This lecture explores the relationship between theologies of blood and cultures of wine in medieval Western Europe, from the monastic milieu of 12th-century Burgundy to the wards of late medieval London. Even the most sacred Eucharistic practices of the Middle Ages depended on the vintner’s craft, while the era’s poetry, art, devotional writings, and liturgies reveal close connections between viticulture and religious life. In the medieval world, blood piety and oenophilia often went hand in hand. A talk by author, novelist, and academic and literary scholar Bruce Holsinger.
This program was presented at the Getty Center and Online on Saturday, March 2, 2024, https://www.getty.edu/visit/cal/events/blood_symposium.html, and complements the exhibition “Blood: Medieval/Modern,” https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/blood/.
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Hi everyone good morning um I’d just like to start today’s program with a brief land acknowledgement um we would like to acknowledge that the land that Getty inhabits today was once known as tangar the home of the Gabrielino Tonga people we show our respects to the Gabrielino
Tong OFA people as well as all first people past present and future and honor their labor as original caretakers of this land Getty commits to building relationships with the Gabrielino tongva PE people community um and we invite you to acknowledge the history of this land and join us in caring for
It um so welcome to today’s program um I’m Lissa golmond assistant curator of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts here at the Getty museum um and it’s my pleasure to welcome you to today’s event is this my blood the medieval rights of wine by Bruce holinger holinger sorry I even asked you ahead of
Time um this program is the keynote lecture to the their Will Be Blood Symposium uh co-presented by USC’s center for the premodern world and which complements the current exhibition blood medieval modern on view in the North Pavilion um Plaza level through May 19th um the exhibition galleries will be open
Until 8:30 p.m today for viewing so you have plenty of time to see the show today um and speaking of blood medieval modern um this is a show um by the manuscripts Gallery um brought to you by by a whole host of people here at the Getty museum um that explores the idea
Of blood in the Middle Ages which traverses so many different kinds of dialogues from devotional medical um in uh images of violence as well as genealogy and um the exhibition aims to put those works and those discourses into conversation with contemporary ones so thinking about issues of feminism of
HIV AIDS and the idea of blood is still a really powerful signifier in the Contemporary imagination um this show began uh with an Instagram real about medieval menstration which we receive all sorts of questions about and really grew to include so many different kinds of works and so many different
Contemporary artists can I have the next slide please this is just a sampling of the kinds of images that are in the show um everything from medieval manuscripts that depict the suffering and um the wounds of Christ in particular um all the way through to Contemporary Art like
Those by Andre Andre Serranos Bloods scape X um there in the center as well as this really special loan um the L nozac Satan shoes which extends the conversation into popular culture and outside the real of Fine Art to think about the continued relevance of medieval Aesthetics but also the
Continued power of blood um on the Contemporary imagination so with that um coinciding with the Symposium also um is illuminations uh an immersive environment by contemporary artist Jordan Eagles uh which is on view at the Getty Center um during public hours this weekend March 1st through 3rd um so
Please check that out if you have a chance it’s up in the museum entrance hall and before we get started just a couple of notes to share um for guests here in the auditorium please take a moment to silence your mobile devices and for online attendees uh Clos captioning has been enabled for
Attendees on Zoom um to access live captioning just click the CC icon on the zoom menu uh bar at the bottom of the screen and time permitting um we may be able to take some questions so for our online audience please use the Q&A box
Uh on your Zoom menu bar and for those here in person there will be a mic available so that everyone can hear the questions so without further Ado um Bruce holinger is the lyen Kent Memorial professor of English at the University of Virginia and editor-in-chief of new
Literary history his most recent book on parchment animals archives and the making of culture from Herodotus to the digital age explores the parchment inheritance of the eurom Mediterranean world he is also the author of four novels most recently the displacements and his essays have been published in
The New York times the New York Review of Books vanity and Vanity Fair his research has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities the ACLS and the Guggenheim Foundation please join me in welcoming [Applause] Bruce thank you so much um it’s it’s an
Enormous pleasure to be here and um I’d like to thank U Jay Rubenstein Greg sandal Melanie Escobar um Lissa gamand Beth Morrison and everyone else’s associated with USC and the Getty for making um this such an extraordinary event and I also want to thank my fellow conference speakers yesterday for such a
A brilliant array of papers responses and discussions um it’s been a real pleasure um to learn from all of you from the scholarship of my colleagues um and gain so many fascinating perspectives on the topic that that brings us together this weekend um so last year when I was invited to deliver
This lect lecture on the theme of medieval blood my thoughts went immediately to skin um I just finished a book about parchment that Lissa just mentioned the process animal skin that formed one of the primary material substrates of medieval written culture the transition from skin to the blood
