Medieval Badges Cross-stitch Sampler Two

Ellen Siebel-Achenbach has created another medieval badge embroidery sampler that we happy to be sharing with you here. The embroidered bookmark features the iconography (from top to bottom) of a Tudor rose and a pomegranate (the heraldic devices of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon) two popular saints, Saint Ursula and Saint Cecilia, and medieval proverb:

For anyone new to cross-stitch, Ellen recommends this video to help you get started. If you haven’t already, try out the Cross-stitch Sampler 1!

SAINT URSULA

Saint Ursula was a legendary virgin martyr of the fourth century. She is depicted in the original pewter badge standing on a boat, with the heads of nine virgins (here, represented in grey) between her and the crosier. The legend goes that she and eleven (or in some accounts, 11,000) virgins were returning from a pilgrimage to Rome and were murdered by the Huns in Cologne. The original pewter badge depicting this scene is from Cologne (1350-1399) and was found in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. Saint Ursula’s feast day is October 21st.

SAINT CECILIA

Saint Cecilia was a third-century virgin martyr, who has been venerated as the patron saint of music and musicians, despite her obscure association to them, since the sixteenth century. Beginning in the Middles Ages, she became increasingly represented by the motif of the organ (which some thought she invented), as depicted in the embroidered form above, of the original pewter badge. The badge was found in London, England, but its origin (1000-1599) is unknown. Her feast day is November 22nd.

MATERIALS

• Aida Cotton 14ct cloth

• 6 Strand Cotton Floss (DMC)

• Embroidery needle

• Regular white thread and sharp needle

• Embroidery hoop (recommended)

• Scissors, pencil, and ruler

• An iron

• Cut felt for backing (4.5 x 15 cm)

• See bottom of post for colour recommendations

PREPARATION OF MATERIALS

1. Iron aida cloth and felt until flat.  

2. Set felt aside for finishing and tightly secure aida cloth on an embroidery hoop.

3. All stitches are worked with two strands of floss, which must be separated before threading onto needle.

TIPS WHILE EMBROIDERING

1. At the end of each colour/strand, be sure to leave enough length to weave the floss through the back of the stitches for fastening.

2. It is easiest to start in the centre of the chart and work outwards, continuing to use the threaded colour until a new strand is needed or all stitches of that colour have been completed.

FINISHING

1. With a pencil and ruler, mark a line about six holes in from each side of the piece and cut.  Fold this in half (at three holes) and sew a hem with regular thread and sharp needle. 

2. Using appropriate size of felt, sew backing onto the embroidered piece.

3. Iron until flat. Do not steam; water can cause the colours of embroidery floss to run.

4. Enjoy your new bookmark!

You are free to use whatever colours you have. Ellen used the following: Bright Orange-Red (606); Medium Beige Brown (741); Bright Canary (973); Bright Chartreuse (704); Medium Electric Blue (996); Very Dark Lavender (208); Very Light Dusty Rose (151); Medium Beige Brown (840); Dark Yellow Beige (3045); Pale Steel Grey (3024); Medium Yellow Green (3347); Raspberry Mauve (3687); Ultra Very Light Tan (739); Grey Blue (161); Light Emerald Green (912); Medium Rose (899); Medium Burnt Orange (900); Delft Blue (809).

Design and descriptions by Ellen Siebel-Achenbach.

Medieval Badges Cross-stitch Sampler One

EMBROIDERED MEDIEVAL BADGE BOOKMARK 1

Embroidered bookmarks are a fun way to explore medieval badges. Embroidering heightens attention to elements of the badge’s iconography and allows the maker to express the badge’s proportionality. This kind of activity is not new. While textiles from the Middle Ages rarely survive, some of those that do display the creativity and consummate design and crafting skills of medieval embroideresses (and the occasional embroiderer). The badge-like object to the right, which has survived because it was sewn into a medieval manuscript, is an example of textiles and badges interacting.

