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30 pages, 13984 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Embroidering the Life of Thomas Becket during the Middle Ages: Cult and Devotion in Liturgical Vestments

by Nathalie Le Luel

Arts 2022, 11(4), 73; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts11040073 - 27 Jul 2022

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From the early studies of Tancred Borenius (1885–1948) to the present, the iconography of the archbishop Thomas Becket has drawn attention among scholars. Numerous studies have been published on the representation of Becket’s martyrdom in mural painting, sculpture, and reliquary caskets. Despite this [...] Read more.

From the early studies of Tancred Borenius (1885–1948) to the present, the iconography of the archbishop Thomas Becket has drawn attention among scholars. Numerous studies have been published on the representation of Becket’s martyrdom in mural painting, sculpture, and reliquary caskets. Despite this attention, many questions concerning the selection of episodes embroidered in liturgical vestments and textiles, as well as the commissioning of these objects, remain unresolved. How devotion to Becket spread globally in the Western world has not yet been satisfactorily determined, and there may have been a number of different factors and transmitters. Thus, medieval embroidery could also have been a driving force behind the development and the dissemination of Becket’s cult—notably in the ecclesiastical and, more specifically, episcopal milieu across the Latin Church. This type of production quickly reached ecclesiastical patrons, who were interested in the opportunity of wearing a headpiece or vestments (copes and chasubles) that would serve as reminders of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This was the perfect opportunity for a papal curia that, since Alexander III, had tasked itself with promoting Thomas Becket’s legacy, integrating the saint within Christian martyrial history and within a history of a militant Church. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue St. Thomas Becket in Art: Image, Patronage and Propaganda)

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19 pages, 8937 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Anglo-Catalan Connection: The Cult of Thomas Becket at Terrassa—New Approaches

by Carles Sánchez Márquez and Joan Soler Jiménez

Arts 2021, 10(4), 82; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts10040082 - 30 Nov 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2707

Abstract

The wall paintings adorning the south transept apse of Santa Maria at Terrassa are among the most notable surviving items pertaining to the iconography of St. Thomas Becket. Recently found documents in which diplomatic archives reveal English connections are essential for understanding the [...] Read more.

The wall paintings adorning the south transept apse of Santa Maria at Terrassa are among the most notable surviving items pertaining to the iconography of St. Thomas Becket. Recently found documents in which diplomatic archives reveal English connections are essential for understanding the quick reception of the Becket cult in the Crown of Aragon. The presence of an Anglo-Norman canon—Arveus or Harveus (Harvey)—and his position of scribe during the second half of the twelfth century when Reginald, probably also of English origin, was prior there—seem to be the likely source of inspiration for this project. These English connections, which are essential for understanding the quick reception of the Becket cult in the Crown of Aragon, stemmed from the endeavours undertaken some years earlier south of the Pyrenees by the abbot of Saint-Ruf at Avignon, Nicholas Breakspear, who subsequently became Pope Adrian IV. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue St. Thomas Becket in Art: Image, Patronage and Propaganda)

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18 pages, 4759 KiB

Open AccessArticle

From Canterbury to the Duero—An Early Example of Becket’s Martyrdom Iconography in the Kingdom of Castile

by Marta Poza Yagüe

Arts 2021, 10(4), 72; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts10040072 - 26 Oct 2021

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Abstract

The church of San Miguel of Almazán (Soria, Spain) houses a twelfth-century antependium ornamented with scenes of Thomas Becket’s martyrdom. Discovered during restoration works in 1936, its origin and its original location are unknown. The aim of this article is twofold—to frame its [...] Read more.

