ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Eric Palazzo*
Abstract: The role of the senses in medieval Western culture has been relatively well studied by several
authors but never in detail in connection with art and liturgy. This article presents a thorough investigation
of the natural links between art, liturgy, and the five senses in the early Middle Ages in the West. Initially, it
is to highlight the sensory dimension of the medieval liturgy, and, more generally, of all medieval ritual.
Based on the historiography of the topic, the article proposes the definition of a methodological and
theoretical framework. The article then offers an exploration of the relationship between art, liturgy, and the
five senses through the illustration of certain liturgical books of the Middle Ages, such as the Gospel books
and sacramentaries. The liturgical book shown is not only considered as a functional object but also as a
sacred space to be activated by the five senses in the course of the liturgy and intended to give it meaning.
Keywords: Liturgy, art, five senses, sacred space, ritual, liturgical books, theology, illuminations, iconography, Carolingian period.

This article explores the essential issues of a renewed approach to the study of the
relations between art and liturgy in the Middle Ages and their fundamental links with
the five senses.1 I will use a methodological frame in which anthropological,
epistemological, and historical considerations are used for a better understanding of
medieval ritual. The main object of this investigation will be the liturgical manuscript
and its illustrations and their significance for the sensory dimension of the liturgy. After a brief summary of the historiography of the subject and its methodological
implications, I will survey the five senses in the medieval culture and the exposition of
the theoretical frame that allows a new analysis of the relations between art and liturgy
in the Middle Ages. I then explore this new theoretical frame through the exploration
of a specific case, that of the illustrated liturgical book considered as a sacred space
which is activated in the liturgy by the five senses.
HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE SUBJECT
The sensory dimension of medieval liturgy, in which the images and all the artistic
creations fully participated,2 was a major component in the anthropology of the rituals
of the medieval church. Central to this anthropology of medieval liturgy and its pronounced sensory dimension were not only the artistic creations intended for the ritual
itself, but also all kinds of liturgical expressions that appealed to the senses. In the
past, many distinguished scholars have glimpsed the fundamentally sensory nature of
medieval liturgy and the prominent role played by art in this perception, but their ideas
have generally not received the attention they deserve. First of all, they have pointed
out that the liturgy comprises rituals, the nature of which are fundamentally sensory,
and in which art plays an essential role. Second, they developed the idea according to
*

Medieval Art History, University of Poitiers-CESCM, 24, rue de la chane, F-86000 Poitiers, France,
eric.palazzo@univ-poitiers.fr.
1
The second half of this article develops a talk given at a conference organized by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, Foundations of Medieval Monasticism, 1819 January 2008. I thank my friend Marie-Pierre Glin for the translation of this article. I am also
very grateful to my friend Herbert L. Kessler for his help and support in preparing this essay.
2
On the relationship between art and liturgy in the Middle Ages, see Eric Palazzo, Art and Liturgy in
the Middle Ages: Survey of Research (19802003) and Some Reflections on Method,Journal of English
and Germanic Philology 105 (2006) 170184; and idem, Liturgie et socit au Moyen Age (Paris 2000).

Viator 41 No. 1 (2010) 2556. 10.1484/J.VIATOR.1.100566.

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ERIC PALAZZO

which the liturgy in generalbut more particularly medieval liturgyconstituted the

synthesis of the arts par excellence, so much so that sacred art itself could become
liturgy, which does not dismiss its historical dimension and the way it addresses
political, social, or philosophical ideas. Dom Jean Leclercq presented this innovative
point of view in a remarkable way in his now classic book Lamour des lettres et le
dsir de Dieu.3 It is also at the heart of the great liturgist Joseph Andreas Jungmanns
inaugural lecture at Innsbruck University in 1953,4 and in the writings of Pavel Florensky, whose works seem to be little known by European art historians, in particular.5 In
several publications, Florensky very judiciously presented the main lines of what he
considers to be the principal points of a theory intended to describe the ritual of the
church as the perfect synthesis of the arts. Of Russian origin, Florensky was influenced by Orthodox theology, in which, as is well known, the arts are included among
the constitutive elements of the liturgy thanks to the divine nature of some artistic
creations, such as icons. He first of all underlinedvery much as Hans Belting tried to
do several decades later for religious objects today kept in museums6that an art object destined for the liturgy could not be studied solely as a museum artifact and independently from the ritual setting in which it was used. Florensky then showed that an
art object used in the liturgy could not in any way be studied without taking into account the many interactions between this object and the other elements constituting the
liturgy, such as words, smells, lights, or other liturgical objects and artistic creations in
general. According to Florensky, the liturgy must be considered as a perfect synthesis
of the arts, since it is the very nature of the ritual to address simultaneously the senses
of sight, hearing, and smell, and to be at the same time defined by the presence of performers (the celebrants), by the rhythm of their actions during the celebration or even
the plasticity of their clothes which interacts with all the other artistic dimensions
of the liturgy and which all appeal to the senses. Related to the writings of Leclercq,
Jungmann, and Florensky, the sweeping aesthetic approach once proposed by Edgar
De Bruyne partly tackled art from the point of view of its central place in the liturgy,
and used it, in addition to artistic creations, to define medieval aesthetics.7 To summarize these ideas of liturgy as a synthesis of the arts, where various sensory elements
interact, including a wide range of artistic creations present and activated during the
celebration of rituals, I quote Paul Zumthor : Realizing (at the highest level of existence) the link as well as the ceaseless transfers between man and God, between the
physical world and eternity, the liturgy illustrated this tendency (the sensory participation) in a exemplary way: spectacular in its most minute parts, it signified the truths of
faith through a complex interplay of auditory (music, psalmody, readings) and visual
(the splendid buildings; the performers, their clothes, their gestures, their dance; the
settings) perceptions, sometimes even tactile ones: one touches the holy wall, kisses
3

Dom Jean Leclercq, Lamour des lettres et le dsir de Dieu (Paris 1957) 219235.
Jospeph-Andreas Jungmann, Liturgie und Kirchenkunst (Innsbruck 1953). French trans. Liturgie et art
sacr, Traditions liturgiques et problmes actuels de pastorale (Lyon 1962) 297308.
5
See, in particular, Pavel Florensky, The Church Ritual as a Synthesis of the Arts, Beyond Vision. Essays on the Perception of Art (London 2002) 97111.
6
Hans Belting, La vraie image (Paris 2007) 5963.
7
Edgar De Bruyne, Etudes desthtique mdivale, 2 vols. (1946; Paris 1998) esp. 1.243306 and 439
477, and 2.329.
4

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

27

the statues foot, the reliquary or the bishops ring; one breathes the smell of frankincense and of candle wax.8 Medieval theologians would have been in favor of Zumthors definition of the liturgy. For them, in addition to its strong theological connotations and meanings, the liturgy was by its very nature a synthesis of the arts, where
all the senses are appealed to, since man, made of a soul and a body, is himself an image, a representation9 of the church in its theological sense as well as in its material
dimension, and represented by the church and all its ornamenta intended, among other
things, for the expression of the sensory character of the liturgy. A passage from a
homily by Hrabanus Maurus, written for, and without doubt delivered on, the occasion
of the celebration of a church consecration, demonstrates this point:
You are well met together today, dear brothers, that we may dedicate a house to God ... But
we do this if we ourselves strive to become a temple of God, and do our best to match ourselves to the ritual that we cultivate in our hearts; so that just as with the decorated walls of
this very church , with many lighted candles, with voices variously raised through litanies
and prayers, through readings and songs we can more earnestly offer praise to God : so we
should always decorate the recesses of our hearts with the essential ornaments of good
works, always in us the flame of divine and communal charity should grow side by side, always in the interior of our breast the holy sweetness of heavenly sayings and of Gospel
praise should resonate in memory. These are the fruits of a good tree, this the treasury of a
good heart, these the foundations of a wise master builder, which our reading of the holy
Gospel has commended to us today You are all gathered here, dear brothers, so that we can
consecrate this house to God 10

Hrabanus Maurus provides a definition of the liturgy that emphasizes the sensory
dimension of the liturgy, including artistic creations. From this text, Mary Carruthers
developed the argument that material visual images reflect the mental constructions of
medieval thought processes from the point of view of memory. Images functioned as
mnemonic devices contributing to the expression of a way of thinking. This idea excludes the strictly functionalist reading of medieval images, and I would add that it
also underlines the idea that images were considered as loci of the ritual, of which they
constituted the visual dimension, and were not simply functional objects meant to be
8
Paul Zumthor, La lettre et la voix. De la littrature mdivale (Paris 1987) 287288. See Eric Palazzo, Performing the Liturgy (6001100), The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 3, Early Medieval
Christianities, ca. 6001100 (Cambridge 2008) 472488. See also Visualizing Medieval Performance: Perspectives, Histories, Contexts, ed. Elina Gertsman (Ashgate 2008); Catherine Gauthier, Lodeur et la
lumire des ddicaces. Lencens et le luminaire dans le rituel de la ddicace de lglise au haut Moyen Age,
Mises en scne et mmoires de la conscration de lglise dans lOccident mdival (Turnhout 2008) 7590;
and Eric Palazzo, La lumire et la liturgie au Moyen Age, PRIS-MA 27 (2001) 91104.
9
Carlo Ginzburg, Reprsentation. Le mot, lide, la chose, A distance. Neuf essais sur le point de vue
en histoire (Paris 2001) 7388.
10
PL110.7374: bene convenistis hodie, fratres charissimi, ut Deo domum dedicaremus, ipso jubente ac dicente: Facite mihi sanctuarium, et habito in medio vestri, dici Dominus Deo. Sed hoc digne
facimus si ipsi Dei templum fieri contendimus, si studemus congruere solemnitati quam colimus; ut sicut
ornatis studiosus eiusdem ecclesiae parietibus, pluribus accensis luminaribus, diversis per litanias et preces,
per lectiones et cantica, excitatis vocibus, Deo laudem parare satagerimus: ita etiam penetralia cordium
nostrorum semper necesariis bonorum operum decoremus ornatibus, semper in nobis flamma divinae pariter
et fraternae charitatis augescat, semper in secretario pecotirs nostri coeslestium memoria praeceptorum et
evangelicae llaudationis dulceddo sancta resonet. Hi sunt enime fructus bonae arboris, hic boni thesaurus
cordis, haec fundamenta sapientis architecti, quae nobis hodierna sancti Evangelii lectio commendat. Trans.
Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Memory, Rhetoric and the Making of Images 4001200 (New York
and Cambridge 1998) 275.