Cross-stitch is a popular and easy way to learn how to embroider. Ellen Siebel-Achenbach, the researcher-maker of this project, has created a pattern and instructions to help you create your own embroidered medieval badge bookmark! For anyone new to cross-stitch, Ellen recommends this video to help you get started.

Materials

Aida Cotton 14ct cloth

• 6 Strand Cotton Floss (DMC)

• Embroidery needle

• Regular white thread and sharp needle

• Embroidery hoop (recommended)

• Scissors, pencil, and ruler

• An iron

• Cut felt for backing (4.5 x 18 cm)

• See bottom of post for colour recommendations

PREPARATION OF MATERIALS

1. Iron aida cloth and felt until flat.  

2. Set felt aside for finishing and tightly secure aida cloth on an embroidery hoop.

3. All stitches are worked with two strands of floss, which must be separated before threading onto needle.

TIPS WHILE EMBROIDERING

1. At the end of each colour/strand, be sure to leave enough length to weave the floss through the back of the stitches for fastening.

2. It is easiest to start in the centre of the chart and work outwards, continuing to use the threaded colour until a new strand is needed or all stitches of that colour have been completed.

FINISHING

1. With a pencil and ruler, mark a line about six holes in from each side of the piece and cut.  Fold this in half (at three holes) and sew a hem with regular thread and sharp needle. 

2. Using appropriate size of felt, sew backing onto the embroidered piece.

3. Iron until flat. Do not steam; water can cause the colours of embroidery floss to run.

4. Enjoy your new bookmark!

Medieval Badges Colouring Pages

These colouring page resources were created by Ellen Siebel-Achenbach during her undergraduate internship on the medieval badges project. The three pages depict a variety of medieval badges imagery, including the crucifix scene, flora & fauna, and angels.

Enjoy your time colouring them!

Medieval Christmas 2022

As many of us transition into the Christmas season, we are invited back into the magical world of craftsmanship. We’ve been lucky to see some of this craftsmanship up-close through the ongoing research-creation projects of Ellen Siebel-Achenbach. Last year, Ellen used linocuts to mark the season. This year, she’s been working with wood to re-imagine medieval badges as a Räuchermann (traditional German incense smokers) and as a wooden nativity scene. Ellen has been as inspired by the original medieval badges as she has inspired them — literally in the case of the headless pilgrim badge of Saint Claude, which as a Räuchermann has not only been given a head but given again breath that flows through him and into the world.

Pewter badge, Sainte Claude, from Saint-Pierre Cathedral, Besançon, 1401-1500, 4.2 x 2.7 cm. CL4620. Paris, Musée de Cluny - musée national du Moyen Âge. Photographer: Gerard Blot. Photo credit: © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

Ellen Siebel-Achenbach, Sainte Claude as Räuchermann, 2022.

Ellen’s wooden nativity scene from a Cologne badge preserves the details of the original craftsperson. The turrets and arches frame both compositions. Ellen has beautifully recreated the naive style of the figures, note especially the halo of the Christ Child or crowns of the Three Kings and the shapes of the gifts they present. Ellen has also utilized the three-dimensional aspect of her material to enliven the characters in another way. Though it is not clear from the photographs, the arms of Saint Claude, the Three Kings and the Virgin Mary have been attached so that they are movable. Both re-imaginings bring the badges to life not only with movement, but with colour. The colourful wooden figures invite us as viewers back to the original pewter badges to ask ourselves how they might have been embellished originally.

Ellen Siebel-Achenbach, Cologne Nativity scene, 2022.

Pewter badge, Three Kings, Cologne, Germany, 1275-1349, found in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, 4 x 3.1 cm. The Van Beuningen Family Collection, inv. 0537 (Kunera 00167). Photograph courtesy of The Van Beuningen Family Collection.

We are both proud and impressed by Ellen’s work. Her efforts to preserve traditional craftsmanship and to “bridge the gap between traditional ‘high’ art history academic scholarship and ‘low’ reconstructions of visual and material culture” allow us to witness the beauty of her work, while we learn to see old objects in new ways.

Written by Hannah Gardiner. This post was originally published on the Medieval Badges blog on December 23, 2022.

