only have images of the Crucified, the Blessed Virgin, the Blessed John, the Blessed Francis
and the Blessed Anthony. Moreover, let no sumptuous or curious panels and the like above the altar be
made. And in case such windows or panels have already been made, these should be removed by the
Visitators.”46 Such prohibitions are interesting for two reasons: first, they obviously reflect a widespread
practice of erecting altarpieces, both on high altars and side altars; second, and on a more general level,
they warn us that what historians are happy to designate as expressions of cult and devotion were, for
some at the time, simply superfluous clutter that served only to incite curiosity.
Written sources on the liturgy are, of course, invaluable for the study of the ritual, but they usually
yield little concrete information on the decoration of altars, as the main interest of their compilers lay

41
“Nam quod legentibus scriptura, hoc idiotis praestat
pictura cernentibus, quia in ipsa ignorantes vident quod
sequi debeant, in ipsa legunt qui letteras nesciunt.” For the
orginal letter, see S. Gregorii Magni registrum epistularum
VIII-XIV 11/10, Corpus christianorum series latina, 140a,
ed. by Dag Norberg (Turnhout: Brepols, 1982), p. 874.
42
Tertia pars de consecratione, dist. III, c. xxvii-xxviii. Cor-
pus iuris canonici, pars prior: Decretum magistri Gratiani,
ed. by Aemilius Friedberg, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Bernhard
Tauchnitz, 1879), col. 1360. See also Creighton Gilbert, The
Saints’ Three Reasons for Paintings in Churches (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Clandestine Press, 2001).
43
Charles Du Fresne Du Cange, Glossarium Mediae et In-
fimae Latinitatis, 7 vols. (Paris: Didot, 1840-50), 5 (1845),
p. 748 s.v. “‘Retroaltare’: Dicitur autem completa capella,
pallium et retroaltare, et retrotabularium, et indumenta
Presbyteri, Diaconi et Subdiaconi et tres cappae.”
44
Cf. Synodicon Hispanum, ed. by Antonio García y García,
7 vols. (Madrid: Biblioteca de autores cristianos, 1984-97),
2, pp. 143 (Porto) and 357-58 (Braga).
45
Cf. Julian Gardner, “Altars, Altarpieces, and Art History:
Legislation and Usage,” in Italian Altarpieces 1250-1550, pp.
5-40.
46
“Vitreae quoque fenestrae historiatae vel picturatae de
cetero nusquam fiant, excepto quod in principali vitrea post
maius altare chori, haberi possint imagines Crucifixi, B.
Virginis, B. Iohannis, B. Francisci et B. Antonii tantum. Item
tabulae sumptuosae seu curiosae super altare vel alibi de
cetero nullae fiant. Et si huiusmodi vitreae vel tabulae factae
fuerint, per Visitatores amoveantur,” taken from “Statuta
generalia ordinis edita in capitulis generalibus celebratis
Narbonae an. 1260, Assisii an. 1279 atque Parisiis an. 1292
(editio critica et synoptica),” ed. by Michael Bihl, Archivum
franciscanum historicum 34 (1941), pp. 13-94 and 284-358, esp.
52. For the Dominican statutes, see “Acta capitulorum
generalium, I. Ab anno 1220 usque ad annum 1303,” ed. by
Benedictus Maria Reichert, Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum
Praedicatorum historica 3 (1898). For the Cistercians, see
Christopher Norton, “Table of Cisterican Legislation on Art
and Architecture,” in Cistercian Art and Architecture in the
British Isles, ed. by Christopher Norton and David Park
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 315-93.

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 justin kroesen and victor schmidt

elsewhere.47 Thus, mere allusions are too often treated as if they were descriptions. In his Summa de ec-
clesiasticis officiis, Johannes Beleth makes only general statements about art in a section devoted to the
liturgy of Lent. More interesting is his chapter De ornatu templi (115), which discusses the temporary
decorations of the altar at Easter Sunday, including a frontal, which could be a textile hanging or a painted
or golden “tabula,” if present (“si habetur”).48 On the other hand, in his Mitrale, Sicardus of Cremona does
not mention the antependium in this context, even though his text is far more elaborate. Again, his chap-
ter De ornatu ecclesiae (I, xii) is very general.49 Durandus’s Rationale divinorum officiorum devotes a
separate and substantial chapter on “paintings, hangings and ornaments in churches” (I, iii). Altar orna-
ments “consist in reliquaries [“capsis”], altar cloths, containers for the preservation of relics [“philateriis”],
candlesticks, crosses, an orfray, banners, books, coverings and curtains” (I, iii, 24).50 In what follows he
elaborates upon this list and even discusses such extravagances as ostrich eggs—but no frontals or altar-
pieces; significantly, the latter are only mentioned in passing when Durandus discusses the images of
saints (I, iii, 17).51 His version of the Roman pontifical, on the other hand, includes blessings for images
of the Virgin and saints and an antependium.52 For the rest, it contains little of interest to the historian of
altar decorations. Even the illustrations in the manuscripts of pontificals offer scant information, focusing
as they do on the celebrating pontiff rather than the particulars of the altar and its decoration.53
In general, local sources such as libri ordinarii are likely to yield more specific information about
altar decorations.54 However, the Dutch ordinals discussed by Louis van Tongeren in this volume include
little information about altarpieces and the like—but that may reflect the actual situation. In the end,
the most useful textual sources belong to other genres, such as chronicles and such garrulous and self-
celebratory texts as those by Suger on his abbey church of Saint-Denis.55 These are as well-known as
they are rare, particularly for the later Middle Ages.
To conclude, while we are obviously aware of the many lacunae and the questions raised—but
not answered—we hope that the usefulness of this pan-European volume exceeds the sum of its indi-
vidual contributions.

47
On medieval liturgical texts in general, see Cyrille Vogel,
Medieval Liturgy. An Introduction to the Sources, ed. by
William G. Storey and Niels Krogh Rasmussen (Washington,
D.C.: The Pastoral Press, 1986).
48
Johannes Beleth, Summa de ecclesiasticis officiis, ed. by
Heribert Douteil (Turnhout: Brepols, 1976), pp. 154-55, 216-
19.
49
Text in Patrologiae cursus completus. Series latina, ed. by
Jacques-Paul Migne, CCXIII (Paris: Garnier, 1855), col. 40-
44, 344.
50
“Altaris vero ornatus constitit in capsis, in pallis, in
philateriis, in candelabris, in crucibus, in aurifrisio, in vexillis,
in codicibus, in velaminibus, et cortinis.” Gulielmus
Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, ed. by Anselme
Davril and Timothy M. Thibodeau, 3 vols. (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1995-2000), 1, p. 42.
51
“Generaliter autem sanctorum patrum ymagines
quandoque in parietibus ecclesie, quandoque in posteriori
altaris tabula, quandoque in vestibus sacris et aliis variis
locis pingitur.” Ibid., p. 40.
52
Book 2, ch. xiii-xiv, and xx. See Le pontifical romain au
moyen-âge, 3. Le pontifical de Guillaume Durand, Studi e
testi 88, ed. by Michel Andrieu (Vatican City: Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, 1940), pp. 525-27, 532-33.
53
Cf. Éric Palazzo, L’évêque et son image: l’illustration du
pontifical au Moyen Âge (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999).
54
Cf. a number of papers in the volume Heiliger Raum.
55
Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and its Art
Treasures, ed., transl., and annotated by Erwin Panofsky,
2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); Abt
Suger von Saint-Denis: Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. by Andreas
Speer and Günther Binding (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 2000).

10

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