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ERIC PALAZZO

the illiterates Bible.11 In this context, ritual images appear to be loci for the expression of sacredness, just like psalmody, lighting of candles, biblical readings, to paraphrase Hrabanus Mauruss description of liturgical performance. They were ultimately
intended to be used as models by those taking part in the liturgy, to encourage them to
become images of the temple of God and to cultivate there the ornaments of their
hearts, mirrored in the ritual, particularly images. In Hrabanus Mauruss opinion,
therefore, the liturgy should not simply be considered for its sacred texts, but also for
its multidimensional aspect, its sensory dimension and its performative reality,
where the various visual and auditory elements become the rituals constitutive parts.
The ritual can thus become the expression of the construction of the temple, all brothers, indeed all Christians, must build deep within so that they can become an image
of the temple of God and take part in the completion of the divine plan, that is to say
the construction of the temple of the church. In this way, whoever builds his or her
own innermost temple on the basis of the various sensory elements of the ritual imitates or follows in the footsteps of the wise architect.
Two parts can be distinguished in Hrabanus Mauruss text, clearly distinct but also
perfectly complementary to one another from the point of view of the theology Hrabanus developed. First, the learned Carolingian theologian gives a definition of the liturgy of the church which I would describe as anthropological. Second, he looks
more closely at the relation between the temple and the image of the wise architect. At
this period, Hrabanus Maurus is of course not the only one thinking about the rituals
of the church and their sensory dimension in the widest sense, but he was the first to
express so precisely this conception of the liturgical performance and to put it in a
theological perspective. Other famous medieval theologians and commentators of the
liturgy have underlined this sensory dimension of the rituals of the church which, in
some ways, fully achieve the synthesis of the arts mentioned earlier, while allowing
the expression of a very rich theological thought.12 I cannot, within the limits of this
article, summarize the opinion of every medieval commentator on the liturgy concerning the importance of the senses in the rituals. I mention here, however, as an example
the sensory overtones of the writings of from Bruno of Segni and Sicardus of Cremona. Brunos comments on the liturgical ornamenta echo in many ways the ideas
developed by Hrabanus Maurus in his homily of the consecration of a church13 and
also Sicardus of Cremonas long exegetical commentary on the parts of the church
dedicated to the celebration of worship 14.

11

ing.

See my Raban Maur et la liturgie, Actes du colloque Raban Maur en son temps (2006), forthcom-

12
Francesca Mambelli, Il problema dellimmagine nei commentari allegorici sulla liturgia, Studi
Medievali 45 (2004) 121158.
13
Bruno of Segni, Sententiae, PL 165.940-942. See Herbert L. Kessler, A Gregorian Reform Theory of
Art ? Roma e la Riforma gregoriana. Tradizioni e innovazioni artistiche (XIXII secolo) (Rome 2007) 25
48.
14
Sicardi cremonensis episcopi, Mitralis de officii, CCCM 228, ed. Gabor Sarbak, Lorenz Weinrich
(Turnhout 2008) 1323.

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

29

THE FIVE SENSES IN MEDIEVAL CULTURE 15

The liturgy appeals to all the senses as a way to allow humankind to meet God. While
I assert this, I am fully aware that, on the whole, the sensory dimension of medieval
liturgy as well as, more generally, the role played by the senses in the Christian religion have been neglected or suppressed, as early as the medieval period, for reasons
concerning the perception and the place of the senses in Christianity.16 As Jean-Marie
Fritz convincingly argued, the epistemological perspective for the study of sound and
hearing in the Middle Ages involves looking at varied domains of medieval culture,
from patristic texts to the history of science, via archaeology, literature and the theology of the liturgy in order to propose a global view of the noisy Middle Ages.17 For
now, the role played by the senses in Christianity can be summarized by a passage
taken from a sermon by St. Augustine, in which he defines which impressions received
from the senses are licit:
Among all the pleasures which affect our senses, some are licit; these are the great spectacles
of nature which enchant ones gaze; the eye, however, also relishes the spectacle of the theatre. The ear enjoys the harmonious chant of a sacred psalm; it also likes the song of the minstrels. The flowers and the perfumes which are also Gods creation enchant our sense of
smell; but it also partakes joyfully of the incense burnt on the altars of the demons. The sense
of taste likes permitted foods; but it also likes the food served at the sacrilegious feasts of
idolatrous sacrifices. The same thing can be said of pure and impure embraces. As you can
see, dearest brothers, among these material delights, some are licit while others are forbidden.18

According to Augustine, and many other prominent Christian theologians after him,
the senses have positive aspects, but also negative ones, which the church must reject
and fight against, as they are the reason human kind succumbed to evil, encouraged
and excited by the senses, at the time of the Fall. As Gregory the Great writes: The
senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are like as many conduits through
which the soul reaches out to exterior objects they are like windows through which
15
See Carl Nordenfalk, Les cinq sens dans lart du Moyen Age, Revue de lart 34 (1976) 1728; and
idem, The Five Senses in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes 48 (1985) 122.
16
For an overview, see Pierre Adns, Garde des sens, Dictionnaire de spiritualit 6 (1967) 117122;
Micrologus 10 (2002), an issue dedicated to the five senses; Rethinking the Medieval Senses: Heritage,
Fascinations, Frames, ed. Stephen G. Nichols (Baltimore 2008).
17
Jean-Marie Fritz, Paysages sonores du Moyen Age. Le versant pistmologique (Paris 2000). A less
well-known aspect of the auditory dimension of medieval liturgy deals with shouting; see Pascal Collomb,
Vox clamantis in Ecclesia. Contribution des sources liturgiques mdivales occidentales une histoire du
cri, Haro ! Nol ! Oy ! Pratiques du cri au Moyen Age (Paris 2003) 117130. On the importance of taste
in medieval exegesis and theology, see Rachel Fulton, Taste and see that the Lord is sweet (Ps. 33.9): The
Flavor of God in the Monastic West, The Journal of Religion 86.2 (2006) 169204; and Mary Carruthers,
Sweetness, Speculum 81.4 (2006) 9991013.
18
Et haec omnia, quae nos delectant in sensibus corporis, aliqua licita sunt. Delectant enim, ut dixi,
oculos spectacula ista magna naturae: sed delectant, oculos etiam spectacula theatrorum. Haec licita, illa
illicita. Psalmus sacer suaviter cantatus delectat auditum: sed delectant auditum etiam cantica histrionum.
Hoc licite, illud illicite. Delectant olfactum flores et aromata, et haec Dei creatura: delectant olfactum etiam
thura in aris daemoniorum. Hoc licite, illud illicite. Delectat gustum cibus non prohibitus; delectant gustum
etiam epulae sacrilegorum sacrificiorum. Hoc licite, illud illicite. Delectant conjugales amplexus: delectant
etiam meretricum. Hoc licite, illude illicite. Videtis ergo, charissimi, esse in istis corporis sensibus licitas et
illicitas delectationes. Sermo CLIX, PL. 38.868869.

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ERIC PALAZZO

it looks at the material world outside, and by looking at them it desires them.19 I
would add for better or for worse. In a liturgical context, the metaphor associating the
five senses with windows enabling the soul to access the material world was used
again by Sicardus of Cremona in his Mitrale.20 Father Marie-Dominique Chenu identified perfectly the problems arising from the place of the senses in Christianity, specifically in the liturgy, and more generally in the world as perceived by the senses.21 As he
underlined in his summary of Augustinian thought and scholastic theology stemming
from the works of Aristotle, the sign reveals and allows access to the ideas which are
in things.22 Consequently, humankind must look for God, the creator of all things,
through their material (sensory) nature. Medieval liturgy itself is a sign, as it reveals
God through all material things. The liturgy thus becomes a signum in the fullest theological sense, because through its sensory and sacramental dimension, it reveals God
and the ideas of things, much more than it is a symbol which emphasizes the analogy
between two things. The sign allows a thing to be known intrinsically. In this context,
the liturgy establishes a link between the visible and the invisible. In other words, the
dilemma facing Christianity and the church was to reject and fight against the senses,
because of their harmful consequences for the fate of mankind, while keeping alive the
idea that it is through the sensory perception of things that mankind can come to know
intimately God and the Creation. Here, the liturgytheological signum par excellencebecomes the very space where this dilemma can find an expression, as well as
a theological locus where the senses can fully play their part in assisting the understanding of the signs expressed in the liturgy.
The fundamental idea that emerges from the preceding lines is that the liturgy and,
more generally, all the rituals of medieval culture were not only made up of places,
performers, and sacred or sacramental words, but also of tactile, visual, and auditory
elements, that is to say, of elements belonging to the sensory dimension manifested in
all aspects of the ritual, and more particularly in art, by means of liturgical objects, of
monumental images embellishing the church, or even of the celebrants vestments.
From this viewpoint, it is possible to avoid a strictly utilitarian and functionalist
conception of the uses of art in the liturgy and to adopt a more theological and
philosophical perception in which the liturgy, in its sensory dimension, is also presented and expressed in the staging of the ritual and its actual performance through all
the elements that constitute it, first and foremost through art.
Having reached this stage in our reflection, we find ourselves confronted with a
new epistemological approach to the relationship between art and liturgy in the Middle
Ages, the crux of which is to be found in the notion of how we perceive the material
19
Visus quippe, auditus, gustus, odoratus, et tactus, quasi quaedam viae mentis sunt, quibus foras veniat ... Per nos etenim corporis sensus quasi per fenestras quasdam exteriora quaeque anima respicit,
respiciens concupiscit. Mor. In Iob, lib. XXI cap. II, PL 76.189.
20
Vel per fenestras, quae clausae turbinem excludunt, patulae includunt, intellige quinque sensus corporis, qui circumcisi, sunt janua vitae ... vel per fenestras scripturas intellege sacras, que nocua prohibent, et
in ecclesiis habitantes illuminant, haec quoque intus sunt latiores; quia mysticus sensus amplior, et litterali
praecellit. Mitralis de officiis (n. 14 above) 15.
21
Marie-Dominique Chenu, La mentalit symbolique, La thologie au XIIe sicle (Paris 1957) 158
190 esp. 181.
22
Ibid. 182.