Medieval Christmas 2021

Ellen Siebel-Achenbach, researcher–maker of the project, “Reimagining Medieval Badges in Modern Materials,” has been working diligently on creating a series of linocuts based on badges. Here below are two from her Christmas series, featuring the Annunciation scene and the Nativity scene.

We leave off 2021 with a feast for the eyes, wishing you and yours a Merry (Medieval) Christmas and a joyful holiday season!

Ellen Siebel-Achenbach, linocut on paper, 2021. Annunciation Scene.

Lead alloy badge, Virgin Mary and Angel Gabriel stand beneath a canopy with a dove and a vase of lilies, inscriptions ECCE ANGL and AVE MARIA in Lombardic capitals, attachment unknown, Walsingham, United Kingdom, 1366-1400, found in Norwich, United Kingdom. Museum of London, image number 001722. Photograph courtesy of © Museum of London.

Ellen Siebel-Achenbach, linocut on paper, 2021. Nativity Scene.

Pewter badge, Nativity scene in round frame with Mary recumbent with Christ Child wrapped in her arms, Joseph on the right with ox and donkey behind a manger, origin unknown, 1300-1399, found in Wienhausen, Germany, 61 x 61 mm. Kloster Wienhausen, Wienhausen, Germany (Kunera 05858). Photograph courtesy of Kloster Wienhausen.

This post was originally published on the Medieval Badges blog on December 20, 2021.

Reimagining Medieval Badges in Modern Materials

Recently joining our team as a researcher-maker for the new project, “Reimagining Badges in Modern Materials,” is Ellen Siebel-Achenbach.  Ellen is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Medieval Studies, Visual Culture, Fine Arts Studio, and Church Worship and Music at the University of Waterloo. She is also an undergraduate intern at the DRAGEN Lab, our collaborator for this project.  

Conceptually, “Reimagining Medieval Badges in Modern Materials” interrogates the difference between replicating and reimagining medieval badges. In the Middle Ages, badge-like objects sharing similar iconographies were crafted in a wide variety of materials from precious to perishable. As a researcher-maker, Ellen will similarly engage with a wide variety of materials in order to learn about them, their affordances and constraints, and reflect on the ways in which they might be used to reimagine badges, to explore badge-like qualities, and to engage modern audiences in discovery about the Middle Ages.

To offer our community a sense of the project, we asked Ellen to share some of her initial experimental makings and discoveries, which we will continue to share periodically on this blog. 

Medieval Badges: Could you tell us a bit about your first encounters with badges? 

Ellen Siebel-Achenbach: Although I had previously encountered medieval badges in museums, I only began to engage with them while on an experiential learning research trip to England in 2019 with Dr. Rasmussen. Our group visited museums, churches, and workshops, and I became increasingly interested in medieval craft more generally and in understanding that badges served a variety of functions. Like most people, I had associated badges with religious pilgrimage alone – especially in the case of the popular badges featuring Saint Thomas Becket of Canterbury.

MB: What is guiding your process of making for this project? 

ESA: For the first few badge experiments, I was interested in the ways delicate details of badge figures could be captured in such a small scale.  To start, I chose three badges with a high level of detail: a badge of the holy communion wafers of Wilsnack, a badge of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Christ Child from Rocamadour, and the badge of a king and bishop holding a tower in a round frame from Yper. I decided to make the badges using a clear polystyrene plastic that shrinks when heated (i.e., baked!). I drew the designs with oil-based markers and embellished them with oil-based metallic paints. I coloured the Yper badge with several shades of grey, yellow, and green and attempted to reproduce a degree of depth within the Yper badge through the application of a glued layer of ‘gems.’ The translucent material has allowed me to include colour in the badges in a manner resembling medieval stained glass and enamel miniatures.

Ellen Siebel-Achenbach, polystyrene and oil-based ink, 2021.

