Kirk Ambrose, professor in the Department of Classics and founding faculty director of the Center for Teaching & Learning, delivered his Distinguished Research Lecture “The Authentic and the Counterfeit in Medieval Art” on November 28, 2023 in the Chancellor’s Auditorium, Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE).
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– Thank you, Brianne. That was very nice and very gracious of you. I’ve been at CU for a while, I think 24 years now, and in that time I’ve had the great fortune of collecting a lot of debts. And what I mean by that is I’ve learned so much
From colleagues across the campus, students, staff and faculty, and there are really too many to name. But I just wanted to signal before I get started today that I feel incredibly grateful and fortunate to be part of this community. And just thank you all for coming today.
I didn’t wanna name anyone by name for fear of sins of omission, to use a Christian metaphor, but there is one person I do wanna name. Someone I met in faculty orientation back in 1999. That’s my wife, Kim. And she has been supportive throughout the years. If you can imagine living with someone
Who thinks a lot about medieval monks, that’s probably not most folks’ idea of a kind of a wonderful partner, but I’ve learned so much from Kim over the years about art, about artistic practices and so on, and so thank you, Kim.
What I want to do today is give a kind of some work that’s coming out of a work in progress. About 18 months ago, some colleagues in Europe reached out, they’d received a grant from the European Union to work on Sainte-Foy in Conques which you see here on the screen,
Hoping we can transport ourselves to this amazing site. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s in Southern France, and it has its origins in the ninth century. And I was asked to kind of contribute to this multidisciplinary study thinking about art, thinking about relics and so on.
And so the talk today kind of draws on from that project. Because it’s a work in progress, I’d love any feedback. So without further ado, I’ll get started. I’m from Texas originally, so I feel like I can own this. Okay, so we use the word authentic in many contexts,
From authentic food to authentic selves, and among other senses, the word suggests sincerity, accuracy, or something of undisputed origins. Today, however, I want to begin with a medieval understanding of the Latin word, “Authenticum.” Often used to reference a text that identified and certified relics. And relics were typically a bone
Or bone fragment from a holy person, though they could also be a piece of clothing, a walking stick, a pillow, breast milk from the Virgin Mary, basically anything that came into contact with a holy body. Now this slide shows an example of one medieval authentic, small piece of parchment bound
To what the text identifies as a finger of Saint Adelaide. Now, authenticating relics was a foundational activity during the Middle Ages, for was widely understood that God could work miracles through these objects from healing the sick to punishing and even killing enemies of the church.
Possessing part of a venerated saint’s body not only enhance the prestige of a religious institution, but it likewise ensured the efficacy of monks and priests’ prayers. Prayers that could influence the eternal fate of every Christian soul, whether to enter heaven or to suffer in hell. Now because body relics
Were almost never self-evidently bone, much less bone from a saint’s body, labels known as authentics helped keep records straight. This was important because institutional memory could sometimes prove unreliable. We have accounts monks discovering relics that had been squirreled away, but because they lacked authentics were impossible to associate with a specific saint.
Indeed, without the labeled naming, “Adelaide’s Finger,” we would be hard pressed to identify this object even as a body part. That said, the authentic hardly settles matter. How do we know that we can trust the claim made by the script on this small strip of parchment?
And how do we know that this object is simply a fake? Now these questions are not simply products of 21st century skepticism, an era that has witnessed digitally produced deep fakes, and the widespread circulation of disinformation. A celebrated medieval character, probably familiar to many of us, who embodies deceptive practices is the partner
In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Among other bits and bobs, this wayward bureaucrat carried pig bones that he hoped to sell as holy relics to the naive. The partner seems to take pride in his ability to dupe the unwitting into purchasing worthless objects. Now, Chaucer died of October 25th, 1400,
Some 300 years later than my own period of study. Nonetheless, an argument can be made that fakes were just as pervasive between the years 1000 and 1150, perhaps even more so than in Chaucer’s age. The sober historian, Giles Constable, dubbed the 11th and 12th centuries the, quote, “Golden age of medieval forgery,” unquote,
And other scholars of advanced similar views. A few examples, suffice to make this point. Religious institutions regularly manufactured fake documents and official seals to advance their interests. With one German survey, estimating that as many as two thirds of church documents produced prior to 1100 were partly or fully forged. Unscrupulous churchmen
And secular leaders regularly produced coins from devious metals to retain more gold and silver for their coffers. And theologians of the period debated the legitimacy of baptisms performed by children, by actors and others who were not priests, for these cases raised important questions about what constituted an authentic ritual.