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

31

world and the means it provides for access the essence of a thing.23 Father Chenu,
once again, pertinently pointed out the importance of the perception of the sensory
in medieval liturgy. Beyond the fact that it is a part of the intimate understanding of
God, the liturgy fully effects the transfer of the meaning of a thing into matter, without the reality of the things being changed or lost in the process of signification.24
Quite the opposite takes place, because the sensory perception of matter is believed to
play an active role in the understanding of a thing, revealing it simultaneously with
the sensory experience. This philosophical-theological concept, applied by Father
Chenu to the sensory world of the liturgy, is one of the essential aspects of the
definition of the phenomenology of perception as theorized by Maurice MerleauPonty in the twentieth century.25 According to Merleau-Pontys theoretical postulate
for the definition of the phenomenology of perception, the main action of the relationship between body and mind is aimed at experiencing the sensory perception of
things, where their essence resides. Jean-Yves Hamelines contribution in certain
ways bridges the gap between Chenu and Merleau-Ponty. Better, in my opinion, than
any other scholar, Hameline rightly emphasized that the Christian liturgy represents
the space of sensitivity par excellence.26 Within the very specific spatio-temporal
frame of the celebration of rituals in the church, Hameline inventoried the main
characteristics that define the liturgys space of sensitivity, the nature of which belongs as much to Merleau-Pontys phenomenology as to Chenus historico-theological
argument, or as to Hrabanus Mauruss ninth century definition of the liturgy.27 This
space of sensitivity of the liturgy is first and foremost made up of elements, most of
which appeal to the senses (including artistic creations), which coexist in close proximity during the ritual sequences of any ceremony, and which result in what Hameline
calls an intersensory experience or a convergence of sensory modalities.28 Thanks to
the interaction between the various elements that constitute the liturgy, what I call the
activation of these elements takes place. It is at the same time common to all and
particular to each of these elements, and it creates and enables the in presentia, that is
to say (going further from Hamelines theory) the manifestation of the invisible contained in the visible through the activation of the sensory dimension.29 In this activation, the phenomenology of perception plays a major and decisive role in providing
access to the essence and knowledge of these sensory elements. Here again, I notice
that there is a similarity between the multidimensional functioning of the liturgy as
described by Hrabanus Maurus and the theoretical postulate I am proposing, based on
some of the concepts introduced by Hameline. In both, the same predominance of the
interactive activation of all the sensory elements of the liturgy can be observed, in23
On this point, see Roland Rechts comments on the relations between the physics and the metaphysics
of sight, which are redefined in the Gothic period: Le croire et le voir. Lart des cathdrales (XIIeXVe
sicle) (Paris 1999) 134145.
24
La mentalit symbolique (n.21 above) 181.
25
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et linvisible (Paris 1964), in particular the chapter Lentrelacs
le chiasme, 170-201, is relevant to the present argument. More recently, see Renaud Barbaras, La perception. Essai sur le sensible (Paris 2009).
26
Jean-Yves Hameline, La potique du rituel (Paris 1997)
27
Ibid. 93123.
28
Ibid. 108109.
29
Ibid. 109112.

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ERIC PALAZZO

cluding art, an indispensable prerequisite to reach the invisible as well as an intimate

knowledge of things. In other words, it is possible to assert that what is at stake in
the liturgy is the enabling of the phenomenological experience of the material world
for provided the efficient performance of the liturgy in its space of sensitivityit
motivates the activation of material realitythe ad exercitationem of all the symbolswhich will reveal the invisible of the sacramental signum, and allow its in presentia. In his commentary on the consecration of a church, Hrabanus Maurus already
mentions this activation of all the sensory elements of the liturgy, including art, to
enable and generate the in presentia.
This new theoretical framework allows us not only to go beyond the restrictive conception of the liturgy, based on its functionality, and its symbolic effectiveness. But it
also allows to propose an epistemology of the rituals of the church defined on the basis
of its artistic expressions of all kinds. The foundations of this framework rest on the
Augustinian interpretation of the sign recently analyzed by Irne Rosier-Catach in her
study of sacramental words.30 The new concept I am putting forward is related to this
Christian theory of the sign: the activation of the sensory elements of the liturgy
(of which art is but one), generating the in presentia which aims to make the manifestation of the invisible concrete and real, following the theological theory of the
Sacrament.
Recent historiography on the art of the Western Middle Ages and on Byzantine art
reveals a growing interest for the study of the sensory dimension of artistic creations
and what this means for our understanding of the liturgy in general and of some rituals
in particular. No scholar, however, has yet put forward an exhaustive study of this avenue of inquiry that would allow a global theoretical framework. Apart from Hans Beltings works on the anthropology of images, which are more sociological than
phenomenological,31 one must call attention to the importance of Herbert Kesslers
recent book.32 Kessler gives great attention to the sensory dimension of medieval art,
in particular through the materiality of objects and artifacts.33 On this topic, he mentions the importance of matter in the conception of the medieval art object, underlining
the reflection of many medieval theologians specifically on anagogy.34 In other words,
the materials and the global materiality of the worksin particular those destined to
be used in the liturgyplay an essential part in their sensory perception and their
underlying theological significance. I have recently attempted to show how the material aspects of portable altars were imbued with a theological meaning which correlated this particular liturgical object with a representation of the church both in the

30

Irne Rosier-Catach, La parole efficace. Signe, rituel, sacr (Paris 2004) esp. 481491.
La vraie image (n. 6 above). See also Hans Belting, Bild-Anthropologie. Entwrfe fr eine Bildwissenschaft (Munich 2001); and Georges Didi-Huberman, Limage ouverte (Paris 2007).
32
Herbert L. Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art (Toronto 2004).
33
Concerning the importance of the materiality of works of art in a liturgical context, see Rechts comments on the functions of the Gothic sculpted image, the nature of which was essentially devotional, and
where the tactile aspect of the sculptures played a central role; Le croire et le voir (n. 23 above) 251335.
For the Gothic period, see Jacques Pycke, Sons, couleurs, odeurs dans la cathdrale de Tournai au 15e
sicle (Tournai and Louvain-la-Neuve 2003).
34
Conrad Rudolph, The Things of Greater Importance. Bernard of Clarivauxs Apologia and the
Medieval Attitude Toward Art (Philadelphia 1990) 17ff.
31

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

33

ecclesiological and the material sense.35 Jean-Claude Bonne, who also studied the
materiality of objects through the materials used to make portable altars, defined the
concept of thing-ness applied to medieval art.36 At the heart of this concept can be
found not only the strong theological significance of matter as defined by medieval
theologians, but also some aspects of Merleau-Pontys phenomenology of perception.
The concept of thing-ness allows on to understand how the sacred borrows some
substantiality from images and works of art in general in order to make its own substantiality present.37 In this context, the sensory impression of the thing-ness of the
art object takes place during the ritual, allowing the theological expression of the signum. The phenomenology of perception is also at the heart of another inquiry carried
out by Jean-Claude Bonne on the impression triggered by the colors of the illuminations of the sacramentary from St.-Etienne in Limoges (Paris, BnF lat. 9438, 12th c.)
in the celebration of the liturgy.38 Bonne tried, very suggestively, to grasp how the
ritual uses of this liturgical book and of its colors allowed access to the invisible from
the visible through the senses, in this case the sense of sight, thanks to the colors of the
illuminations. Thomas Lentes also studied the interest for the materiality of a specific
liturgical object and the ways in which this materiality determines the role played by
this object in the ritual. Lentes analyzed how the materiality of the Gospel books used
for liturgical readings during the celebration of the Eucharist was enhanced through a
ritual staging meant to underline the theological meaning of the object.39 A common
interest for the study of the sensory dimension of the liturgy can be noted in all theses
studies and of the role played by liturgical objects in the experience of the perception
of the divine through the senses. Concerning the auditory dimension of the liturgy, I
can mention again Eduardo Henrik Auberts interesting analysis, both socio-political
and phonic, of the coronation ritual which can be found in an exceptional manuscript,
the ordo of St. Louiss coronation, executed around the middle of the thirteenth century (Paris, BnF, lat. 1246).40 I note that these studies, although they concentrate on the
role of art in the sensory dimension of medieval liturgy, by no means ignore the
historical approach of the relations between art and liturgy. In this respect, it is always
possible to combine harmoniously the new approach I am proposing to the relations
between art and liturgy with an analysis firmly anchored in the historical interpretation
of these relations.
35
Eric Palazzo, Lespace rituel et le sacr dans le christianisme. La liturgie de lautel portatif dans
lAntiquit et au Moyen Age (Turnhout 2008).
36
Jean-Claude Bonne, Entre limage et la matire: la chosit du sacr en Occident, Bulletin de
lInstitut Historique Belge de Rome 69 (1999), special issue Les images dans les socits mdivales: pour
une histoire compare, Actes du colloque de Rome, 1920 juin 1998 (Rome 1999) 77111.
37
Ibid. 86.
38
Jean-Claude Bonne, Rituel de la couleur. Fonctionnement et usage des images dans le sacramentaire
de Saint-Etienne de Limoges, Image et signification. Rencontres de lEcole du Louvre (Paris 1983) 129
139.
39
Thomas Lentes, Textus Evangelii. Materialitt und Inszenierung des textus in der Liturgie, Textus im
Mittelalter. Komponenten und Situationen des Wortegebrauchs im schriftsemantischen Feld (Gttingen
2006) 133148.
40
Eduardo Henrik Aubert, Le son et ses sens. LOrdo ad consecrandum et coronandum regem (v.
1250 ), Annales Histoire, Sciences sociales (2007) 387411. Jean-Claude Bonne offered a sensory approach to the images in this MS, showing the mise en scne of the coronation ritual; J. Le Goff, J.-C. Bonne,
M.-N. Colette, E. Palazzo, eds., Le sacre royal lpoque de saint Louis (Paris 2001 93226.