The church of San Miguel of Almazán (Soria, Spain) houses a twelfth-century antependium ornamented with scenes of Thomas Becket’s martyrdom. Discovered during restoration works in 1936, its origin and its original location are unknown. The aim of this article is twofold—to frame its manufacture chronologically in light of recent research on late-Romanesque sculpture in Castile, and to use this information to discover who commissioned this work: The bishops of Sigüenza, whose diocese included Almazán? The canons of the monastery of Allende Duero built at the foot of Almazán’s town wall? Or, as has always been claimed, the Castilian Monarchs Alfonso VIII and Eleanor of England, who were the chief promoters of the Becket cult in their dominions? Whatever the answer, this relief is one of the earliest examples of Canterbury saint iconography in the Crown of Castile. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue St. Thomas Becket in Art: Image, Patronage and Propaganda)

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26 pages, 6290 KiB

Open AccessArticle

“Pro Honore et Libertate Ecclesiae Invicta Fortitude Sustinuit”—The Oratory of St Thomas Becket in the Cathedral of Anagni

by Claudia Quattrocchi

Arts 2021, 10(4), 69; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts10040069 - 12 Oct 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3753

Abstract

On the 9th of October, 1170 Pope Alexander III resided in Anagni, which had been the ancient residence of the court of the Popes for at least two centuries. He wrote to two influential local archbishops for help in pacifying King Henry II [...] Read more.

On the 9th of October, 1170 Pope Alexander III resided in Anagni, which had been the ancient residence of the court of the Popes for at least two centuries. He wrote to two influential local archbishops for help in pacifying King Henry II and Archbishop Thomas Becket, who had been in dispute for six years. Sensing Becket’s looming tragic fate, Alexander III began slowly to encircle the archbishop with rhetoric of the new martyr of Libertas Ecclesiae. When he had to flee from Rome besieged by factions led by Frederick I, the pope found refuge in Segni, where he canonised Thomas Becket on 21 February 1173. However, it was in faithful Anagni that he settled on and off from March 1173 through the following years (November 1176; December 1177–March 1178; September 1179). It was here that he decided to elaborate a powerful speech in images. In an oratory in the crypt of the grandiose cathedral, Alexander III had the last painful moments of the Archbishop’s death painted in a program imitating that of St. Peter’s in the Vatican. Becket thus became the new imitator of Christ, the new Peter, the new martyr on the altar of the Church of Rome. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue St. Thomas Becket in Art: Image, Patronage and Propaganda)

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23 pages, 41011 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Remembering Thomas Becket in Saint-Lô

by Alyce A. Jordan

Arts 2021, 10(3), 67; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts10030067 - 14 Sep 2021

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Abstract

France numbered second only to England in its veneration of the martyred archbishop of Canterbury. Nowhere in France was that veneration more widespread than Normandy, where churches and chapels devoted to Saint Thomas, many embellished with sculptures, paintings, and stained-glass windows, appeared throughout [...] Read more.

France numbered second only to England in its veneration of the martyred archbishop of Canterbury. Nowhere in France was that veneration more widespread than Normandy, where churches and chapels devoted to Saint Thomas, many embellished with sculptures, paintings, and stained-glass windows, appeared throughout the Middle Ages. A nineteenth-century resurgence of interest in the martyred archbishop of Canterbury gave rise to a new wave of artistic production dedicated to him. A number of these modern commissions appear in the same sites and thus in direct visual dialogue with their medieval counterparts. This essay examines the long legacy of artistic dedications to Saint-Thomas in the town of Saint-Lô. It considers the medieval and modern contexts underpinning the creation of these works and what they reveal about Thomas Becket’s enduring import across nine centuries of Saint-Lô’s history. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue St. Thomas Becket in Art: Image, Patronage and Propaganda)

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19 pages, 11544 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Lunette with St. Thomas Becket at the Sacro Speco in Subiaco: An Unexpected Presence?

by Roberta Cerone

Arts 2021, 10(3), 58; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts10030058 - 30 Aug 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2343

Abstract

The painting with St. Thomas Becket, St. Stephen and St. Nicholas of Bari that decorates one of the lunettes in the so-called lower church at the Sacro Speco in Subiaco is an enigma from an art-historical point of view, for two reasons. First, [...] Read more.