Pewter badge, the holy communion wafers of Wilsnack, eyelets, Wilsnack, Germany, 1475-1522, found in Nieuwlande, the Netherlands, 36 x 31 mm. Family Van Beuningen Collection, inv. 1709 (Kunera 00130). Photograph courtesy of Family Van Beuningen Collection.

MB: How have your experimental makings influenced your understanding of medieval badges?

ESA: I found it difficult to capture the original details even prior to the baking process, in which the original design shrinks by about two-thirds. I have very different materials at my disposal, of course, but I have nevertheless tried to make crafting choices that come closer to medieval crafters, such as doing sketches by hand rather than digitally. Right now, I’m trying to minimize the digital component of my making. I’m also working by hand in natural light, a commodity in as short supply in November in northerly regions as it was six hundred years ago.

MB: What is one challenging aspect about reimagining these badges materially?

ESA: On top of difficulties capturing details, I have had challenges with the fragility of the plastic material I am currently using. It often cracks during the cutting (note the right cross of the Wilsnack badge) and baking processes. The material also occasionally bakes into a curved shape (as occurred in the Rocamadour badge). The imperfections of my own badge creations may in some way emulate imperfections present in many badges. One example of this is the centre of the original Rocamadour badge I am using, where there is what looks like a nail hole in the centre of the Virgin Mary.  

Ellen Siebel-Achenbach, polystyrene and oil-based ink, 2021. Reimagined pewter badge, Blessed Virgin Mary enthroned and holding sceptre with Christ child on her left knee, eyelets, Rocamadour, France, 1270-1299, found in Schleswig, Germany, 74 x 55.5 x 1.5 mm. Schleswig, Germany, Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, inv. KSD 375 325 (Kunera 04244).

MB: What are you planning on experimenting with over the coming months? 

ESA: My next experiments will utilize a similar material to the one I’ve been using, but with a white base to allow for more vibrancy of colour. I’m looking forward to working with this opaque polystrene plastic because it offers the potential for creating even more detail alongside a more subtle colouring. I may also combine the clear and white plastic in some future re-imagined badges.  

I’m also planning on creating a series of lino-prints for the Christmas season, featuring badges of the Nativity and Epiphany scenes. These prints will use both black oil-based paint and gouache. I am also starting work on a series of shadow boxes in which I divide enlarged medieval badges into different layers of depth.

Ellen Siebel-Achenbach is a research intern and badge maker for “Reimagining Badges in Modern Materials.” She is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Medieval Studies, Visual Culture, Fine Arts Studio, and Church Worship and Music at the University of Waterloo. She has been a member of the DRAGEN Lab since 2019.

Edited by Hannah Gardiner and Dr. Ann Marie Rasmussen. This post was originally published on the Medieval Badges blog on December 1, 2021.

The Medieval Podcast

The Medieval Podcast — “Medieval Badges with Ann Marie Rasmussen”

Ann Marie Rasmussen had the pleasure of speaking with Danièle Cybulskie, the creator and host of The Medieval Podcast, several weeks ago. Their conversation, “Medieval Badges with Ann Marie Rasmussen,” is now available to listen to on their website.

“If you were suddenly transported back into Northern Europe in the latter part of the Middle Ages, a lot of the people you came across would be sporting something shiny on their clothes or hats. This week, Danièle speaks with Ann Marie Rasmussen about medieval badges, how they were made and used, and who was wearing them.”

The Medieval Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Danièle Cybulskie, in which she interviews various scholars and historians of the Middle Ages about an array of topics. The podcast is run through Medievalists.net — a website promoting medieval history through news, articles, videos, and more.

This post was originally published on the Medieval Badges blog on November 11, 2021.

Love is in the Air

With Valentine’s Day just ahead of us, lovebirds are nestling. Red roses are being prepared. Cards decorated with hearts and scribbled love notes will be exchanged between lovers and friends. Whether you love or loathe this February celebration, one thing is clear: drawing on several centuries of cultural imagery, Valentine’s Day symbols are strong and here to stay.

