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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2023

Overlapping Incarnation and Consecration

Julie Glodt

Résumé

From treasures to altars, corporal cases - little and often adorned textile boxes - conveyed corporals. Those white linen cloths were the most sacred textiles displayed around the Catholic altar because of their direct contact with the Eucharist. Corporal cases were opened to extract corporals before the Canon, which was the most important part of the Mass in which the priest consecrated the host. Then, corporal cases could stand at the back of the altar, where they remained visible from the celebrant. Embroidered in Germany in the middle of the 13th century, the Cluny Museum’s corporal case shows, when closed, John the Baptist and the Crucifixion: both images can be analysed as clear references to the Eucharist under the form of the Agnus dei or the sacrifice of Christ. However, when lifted, the flap discovers the Nativity, which can only be seen when the celebrant extracted the corporals. This ephemeral disclosure emphasized paradoxically the meaning of this image, entangling, on the one hand, corporals and the sacramental species and, on the other, the Virgin, who gave birth to the Child and the priest, who was about to consecrate the host. By confronting this object with images, liturgical and devotional literature and other examples of corporal cases, this paper aims at exploring the way this object implemented the overlapping between Incarnation and Consecration in the context of the late medieval eucharistic devotion. My purpose is to underline how these iconographic intersections intensified through the actual gestures performed during the ritual.
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Dates et versions

hal-04103476 , version 1 (23-05-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-04103476 , version 1

Citer

Julie Glodt. Overlapping Incarnation and Consecration: Textiles, Images and Gestures around the Cluny Museum's Corporal Case (13th century). Intersections: Entanglements with Medieval and Renaissance Textiles, 1100-1550, Jessica Gasson; Julia van Zandvoort, May 2023, Londres, United Kingdom. ⟨hal-04103476⟩

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