| uk.abstract.cs | Umrlčí tematika tvořila v Čechách stejně jako jinde v Evropě nedílnou součást pozdně středověké kultury. Smrt je v očích středověkých teologů zbraní neřesti, a především fatálním důsledkem prvotního hříchu. Obraz tlejícího umrlce či kostlivce jako varování před fyzickou i eschatologickou smrtí byl pro pozdně středověkého člověka jasným, srozumitelným a někdy i šokujícím symbolem konce nejen jeho osobní existence či věčného zatracení, ale v kontextu obrazu Posledního soudu (např. v Broumově či v Mouřenci u Annína), také konce (smrti) světa. Zánik světa, jemuž vládnou ďábel a smrt, byl často vizuálně propojen s makabrální ikonografii, jež si v pastoračním kontextu vypůjčovala rétoriku biblických moralistních podobenství a detailních popisů konce světa. Představa, že jeho zánik nastane stejně náhle a nečekaně jako smrt člověka, byla středověkými kazateli neustále připomínána a prezentována jako varování před mors improvisa či mors mala — tedy před eschatologickou smrtí.
Předkládaná práce zkoumá téma dosud téměř opomíjené českým dějepisem umění. Věnuje se zobrazování a ikonografii personifikované Smrti v pozdně středověkém malířství v Českých zemích. Studie aplikuje výsledky recentního zahraničního výzkumu věnovaného fenoménu zobrazování personifikované Smrti na české pozdně středověké umění. Sleduje rovněž dobovou strategii využívání nezřídka šokujících makabrálních literárních i výtvarných námětů v dobové homiletice a náboženské praxi obecně (memento moci, meditatio mortis, contemptus mundi a další žánry).
V českém pozdně středověkém malířství se dochovalo několik jedinečných příkladů umrlčí ikonografie, jimž jsou věnovány jednotlivé samostatné kapitoly práce, a jež jsou důkladně analyzovány v kontextu monastické tradice „kultury smrti", výtvarného umění, funerální liturgie a náboženské praxe tehdejší Evropy. České země jsou přitom jedinou oblastí střední Evropy, v níž se do dnešní doby dochovaly všechny hlavní náměty pozdně středověké ikonografie personifikované Smrti: Legenda O setkání třech živých s třemi mrtvými, Triumf smrti, Tanec smrti a v neposlední řadě také unikátní travestie v podobě českokrumlovské Smrti jedoucí na koníkovi. Tento pozoruhodný fakt je možno přičíst vlivu vládnoucí dynastie Lucemburků, jejíž členové byli obeznámeni s kulturním prostředím Francie, Itálie i Německa, stejně jako kontaktu s německým jazykovým a kulturním prostorem obecně. Opomenout nelze ani benediktýnský řád, s jehož pastoračním působením v Čechách souvisejí nejstarší příklady umrlčí ikonografie na našem území (Mouřenec u Annína, Broumov).
V kontextu středoevropského a východoevropského umění nejsou Čechy unikátní jen v úplnosti prezentace pozdně středověké umrlčí ikonografie, ale rovněž v její adaptaci do „nového" konfesijního a devočního prostředí („husitský" Tanec smrti) a originální transformaci (broumovský i českokrumlovský Triumf smrti, mors bona v kodexu Jana z Jenštejna). Právě teologické a pastorační uchopení posledních věcí člověka a s nimi související „ikonografie Smrti" v utrakvistickém prostředí inspirují k dalším, dosud nezodpovězeným otázkám. | cs |
| uk.abstract.en | The 14th and 15th centuries in Europe was a period of growing and intensively experienced fear of death. The daily preparation for death was one of the fundamental topics of late medieval homiletics. It was greatly reflected in the visual arts and literature of the period as the anxiety of sudden, improvised death (mors improvisa or mors mala) leading to eternal damnation and represented one of the most fundamental aspects of the late medieval mentality and religious life of the period. The understanding and perception of death and dying during the Late Middle Ages in Europe differed completely from our contemporary post-industrial perception of death, usually reduced to a fear of dying with gradual painful physical death carefully pushed out of our everyday reality, expressed by Philippe Aries as the expulsion of death. Memento mori is no longer an ethical and profound imperative but has become rather a distant, empty and perhaps even cynical phrase. Late medieval visual art on the other hand perfectly demonstrates the dynamics and disturbing immanence of death as well as its anthropologic permanence – the panic fear of dying and consequent decay that was far from expelled from the everyday medieval reality but which rather stressed the macabre aspect of corporeal death and dying. The Late Medieval culture of death and its “strategy of dying” can be well expressed by the period antiphon Media vita in morte sumus. In the Middle Ages the worlds of the living and of the dead were not separated by a surgically precise and sterile cut but rather co-existed, permanently penetrating each other in the imagination as well as in everyday religious practice and liturgy. The dead were not regarded as passive entities in the world of the living but as Ashby Kinch rightly