BIRDS

The romantic association between birds and lovers is a longstanding one, particularly around the day of Saint Valentine. Literary historian Henry A. Kelly suggests that the great medieval English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, originated what we think of today as Valentine’s Day in his poem, Parliament of Fowls. The poem associated birds choosing their mates to the then already established day of Saint Valentine:

For this was on Seynt Valentynes Day,
Whan every foul [fowl] cometh there to chese [choose] his make [mate],
If every kynde that men thynke may. (309-311)

            It happened on Saint Valentine’s Day
Which is when every bird arrives [at the Parliament] to choose its [his?] mate,
Every kind of bird that mankind can imagine.

Kelly writes that the reality of birds choosing their mates in February was grounded in the social imagination at the time, and in observations of the natural world of northern Europe, especially the lengthening of days and birds flying in the air above, choosing a mate. According to Kelly, Chaucer connected these observations to a specific saint’s day, that of Saint Valentine, and then, a tradition was born.

Pewter badge, crossed hands emerging with fleur-de-lis crown, heart pierced by arrow, pin, origin unknown, 1325-1375, found in 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, 27 x 22 mm. Family Van Beuningen Collection, inv. 3887 (Kunera 17280). Photograph and permission from Family Van Beuningen Collection.

HEARTS

Birds are not the only image from the medieval period to permeate Valentine’s Day today. Central to contemporary Valentine’s Day symbolism – and to our concept of love – is the heart. There is a longstanding relationship between the heart and love, which we see before the Middles Ages in the Classical tradition, but that we can thank the medievals for proliferating. Ann Marie Rasmussen writes that a love poem from a collection of Latin letters known as the Tegernseer Briefsammlung, written in German around the year 1180, records a very early instance of linking the heart with the notion of romantic love:

Dû bist mîn, ich bin dîn
des solt dû gewis sîn
dû bist beslozzen
in mînem herzen
verlorn ist daz slüzzelîn
dû muost ouch immêr darinne sîn

You are mine, I am yours.
Of this you can be sure.
You are locked
in my heart
the key is lost,
and so you must stay there forever.

The beloved is held within the heart of the lover, dramatized in the poem first through the heart alone and further through the heart’s bygone key. By the early decades of the thirteenth century in Europe, images of giving, receiving, exchanging or even locking up hearts had become a near universal symbol of love. Sharing hearts between a man and a woman emphasized constancy, fidelity and companionship, including, of course, erotic love.

Unlike our modern concentrating of romantic gestures onto Valentine’s Day, medieval heart badges were exchanged as tokens of affection between lovers throughout the year. But if you’re still looking for a creative gift for a special someone tomorrow, consider looking in European river systems for lost or strayed medieval heart badges; on short notice, of course, a love poem will always do. 

Written by Hannah Gardiner. Translations by Dr. Ann Marie Rasmussen. This post was originally published on the Medieval Badges blog on February 23rd, 2021.

Works Cited

Kelly, Henry, A. Chaucer and the cult of Saint Valentine. Leiden: Brill, 1986.

Rasmussen, Ann Marie. Medieval Badges: Their Wearers and Their World. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021.

Tegernseer Briefsammlung, between 1178-1184. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, clm 19411, f. 114v.

The Golden Scabs of Saint Job — Part three

PART THREE — SAINT JOB, DISEASE IN THE MIDDLE AGES, AND ‘SCAB’ BADGES 

Latten-copper badge, Job on a dunghill with musicians around him, on round badge with inscription S. IOP ORDE, attachment not present, Antwerp, Belgium, 1475-1524, found in Nieuwlande, the Netherlands, 33 x 33 cm. The Van Beuningen Family Collection, inv. 1381 (Kunera 00242). Photograph courtesy of The Van Beuningen Family Collection.

Latten-copper badge, Job sitting nude on a dunghill, offering musicians a coin, in round frame on diamond shaped badge, attachment not present, Wezemaal, Belgium, 1475-1524, found in Arnemuiden, Belgium, 27 x 32 cm. The Van Beuningen Family Collection, inv. 4484 (Kunera 16451). Photograph courtesy of The Van Beuningen Family Collection.