34

ERIC PALAZZO

To conclude this rapid overview of recent works that study the sensory dimension
of medieval objects or images and the involvement of this dimension in the liturgy and
its theological meaning, I point out the fundamental interest of the works of scholars
studying Byzantine art. In several contributions dealing with icons, Robert Nelson and
Bissera Pentchevafollowing many earlier scholarsshowed perfectly how these
objects peculiar to medieval art and to Byzantine liturgy could be interpreted through
the phenomenology of perception.41 In the case of icons, we are dealing with a type of
object in the materiality of which theologians have from the beginning argued the divine was naturally present, a materiality heavily appealed to by the senses during the
liturgical performance. This is what can be considered a peculiarity of the Byzantine
world with respect to the relations between art and liturgy, for which there is no
equivalent in medieval Western art. Acknowledging this peculiarity and the partial
difference stemming from it between medieval Byzantine and Western art does not
imply that, as Robert Nelson suggested,42 the narrow study of iconography, with its
interpretative system of images based on the exploration of the text-image relation,
should be reserved to Western art, whereas Byzantine art would favor naturally an
approach at the same time historical, theological and phenomenological. I am convinced that originallyand without denying that differences existed between Western
and Byzantine creations, as illustrated by the case of iconsthe way Western medieval art was conceived owed as much as Byzantine art to phenomenology, theology, or
history. What Nelson believes was a characteristic of Western medieval art is only a
result of the historiographical orientations of research in this particular field. In this
article, I will endeavor to show that in the West medieval theologians thought about
the art objectand in particular the liturgical objectaccording to theological
conceptions which gave pride of place to the phenomenology of perception and to the
sensory dimension of works of art.
THE ILLUSTRATED LITURGICAL BOOK AS A SACRED LOCUS AND ITS RITUAL
ACTIVATION: CAROLINGIAN SACRAMENTARIES AND GOSPEL BOOKS
In several respects, the Carolingian period was a high point in the definition of the
Christian sacred space, in particular when it comes to the liturgy and its theological
exegesis. The ninth century saw an important restructuring of reflection on the notion
of sacred space. The liturgy played a significant role in this context, as much as the
theological and exegetical discourses. There is no need here to state again how important the liturgy was as an instrument of political and cultural unification in the Carolingian period. Nor is it necessary to mention the great development undergone by theology and biblical exegesis at the same period.43 In these last two fields, writers spent
much time defining sacred space, using the heritage from antiquity. During the
41
Bissera Pentcheva, The Performative Icons, The Art Bulletin 88 (2006) 631655; eadem, Sensual
Splendor. The Icon in Byzantium (Philadelphia 2009); Holy Image. Hallowed Ground. Icons from Sinai, ed.
R. S. Nelson and K. M. Collins (Los Angeles 2006). See also Robert Nelson Empathetic Vision: Looking at
and with a Performative Byzantine Miniature, Art History 30 (2007) 489502.
42
Robert S. Nelson, Byzantine Art vs. Western Medieval Art, Byzance et le monde extrieur. Contacts,
relations, changes, Byzantina Sorbonensia 21 (Paris 2005) 255270, esp. 261262.
43
See The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, ed. Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards
(Turnhout 2003).

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

35

Carolingian period, there was an increase in the sanctification of spaces of all kinds, in
addition to that of the church, the sacred space par excellence which was consecrated
through the ritual of the dedication of the church and the consecration of the altar.
During antiquity and the early Christian centuries, the sacred space of Christianity was
largely associated with the space of the church as building, where most of the rituals
took place.44 Antiquity, however, gave substantial importance, both from a liturgical
and a theological point of view, to the sacred space outside the consecrated church. I
mention here only the example of portable altars,45 which raise essential questions
about the sacred space of the church outside its physical structure. This shows that
Christian theology understood space as a very rich and complex notion, not limited to
the interior space of a church as defined by its walls.
In the Carolingian period, therefore, the notion of sacred space received considerable thought in many different fields, most of which were related to the liturgy and its
theology.46 Such theologians as Amalarius of Metz, Hrabanus Maurus, and Walafrid
Strabo developed the idea that sacred space is not defined solely by the space of the
building, but can be found anywhere in the world, in the unlimited space that receives
Christs message. Most of their reflections dealt with the definition of the locus, that
is, the point, the very place where the sacred is present and concentrated, and from
which sacredness can dilate and spread throughout the known world.47 In this context,
the sacred locus can be the space of the church as well as the portable altar that allows the liturgy to be celebrated outdoors and by extension the sanctification of nature, or even the inner temple of a person in which each and everyone is called upon to
build in the image of the built church. In his homily on the consecration of a church
Hrabanus distinguished between the sacred, consecrated space of the church, the space
of the inner temple of man, and finally the ultimate sacred space of the Temple of
Jerusalem and Heavenly Jerusalem.48
The Carolingian period organized the spaces for celebration in a new fashion,
which was mostly the result of the introduction and the evolution of the various spaces
created by the canonical legislation of the church and the Carolingian empire. Donald
Bullough described the multitude of Carolingian liturgical spaces perfectly, from the
level of the parish church to the diocesan church or cathedral, also including monasteries and their churches or even cemeteries.49 As Michel Lauwers and Ccile Treffort
have revealed, this last locationthe cemeterybecame a new ritual space in the
ninth century, although a specific consecration ritual did not appear until the tenth cen-

44

On the history of the space of the church, see Dominique Iogna-Prat, La Maison Dieu. Une histoire
monumentale de lEglise au Moyen Age (Paris 2006). The author concentrates on the multiple political and
ideological aspects of the understanding of ecclesiology in the early Middle Ages, but gives little attention
to the church as building.
45
Lespace rituel (n. 35 above). In chap. 1 I summarized the concept of sacred space in Christianity laid
out in recent publications.
46
Dominique Iogna-Prat, Lieu de culte et exgse liturgique lpoque carolingienne, The study of the
Bible (n. 43 above) 215244.
47
Lespace rituel (n. 35 above) chap. 1.
48
Raban Maur et la liturgie (n. 11 above).
49
Donald Bullough, The Carolingian Liturgical Experience, Studies in Church History 35 (1999) 29
64.

36

ERIC PALAZZO

tury.50 Many architectural historians have underlined the richness of the typology of
Carolingian architectural forms, due in no small part to the evolution of liturgical practices.51 They have shown that the space of the church and the spatial configuration of
the liturgical organization was either a symbolic reflection of the liturgical space of
Rome, with its titular churches, or an image of Solomons Temple and of Heavenly
Jerusalem.52
Returning to Hrabanus Mauruss exegesis, it is not the interior space of a man referred to earlier in relation to the definition of the space of the temple that it proposes
but rather the sacred space is that of a specific object, the liturgical book. The degree
to which the production of books, be it of liturgical manuscripts or not, illustrated or
not, represents a noteworthy side of Carolingian culture, is well known. Some scholars
have studied the production of manuscripts in the great scriptoria of the Carolingian
period which were in many cases to be found in monasteries, sometimes associated to
some cathedral schools, and even located in the imperial palace. I am thinking here in
particular of the work of Bernhard Bischoff, whose interest in the paleography and the
production of Carolingian manuscripts was always associated with a very rich reflection on the place of the book in the culture of the period, and on its role as a cultural
object in the widest sense.53 Rosamond McKittericks research follows lines which are
rather similar to those explored by Bischoff. She showed clearly what role the written
word and manuscript culture played in the construction of Carolingian history.54 In
her books and articles on this theme, McKitterick put forward a view of the manuscript that goes beyond its purely material dimension to analyze its symbolical meaning for Carolingian history, in particular those texts that were copied and disseminated
throughout the empire. According to McKitterick, who never ignores the dual dimension, material and codicological, of these objects the manuscript book was truly a specific locus of Carolingian history and of the strategies imagined by the political
power. This approach to the production of the written word in the Carolingian period in relation to the creation of specific loci, where some of the ideological discourse of the Carolingians was elaborated, has recently been applied by Ccile Treffort
to Carolingian epigraphic material, and more generally to Carolingian funerary
inscriptions.55
During the Carolingian period, the book became a privileged locus for the
expression of rich symbolic meanings, especially with regard to the liturgy and theol50

Michel Lauwers, Naissance du cimetire. Lieux sacrs et terre des morts dans lOccident mdival
(Paris 2005); Ccile Treffort, LEglise carolingienne et la mort (Lyon 1996).
51
See in particular Carol Heitzs grounbreaking works Recherches sur les rapports entre architecture et
liturgie lpoque carolingienne (Paris 1963); and Larchitecture religieuse carolingienne. Les formes et
leurs fonctions (Paris 1980).
52
The state of the question, with bibliography, is summarized in Anselme Davril and Eric Palazzo, La
vie des moines au temps des grandes abbayes (Paris 2000) 195250.
53
Bernhard Bischoff, Palographie de lAntiquit romaine et du Moyen Age occidental (Paris 1985)
221231.
54
See in particular The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge 1989); and History and Memory
in the Carolingian World (Cambridge 2004). Of great interest is Herbert Schutz, The Carolingians in Central Europe, Their History, Arts and Architecture. A Cultural History of Central Europe, 750900 (Leiden
and Boston 2004) 135ff.
55
Ccile Treffort, Mmoires carolingiennes. Lpitaphe entre clbration mmorielle, genre littraire et
manifeste politique (milieu VIIIedbut XIe sicle) (Rennes 2007).

