Saints Go Marching On : Getty Exhibit Gives Fascinating Glimpse Into Medieval Life
From the fall of Rome to the Reformation, Christendom was gaga for saints.
Every church in Europe had its relics--bits of the bodies of departed holy men and women--and the faithful regularly implored their favorite saints to intercede with God on their behalf.
“The Cult of Saints in the Middle Ages and Renaissance” is the theme of a new exhibit of holy images, most of them from illuminated manuscripts, at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu.
On display starting Tuesday, the two dozen works from the Getty collection provide a fascinating glimpse into the daily life and thinking of people who believed that heaven was at least as real as Earth--and unquestionably a lot nicer.
What makes these saintly images so fascinating is that they are a window on a lost world without a photographic record, a society that we can glimpse only through its art and artifacts. These stunning pictures, some glittering with gold leaf like the very dome of heaven, are as compelling as anything modern movies or MTV have to offer. Imagine their impact on people who were starved for new and wonderful things to look at.
As UCLA historian Patrick J. Geary explained, medieval European society was one in which local powers, both spiritual and temporal, were extremely important. People lived and died without ever leaving their villages. In a society in which everyone had his or her place, local saints were expected to act as celestial advocates for local faithful. The average person would no more approach God directly than he or she would approach the king, Geary said. Knowing your place in the spiritual pecking order, you implored the local saints to speak to the boss on your behalf.
Organized by curatorial assistant Kurtis Barstow, the exhibit includes superstar saints such as Mary Magdalene and Augustine, who were glorified all over the Christian world, and local holy men and women most of us have never heard of.
One meticulously detailed little painting from 1400 shows the miraculously preserved bodies of obscure 8th-Century Sts. Aimo and Vermondo being moved into a grand tomb in the church they founded in Meda, near Milan. As Geary explained, Rome didn’t begin to formalize the process of canonizing saints until 1200. But saints didn’t need the blessing of Rome to be wildly popular in the towns where they were buried or where their relics were displayed.
“Some make the short list and become official saints,” Geary said, “while others remain objects of local veneration.” People may not have made pilgrimages from all over Italy to visit the tomb of Aimo and Vermondo, but these holy siblings packed the house in Meda. Obviously hoping to be cured of lameness, one member of the crowd shown at their tomb is supported by the medieval equivalent of a walker.
Biographies of the saints, or hagiographies, detailed the lives of these holy role models and were among the most important documents of the pre-Reformation Church. But a devout illiterate could learn much about the saints by looking at holy pictures. A book of hours from 15th-Century France or England shows St. Denis, the first bishop of Paris, holding his own head, with a halo around both his head and the bloody stump of his neck.
Denis, who was martyred around 250 A.D., allegedly picked up his severed head and carried it to his chosen burial site, the spot where a great church would later be built in his honor. Churchmen were not above squabbling over which abbey or cathedral had which part of a popular saint--more than one house of worship claimed to have the true head of St. Denis.
According to Geary, who is director of UCLA’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, relics were venerated as spiritual power incarnate. Some of the holiest relics of the Middle Ages seem bizarre, even to a modern believer. One church claimed to have one of Jesus’ baby teeth, another his foreskin. One church even claimed to have feathers from the Holy Spirit. But, as Geary pointed out, the veneration of relics reflects the view that the human body is ultimately good because it is the worldly vessel for the soul, destined to be resurrected on Judgment Day. That view, Geary said, was a healthy antidote to the body-hating wing of the church, which spurned the physical and mortified the flesh.
It has been centuries since the saints were at the very center of Christian life, but Geary doesn’t think their cult has vanished completely. He points out that we continue to flock to places associated with dead people who greatly touched our lives. To this day, people make pilgrimages to Canterbury--and to Graceland.
* SAINTS EXHIBIT
The exhibit continues through Jan. 9. The Getty is located at 17985 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. Admission is free, but advance parking reservations are required. Five evening lectures related to the exhibit are scheduled, beginning Nov. 11. Geary will speak on relics on Dec. 2. A related interactive exhibit on gold ground paintings in medieval and Renaissance Italy continues at the museum through July 10. For reservations or information, call (310) 458-2003.