The round latten-copper badges above depict a scene from an extra-biblical story about Saint Job, as explored in The Golden Scabs of Saint Job — Part One. This scene, which was frequently featured on Wezemaal badges, illustrates the moment where Job, having nothing else to offer, reaches out to give the musicians a scab from his body, which miraculously turns to gold. This moment is the turning point in Job’s story: a visible miracle and a sign of hope that fulfills Job’s earlier proclamation in the story when he defends his innocence, saying: “But [the LORD] knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come out like gold” (Job 23.10). 

What immediately stands out about these two badges is their golden colour. Made of latten-copper, which turns gold after being fired, the material of the badges dually speaks of its own transformation and Job’s. While these two particular badges were both originally round in diamond frames (now broken off), other surviving golden badges are exclusively round. The form of these circular, golden badges recalls the golden scab Job would have offered from his body; in semiotic terms, they are iconic signs, bearing a strong resemblance to the object they represent. These badges invite a closer look at the way the story came to life on the pilgrims’ bodies.  

Bartholomaeus Steber, woodcut, a woman in bed and a man sitting on a stool are covered with lesions with physicians attending to them. Vienna: Johann Winterberg, 1497-1498. Image courtesy of the National Library of Medicine.

Before looking at the pilgrims’ bodies, let’s consider the historical context of the syphilis epidemic occurring in Western Europe (c. 1495) and its relation to Saint Job. We know that the pilgrimages to the site of Saint Job in Wezemaal overlapped with this epidemic. While scholars disagree about whether there was an increase in pilgrimages to Wezemaal during these years, there is no question about the associations between syphilis and Saint Job, exemplified, for instance, by a French name for syphilis, le Mal Monseigneur Saint Job, and hospitals opening up at that time bearing Job’s name, as Old Testament scholar Samuel Balentine points out. 

The skin infections that would have afflicted those suffering from syphilis likewise linked the disease to the afflicted Saint Job. Being a venereal disease, people likewise witnessed that syphilis afflicted only specific individuals and not the entire population as other diseases had, forging the connection to the plague that afflicted Job as opposed to other Old Testament plagues that swept across Israel and its enemies, (Arrizabalaga et al., 52). While other pilgrim badges from Wezemaal depict the story of Saint Job, the golden scab badges specifically point to the greater social context of physical affliction. 

Like other pilgrim badges, these badges were made to be worn and seen. But what would it have meant to a pilgrim to wear this badge — a badge that was not only a token of having been on pilgrimage to the site of a Saint, but one that symbolized the diseased and redeemed body part of that Saint, which they then embodied on their own body? 

Since syphilis was an unknown and new disease, perceptions of it were informed by social perceptions of other skin-related illnesses such as leprosy. French medieval historian Francois-Olivier Touati illustrates that over the course of the twelfth century, leprosy came to be seen not as a divine punishment, but as an invitation by God to convert to a religious life and attain salvation. Following from Touati, medieval historian Elma Brenner argues that lepers were seen, in the centuries preceding the syphilis epidemic, as a religious group “chosen by God to suffer in this life in order to be redeemed in the next” (241). Sickness marked God’s intervention, not his absence. The sick, suffering body was therefore not seen by all as a punishment by God, but was viewed as an invitation into God’s grace, and a time of waiting for when all would be made new. 

A theology of the sick body anticipating newness is reminiscent of the Jobian narrative. The pilgrims who, in good or poor health, attached these badges to their bodies aligned their bodies into a participatory relationship to the innocent suffering and triumph of Saint Job in an embodied way. The presence of the story’s golden scabs on their own bodies can be seen as form of role-play, wherein the pilgrim body joins the body of another: first Job’s, and by typological association, to that of Christ’s. Bearing these golden scabs on their bodies would have transformed the body of its wearer into a sign of redemption. The pilgrim, like Saint Job and Christ, was close to God and may have been suffering from an affliction by no fault of their own, all the while persevering with a confidence that their suffering had already been redeemed and come out as gold. 