While the Middle Ages is often caricatured as an age of faith, fraud was pervasive. A case in point is Adelaide’s Finger Relic. An analysis by the Cleveland Museum of Art where it’s now housed, concluded that while this object is indeed a finger bone, it comes from a non-human primate.
To get a better sense of how medieval communities bolster their claims to authentic relics during a period rife with fakes, I want to focus on the case of Sainte-Foy in Conques, a monastery in a remote mildness region of Southern France that remains sparsely populated to this day. Sometime during the ninth century,
This monastery was established on a field shaped like a shell, whence the name Conque. And despite its geographic isolation, by the year 1100, this monastery became an important institution that exerted influence across present day, France, Italy, Spain, and beyond. Now, this meteoric rise in fortunes can be explained largely
By the monks claim to possess the relics of Sainte-Foy, a 13-year-old girl who was beheaded in the fourth century by a Roman official for refusing to renounce her Christian faith. The site of her martyrdom was Agen, a city some 110 miles or so southwest of Conques. Now the earliest account we have
Of how Sainte-Foy’s body came to be buried at Conques was written down sometime between 1020 and 1060. And on the screen you just see a late 11th century copy of this text and his other texts relating to Sainte-Foy’s cult. According to this anonymous text, the monks of Conques charged one of their brothers,
A certain Ernestus, to steal Sainte-Foy’s body from her tomb in the monastery Agen. To do so, Ernestus disguised himself as a poor pilgrim and over time gained the confidence of the monks of Agen through demonstrations of his piety. Eventually, Ernestus was entrusted with guarding the relics of Sainte-Foy.
And when the coast was clear, he stuffed her body into a very clean sack. And the text is very clear on this point. Now, after a series of adventures, the monk eventually transported the saint’s bones to Conques where they were buried. Though the text conveniently
Or perhaps purposely doesn’t specify where they were buried. Now this legend conforms to a topos with currency in the 11th century of the furta sacra or sacred theft of saint’s relics. The logic was that a saint would not allow their body to be moved unless they wished to have a new resting place.
Indeed, we have stories of saints resisting thefts, of saints’ bodies resisting thefts, plunging their churches into darkness to hide the whereabouts of the remains, or miraculously making their bones too heavy for would-be thieves to carry. At odds, with 21st century sensibilities, relic thefts could serve to legitimize
An institution’s right to possess a holy body. What is more, much evidence suggests that institutions that told entertaining stories about their holy relics, full of intrigue and other vivid details, were often successful in the project of attracting donors and pilgrims. Now in the case of Conques,
The monastic community did more than promote legends of their patron saints. Around the year 900, the monks took the highly unusual step of fashioning this golden bejeweled statue, roughly, you know, two and a half, three feet in height, to house a portion of Sainte-Foy’s skull, which according to medieval sources,
Was deposited in a cavity in the torso. It wouldn’t have been visible, but it was in the torso. That relic is no longer extant. The decision to fashion this elaborate statue ran counter to widespread reluctance in Christian circles going back to late antiquity to produce sculpture in the round. While two dimensional representations
Of holy figures in say paintings or mosaics were widely accepted, three-dimensional sculpture tended to be associated with a sin of idolatry, forbidden by the commandments that God gave to Moses. This is a bit of a creepy slide. This golden sculpture with its piercing gaze palpably evokes the bodily presence
Of the saint, as well as stands as a harbinger of the widespread revival of sculpture that would take place in centuries to come. And interestingly enough, just as a side, this head is likely a male head that was repurposed. And there’s a lot of debate about where this comes from,
Whether late antique ruler or perhaps a death mask, but that’s a whole other story. Now, in addition to the clergy and the laity performing acts of veneration to the statue within the church, it was paraded on various occasions through the countryside to solicit donations and prayers of the faithful.