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

37

ogy. As an example taken outside the class of liturgical books, the extraordinary series
of manuscripts of Hrabanus Mauruss commentary on the Cross In Honorem sanctae
crucis is noteworthy. This exceptional theological treatise, known through several
ninth-century manuscripts, is characterized, among other things, by the meeting and
the combining of text and image, of the written word and illumination; this means
that the manuscripts containing it can be described as loci where writing and image
meet.56 This particular meeting of image and written word in Carolingian, and more
generally medieval, manuscripts is undoubtedly one of the major distinctive features
of these objects,57 despite Alcuins remark on the superiority of the written word over
images: You can venerate the superficial colors, whereas we, who prefer the written
word, have access to the hidden meaning. You allow yourself to be charmed by
painted surfaces, while we feel moved by the divine word. You can remain with the
deceitful image of things, which has no life and no soul, and we will elevate ourselves
to the reality of moral and religious values. And if you, who like and adore images,
you accuse us, whispering in your heart, to delight in figures and tropes, be assured
that we do indeed feel more pleasure in feasting on the sweetness of words than you
can experience by looking at images.58
Within the frame of the subject of this article, I first look at the symbolism of the
book in general, and that of the liturgical book in particular, as well as the way in
which it was expressed in the ornamentation of some Carolingian manuscripts. Second, I explore the way in which the graphic reason59 of some Carolingian liturgical
books gave expression to the idea of sacred space, allowing these books to be perceived as loci for the definition of sacred space and to create the conditions for their
ritual activation through their sensory dimension.
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE CAROLINGIAN LITURGICAL MANUSCRIPT BOOK
During antiquity and the Middle Ages, liturgical books were considered as sacred
loci and sacred spaces because they were taken, first and foremost, to be containers
and transmitters of the sacred Word and the sacred texts of the liturgy.60 The symbol56
Rabani Mauri, In honorem sanctae crucis, ed. Michel Perrin, CCCM 100 (Turnhout 1997). On this
question, see David Ganz, Pando quod ignoro. In Search of Carolingian Artistic Experience, Intellectual
Life in the Middle Ages. Essays Presented to Margaret Gibson, (London 1992) 2532.
57
See Meyer Schapiro, LEcrit dans limage, Les mots et les images (Paris 2000) 127204.
58
Quoted by A. Erlande-Brandenbourg, De pierre, dor et de feu. La cration artistique au Moyen Age,
IVeXIIIe sicle (Paris 1999) 92, from De Bruynes trans., Etudes desthtique mdivale (n. 7 above) 279:
Tu fucatorum venerator esto colorum, nos veneratores et capaces simus sensum arcanorum. Tu depictis
demulcere tabulis, nos divinis mulceamur eloquiis. Tu figuris rerum insta, in quibus nec visus nec auditus
nec gustus nec odoratus nec tactus est, nos instemus divinae legi ... et si tu amator vel potius adorator imaginum, interiore pectoris rancore submurmures dicens: Quid necesse est tantum per schemata evagari ?
cognosces ea nobis amabiliora imaginibus sive pictis tabulis tuis esse. Concerning the production of illuminated manuscripts in the Carolingian period, see Jean-Pierre Caillet, Lart carolingien (Paris 2005) 164232.
59
This expression is taken from the anthropological theory of writing developed by Jack Goody; see
Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge 1977).
60
For Christian antiquity, see Armando Petrucci, The Christian Conception of the Book in the Sixth and
Seventh Century, Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy. Studies in the History of Written Culture (New
Haven and London) 1995 1942. See also Claudia Rapp, Holy Texts, Holy Men and Holy Scribes. Aspects
of Scriptural Holiness in Late Antiquity, The Early Christian Book (Washington DC 2007) 194222. For
the Carolingian period, see Peter Dinzelbacher, Die Bedeutung des Buches in der karolingerzeit, Archiv
fr Geschichte des Buchwesens 24 (1983) 258287.

38

ERIC PALAZZO

ism of sacred space associated with the liturgical book is related to the more general
symbolism of books in Western medieval culture. Michel Pastoureau underlined the
symbolic importance of the word liber, the etymology of which refers to the part of
the tree located between the centre of the tree, that is to say, the heartwood, and the
part of the bark known as sapwood.61 Many Christian authors from antiquity and the
Middle Ages insisted on this meaning. Isidore of Seville, for instance, wrote: The
book is like the inside shirt of the bark, which contains the wood. From there we call
book what we write on, because before papyrus and parchment were used, books were
made from sapwood.62 Pastoureau noted that Isidore inflected the symbolism of the
book toward the vegetable kingdom in general, and particularly toward wood. This
recalled the wood of the cross on which Christ was crucified. It is thus easy to establish a powerful symbolic link between the book, liber, and the wood of Christs
cross, both considered as sacred objects and as loci, spaces for the expression of
the sacred dimension of Christianity. The idea of the book also conjured up the idea of
foliation, the layering of the annual rings of a tree and the layering of the folios of a
manuscript. In the Middle Ages, the world was thought of as a being layered, with
successive levels piled up on top of one another, and the book mirrors perfectly this
symbolic dimension of the medieval conception of the world and of time.63 In the antique and medieval tradition, the book was also seen as an image of Christ himself,
whose text was written by the Holy Spirit at the moment of the Incarnation.64 Some
medieval authors developed the metaphor even further, likening Christ to the book by
proposing that every Christian was an epistle from Christ, leading them to see themselves, individually, as the book of the heart. To understand this metaphor, recall St.
Pauls words: You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
forasmuch as you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us,
written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in
fleshy tables of the heart (2 Cor. 3.23). This theme of the book of the heart, the
image of every Christian par excellence, arose from the interpretation theologians
gave to this passage. It also underwent later developments, in particular by Peter Comestor in the twelfth century, who focused on the symbolism of the making of the
book as applied to the faithful. In this case, the parchment was presented as an image
of the heart of the faithful, which must be purified and cleansed as the animals skin is
prepared with a scraper.65
This symbolism of the book in the Middle Ages becomes more specific in the case
of the Bible or a liturgical book. In his identification of the various sacred places of the
Bible, Hrabanus Maurus emphasized the idea that these places are present in the
61
Michel Pastoureau, La symbolique mdivale du livre, La symbolique du livre dans lart occidental
du haut Moyen Age Rembrandt, (Paris 1995) 1736
62
Quoted by Pastoureau, ibid. 21.
63
Ibid. 23.
64
Dom Jean Leclercq, Aspects spirituels de la symbolique du livre au XIIe sicle, Lhomme devant
Dieu. Mlanges offerts au Pre Henri De Lubac, tome 2 (Paris 1964) 6372.
65
Ibid. 6669. Peter Comestors text can be found in PL 171.814818 (Huius libri pergamenum erit cor
vestrum, quod ex verbis Domini habetis, si sequentia prospiciatis ... Rasorium cordis est penitentia, per
quam renoventur crimina... 171.815), where it is attributed to Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans. On the change
of attribution of this text, see Leclercq, ibid. 69.

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

39

sacred books.66 His idea can be formulated as follows: the book is a sacred space, and
it describes the sacred places where God is expressed. It is therefore possible to propose that when sacred books where opened during their activation in the liturgy, a
kind of unveiling, simultaneously symbolic and real, of the sacred Word, was effected,
providing access to a sacred spacethe space of revelation. This revelation could
then be disseminated during the celebration of the ritual performance through the in
presentia of the invisible. This was mostly made possible by appealing to the senses
for the reception of the sacred text through the material dimension of the text and the
materials used both in its fabrication and in its graphic and iconographic layout. It
must also be remembered that in the Carolingian period, the liturgical book was seen
both as a sacred space and as a sacred object used in the celebration of the liturgy. This
connotation of the objects used in the ritual performance was not unique to the book,
but also, to varying degrees, pertained to all the liturgical instruments, which were
both the theological symbols and the liturgical insignia of those in charge of this aspect of the ceremonies.67 Foregrounding the ceremonial function of the book and taking it as an insignia of the cantor, Amalarius of Metz summarized the concept when
writing about the cantatorium, the liturgical book for the psalmody of the soloist,
which contained the chants intercalated between the lections of the beginning of the
Mass (responsory-gradual and alleluia) also sometimes used with the offertory verses:
68
the cantor (at the ambo), even when he does not need to read his text, holds in his
hand the (cantatorium) with (ivory) tablets.69 The presence of this book, however, was
necessary for the celebration of the ritual, even if the subdeacon did not read the texts
of the chants, which he knew by heart. I would go so far as to say that the book was
necessary for the sacramental validity of the ritual, for the liturgical book is not only a
practical, utilitarian, object, or an insignia of the liturgical function of the celebrant,
but it is above all a sacred space, the symbolical meaning of which added to the
sacramental validity of the ritual and to the sacred dimension of the liturgy.70
The symbolical dimension of the liturgical book, seen as a space of revelation,
whose material aspects are activated by appeal to the senses, is particularly remarkable
in the case of Gospel books, as Lentes has recently written.71 In the Ordines Romani
transmitted from antiquity to the Middle Ages, the role of the Gospel book used during
the Eucharistic liturgy to recite the pericope before the consecration of the bread and
wine underlines the sacredness of the object. This shows the sacred perception of the
66

Hrabanus Maurus, De locis, in De universo, PL 111.367370.

Roger E. Reynolds, The Portrait of Ecclesiastical Officers in the Raganaldus Sacramentary and its
Liturgico-canonical Significance, Speculum 46 (1971) 432442 (repr. Clerics in the Early Middle Ages
(London 1998) chap. 7).
68
Eric Palazzo, Histoire des livres liturgiques. Le Moyen Age, des origines au XIIIe sicle (Paris 1993)
95.
69
Eorum vice cantor, sine aliqua necessitate legendi, tenet tabulas in manibus; Amalarius of Metz,
Liber officialis III, Opera liturgica omnia, ed. Iohannes M. Hanssens, Studi e Testi 139 (Vatican City 1950)
303.
70
What has just been said about the cantatorium can also be applied to the famous 10th12th c. Exultet
rolls from Benevento; cf. Thomas F. Kelly, The Exultet of Southern Italy (New York and Oxford 1996). See
also the catalogue Exultet. Rotoli liturgici del medioevo meridionale (Rome 1994).
71
Textus evangelii(n. 39 above) 133148. See also Petrucci, The Conception of the Book(n. 60
above) 2325. More generally, see Kessler, Seeing Medieval Art (n. 32 above) 87105.
67

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ERIC PALAZZO

book and its contents:72 in the sequence of the Mass, the Gospel book prefigures and
announces the real presence of Christ in the host effected at the moment of consecration. Through the sacred texts contained in the Gospel manuscript, it is truly Christs
presence that is made real: the Gospel book can be considered as the real presence
of Christ in the liturgy of the Mass, for the sacred book is Christ. The book containing
the Gospels embodies Christ more than any other sacred book, as Christs real presence is made manifest by the fact that this book contains the story of Christs life as
well as his word, which will spread throughout the world, and which is activated to
this effect when the Gospel is ceremoniously read aloud during the ritual performance.
At that very point in the liturgy of the Mass, the reader of the Gospel passagevery
often the deaconis symbolically associated with Christ delivering his Word to the
faithful Christians gathered in the nave of the church. Laurence Aventin recently
pointed out the symbolic connection between the elevated location of the ambo inside
of the church, where the Gospel was read, and the mount that rose above the plains
from which Christ preached.73 The deacon only mediates the Word of Christ, who pronounces it himself during the liturgy, through its auditory activation when the text is
read, and, calling upon all the senses, through the activation of the manuscript
accomplished by its materiality and its graphic reason. The activated use of the
Gospel book represents a total sensory experience, which effects the presence of the
invisible through the declamation of the sacred Word ensuring Christs presence.
Christs sacred presentation in the liturgy is achieved through the declamation of the
Word during the reading of the Gospel, which, when it is read out, spreads into the
space of the church building and, more important, into the infinite space of the
Church. But this presentation is also achieved by the manuscript itself, and all its
material components which appeal to the senses and to their ritual activation. Christs
presence is accomplished through the figure of the reader ordained specifically for this
liturgical action. In this case, the deacon is Christ himself proclaiming his word,
though this is not strictly comparable to the sacred status of the priest who consecrates
the host, and who from the twelfth century on, theologians will gradually consider to
be an incarnation of Christ himself celebrating the Eucharist.74 This association,
even assimilation, of the reader to Christ at the moment the Gospel is read out during
the Mass is in part justified by the idea that at this moment, the Word is not only read
out, but is activated, so that Christs presence is made real in his words which
come out at this moment from the Gospel book, itself a type of incarnation of Christ.
It is also justified by Christ being considered as one of the rituals celebrants, who can
sometimes himself undertake to read the sacred Word in the liturgy, as described in
this pericope from the gospel of Luke (4.1622):

72
Joseph-Andreas Jungmann, Thologie 20, Missarum sollemnia. Explication gntique de la messe
romaine (French trans.) (Paris 1952) 2.212226. Jungmann noted (222) that the care and luxury lavished on
gospel manuscripts in the Middle Ages mirrored the regard in which they, and the text they contained, were
held.
73
Laurence Aventin, Lambon, lieu liturgique de la proclamation de la Parole dans lItalie du XIIe et
XIIIe sicle, Prdication et liturgie au Moyen Age (Turnhout 2008) 127161 esp. 139142.
74
Franois Avril, Une curieuse illustration de la Fte-Dieu. Liconographie du Christ-prtre levant
lhostie et sa diffusion, Rituels. Mlanges offerts au Pre Gy (Paris 1990) 3954.