Whether such badges were later offered as tokens to others, as they had been offered to the musicians in the story, is unknown, but provocative to imagine. One has to wonder what feelings the pilgrims affixing these badges to their cloaks may have had as they wandered around the village church in Wezemaal and back home, disrupting linear time through their faith and bringing the story to life. 

Written by Hannah Gardiner. Edited by Dr. Ann Marie Rasmussen. This post was originally published on the Medieval Badges blog on January 29, 2022.

Works Cited

Arrozabalaga, Jon, John Henderson and Roger Kenneth French. The Great Pox: The French Disease in Renaissance Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. 

Balentine, Samuel E. Have You Considered My Servant Job?: Understanding the Biblical Archetype of Patience. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2015.

Brenner, Elma. “The Leprous Body in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Rouen: Perceptions and Responses.” In The Ends of the Body: Identity and Community in Medieval Culture, edited by Jill Ross, Suzanne Conklin Akbari, pp. 239-59. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.

Campbell, Gordon. “Syphilis.” Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. 

Minnen, Bart. “‘Den heyligen Sant al in Brabant.’ The Church of St Martin in Wezemaal and the devotion to St Job 1000-2000 – Retrospective. The fluctuations of a devotion” [English summary of: Den Heyligen Sant Al in Brabant: De Sint-Martinuskerk van Wezemaal en de cultus van Sint Job 1000-2000 (Averbode, 2011).]

Suykerbuyk, Ruben. The Matter of Piety : Zoutleeuw’s Church of Saint Leonard and Religious Material Culture in the Low Countries (c. 1450-1620), vol. 16. Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2020.

The Golden Scabs of Saint Job — Part two

PART TWO — THE VILLAGE CHURCH AS PILGRIMAGE SITE

The Norbertine Abbey of Averbode, Belgium acquired Sint-Martinuskerk (Church of Saint Martin) in 1232. Unbeknownst to all at the time, this church would transform Saint Job and Saint Job would transform this church. Sint-Martinuskerk was the first church in the Low Countries to create a devotion to Saint Job. Bart Minnen credits Saint Job for making Sint-Martinuskerk one of the richest rural churches in Brabrant. But how did this happen? 

“België - Wezemaal - Sint-Martinuskerk - 01” by Em Dee, WikiCommons. Photograph courtesy of photographer under CC BY-SA 4.0.

A church or cathedral was not enough to attract the hordes of pilgrims Saint Job of Wezemaal did. Unlike religious sites across Europe that became sites of pilgrimage because they housed a special relic, (e.g., bones, fabrics, etc.), Sint-Martinuskerk belonged to a category of pilgrimage sites where the religious object sought after was a miraculous wooden statue. And miraculous it was: Saint Job of Wezemaal was said to have performed various miracles, inspiring a petition to the Pope in 1501 “for the approval of a college of priests, the institution of 10 May as feast day, and the granting of an indulgence” (Suykerbuyk 102). These miraculous aspects associated with Saint Job of Wezemaal were essential to Job’s pilgrim sainthood. 

The wooden statue below was commissioned from an anonymous artist at the end of the fourteenth century, pre-existing the pilgrimage to Wezemaal. The wooden figure of Job sits in golden, priestly robes and holds in his right hand, the priestly blessing hand, a placard with words from the Book of Job: Godt Gaf Godt Namp [God Gave God Took]. In his left hand, Job holds a flame. 

Saint Job statue at Wezemaal. Anonymous, c. 1400–1430, wood. Wezemaal, Sint-Martinuskerk, © KIK-IRPA, Brussels, inv. 4411. Photographer: Jean-Luc Elias. Photograph courtesy of KIK-IRPA, Brussels.