Such public spectacles could likewise articulate the borders of the monasteries’ land holdings, which were extensive but likewise contested. Jewels, cameos, and carved rock crystals, many dating back to antiquity, encrust this statue surface and likely represent gifts of devotees. There are several stories of Sainte-Foy appearing to lay people in dreams or visions demanding
A particular piece of jewelry. For those who refused, there could be dire consequences. In one account, a woman who knew of the saint’s desire for jewelry asked her chambermaid to guard her ring as she visited the saint. After the woman returned home,
The saint appeared to her in a dream and demanded her ring. The woman awoke and discounted the saint’s request as a mere fantasy. Soon the woman fell ill with a fever, and after three days she realized her error and ordered a horse to be saddled
So that she could donate her ring to the saint. Her fever, of course, goes away immediately and she rides off to Conques to make her donation. And again and again, the saint is portrayed as covetous, almost vindictive, almost a caricature of a teenager. Now to my mind, it is significant that in many
Of these accounts that come down to us, the stories are literally designated as jokes or pastimes, “Iocare” in the Latin, and while scholars have tended to read Sainte-Foy’s miracles as sort of these rather kind of straightforward expressions of faith or cynical ploys to solicit or to garner more coins or jewelry,
The use of humor remains largely unexplored, and it presents a potentially fruitful line for future research. Now regardless, reports of miracles associated with Sainte-Foy’s statute circulated widely, though they were met with suspicion in some circles. Bernard of Angers was one such skeptic. Now Bernard first heard reports
Of the saint’s miracles while he was studying under Fulbert of Chartres, a leading intellectual of the 11th century. In a letter to his teacher, Bernard states that he initially considered these stories to be nothing more than inane fables, which he intended to debunk one day by journeying
To Conques and conducting a thorough investigation. This research project had to be postponed for several years owing to heavy administrative and teaching duties. That may not sound familiar to me, but when Bernard eventually traveled to Conques around the year 1010, he began interviewing individuals who had personally interacted with this saint’s sculpture.
His documentation and verification of reports through interviews with direct witnesses was rather innovative, kind of almost proto journalistic in its contours. Now, Bernard first records an interview with a certain Vuitbert, a street performer whose sight had been restored by the saint after the man’s master had ripped out his eyes.
Distraught, blind, Vuitbert was visited in a dream by Sainte-Foy, who asked him to light two candles in her church. Vuitbert complied and his eyes were restored. And Bernard informs us that he witnessed, he saw the scars around Vuitbert eyes, thereby corroborating this story. And Bernard continued to interview individuals
In and around Conques collecting dozens of stories that demonstrated the saint’s power. These included other individuals who had their sight restored, of mules revived from the dead, of a man being paralyzed for stealing the monk’s wine, that’s a great sin, and many more. And what’s interesting in these accounts
Is the statue really stands as a proxy for the saint. It’s really quite remarkable. In one dramatic account, Bernard tells this of a monk by the name of Barne who disparaged the statue of Sainte-Foy’s an idol which he likened to ancient carvings of Venus or Diana. Shortly thereafter, well, yeah, okay.
Shortly thereafter, the saint appeared to Barne and asked why he disparaged her image. Without waiting for an answer, she took out a rod and struck the monk who died the next day after relating his story. For Bernard, reverence to the statue of the saint was not idolatry,
For the sculpture was ultimately not the object of devotion, but rather evoked. And this is, use these words, “Her pious memory.” And in housing one of her relics channeled her miraculous powers. Bernard returned to Conques within the next few years to record some additional miracles, including one involving two of his students
Who recovered a lost book after praying to the saint, and I think of this as kind of the inverse of the “Dog ate my homework” miracle. After Bernard’s death, the monks of Conques continued his project of recording miracles, the final of which dates to the late 11th century and concerns
A brother named Salus. While transporting foundation stones for the building of the church that stands to this day, Salus’ cartwheels became entangled in brambles. As he tried to free the cart, he was nearly crushed by his payload. He averted disaster by invoking the name of Sainte-Foy, whereupon, the cart miraculously righted.
Now around the year 1100, about 80 years after Bernard’s writing, the monks of Conques began actively expanding their claims to relics, beyond the body of Sainte-Foy, crafting works of art that asserted the presence of a wide variety of relics, especially those associated with Christ and his disciples.
Perhaps most remarkably, the community began to claim that Charlemagne had given them Christ’s foreskin and umbilical cord fashioning this A-shaped reliquary to house them. These two relics would’ve been deemed extraordinarily precious because Christ’s body had been assumed directly into heaven and he had left few bodily remains.