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

41

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and, as his custom was, he went
into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered
unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the
place where it was written, The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it
again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue
were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in
your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded
out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Josephs son?

Surprisingly, this pericope did not give rise to an iconographical tradition generated by
an episode of the life of Christ that emphasizes the liturgy. Nothing exists in Western
art, but there are images illustrating this pericope in Byzantine Gospel books created
for the readings during Mass. Of particular interest is one in an eleventh-century
lectionary now in Florence (Bibl. Laur. Med. Palat. MS 244, fol. 30v). Nelson noted
that this illustration of Lukes pericope shows a liturgical scene where Christ is depicted as one of the celebrants, standing at a lectern on which a bookrather than a
roll, a deviation from the Gospel textis laid. Christ is thus represented as one of the
celebrants in charge of this reading during the feast of September 1, marked, in the
Byzantine religious calendar, as the beginning of the cycle of the main Christian festivals, as well as the beginning of the administrative year.75 In the image of the Florence
lectionary, Christ is at once the officiator of the ritual in the synagogue, the incarnation
of the Word, and the reader delivering the pericope for the Mass during the feast. The
iconography of this illumination emphasizes visually the re-actualization of the divine miracle at the very instant it is being read out, at the moment of the ritual activation of the Word contained in the manuscript.76
At several points in the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy, the staging of the
Gospel book put a strong emphasis on the sacred character of the book and on its
material aspect. For instance, the book was carried in a procession and acclaimed as
Christs word. Once it had been laid on the altar or the lectern the Gospel book was
kissed by the celebrant and by the deacon who was about to read out the pericope for
the day. As I shall show with a famous Carolingian evangeliary, the material aspect of
these manuscripts of the Gospels, in particular their ornamentation, mirrors the
strongly symbolical importance given to this book, to its text, and to its sacred character. This contributes to making it a true sacred space, the ritual activation of which
calls upon the senses to achieve the effective presentation of the divine. First, however, I emphasize the sacred character of medieval liturgical books, in particular Gospel books, specifically in the Carolingian period, by mentioning that the inventories of
the treasures of churches and cathedrals were frequently transcribed and copied in the
75

Empathetic Vision (n. 41 above).

Similarly, the utterance of the sacred word by Christ in the image from the Byzantine lectionary can
be compared with the depictions of the evangelists in the illuminations of some early medieval Gospel
books, where they are shown standing, holding a book and a stole. See Marianne Besseyre, Une iconographie sacerdotale du Christ et des vanglistes dans les manuscrits bretons des IXe et Xe sicles, Pecia
12 (2008) 726.
76

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pages of these books. In a study dedicated to books in early medieval treasuries, I

developed the idea that in the Carolingian period the transcription of inventories in
Gospel books was intentional, and that it bore witness to the sacred value bestowed on
these books and objects, a value which means they can be regarded as sacred spaces
in the true sense.77 Indeed, which book, other than the collection of the words and actions of Christ, could imbue the list of the most precious possessions of a abbey or a
cathedral church with the necessary sacredness to develop the spiritual patrimony of a
church? In a certain way, it could be said that transcribing the list of the treasures
owned by a church in this specific sacred space of the Gospel book sanctification of
the inventory itself and the objects listed in it. In addition, books kept in the treasury
were thought of as material, tangible, concrete expressions, not only of the wealth of a
church and of its temporal power, but also of its spiritual authority. Some of these
booksincluding liturgical bookswere seen as instruments of memory and even
sometimes as relics. Among the objects kept in the treasure, they appear as the most
representative of the founding memoria of a monastery or a church, to the same degree
that cartularies played a crucial role in perpetuating its temporal memory, as by Patrick
Geary has shown.78
The Godescalc Evangeliary (Paris, BnF MS n.a.l. 1203) exemplified the several aspects of the Carolingian book. Executed between 781 and 783 for Charlemagne and
Hildegard, it is a deluxe manuscript that was probably used for the celebration of the
royal, and later the imperial liturgy.79 It is, without doubt, one of the masterpieces of
Carolingian illumination and of medieval art in general. It is an exceptional manuscript in many regards, and the many studies and publications dedicated to it have on
the whole correctly approached its ornamentation from the point of view of the history
of illumination and that of Carolingian political history.80 To my knowledge, no author
has yet paid attention to the performative dimension strongly expressed in its materiality and illustrations. Intended to be used for the reading of the gospel pericopes during
the celebration of the Eucharist,81 the manuscripts formal layout, material ornament,
and iconography display better than any other monument of Carolingian illumination the idea of the liturgical book seen as a sacred space, the sensory activation of
which during the ritual puts one in the presence of the divine. The manuscript was
copied and probably decorated by a scribe named Godescalc, who signed his work
with long dedicatory verse copied at the end of the manuscript. The text of the evangeliary is written entirely in gold letters on a purple background. The symbolism of this
77
Eric Palazzo, Le livre dans les trsors du Moyen Age. Contribution lhistoire de la memoria
mdivale, Annales Histoire, Sciences sociales (1997) 93118 esp. 105ff.
78
Patrick Geary, Entre gestion et Gesta, Les cartulaires. Actes de la table ronde (Paris, 57 dcembre
1991), Mmoires et documents de lEcole des chartes 39 (Paris 1993) 1326.
79
See Florentine Mtherich, Manuscrits enlumins autour dHildegarde, Autour dHildegarde, Centre
de recherche sur lAntiquit tardive et le haut Moyen Age, Cahier V, Universit de Paris-X Nanterre (1987)
4962; Jean Vezin, Les livres dans lentourage de Charlemagne et dHildegarde, ibid. 6371; and Bruno
Reudenbach, Das Godescalc-Evangelistar. Ein Buch fr die Reformpolitik Karls des Grossen (Frankfurtam-Main 1998). See also Lawrence Nees, Godescalcs Career and the Problems of Influence, The Concept of Influence and the Study of Illuminated Manuscrits (Turnhout 2007) 2143.
80
Concerning the relation between the graphic reasonof luxurious Carolingian manuscripts and the expression of the emperors political ideology, cf. Petrucci (n. 60 above).
81
On evangeliaries, see Histoire des livres liturgiques (n. 68 above) 100115.

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

43

choice recalls both the Roman imperial colors, which were particularly favored by the
Carolingian sovereigns, and, as we shall see, the dual Christological and Eucharistic
dimension of Carolingian political theology. As an evangeliary, this manuscript was in
no way intended to remain inactive in the royal library or in the treasure of Charlemagnes chapel. It is a liturgical manuscript whose ritual activation could take place
on several occasions during the year on the main liturgical feasts during the lavish
celebrations in which the king or emperor took part. Generally speaking, its decorationits iconography both ornamental and historiated gives expression first to its
political meaning in relation to the glorification of the Carolingian emperor. Second,
the illustration of the Godescalc Evangeliary emphasizes the glory of Christ, whose
life is recounted in the Gospels pericopes contained in the book. In a certain way, it
can be said that the decoration of this Evangeliary aims in the first instance at paying
homage to the two sovereigns par excellence, whose association in Carolingian political theology was so close that they were sometimes confused. The manuscript presents
six full-page paintings representing the four Evangelists (see fig. 1), Christ in majesty
(fig. 2), and the paleochristian theme of the fountain of life (fig. 3). The iconography
of these paintings was probably copied from a late antique Gospel book. As this manuscript is an evangeliary and not a Gospel book, it is easy to understand why the
painteror painterschose to group the portraits of the evangelists together at the
beginning of the codex: in a Gospel book, the portrait of each evangelist is normally
located at the beginning of his text and the Maiestas Domini, the presence of which is
justified by the contents of the evangeliary.82 The theme of the Fountain of Life is relatively rare in iconography in general and in the illustration of early medieval Gospel
books and evangeliaries. Located on folio 3v, after the traditional program found in
this sort of book, the Fountain of Life can be said to function as a title page or frontispiece to the evangeliary as a whole, and to the Feast of the Nativity in particular, since
the liturgical year begins with this celebration. Its iconography is quite complex; the
painter deliberately mixed motifs referring to baptism on and to the idea of Paradise.
This emphasizes the importance of the theological connection between the birth of the
Saviorand here it is noteworthy that the rubric for the feast of the day was inscribed
in the upper half of the painting, much like a titulus within the imageand the Faithfulls rebirth at the moment of his or her baptism, token of the Resurrection to come.83
More important for my argument, however, is the fact that the text of Godescalcs
Evangeliary is written entirely, as mentioned above, in gold letters on a purple background (fig. 4). This signifies first and foremost the royal patronage of the codex, produced for Charlemagne and his wife Hildegard. It is interesting to listen to how
Godescalc explained the dual symbolic meaning of the choice of gold and purple for
this luxurious evangeliary.84 These two colors are among the symbolic attributes of the
82
About the Maiestas Domini of the Godescalc Evangeliary, see Anne-Orange Poilpr, Maiestas
Domini. Une image de lEglise en Occident, VeIXe sicle (Paris 2005) 184192.
83
Poilpr (ibid. 184192) also mentions that the baptismal image of the Fountain of Life was related to
the baptism of Charlemagnes son Pippin, performed in Rome by Pope Hadrian in 781. A passage from
Godescalcs poem in the manuscript proves this link between the iconography of fol. 3v and the historical
event. See also Herbert L. Kessler, The Book as Icon, The Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000, ed.
Michelle P. Brown (Washington DC 2006) 76103.
84
Fols. 126v127r, fig. 56, MGH Poet. Lat. 1.94; see Beat Brenk, Schiftlichkeit und Bildlichkeit in