The painting with St. Thomas Becket, St. Stephen and St. Nicholas of Bari that decorates one of the lunettes in the so-called lower church at the Sacro Speco in Subiaco is an enigma from an art-historical point of view, for two reasons. First, on an iconographical level, the lunette interrupts the flow of the story of Benedict’s life unfolding systematically on all the walls of the lower church. Second, from the formal point of view, the fresco clearly presents more archaic features than the surrounding Stories of St. Benedict, dating to the end of the thirteenth/beginning of the fourteenth century, and was therefore probably executed in a phase prior to the cycle of Benedict. In the paper, therefore, I will analyse the motivations that led to the preservation of this painting when the hall was renovated and later redecorated in the late thirteenth century, and discuss the hypotheses surrounding patronage. Both aspects will help to better contextualize the reasons for the presence of the image of St. Thomas Becket in a pre-eminent position in the sanctuary of Benedict in Subiaco, a papal bulwark on the borders of the Kingdom. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue St. Thomas Becket in Art: Image, Patronage and Propaganda)

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11 pages, 1486 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Portable Prototypes: Canterbury Badges and the Thomasaltar in Hamburg

by Jennifer Lee

Arts 2021, 10(3), 51; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts10030051 - 27 Jul 2021

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Abstract

Pilgrims’ badges often depicted works of art located at a cult center, and these cheap, small images frequently imitated monumental works. Was this relationship ever reversed? In late medieval Hamburg, a painted altarpiece from a Hanseatic guild narrates the life of Thomas Becket [...] Read more.

Pilgrims’ badges often depicted works of art located at a cult center, and these cheap, small images frequently imitated monumental works. Was this relationship ever reversed? In late medieval Hamburg, a painted altarpiece from a Hanseatic guild narrates the life of Thomas Becket in four scenes, two of which survive. In 1932, Tancred Borenius declared this altarpiece to be the first monumental expression of Becket’s narrative in northern Germany. Since then, little scholarship has investigated the links between this work and the Becket cult elsewhere. With so much visual art from the medieval period lost, it is impossible to trace the transmission of imagery with any certainty. Nevertheless, this discussion considers badges as a means of disseminating imagery for subsequent copying. This altarpiece and the pilgrims’ badges that it closely resembles may provide an example of a major work of art borrowing a composition from an inexpensive pilgrim’s badge and of the monumental imitating the miniature. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue St. Thomas Becket in Art: Image, Patronage and Propaganda)

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24 pages, 11689 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Barber-Surgeon’s Instrument Case: Seeing the Iconography of Thomas Becket through a Netherlandish Lens

by Louise Hampson and John Jenkins

Arts 2021, 10(3), 49; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts10030049 - 26 Jul 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3066

Abstract

The triple anniversary in 2020 of Thomas Becket’s birth, death and translation has been an occasion to review and revisit many of the artefacts associated with the saint and his cult in England and across Europe. Many of these are items directly associated [...] Read more.

The triple anniversary in 2020 of Thomas Becket’s birth, death and translation has been an occasion to review and revisit many of the artefacts associated with the saint and his cult in England and across Europe. Many of these are items directly associated with his veneration in churches or in private devotions, but one object which served in neither capacity is an instrument case currently in the collection of the Worshipful Company of Barbers in London. This unusual object has been studied for its fine silver work, and possible royal associations, but little academic attention has so far been paid to the some of the iconography, particularly that of the scene of the murder of Thomas Becket depicted on the back of the box, the side to be worn against the body. In this article, we show how seemingly unusual elements in the iconography draw on particularly Flemish representations of Becket’s murder that, to date, have received little attention in Anglophone scholarship. From this, we discuss this scene and its significance in understanding the role the iconography may have been intended to serve, and the interplay between the decorative schema and what the surgeon thought about his own role with regard to the use of the case and its tools. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue St. Thomas Becket in Art: Image, Patronage and Propaganda)

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Review

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6 pages, 4142 KiB

Open AccessReview

Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint, British Museum, 20 May–22 August 2021

by Tom Nickson

Arts 2021, 10(3), 54; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/arts10030054 - 10 Aug 2021

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Abstract

This review considers the British Museum’s exhibition, Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint, curated by Lloyd de Beer and Naomi Speakman. Following a brief description of the show and its relationship to current art-historical scholarship, I offer a detailed [...] Read more.

This review considers the British Museum’s exhibition, Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint, curated by Lloyd de Beer and Naomi Speakman. Following a brief description of the show and its relationship to current art-historical scholarship, I offer a detailed study of one exhibit, a late-twelfth-century font from Lyngsjö in Sweden, and briefly sketch the significance of Becket for the historiography of medieval art in Britain. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue St. Thomas Becket in Art: Image, Patronage and Propaganda)

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