noted they played an active part in the community of the living. In the imagination of medieval man Death therefore has its own face as well as human qualities. Death was (and still is) a universal and potent topic permeating European culture, characterized by its ability to overcome the purely personal, individual experience of loss and commemoration and transfer it into the collective, communal and public (302) spheres - in the case of royal death even, adding a political and historical dimension. Ars moriendi – ‘The Art of Dying’, together with the Four Last Things became a fundamental part of Late Medieval moral discourse as well as of the sacramental and pastoral praxis of the medieval church. Medieval theologians worked with the dualistic concept of death: the first – physical, corporal death and the second – spiritual (eschatological) death equal to eternal damnation, also called ‘death without death’ as in hell (or purgatory) or in the words of a Czech Hussite homiletic text – ‘death is always alive’ (Smrt wzdy ziwa). While bodily death is inevitable, eschatological death was understood as an extreme and final punishment for mortal sins which remained unabsolved at the moment of a sinner’s corporal death. At the same time the corporeal end was also understood as a parallel with the inevitable end of this corrupt world. The day of the Last Judgement would be sudden and cruel just like the death of a man. Memento mori – the reminder of corporeal death was permanently present in the everyday life and liturgy of Late Medieval times. During Mass the dead were commemorated and on Ash Wednesday the priest dusted ash over the heads of believers saying ‘thou art dust and unto dust though shalt return’. People usually walked to church though the cemetery – an indivisible part of the medieval urban landscape and on its walls or/and in its chapel (charnel house) they could see, beside the omnipresent human remains and bones, memento mori images such as the Triumph of Death, the Dance of Death or the Legend of the Three Living Meeting the Three Dead reminding everyone that What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be. The Legend undoubtedly reflects the above drafted cultural and social experience of death and that must almost certainly be a reason for its widespread dissemination throughout the Europe of the High and Late Middle Ages. Its popularity is well documented in France during the second half of the 13th century, the very period of growing interest in meditatio mortis literature outside the monastic environment. The origin of the legend has not yet been fully explained. The most commonly accepted hypothesis, however, is the one which suggests a French courtly origin, though there are also theories placing the legend’s origin in the monastic environment in relation to period Franciscan polemics against secular power. The hypothesis on the mendicant origin of the legend seems plausible too, due to its obvious didactic and pastoral potential confronting youth, power, wealth and pride with death, a macabre description of corporal decay and in the Italian version through the presence of the sinless hermit, a mediator between living and dead and narrator of the horror story. The oldest visual representations of the living meeting the dead are not French but Italian, however. All of them probably depict the verses of the Vado mori poem describing three young men who while hunting find an open grave from which a terrifying corpse emerges ...ossa inter et aliorum iam nudata totaliter. The oldest Anglo-French images depicting the legend usually present three frontal standing figures of kings and separately their three visual counterparts in contrasting manner emphasizing summary (303) their nakedness and ugliness (pointed out in the text of the poem), each in various stages of decay. The Italian version of the legend is therefore more dynamic, the living are depicted (standing or lying in graves) together with the dead in the common reality of this world - they have a conversation together that usually ends with the un-heroic flight of the young men. The Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead is rarely depicted as a single, standalone image. It is a multifunctional, poly-semantic image whose meaning cannot be reduced to the usual memento mori. It is usually part of a narration and often within a Last Judgment context amplifying the dramatic accent of collective death – the end of this world as well expressed in the section of the Requiem Mass Dies irae based on the dramatic Old Testament prophesy of Sophonias. It is hard not to notice the macabre contempt for the human body and the emphasis on a fast and sudden death and rapid destruction which makes us think here of sudden death – mors improvisa. The Legend of the Three Dead and the Three Living represents a strong moral imperative – it is the allusion of corporal