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ERIC PALAZZO

king, and express symbolically the royal destination of the codex.85 But for Godescalc,
gold and purple have another meaning, which emphasizes the eminently sacred
character of the object and makes it a true sacred space intended to be activated during the liturgical performance. Gold and purple also symbolize the magnificence of the
heavenly kingdom, opened by the red blood shed by Christ on the cross, and the glory
of the gold in which Gods words shine forth for eternity. The materials, gold and purple, used to produce the evangeliary clearly express the symbolical idea that the manuscript containing the sacred texts read during the celebration of the Eucharist is itself a
holy place, through its material dimension which in two ways makes Christ present
during the ritual. I mentioned how frequently this object was assimilated with Christ in
the global symbolism attributed to the sacred book in Christianity. On the other hand,
because of their contents, Gospel books and evangeliaries are more than any other
type of book representations of Christ, which make him truly present at the moment of when the Eucharist is celebrated. St. Jeromes assertion that per totas orientis
ecclesias quando legendum est evangelium accenduntur luminaria iam sole rutilante86
confirms the hypothesis that the manuscript is the locus of the sacred Word, ready to
move out into the world when the pericopes are read during the Mass. In addition to
this notion of sacred space applied to the Godescalc Evangeliary and expressed in its
material aspect, its ornamental iconography emphasizes the interest in precious materials which play a crucial role in the objects activation in the liturgical performance.
In Charlemagnes book, all the senses are appealed to in the activation process, enabling access to the essence of things and showing the invisible through the visible. It is
almost possible to assert that the Godescalc Evangeliary is a total sensory experience,
and that its ritual activation is an essential moment of the liturgy. In the interplay of
colors and their various symbolic meanings, the visual dimension of the ritual is expressed. In the manuscript, the text of the Gospels copied in gold on a purple background represents the visual dimension of the liturgy, while at the same time enabling
the expression of the auditory dimension of the ritual, for, effectively, these words are
read during the celebration, thus giving concrete expression to the auditory dimension
der Hofschule Karls der Grosse, Testo e immagine nellalto medioevo, Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studi sullalto medioevo 41, 1993 (Spoleto 1994) 631691. On 8 June 1606, a German traveler
named Hans Georg Ernstinger visited the treasure of the church of Saint-Sernin in Toulouse, where the
Godescalc Evangeliary was then kept. He noticed the very precious aspect of the MS and its binding (which
has now disappeared), in particular the use of gold letters: ain altes evangelienbuech von pergame mit
gulden und silberen buechstaeben geschriben; quoted by Vezin (n. 79 above) 64, who recounts the turbulent history of the MS. Concerning the originality of the decoration of the Godescalc Evangeliary, see Eric
Palazzo, Lillustration de lvangliaire au haut Moyen Age, La Maison-Dieu 176 (1989) 6780. See also,
Petrucci (n. 92 above) 118121; and Herbert L. Kessler, Neither God nor Man. Words, Images and the
Medieval Anxiety about Art (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, Wien, and Berlin 2007) 106. See also Michelle Brown,
The Lindisfarne Gospels. Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (Toronto 2003). Concerning the perception of
the preciousness of the decoration of some early medieval Gospel books, Giraldus of Cambrais comments
sound like what a modern art historian would write, though written in the 13th c., as pointed out by Erwin
Panofsky, The Ideological antecedents of the Rolls-Royce radiatorThree Essays on Style, ed. by I. Lavin
(Cambridge, MA and London 1995) 156157.
85
Concerning the symbolism of colors in medieval liturgy, see Michel Pastoureau, LEglise et la
couleur. Des origines la Rforme, Bibliothque de lEcole des Chartes 147 (1989) 203230 esp. 217
222; and Roger E. Reynolds, Clerical Liturgical Vestments and Liturgical Colors in the Middle Ages,
Clerics in the Early Middle Ages (London 1999) VI.
86
PL 23.361.

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

45

of the performance. In addition, the tactile and olfactory dimensions are also appealed
to by the Godescalc Evangeliary, since the reader can feel under his fingers the texture
of the parchment and of the colors painted in it, as well as breathe in the smell coming
from the object, which was incensed before reading took place.87 The decoration of the
Godescalc Evangeliary, its iconography both ornamental and historiatedI would say
the graphic reason of the objectis not only meant to express the theological,
liturgical, and political meanings of the codex, but also to stimulate the senses and the
activation both of the book in the ritual and the sacred Word it contains, in order to
achieve the in presentia of the divine. What we see here is the sensory dimension of
the ritual experience and its dominant role in the theology of the liturgy. In the case of
the Godescalc Evangeliary, the presentation of the divine through the appeal to all
the senses stimulated by the ritual use of the object is singularly strong because of the
significance of the book as a specific sacred space and because of its ability to make
Christ truly present in the liturgy, in anticipation of the moment when the Saviors
body will be really present in the consecrated host. The ritual activation of the
Godescalc Evangeliary through its sensory materiality helped make the Word of Christ
truly present during the liturgy and to spread it to the entire church and, beyond, to
the world, while achieving the in presentia of the sacred. This is why the liturgical
book can be understood as a signum in the fullest sense of the term, which, both in
its visibility and in its sensory dimension set in motion by its ritual activation, allows access to the essence of things and reveals the invisible of the divinity. The
materiality of the book is crucial for the activation of the sign that is stands for,
and to generate the in presentia of the divine during the ritual. And it is the stimulation
of the senses, heavily appealed to by the manuscript through its materiality and its
graphic reason, which provokes the activation. In several respects, the exploration
of the multisensory dimension of the graphic reason and, more generally, of the
materiality of the Godescalc Evangeliary, as well as the analysis of its role in the sensory experience of the ritual, are quite similar to Jean-Claude Bonnes observations
concerning the thing-ness of portable altars or the color ritual stimulated by the
illuminations present in the sacramentary from St.-Etienne in Limoges.88 The strong
phenomenological meaning of the Godescalc Evangeliary combines harmoniously the
expression of political and theological ideas which make it a first-hand witness of a
specific historical context.
Beside Gospel books and Evangeliaries, other Carolingian liturgical manuscripts
express the symbolism of the sacred space they create by showing, among other
things, representations of the sacred space of the liturgy, of the celebration of the ritual, in which they are being used. In addition to this, and using forms different from
those in the Godescalc Evangeliary, the phenomenological experience of the book in
the liturgy is the Drogo Sacramentary (Paris, BnF MS lat. 9428), produced in the middle of the ninth century in the scriptorium of Metz cathedral and intended for the
liturgical use of the bishop Drogo.89 Its outside ornamentation features a series of nine
87

See Missarum sollemnia (n. 72 above) 2.221223.

See the bibliographical references listed in nn. 36 and 38.
See Eric Palazzo, Lenluminure Metz au haut Moyen Age (VIIIe-XIe sicles, Metz enlumine. Autour de la Bible de Charles le Chauve. Trsors manuscrits des glises messines (Metz 1989) 2344 esp. 23
88
89

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ERIC PALAZZO

ivory tablets located on the lower half of the binding, and which represent nine distinct
moments of the celebration in Metz cathedral at the time.90 As Roger Reynolds has
shown, the iconography of these nine ivory tablets follows faithfully the text of Ordo
romanus I, which describes the papal mass in Rome ca. 700, as well as Ordines romani II, III, IV, V, and VI, which are all Gallican revisions of the Roman ordo.91 The
exceptional precision of the depictions can be explained by the carvers wish and undoubtedly that of Drogo himself, to give a most faithful visual representation of the
text of the ordines romani. In the eight and ninth centuries, the bishopric of Metz was
one of the main Carolingian centers for the diffusion of Roman liturgical texts. The
hypothesis can be put forward that the Drogos ivories were intended to be part of the
publicity drive in favor of the Roman Mass ritual and of the promotion of the text of
the ordines, while showing that the bishop of Metz had adopted this ritual and these
texts for the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy in his own cathedral. This reveals
the variety of means deployed to allow the diffusion and the adoption of Roman
liturgical uses within the Carolingian empire. In addition to this political and historical
meaning, the tablets of the Drogo Sacramentary also display the liturgical sacred
space where the scenes take place, Metz cathedral. Several specific archaeological
features are depicted on the ivories,92 such as the bishops cathedra fashioned from a
marble column which was supposed to have belonged to the sees first bishop, St. Clement. It is very significant to note that the representations of the sacred space of
Metz cathedral appear on the sacred space of the manuscript, the episcopal liturgical
book used by the bishop for the celebration of the Mass. In this case, it is a special
kind of sacred space, for it allows the representation of the liturgy to be sanctified
thanks to the presence, in the book, of such strongly symbolic images, from a triple
historical, liturgical, and theological perspective. The Drogo Sacramentary shows that
the liturgical book is a sacred space in itself, for it displays the liturgy and at the
same time the sacred space of the ritual performance.
As Bishop Drogos personal liturgical book, the festive episcopal sacramentary produced by the scriptorium of Metz cathedral was used to celebrate the Eucharistic liturgy on the main feast days of the liturgical calendar. The internal decoration of the
manuscript shows a very rich iconographic cycle, where the emphasis is put on scenes
taken from the life of Christ, the lives of the main saints of the calendar, and the most
important moment of the major liturgical celebrations in which the bishop took part,
such as the consecration of a church. In addition to these themes, which were frequent
in the iconography of Carolingian, and even early medieval sacramentaries, can be
seen elements of ornamental decoration that emphasize such architectural features as
columns and arches adorned with vegetable motifs. These can be found at the beginning of the manuscript and before the Mass formularies for certain important feasts,
27.

90
Eric Palazzo, La liturgie et ses textes: autour de la messe. Les Ordines romani et les ivoires du sacramentaire de Drogon (IXe sicle), Le christianisme en Occident du dbut du VIIe sicle au milieu du XIe
sicle. Textes et documents (Paris 1997) 109116.
91
Roger E. Reynolds, Image and Text: A Carolingian Illustration of Modifications in the Early Roman
Eucharistic Ordines, Viator 14 (1983) 5975.
92
Franois Hber-Suffrin, La cathdrale de Metz vue par Paul Diacre et les tmoignages
archologiques, Autour dHildegarde (n.79 above) 7388 esp. 74.

