Bibliography, Sweat and Tears

In this post I start developing my thesis, expand my bibliography, and provide a number of parallels (comparanda) which I may use further on in this project.

Thesis

While I have yet to come to a definitive thesis for this study, I've managed to narrow it down to a few research questions, all relating to folio 2.

1. Why is f2r worn? The British Library tentatively offers kissing; however looking at the page closely, it appears almost as if it was intentionally rubbed/scraped away. Regardless of the cause, all could be argued as a case of a lay devotion trying to imitate clerical practice. 

2. If the damage was the result of kissing or rubbing, why did the reader choose this page rather than the woodcut images? I forward that the reader(s) may have done so due to presence of a woodcut image of the virgin on its verso, perhaps in the knowledge that such behavior on the woodcut itself would deteriorate it. It would be interesting to see if images of the virgin are more likely to be physically interacted with in other manuscripts than other types of imagery.

3. This inherently leads to the question as to why this was not followed up on subsequent folios, particularly folio 8 which has bleeding wounds on its front, and a woodcut image of the arma christii on its verso. The opening three pages are the only case in this book where blood is not flowing from a visible wound or subject. I conject that the absence of wounds in the opening pages may suggest to a devotional device intentionally inserted by the manuscript’s creator which had the readers meditating on the blood and imagining the wounds on themselves. Perhaps then the reason for only this page receiving repeated physical interaction is the result of the strong meditative connection. How to make this claim beyond conjecture will be my biggest challenge going forward in this project.

Comporanda

Ebstorf Map

Likely a 13th Century German production.

Despite being out of context time, location and subject wise, this map has a lot to say on the topic of my argument. If one looks closely at the edges of the circular map, the head (depicted as the Veronica?), left and right hands, and pair of feet of Christ are depicted on each direction. The implication is that the map itself is Christ's body (or at least the reader is intended to imagine it as such). Compare this with f9r of our book.

Egerton 1821 f9r

Here we have a very similar situation. No body (or head in this case) is provided, just bloody hands, feet and a heart pierced by the holy lance. It is ultimately up to the reader to imagine the rest of Christ. Whether they did so by imagining their body as Christ's (in order to try and feel his pain (creepy...)) or simply took the pierced heart as a symbol for the rest of Christ is debatable.

The point I'm trying to get across with this comparison is that the corporeality of Christ's ...corpus... seems to have fluctuated in the medieval imagination. Sometimes it is depicted naturally (to a degree...) as in f8v, is depicted as something else (the map, f9r, and perhaps even the communion where bread and wine are imagined literally as the blood and body of Christ), or is left up to the viewer's mind entirely (as I suggest in f2r).

Painted woodcut featuring St. Bridget and Christ

This late 15th/early 16th image of St. Bridget praying before Jesus is perhaps the best analogue I have been able to find to imagery of BL MS Egerton 1821. It's a woodcut, it has Jesus, we have painted blood, it's housed in the British Library! Too good to be true? 

Unfortunately so. 

Turns out the woodcut was cut out of a codex along with some other images leaving us with little to no information on the book that housed it. It's inferred that this cut, and others related to it have their origin in a Flemish Brigittine convent. From what I have been able to tell, this is the only woodcut known from the manuscript with bloody imagery making it doubtful that the original book much resembled BL MS Egerton 1821. However, it would be great to confirm that it didn't have a similar kissing ritual or bloody pages as our books does.

There is a recent book on anchoritism in the middle ages which this image fronts. I'm hoping to get my hands on a copy before I conclude this project in the hopes that it may provide more detail on this image than what the British Library offers. With our book apparently being intended for a woman, perhaps some insight could be gleamed regardless of whether information is offered on the Bridget image.

Late 15th c German Woodcut

In this woodcut we again come across an imagined body. This case has the body of Christ imagined as a wound and is accompanied by text which identifies that a seven year indulgence is offered if kissed. 

Here we have kissing, imagined bodies, and violent imagery will prove a useful parallel for my project if I am able to find more on the codex which this image is derived. From what I have gathered, this sort of imagery was extremely popular in late medieval Germany. Unfortunately this means most digitized images and publication on the topic are on German websites and in German...

Loftie Hours. Walters Ms. W.165

Here we have a page from a mid 15th century Dutch book of hours. Besides marginalia, all that is depicted are the five wounds of Christ. We are not provided with a body, the intent was for the patron to imagine it themselves. When depicted without Christs body, five wounds are normal (4 for the hands, one caused by the spear). BL MS Egerton 1821 has hundreds of wounds, 8 pages in a row. While perhaps a stretch of a comparison, I feel the intent is the same be it five wounds, or five thousand. 

Egerton 1821 ff. 6v-7r

Tentative Bibliography

Bildhauer, Bettina. 2006. "Medieval blood." Cardiff: University of Wales Press.

Thanks Jamie! Details the role of blood in medieval German Literature and devotional practice.

Bildhauer, Bettina. “Medieval European conceptions of blood: truth and human integrity.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19, S1 (2013): S57-S76

Found this article after searching Bildhauer's bibliography. Expands beyond the German context and even makes reference to this codex.

Boffey, Julia. 2012. “Manuscript and Print in London c. 1475-1530.” London. The British Library.

Bynum, Caroline. 2001. "Violent Imagery in Late Medieval Piety." Columbia University.

Kumler, Adem. “Translating Truth: Ambitious Images and Religious Knowledge in Late Medieval France and England.” Yale University Press, New Haven 2011.

Thebaut, Nancy. "Bleeding Pages, Bleeding Bodies: A Gendered Reading of British Library MS Egerton 1821." Medieval Feminist Forum 45, no. 2 (2009):175-200.

Rudy, Kathryn. “Kissing Images, Unfurling Rolls, Measuring Wounds, Sewing Badges and Carrying Talismans: Considering Some Harley Manuscripts through the Physical Rituals they Reveal.” Electronic British Library Journal (2011):1-56. Available at http://www.bl.uk/eblj/2011articles/article5.html.