Same for some blood from the crucifixion, fingernail clippings and the like. Now Conques claim to Christ’s foreskin and umbilical cord seems to be charitable, aspirational, likely a wholesale fabrication from around the year 1100. No earlier text mentions these remarkable relics and this absence raises some suspicions, especially since the latter,
In Basilica in Rome, which was an important center for the Pope in the Middle Ages, possessed a cross containing the foreskin and umbilical cord of Christ. And in subsequent periods, at least three other institutions would claim to possess Christ’s foreskin prompting one of my undergraduate professors to quip, “What a guy.”
So representative of this emergent interest in relics associated with Christ was Abbott Begon. And you see his tomb here and he ruled Conques or administered Conques from 1087 to 1107. On the screen is his tomb located on the exterior of the south side of the present church,
Which was largely completed during his tenure. Above the tomb is this relief sculpture, which shows the Abbott in the company of Sainte-Foy, Christ and two angels. He’s on the left. Begon was a talented administrator, under whom the monastery flourished and extended its fear of influence. And he strove to establish Sainte-Foy
A figure of largely regional importance, firmly within the universal communion of saints. And one marker of the success is he persuaded Pope Paschal II to introduce Sainte-Foy into the Canon of the Mass. This was a very big deal. Begon was a staunch patron of the arts
And attuned to the power of art to persuade. Among other projects, he commissioned several expensive objects that assert a material connection to Christ’s life. On your right is the so-called Reliquary of Pope Paschal II that features a scene of Christ on the cross flanked by Mary and John.
An inscription at its base reads, “In the 1100th year, from the incarnation of the Lord, Lord Pope Paschal II sent from Rome these relics of the cross of his tomb and of many saints.” A similar set of concerns informs the inscription of the portable altar on your left,
And the inscription around it reads in translation obviously. “And the 1100th year from the incarnation of the Lord on the sixth calends of July, Lord Ponce, bishop of Barbastro and monk of the Virgin Sainte-Foy dedicated this altar of Abbott Begon and deposited relics
Of Christ cross and his tomb as well as the relics of many other saints.” This inscription and actually both of these inscriptions offer glimpses into the dense network of institutional relationships that could be forged through relics. In the case of the altar, Ponce who had been a monk at Conques
And promoted to the post of Bishopric in Northeast Spain, performed this great service of dedicating this altar to his alma mater, asserting the monastery’s institutional status through relics, and this is a urgent project, and I’m just showing you a few examples from Conques, likely took on a real sense of urgency
Around the year 1100 when the nearby monastery of Fissiac began to assert competing claims to relics especially of Sainte-Foy’s relics. And these two monasteries began jockeying for supremacy using relics as part of their claims to supremacy. Now, Begon strong interest in relics is evident in the large sculpture that he commissioned
Above the entrance of his church, among the most celebrated works of medieval art. This semi-circular carving known as Tympanum represents the last judgment with the central figure of the enthroned Christ, welcoming the saved into heaven and condemning sinners to hell. To Christ’s right, and just to locate us,
This is just obviously detail of this facade, Christ in the center, everything to Christ’s right, it’s all oriented around Christ is heaven and everything to his left is hell. To Christ’s right are the elect who have been admitted to heaven in an extremely ordered symmetrical composition which visually evokes the harmony of paradise.
To Christ’s left are those condemned to hell fire. And this scene on the screen, reading from left to right, this is a proud man, you know, if you say, “Get off your high horse,” this is a common image of a knight being pushed. These adulterers who are bound by the neck for eternity.
I still have yet to see a good explanation why that’s a punishment. And then a avaricious man being hanged here, and then a liar whose tongue is being ripped out. There’s a kind of symmetry between the punishments and the sin. The visual chaos of this scene and other scenes,
There are several scenes here, stands in stark contrast, the order of heaven. And it emphasizes through these bodily tortures that suffering is understood in specifically corporeal or bodily terms. Now, time does not permit a thorough examination of this remarkable sculpture, but for our purposes it is important to note
That it promotes relics associated both with Sainte-Foy and with Christ. And will begin with Sainte-Foy who’s in the circle here. The figure of Sainte-Foy appears among the elect prostrated in prayer within a chapel. Her inclusion in a scene of the last judgment interweaves local history within universal salvation church history,
A strategy that would become increasingly common in later artistic programs across Europe. Other visual cues evoke aspects of Sainte-Foy’s cult. If one looks closely behind her praying figure, there are manacles, a reference to the unjustly imprisoned, making votive offerings of their chains to the saint in thanksgiving for releasing them from captivity.