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

47

but mostly on the folios containing the prayers for the Canon of the Mass (figs. 7 and
8). Robert Calkins suggested that these architectural backgrounds accompanying and
framing the main prayers for the Canon of the Masswhich were used only for the
consecration of the host and the wineand certain prayers for the celebration of
Easter, could be read and understood in relation to the symbolical interpretation that
Amalarius of Metz gave to the altar and the Holy Sepulcher.93 For Amalarius, one aspect of the exegetical symbolism of the altar is linked to the comparison that can be
drawn between this object and Christs tomb, the Holy Sepulcher. This is why the
Christian altar should be read and understood as an image of the locus, of the sacred space of the Holy Sepulcher. Calkins put forward the idea that Amalariuss symbolic and exegetic reading was mirrored in the sacramentarys graphic reason, that is
to say in the architectural iconography meant to frame and enhance the sacred texts of
the canon of the Mass and of the prayers for the Easter Mass. The presence of these
ornamental motifs in the manuscript, that is, in the sacred space of the liturgical text,
and in relation to the prayers for the consecration, would increase the sacred character
of the reading of these texts in addition to their sacramental value. And it would also
contribute to the creation of a locus, within the manuscript itself, which would then
become symbolically associated with other sacred places and spaces: the choir of the
church, the altar for the celebration of the mass and the consecration of the host, as
well as the Holy Sepulcher, where Christ overcame death for eternity and was
crowned with the glory of his Resurrection. This example shows how the graphic
reasonthe iconography and the layout of the liturgical manuscriptgives expression to the theological idea of the liturgical book as sacred space. The ornamental
architectural features of the Drogo Sacramentary, the liturgical space, the sacred space,
is present within the manuscript itself. The illustrations for the Canon of the Mass in
the Drogo Sacramentary constitute the sensory elements, mostly visual, this time not
of the liturgical activation of the text and of the book that contains it, but of the
activation of the exegesis of the liturgy at the very moment of the ritual performance. In other words, during the consecration of the Eucharist, in which the prayers of
the Canon of the Mass play a central role alongside ritual gestures and other sensory
signs, the visual activation by the celebrant of the exegetical images contained in the
manuscript makes the liturgical commentary of the Mass present, and enables the relation between the Eucharistic liturgy and some aspects of the its exegetical interpretation. This activation of the exegetical images in the Drogo Sacramentary results in
the activation by the sensesin this case, sightof the exegesis of the liturgy at the
very moment where the liturgy takes place, making both the sacramental invisible and
its theological exegesis present in the ritual performance 94. At the moment of the
consecration of the Eucharist, the celebrant using this sacramentaryDrogo, the
bishop of Metz, in the middle of the ninth century and some of his successors after
93
Robert G. Calkins, Liturgical Sequence and Decorative Crescendo in the Drogo Sacramentary,
Gesta 25 (1986) 1723. See also Celia Chazelle, An Exemplum of Humility: The Crucifixion Image of the
Drogo Sacramentary, Reading Medieval Images. The Art Historian and the Object (Ann Arbor 2002) 27
35.
94
To this can be added a mnemonic function of the representations found in the manuscript at the
placewhich corresponds to the canon of the mass and its exegesis: see Carruthers (n. 10 above).

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ERIC PALAZZO

himand its graphic reason, activated with his sight the exegetical commentary
included in the iconographic language of the illuminations, while he himself activated
the memory of the exegesis of the Mass.95
CONCLUSION
In several of his books, Zumthor showed the links that exist between the contents of
the texts of manuscripts, their materiality (in particular their layout and any other codicological aspect, for which Zumthor coined the new term manuscripture), and the
conditions of the performance that activate and stage these objects and their texts.96
Like other authors before him, Zumthor insisted on the way the materiality of the
medieval manuscript book translated in material, physical, graphic terms the symbolic meaning of the book, in particular through its layout. In this way, provided one
accepts Zumthors conclusions, it is possible to say that there is a balance between the
materiality of the book, specifically its layout, its graphic reason and its symbolic
meaning. With regard to the early medieval liturgical book, I have attempted to show
that its graphic reason mirrored and expressed the fundamental ideas of its theological and liturgical symbolism, leading to an understanding of the manuscript as a sacred space, while at the same time creating the conditions for its ritual activation
through the senses, an activation intended to achieve divine in presentia. Goody explored the various ways a society of the written word can domesticate the savage
mind through the graphic reason, the mastery of the writing space.97 To this end, he
studied how legendary tales or even cooking recipes are written down in societies
which do not generally use writing. According to Goody, the process by which thought
or data are transcribed, as well as the graphic choices made on this occasion (to use a
list or a table, etc.) represent the deep and sometimes symbolic meaning of the thought
contained in the data and in the tales put into writing. In other words, for Goody the
layout chosen to reproduce graphically a thought coincides with its contents, its
message, and the symbolic meaning of the thought. For Zumthor, medieval manuscripts manifested a very similar process to what Goody described about societies
different from Western medieval society and other means of writing down texts. The
95
Such an exegetical and mnemonic process suggests the activation when the Eucharistic liturgy was
celebrated on the altar of the church of St-Guilhem-le-Dsert, probably from the 12th c., on the front of
which can be seen a Maiestas Domini and a representation of the crucifixion. This recalls how these two
themes were very frequently combined in examples of double composition integrated in the canon of the
mass in contemporary sacramentaries. This similarity between the decoration of the St-Guilhem-le-Dsert
altar and the illustration of the canon of the mass in sacramentaries and missals is so pronounced that it is
difficult not to see it as a conscious choice on the part of those who created and used the altar images to
reproduce, on the front of the altar, the celebrants liturgical book open at the page of the double composition of the Maiestas Domini and the crucifixion. The aim would have been to create a mnemonic reminder
associating the iconography contained in the liturgical book and activatedduring the canon of the mass, on
the one hand, and the consecration taking place on the altar, on the other. See Eric Palazzo, Lautel de
Saint-Guilhem-le-Dsert et liconographie des autels portatifs du haut Moyen Age, Saint-Guilhem-leDsert. La fondation de labbaye de Gellone. Lautel mdival 4, Actes de la table ronde daot 2002
(Montpellier 2004) 115123 esp. 123; and Emmanuel Garland, Lautel dit de Saint Guilhem Gellone:
lanalyse iconographique au service de sa datation, ibid. 125136.
96
Zumthor (n. 8 above); and idem, La mesure du monde. Reprsentation de lespace au Moyen Age
(Paris 1993) esp. 363393.
97
Goody (n. 59 above). See also Goody, The Logic of the Writing and the Organization of Society (Cambridge 1986) 144.

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

49

main idea emerging from these theoretical observations is that there does seem to be a
close connection between the contents of a text, its symbolic meaning, and its graphic
transcription in a specific locus, such as a medieval manuscript. The search for the
closest possible match between form and content, between the material dimension and
the layout of a medieval manuscript on the one hand, and on the other its textual contents and their symbolic meaning, does not stop with its dual physical and graphical
aspect, but also includes the accuracy of the text.
I have shown the relevance of the notions of manuscripture and graphic reason
to the understanding of the symbolic function of medieval liturgical books, in particular Gospel books and evangeliaries, as well as sacramentaries. More important, I have
shown the intrinsic nature of liturgical objectssuch as liturgical booksthat has
deeply to do with sensoriality and its activation during the ritual performance. This
very nature of liturgical objects makes it possible for the invisible to become visible
and for the divine to be made present. The power of the medieval liturgy derives as
much from the sensory dimension and its active expression at the moment of the ritual
performance, as from the sacramental aspect of the sacred words and their theological
meaning. From a methodological point of view, I need to insist on the necessity for an
approach embracing medieval theological texts and what they tell us about the liturgy
and the senses in Christianity, liturgical texts, and their exegeses, the phenomenology
of perception, and, above all, the objects themselves and their formal and iconographical analysis, emphasizing their dual material and sensory dimension as much as their
historical significance, in the widest sense of the term, based most of the time on their
political impact.98
Not only evangeliaries and sacramentaries reveal these theoretical concepts, but
also other liturgical books and others kind of precious objects (ivories,99 chalices, patens, etc.), and architectural monuments or monumental images (paintings, sculptures,
tapestries, stained glass windows, etc). These need to be studied as objects themselves
but also in terms of the relations between art and liturgy and based on the sensory
dimension of the ritual. The scope of this program is vast, as it will be necessary to
analyze the sensory dimension of the liturgy through the study of the links between art
and the senses within a vast geographical and chronological framework which includes both the Byzantine world and the medieval West. All the elements which
constitute the liturgy and their sensory expression will be explored according to their
activation during the ritual performance, where they participate fully in the definition and significance of the liturgy.

98
The approach I am proposing, must take into account the fundamental contribution that monographs
dealing with specific manuscripts can make to the study of the decoration of medieval liturgical books.
These monographs, where the painted programme is taken as a discourse, show how this programme interacts with the text of the manuscript and its materiality and makes sense from the point of view both of history and of theology. See in particular Robert Deshman, The Benedictional of Aethelwold, Studies in Manuscript Illumination 9 (Princeton 1995); and Adam Cohen, The Uta Codex. Art, Philosophy and Reform in
Eleventh Century Germany (Philadelphia 2000).
99
In particular, those affixed to the bindings of liturgical books; cf. Frauke Steenbock, Der kirchliche
Prachteinband (Berlin 1965).

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FIG. 1. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 1v, Godescalc Evangeliary, Saint Mark. Reproduced
with permission.

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

51

FIG. 2. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 3r, Godescalc Evangeliary, Maiestas Domini.
Reproduced with permission.

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FIG. 3. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 3v, Godescalc Evangeliary, Fountain of Life.
Reproduced with permission.

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53

FIG. 4. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 30r, Godescalc Evangeliary. Reproduced with
permission.

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FIG. 5. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 126v, Godescalc Evangeliary. Reproduced with permission.

ART, LITURGY, AND THE FIVE SENSES

55

FIG. 6. Paris, BnF, n.a.l. 1203, fol. 127r, Godescalc Evangeliary. Reproduced with
permission.

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FIG. 7. Paris, BnF, lat. 9428, fol. 10r, Drogo Sacramentary. Reproduced with permission.

FIG. 8. Paris, BnF, lat. 9428, fol. 14r, Drogo Sacramentary. Reproduced with permission.