death as the “corporeal death of the world” as we can see in the oldest macabre image in Bohemian medieval art in the Church of St. Maurice in Mouřenec, visually linking the Last Judgement and the Legend with the Requiem Mass. II. When donsidering macabre iconography of the Late Middle Ages, Bohemia in the context of Central Europe represents a unique region as Late Medieval Bohemian art presents macabre images not only adapted into the new religious and devotional (utraquist) context, but moreover their original iconographic transformation (the Triumph of Death in Broumov, the mors bona in the Jenštejn Codex and the Karlštejn Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse). For this remarkable fact, I believe that we can mainly thank the Luxembourg dynasty as its Bohemian kings were perfectly familiar with French, Italian and German culture and were responsible for essential cultural and artistic transfers from the western regions to Central and Eastern Europe. Another important aspect was the traditional and intensive presence of the German speaking urban elites as well as intimate contact with the German cultural milieu as such, which mediated during the 14th and the 15th centuries “new” macabre themes and motifs such as the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead, the Dance of Death and the transi tombs. Acknowledging this fact, one cannot ignore the Benedictine order and its pastoral activities in Bohemia as the oldest examples of macabre iconography in this region are exclusively related to the Benedictine domain (Mouřenec u Annína, Broumov). It is not by chance that the pastoral and didactic macabre iconography of monastic origin as well as Jean Gerson’s ars moriendi concept was grasped in the 15th century by Hussite theologians and twisted and absorbed by utraquist moral theology emphasizing the individual ethics of every believer. Medieval preachers (catholic as well as utraquist) repeatedly warned about the postponement of summary (304) holy confession to a virtual deathbed moment compromising the readiness for death – mors bona. For this reason holy confession and penance became an inevitable part of the ars moriendi codified by the beginning of the 15th century by Jean Gerson in his famous De arte moriendi tract. His famous text, however, had less influence in Bohemia than similar older ars moriendi works such as Heinrich Suso‘s Horologium sapientiae. While this hypothesis requires further research, it can be easily supported notwithstanding Gerson’s unfortunate involvement in the trial of Jan Hus in Constance, by the political and religious development within 15th century Bohemia as the most radical Hussite theologians rejected out of hand the ars moriendi concept as such together with the existence of purgatory. However, the utraquists did not hold a clear and common theological statement over purgatory and perhaps only the “conservative” theologians who surrounded John of Rokycany (Jan Rokycana), the official head of the utraquist church, held the traditional interpretations and church dogma regarding ars moriendi and purgatory. On the other hand, their conservative understanding of the Four Last Things did not stop them from heavily criticizing period catholic pastoral practice and indulgences. In the above mentioned context it is still surprising to find traditional macabre iconography in the Hussite environment, even, such as the danse macabre in the Bible of the unknown Hussite priest or the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead in the utraquist St. Bartholomew church in Kočí near Chrudim. III. We can only regret the numberless loss of visual objects which prevents us from gaining a more complex picture of macabre visuals in Late Medieval Bohemia. However it is certain that the visual culture related to the memento mori or ars moriendi was as in the other parts of Europe, an integral part of the pastoral education of the laity. The Dance of Death, in particular, represented the pastoral image par excellence directly related to funeral preaching. For this reason too, the visualized personified Death (not only in Bohemia) is almost always part of the wider narrative reflecting period homiletics, and not an isolated scene or image. The moral and soteriological aspect of such images was vital as they were considered to be part of the Antagonist‘s world – the battlefield between good and bad, virtue and vice, God and the Devil, Life and Death. The cadaver or human skeleton represented for medieval man an obvious and perhaps often shocking symbol of the end of not only his personal existence but also of the Day of Judgement – the end of the world. The end of the earthly world dominated by the Devil and Death is often visually connected with macabre iconography and the funeral liturgy. Some of the finest examples are the murals in the Broumov charnel house and in the Church of St. Moritz