By legend, the iron from these manacles was melted down into the grills today that are visible within the church. And the iron of this grill and the other grills kind of establishes this material link to the saint’s miracles that could be directly experienced and even touched by the faithful.
Now interestingly, the material of iron is likewise signal in Conques’ Last Judgment, Tympanum through representations of the holy lance and nails. Iron instruments that were central to the crucifixion narrative. The nails affixing Christ’s body to the cross and the lance piercing his side. The lateral arm of the cross behind this carved figure
Of Christ contains two lines of text. The lower line, unique in medieval art to my knowledge, is a quotation from the liturgy anticipating the sign of the cross that will appear at the end of time, in the sky. The upper line of text consists of basically four words,
Of sun, the lance, nails and moon. And these are accompanied by, on the left, you see soul, the sun, personification of the sun. To the far right, a personification of the moon, and then adjacent the lance, you could see this angel holding the lance adjacent that inscription, and then a nail,
One of the nails of the crucifixion held by the angel there. Now the inclusion of the sun and moon labeled is kind of a standard aspect in medieval art starting in the Carolingian period, and you see this a lot in scenes of the crucifixion.
But by contrast, inclusion of the holy lance and nail here, clutched by angels, it was rather unusual and with no example giving such visual prominence at Conques. It’s often other instruments of The Passion, say, as the Crown of Thorns. And even that inclusion of these instruments
Of The Passion are rare in these scenes, at this time. What is more, the prominent labels adjacent these instruments of The Passion adopt a similar visual strategy as authentics for relics. And there’s a way in which this seems to be participating in that visual language. Now no evidence suggests that Conques claimed possession
Of the holy lance or nails. Though it is possible that fragments of these two objects were among the unnamed relics that Begon had received from Pope Paschal or from Bishop of Ponce. Regardless, the nails and lance had long been revered in tandem because of their physical contact with Christ’s body.
And I’m not gonna read this poem, but this is an early poem by Fortunatus pinned in 569 to commemorate the installation of a fragment of the true cross in the convent of Notre Dame in Poitier, which was accompanied by an elaborate ceremony involving King Clothar and Queen Radegund.
And of the six poems that Fortunatus wrote to mark this occasion, this Pange Lingua had a great impact on subsequent hymns and poems to the instruments, The Passion in foregrounding both the lance and the nails. This was introduced in the continued in a 12th century example by Eckbert of Schonau
Stresses the materiality of Christ’s suffering by foregrounding both the lance and the nails. Eckbert’s enumeration of the Instruments of The Passion amidst conjunctions and thereby highlights to the nails and lance as palpable nodes or hooks to focus his devotional imagination on the instruments used to torture Christ’s body. This pairing would eventually receive
Liturgical acknowledgement under Pope Innocent VI who established a liturgy of the lance and nails in 1353. Now we might cast the prominence of the nail and lance relics in the Conques Tympanum as manifesting an important current in 12th century spirituality that emphasized materiality, including the physicality of Christ’s body.
The off repeated phrase, that nude, “I follow a nude Christ” succinctly encapsulated this embodied understanding of faith experienced and performed in large part through the physical body. And sin as we’ve seen is experienced through the body. The salient plasticity of the carve forms at Conques offers a fitting visual language for articulating such
An embodied understanding of spirituality. Yet, and scholars always end “yet,” I would suggest that we might likewise identify rifts between trends and medieval religiosity and the imagery in Conques Tympanum. For starters, Begon’s decision to foreground the lance and nails of the crucifixion over the entrance of his monastery might be construed
As something of a curious choice in view of contemporary events. In 1098, Peter Bartholomew, a participant in the first crusade, claimed that St. Andrew appeared to him in a series of visions in which he revealed the location of the holy lance. At the time, the crusaders were camped out
In Northern Syria and had yet to capture Jerusalem, which was their final goal. Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy and Le Puy is close by to Conques, spiritual leader of the campaign and who Abbott Begon almost certainly knew, personally, regarded this claim with skepticism. And it’s interesting
That a member of the church is skeptical here. In contrast, Count Raymond of Toulouse, military leader of the campaign was inclined to believe Peter’s claim. Raymond ordered a search for the Holy Relic. And on June 14th, Peter led a group to the Cathedral of St. Peter and Antioch.
