St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne: Relics, Reliquaries and the Visual Culture of Group Sanctity in Late Medieval Europe

by Scott B. Montgomery

Overview

The cult of St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgin Martyrs of Cologne was the most widespread relic cult in medieval Europe. The sheer abundance of relics of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, which allowed for the display of immense collections, shaped the notion of corporate cohesion that characterized the cult. Though the primacy of St. Ursula as the leader of this holy band was established by the tenth century, she was conceived as the head of a corporate body. Innumerable inventories and liturgical texts attest to the fact that this cult was commemorated and referenced as a collective mass – Undecim millium virginum. This group identity informed, and was formulated by, the presentation of their relics, as well as much of the imagery associated with this cult. This book explores the visual, textual, performative, and perceptual aspects of this phenomenon, with particular emphasis on painting and sculpture in late medieval Cologne. Examining the ways in which both texts and images worked as vestments, garbing the true core of relics which formed the body of the cult, the book examines the cult from the core outward, seeking to understand hagiographic texts and images in terms of their role in articulating relic cults.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783039118526
Publisher:	Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Publication date:	12/30/2009
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

The Author: Scott B. Montgomery is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Denver. He received his doctorate in Art History from Rutgers University in 1996 with a dissertation on «The Use and Perception of Reliquary Busts in the Late Middle Ages». He has co-edited two volumes of essays, Images, Relics and Devotional Practices in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (2005) and De Re Metallica: Studies in Medieval Metals (2005), and is co-author of Casting Our Own Shadows: Recreating the Medieval Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela (forthcoming).

Table of Contents

Contents: Heads and Tales: Envisioning the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne – An Archaeology of Texts and Bones: The Legend of the Eleven Thousand Virgins – Bones and More Bones: Relics and the Spread of the Cult – Ecclesia sanctarum undecim milum virginum: The Church of the Eleven Thousand Virgins and its Decoration – The Face of Sanctity: Reliquary Busts of the Eleven Thousand Virgins – Golden Visions: Altarpieces with Relics – The Protective Mantle: The Holy Virgins as Patron Saints of Cologne – Picturing the Pilgrimage: Narrative Cycles in Cologne – A Peregrinatious Tale: Images and Narrative Cycles Beyond the Rhineland – Golden Bones: The Goldene Kammer of St. Ursula and Early Modern Developments – From Slight to Light: Concluding Thoughts.

Preface

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