in Mouřenec. The fact that the end of this world will come fast and unexpectedly therefore in the very same manner as the physical death of a man, is greatly summary (305) stressed in the Benedictine Broumov (dated 1340–1350), where the two images of Christ as a Judge – representing perhaps the papal dogma from 1336 of the double judgement of the human soul – is accompanied besides the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead, by the only Italian type Triumph of Death in Central Europe (apart from that in the Austrian Tyrol). The anxiety of mors improvisa is here in direct confrontation with the royal power represented by the unusual iconography of the encounter of the Three Living and the Three Dead. The living kings in the Broumov legend are depicted not only with usual crowns on their heads but also with swords. This is a unique motif within the iconography of this legend. However, the three kings in Broumov do not hold bare swords but hold them in scabbards in front of themselves in a position reminding us of the gisants on 13th century tombs. On the contrary their counterpart dead kings are intentionally free of any symbols of their former status or identity, their bodies eaten by long snake-like worms giving the dead a rather grotesque appearance and amplifying the ugliness of the rotting human body. The swords in the Broumov legend are just like crowns, symbols of royal power emphasizing the social status of the living kings as the rulers of this world plus the institution of royal power as such – therefore as an identity of those, who hold in their hands law and justice over the living (ius gladii) but not over the dead. While the king’s human body would one day rot and decompose, his political body – the institution of royal power – was immortal – dignitas non moritur. From this point of view the Broumov version of the legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead reminds us of the principal of the double transi tombs. This double commemoration of the dead presents the body as a political entity depicted with open eyes and the insignia of earthly office, while in the lower level lies his individual, human, decaying body. The double identity of the deceased is obvious: individual appearance (beauty), social role and the prestige he or she enjoyed while alive, is confronted with collective anonymity, ugliness and the horror of cadavers and their rotting bodies in the world of the dead. In context of the Three Living and the Three Dead legend, the mirror motif is quite common especially in those images depicting cadavers with crowns. This unusual confrontation of royal power is also suggested in scenes in the Broumov charnel house: In the Triumph of Death, Death decapitates human heads with her scythe. Among these, we can observe a female crowned head and in the scene depicting hell we can see two more crowned figures. This rather moralizing visualization of royal power may well reflect the problems of the Broumov Benedictines whose property was pledged by the Bohemian king John of Luxembourg and not returned to the hands of the order until almost twenty years later by his son Charles IV. The image of the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead in the Dominican church in České Budějovice can also be linked to the Luxembourg dynasty. The image is as usual placed within a broader pastoral visual narrative including St. Christopher, summary (306) a Pietà and St. George and the dragon with 10,000 martyrs. The iconography of the murals corresponds well with a popular period prayer Obsecro te, often used as a general plea for salvation, protection against mortal sin and for a ‘good death’ at the end enclosed by a plea for revelation of the death hour. In Bohemia, the legend uniquely presents the living kings as horse-riding hunters as first depicted in Campo Santo in Pisa or in the luxurious Psalter of Bonne of Luxembourg. Such a presentation of the legend could perhaps have been a commemoration of the death of the Holy Roman Emperor and Bohemian king Charles IV who died after suffering a tragic illness in 1378. The Dominican mural paintings can be dated to the 1380’s and were probably commissioned by the emperor’s son and Bohemian king Wenceslaus IV. The last representation of the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead can be found in the memorial church of St. Bartholomew in Kočí. The mural painting representing the legend is sadly preserved only as a fragment depicting one cadaver holding a scythe. It can be dated after the year 1499 when the church was heavily reconstructed and repainted. The legend scene was possibly a part of the Last Judgement and documents the fact that such a macabre theme was also known and used by the Hussites as the church in Kočí came under the jurisdiction of the utraquist Chrudim parish. IV. The Krumlov miscellanea was probably commissioned by Oldřich