And after a day of fruitless digging leaped into the hole and produced a piece of iron that he identified as a lance. Pretty convenient. Many accepted the relic’s authenticity, and it was carried into battle. But as Peter’s vision’s proliferated in subsequent weeks, many began to doubt him
And challenged his claim to having found the lance. To address growing suspicions, he submitted to an ordeal by fire and was fatally burned, thereby discrediting the authenticity of his relic. Bishop Adhemar unfortunately had died before this ordeal, losing out on the chance to have his doubts vindicated, while Count Raymond’s reputation suffered
Because of his credulity. Now, as Begon’s Tympanum was being carved, there were many other competing claims to the holy lance and nails. And for the sake of the time, I’m just gonna list a couple of salient examples. William of Malmesbury, in his history of the kings of the English informs us
That Duke Hugh, the Great of France, sent relics including a nail and the lance to King Athelstan in England as he sought the hand of his sister, a marriage that took place in 926. And this claim is likewise documented in a roughly 1030 list of relics at Exeter Cathedral that lists
The lance as a gift of Athelstan. The Holy Roman emperors had included a lance as part of their imperial regalia since the time of Otto I in the 10th century. And around the year 1100, under Emperor Henry IV, this lance was encased with a silver band
That identifies it as the Lance of Saint Maurice, a third century military leader. And it contained a nail from the crucifixion, claiming this was incorporated into this relic. Other claims to the lance around the year 1100 included a relic of the lance at Constantinople discovered by St. Helena,
Constantine’s mother, the basilic of St. Peter’s in Rome, likewise claimed of the lance and so on and so forth. Finally, lay 183 of the Song of Roland informs us that Charlemagne’s sword, Joyeuse, contained the holy lance within its pommel. And beginning in 1279, we have evidence that a sword identifies as Charlemagne began
To be used in the coronation ceremonies for the kings of France, as in this portrait of Louis XIV. It is in view of these and other competing claims. You could go to Trier, you could go and so on. Many, many institutions claim these relics that we can understand the skepticism surrounding
The discovery of the lance in Antioch. Now it may be that emphasis on the lance and nails in the Conques Tympanum marks a doubling down. An emphatic claim of the in irrefutable materiality of holy relics in the face of competing and discredited claims. And this may be, but I likewise find it significant
That elsewhere in the Conques Tympanum, there’s evidence of anxiety about the status of material appearances. And I’m thinking here of a minter who appears among the individuals condemned to hell, and this just orients us within the Tympanum. Tormented by a demon who pulls at his beard,
This minter holds his in his up raised hand a cylindrical object that resembles extent classical and medieval coin dies. And here’s just an example from William the Conqueror. Early in the 20th century, a painted inscription reading “cinereous” or coin die was still legible, adjacent to this scene, but has since faded.
In his right hand, the minter holds what appears to be an ingot ready to be flattened into a metal sheet for producing blanks. The hellfire that licks at this figure’s leg seems a fitting punishment evoking the process of melting metals during coin production. At the minter’s feet stand a pitcher and a bowl,
Objects that have parallels in later representations of this trade. Now curiously, this minter has been all but ignored in the voluminous scholarship on the Conques Tympanum which has been the subject of dozens of articles, books, and dissertations. In the most significant substantial discussion of the minter to date, really a paragraph,
Jean Claude Bon interpreted him through the lens of class as a member of the bourgeois aristocracy. Like other elites represented in the hell scene, such as a king, the minter was not exempt from eternal damnation. And indeed minters could become extremely wealthy, such as the well-documented case of Ridolfus,
Who worked for the bishop of Chartres. And such prosperous figures may have been associated with the sin of greed, although we see greed represented elsewhere in this Tympanum. But we should also keep in mind that all luker was not deemed filthy for the church, including the monks at Conques enthusiastically welcomed coin donations
From pilgrims and other donors. Moreover, many ecclesiastical institutions across Europe held minting rights suggesting that producing coins was not considered an intrinsically sinful activity. The Conques minter is the only example in art of the period to be included in a last judgment scene. Indeed, negative moralization is notably absent in the handful
Of other 12 century representations of minters, and I’m just gonna show two. One from a capital on the porch of the Priory Church of Souvigny that features various aspects of coin production, including a figure flattening out a metal sheet with a hammer and another using a mallet and die
To imprint mint marks on blanks. This detailed representation has sometimes been seen to assert this priorities minting privileges. The archibald on the right, from Carrion de los Condes in Spain shows multiple stages of coin production above the entrance to the church as part of a large cycle of carvings that feature various labors.