The connection between Job and the priesthood has long been depicted in Jobian iconography. Traditionally, priests have been seen as those closest to God and those who mediate the relationship between mankind and God. Old Testament scholar Samuel E. Balentine has called Job the priest of the priests, urging Job’s witness as being crucial to understanding the priesthood of Aaron, or even that of the High Priest in Christianity, Christ. The Book of Job portrays a priestly Job: a pious man offering prayers of intercession for his friends and burnt offerings on behalf of his family as the head of household. Balentine has likewise speculated on the relationship between priest and those affected by skin disease, like Job was, which was likewise a reality during pilgrimages to Wezemaal through the syphilis epidemic that began in 1495. Balentine argues that the rituals to heal someone suffering from a skin disease (see Leviticus 8) were similar to ordination rituals, inviting a parallel between the priest and the “leper.” 

Biblical studies scholar Barry Huff suggests that the flame in Job’s left hand originated out of references to burnt offerings in the Books of Job and Leviticus, and thus can be seen as illustrating Job’s piety. Huff points out that the theme of burnt offerings also occurs in the Testament of Job (which the previous post identified as the source for the musicians who figure so prominently in the medieval Job iconography) and is expanded in Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job. Huff writes: “Through the lens of Gregory the Great's interpretation, this [flame] motif speaks with new relevance to the lives of all believers, beckoning them, like Job, to persevere through the fire of suffering that burns away the dross of impurity so that the gold of virtue can radiate” (337). 

While the theology behind the iconography of the wooden statue would likely have been unfamiliar to many of the pilgrims seeking Saint Job’s blessing, the transformative power of Job was nonetheless understood. Despite or perhaps in light of this, the church saw a new stone statue of Job introduced between 1491 and 1610. This one depicts a seated, suffering Job.

Saint Job statue at Wezemaal. Anonymous, c. 1491–1610, stone, 177 x 87 x 43 cm. Wezemaal, Sint-Martinuskerk, © KIK-IRPA, Brussels, inv. 4415. Photograph courtesy of KIK-IRPA, Brussels.

Unlike the confident Job who has passed through the fire and been transformed into gold as shown by the priestly robes, the second statue of a suffering Job only alludes to, but does not depict, his transformation. The statues would have offered to pilgrims two very different moments in the story of Job for reflection, mediation, and perhaps even identification: aligning oneself with the suffering man in hope of healing or with the saved man who is an exemplar of the rewards of faith.

Bart Minnen explains that the earliest medieval badges from the site of Wezemaal also depict Job the priest, but like the statues their iconography transitions to the suffering Job sitting on a dunghill, offering musicians a coin. This scene remains consistent despite changing compositions of the bodies, differing badge shapes and frames surrounding the scene, and additional elements such as inscriptions and the presence of political family crests. These badges, most of which are dated to the second half of the fifteenth century, depict Job at the miraculous point that bridges his suffering and triumph: when his scabs turn to gold. I will elaborate in the next post on the relevance of this hope in suffering throughout the syphilis epidemic that began in 1495 and continued during the same time as pilgrimages to Wezemaal.

Written by Hannah Gardiner. Edited by Dr. Ann Marie Rasmussen. This post was originally published on the Medieval Badges blog on August 17, 2021.

Works Cited

Balentine, Samuel E. “Job as Priest to the Priests,” in ‘Look At Me and Be Appalled’: Essays on Job, Theology, and Ethics, Biblical Interpretation Series, vol. 190 (Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2021), pp. 107-132.

Huff, Barry. “Job the Priest: From Scripture to Sculpture,” in Seeking Wisdom’s Depths and Torah’s Heights: Essays in Honor of Samuel E. Balentine, eds. Barry Huff and Patricia Vesely (Macon, GE: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2020), pp. 327-53.

Minnen, Bart. “‘Den heyligen Sant al in Brabant.’ The Church of St Martin in Wezemaal and the devotion to St Job 1000-2000 – Retrospective. The fluctuations of a devotion” [English summary of: Den Heyligen Sant Al in Brabant: De Sint-Martinuskerk van Wezemaal en de cultus van Sint Job 1000-2000 (Averbode, 2011).]

Suykerbuyk, Ruben. The Matter of Piety : Zoutleeuw’s Church of Saint Leonard and Religious Material Culture in the Low Countries (c. 1450-1620), vol. 16 (Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2020).