of Rosenberg in 1417, contains various texts that appear, from their careful selection, to have served for pastoral care, performed perhaps by the Krumlov minor brothers targeting the laity as well as being usable for cura monialium performed in the neighbouring convent of the Poor Clare Sisters and in the Beguine community. In addition to the popular Speculum humanae salvationis, the codex contains Czech translations of mystical-didactic texts with an ethical accent, such as Paradisus Animae by Albert the Great and Horologium Sapientiae by Dominican mystic Heinrich Suso (there are actually two editions of Suso’s text in the manuscript) tracts very popular especially in female monasteries. The codex also contains two other tracts dedicated to the perfection of monastic life by Bonaventura: Soliloquium and De perfectione vitae ad sorores plus two vernacular texts of Bohemian origin dedicated to the struggle against sin and spiritual death and to the Art of dying well: the first text is titled in its incipit Here it is written how a man should recognise his sins and second the Books on the death of a lush youth by Tomáš of Štítný. All texts in the compendium are linked by a theme which was the core of a period of pastoral care according to the canons of Lateran Council IV, that is, the education of the lower clergy and monks as well as of lay believers in the vernacular. Another “common place” of the Krumlov codex is the “new” modus confitendi, from which arose the firmly given structure of confession and subsequent penance. With a certain degree of simplification we can say that the first part of the Krumlov miscellanea contains texts summary (307) leading the reader towards a life of devotion, contemplation and monastic virtues while the remaining texts (tract on the seven deadly sins, books on the death of a lush youth and Horologium) target the issues connected with the Four Last Things. The Krumlov miscellanea in this context therefore represents a unique document. Its textual composition shows not only the division of texts used in monastic as well as in lay pastoral practice but also gives us a clue as to how such a manuscript was practically used. The “monastic” texts by Albertus, Suso and Bonaventura emphasized the virtuous monastic life and basically summarized the long tradition of moral literature. The other texts: Speculum, the Tract on the recognition of sins and the Books on the death of a lush youth are, one the whole, less intellectually and mystically demanding therefore in the eyes of medieval theologians – suitable for the laity as well as for say less intellectually gifted members of the clergy: nuns, for example, while at the same time serving the basic spiritual needs of everyman. The last two tract are extremely interesting as they are of Czech origin and while the first one deals with mortal sin and how to recognize it, the second (titled Books on the death of a lush Youth) is a copy of Thomas of Štítný’s last chapter On Death from his famous Six Books on General Christians Matters. The first anonymous tract dedicated to mortal sin is formulated more as a catalogue of all known sins rather than being a deep theological reflection of individual sins, serving as a guideline for their recognition and contemplation. The tract virtually illustrates the period post-Lateran modus confitendi and together with the illuminations represents a unique visual complex of moral iconography commenting on the official structure of the period confession, symmetrically structures sins into groups beginning with offences against the Decalogue, through the Nine Sins of Another (peccata aliena), offences against the Eight Beatitudes, the Seven Deadly Sins, sins against the Seven Sacraments, the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, offences against the Six Acts of Mercy and sins of the five senses. The Seven Deadly Sins are, moreover, illustrated by a unique set of illuminations accompanying each mortal offence using the image of a seated couple, their “deadly” sinful act supported by Death himself. The illuminations are unique and not only within Bohemian medieval painting due to the fact that their iconography does not draw direct inspiration from any previous models. Furthermore, the second tract, that by Štítný, is accompanied and commented on by fifteen illuminations always placed above the direct speech of either the dying Youth or his friend who also becomes converted to wisdom, moved by the example of his sick friend. Only in two of the illuminations is personified Death depicted. In the first case, a skeleton is lurking behind a man’s pillow representing Death’s immanent presence. The text also stresses the importance of the memory and a clear mind while dying as the Youth claims to be losing his mind, his ability to reason and therefore his memory leaving the Youth unable to remember and recognize his sins and rendering