Now, the unique negative casting of the Conques minter, I suggest, points to the crime of counterfeiting. A notion perhaps underscored by the fact that a demon pulls his beard. The meaning of this gesture could vary depending on context, but it was widely associated with deception at this time.
For example, in a legend that circulated in many textual and pictorial versions across Europe and the Mediterranean, the infant Moses tugged at Pharaoh’s beard while he was seated on his lap. The ruler interpreted this as evidence of the baby’s treachery and wanted to have him executed. The Pharaoh’s advisors intervened
And persuaded the ruler to put the baby to a test. They placed in front of the infant, a bowl of hot coals and a bowl of gold coins, reasoning that if the child grasped the coals, he had acted innocently in pulling the Pharaoh’s beard. If however, the baby Moses reached for the money,
His intentions were duplicitous and he intended to overthrow the ruler. When confronted with a choice, the baby Moses reached for the coals and then soothed his burning fingers by sticking them in his mouth. Now, coin counterfeiters were familiar figures in 11th and 12th century France. Perhaps the most famous example
Is Guibert of Nogent’s extensive account of the 1115 civil uprisings at Laon, which places much of the blame for the social unrest on unscrupulous minters. And I’ll just read this briefly, “The minters, knowing that if they sinned in their duties, they could find salvation through pecuniary redemption,
Debased the currency with so many counterfeits that a great many people were brought to extreme poverty. They minted coins of the cheapest bronze, and by some crooked technique used a tiny amount of silver to make them shinier.” Now, as a countermeasure to these deceptive practices, Bishop Gautier decreed that the coins of Amiens
Likewise heavily debased would serve as legal tender in Laon. Now, after this intervention failed to settle the financial crisis, the bishop began to mint his own coins, marked with a crosier. This effort likewise failed for the new coins were widely rejected as having even less value.
All hell broke loose and the bishop was murdered. Now, minting practices both honorable and deceptive, permeated the metaphoric language of medieval authors. A common trope with roots and antiquity likened God the creator to a minter and humans to his coins. For Christian authors, Christ’s order to his disciples
To render the tribute money unto Caesar, from the gospel of Matthew, drew much commentary. Augustine’s exegesis in Psalm 4 interpreted the story to mean that we are imprinted with the likeness of God just like a coin receives the likeness of a ruler, and he even goes so far as to put some words
Into Christ’s mouth. In doing so, you see that on the screen here. Church fathers developed numerous coin metaphors. For example, Paulinus of Nola, in a letter likened testing of the purity of a coins metal to the judgment necessary to enter heaven. And within this rich textural tradition,
Authors such as Cachin and Gregory the Great compared the physical attributes of coins to both good and bad monks. 12th century authors developed the analogy. Anselm of Canterbury likened the desirable qualities of a monk to those of an excellent coin, purity, accurate weight, and a legitimate mint mark.
The mint mark for Anselm relates to the visible signs of a monk’s virtue, such as the habit, the tonsure and kind of refined gestures. By contrast, the false monk, like the false penny, appears to be good on the surface, but hides a deception. Here’s his quote,
“The false penny pretends to have the same mint mark as the good one, but false copper hides inside it. Similarly, also, the false monk wears the same habit as the good one, but the falsity of his disobedience hides underneath.” In a wonderful study on Christian materiality, Caroline Walker Bynum rightly points out
That modern scholars have tended to treat relics and works of art as if they were separate categories, but suggests that they were revered by the medieval faithful in similar ways. And through word and image, the Conques Tympanum sculpture foregrounds the cross, the nails, and the lands, as well as the body of Sainte-Foy,
To imagine an unmediated religious truth, enmeshed in materiality. What I wanna suggest is that the presence of the minter potentially complicates this message, for he reminds the viewer that any claim to authenticity rooted in materiality rests on shaky ground because physical appearances can be deceiving, even counterfeited.
As relics provide a major draw for pilgrims and donors to Conques, doubts around their authenticity could have devastating consequences. Such a concern, perhaps helps to explain why designers of this Tympanum consigned the minter to hell, for his ability to produce fake material appearances could cast doubt on the material basis of Conques claims
To authenticity and authority. Thanks.