him incapable of executing a proper confession and penance and leading him therefore to eschatological death – eternal damnation. summary (308) V. The Bible owned by an unknown Hussite priest from 1441 constitutes a similar type of manuscript. It is a unique and rare example of a pastoral compendium containing besides the complete biblical text, various ethical tracts and their fragments with an emphasis on the early church authorities. The manuscript strongly suggests that pastoral care in the utraquist environment varied very little from the Catholic one. The codex‘s uniqueness arises from its original set of illuminations depicting, in addition to the Last Judgment and a sinful couple kneeling before a large chalice and suffering Christ, an original version of the danse macabre. The “Hussite” Dance of death unites two fundamental aspects of the medieval understanding of death. Corporeal and spiritual (eschatological) death (eternal damnation) are not obviously presented here as two separate aspects of death, but as a single entity. This is a result of the utraquist understanding of dying and corporeal death together with a refusal of the dogma of double judgment from 1336 (iudicium duplex). The controversy of purgatory as well as the emphasis on personal spiritual combat surely inspired the “unification” of the dual character of death. The only and final judge of all Christians is Christ who will decide on Judgement Day on the fate of the human soul. Before that, dead bodies cannot be united with their souls which are either suffering in Hell or enjoying pleasure in Heaven. For this reason too, the living are confronted with a cadaver representing Death. The skeletons in Dances of death usually signify the corporeal death of man, while in the Hussite bible we can see a rotting body representing Death itself (as is obvious from its speech) as well as the alter egos of the living – their future stage. This is most apparent in the scenes with the Emperor and the Young Girl where the cadaver tells the girl you are already mutating (in fact slowly dying) while the emperor has died some time ago and in fact is the only figure in the Hussite dance who is obviously dead reminding us already of the roy mort motif in the Parisian dance macabre depicting a lying skeleton with a fallen crown. The allusion to the dead emperor Sigmund of Luxembourg is obvious. His mortal transformation is completed while the bride is losing colour – her mortal transformation is just beginning. Despite this the verbo-visual program of the Hussite bible suggests dual transformation: a moral – leading to salvation and a mortal – leading to death. The “Hussite” Danse macabre texts and images noticeably differ from the period European Dances of Death. The main “innovation” here is the strong moral accent, as the individual figures identify themselves as sinners. Death is the punishment for their sins. A good example is the Pope ridiculing apostolic poverty while Death speaking through the mouth of the rotting corpse threatens him with the prospect of a lawful judgment. This surely means lex Dei – the Law of God with Christ as the judge. It is hardly surprising that the strongest moral voice is noticeable in the Pope and the Emperor scenes. However, we could hardly find the same moral call in the “great” Dances of Death in Paris, Basel, Berlin, summary (309) Lübeck or Tallinn where the powerful of this world identify themselves in the context of period social hierarchy and lament over their own mortality while Death invites them to join the dance and explains the inevitability of their fate without an obvious moralizing accent. Death in the Hussite bible is understood as one of the Four Last Things with a newfound strong moral accent typical for the Bohemian Reformation. In the eschatological sense, death is a punishment for original sin; in the individual sense it is a punishment for committed sins. In the bible these are carefully listed in the “Saligia” folio stating all mortal sins and their sub-divisions as well as by the couple, kneeling before the Holy Sacrament and the Suffering Christ, here expanding the traditional list of the Seven Deadly Sins by further vices in compliance with St. Paul’s teaching. Christ showing his wounds is their (our) moral antipode, the model for the spiritual transformation culminating in the unitas Dei. Moral transformation (i.e. imitation of Christ) is necessary for salvation while mortal transformation is proof of and punishment for sin (i.e. imitation of Death). As precisely expressed by Peter Chelčický: … salvation is based on Christ for those who imitate him, bearing almost an identical image or appearance of his life in humility, patience, peacefulness, and with a contempt for the world, of its fame, pleasures and of all of its futilities, that means rejecting the entire desire of the worldly life of sin and bodily avidity… | cs |