Circulating beneath it seemed a natural one and I knew I had good materials to talk about the veining of Vellum folios for example will often put the vascular systems of medieval creatures on display reminding us of the presence of those SK that make up so many millions of medieval books and documents while
Working on the project over the years I met a number of contemporary artists similarly obsessed with parchment who taught me to see the medium’s animality and new ways and this is a piece by the London Botanical artist Margaret Fitzpatrick that exploits the veining of skin as part of the organic ground of
The painting one motivation for my work on parchment was this sense of looking a skew at something familiar seeing the Untold and sometimes unsettling stories beneath the surface of the commonplace parchment then is what I thought I would talk about and so I started scrolling through the catalog of
Exhibition images that we all received on those of us participating in the conference um that were sent along as inspiration for attendees hoping to find some object or visualization that might inspire me toward a more specific topic but the image that most arrested me it turned out wasn’t a flaw in the
Vellum or an elaborate parchment repair but this miniature the scene comes from the prayer book of Charles the bold a tiny pocket sized and heavily Illustrated volume commissioned by Charles Duke of burgundy in the year 1469 with a later continuation from which this image comes and if you want
To see the book at the exhibit you walk into that first room and it’s right there in the in the case to your right along with another um small I think contemporaneous book the subject here is the mass of St Gregory a miraculous Vision experienced by Pope Gregory the Great around the
Year 600 while the pope is celebrating Mass Christ appears at the altar accompanied by the symbols of his uh of the crucifixion and death the precious blood flowing from his side and filling the Chalice here resting on the altar by Gregory’s praying hands a scene that captures all the spectacle paos and Awe
Entailed by late medieval blood piety this piety is one of of the main subjects of a marvelous book by our colleague and fellow conference attendee batina bildhauer called simply medieval blood and it was the more specific subject of a book published in 2007 called wonderful blood written by
Carolyn Walker bham the great medieval historian who directed my dissertation many years ago at Columbia and I was very moved when when Jay mentioned her yesterday when I met Carolyn bham um I was an overconfident um transfer student from a freaky ma program in critical theory at the University of Minnesota um
Convinced that the answers to all my questions about medieval culture could be answered through the prism of Lon and derah and other other um magnates of 20th century Theory um and it was Carolyn bham who brought me down to earth with the deceptively simple questions that would guide my research
For many years to come what’s actually there she would ask me to ask what’s actually there in front of you what does the text actually say I won’t imitate her Georgia accent um I used to do a good impression though um what is written on the page or painted on the
Parchment right in front of you what’s there in the case of this image from um the mass of St Gregory what’s there of course is blood but what’s also there is wine the Ruby stream of blood that flows from Christ’s breast is also the r Ruby stream of wine filling Gregory’s cup
And it’s the space between wound and chalice that gentle Scarlet Arc that explains what I want to think through today now it just so happened that when I received the invitation to give this lecture I was also in the midst of studying for the level one SoMo exam the
First in a series it’s the first in a series of tests sponsored by the Court of Master SoMo to certify aspirants to its Livery I was studying for this exam as part of a larger project still very much in its infancy in fact this is the first talk I’ve I’ve given from this
Project about the cultural Poetics of wine in the European Middle Ages and the modern imagination here’s an excerpt from the Contemporary textbook for the first exam this is from the burgundy section and includes that paragraph on the importance of the sus in fostering the Region’s initial successes in
Cultivation as well as in the increasing sophistication of Western European viticulture and viniculture and it’s those deep often startling continuities between medieval and modern wine cultures that have been guiding my own approaches to the subject so you can understand why when I looked at this image in the prayer book of
Charles the Bold Duke of burgundy what I saw in that ready stream flowing from Christ’s side into a chalice was less the Precious Blood of the Savior and more the renowned fruit of The Burgundian Vine it was Duke Philip the good Charles the bold’s father after all
Who wrote in 1460 of what is still today today one of burgundy’s great viticultural regions wines of unsurpassed excellent he wrote are produced in the territory of bun because of which Merchants have long been accustomed to buy their wines there and transport them to various different countries because of the
Excellence of these wines we are reputed to be lord of the finest Wines in Christendom now I don’t mean to engage in a kind of stupid literalism that flies in the face of what we know about the religious culture that yielded this image any medievalist can tell you about
The vast complexities of Eucharistic theology as they developed over the middle centuries of the era a Sacrament that transubstantiated wine into the blood of Christ that Left Behind The Accidental appearance taste and smell of wine even even as it changed the liquid substance into blood hocum Corpus mayam
Hium kic sanguinus May for this is my body for this is the Chalice of my blood this is to say nothing of all the sacramental practices surrounding the Holy Blood and its preciousness the religious politics around the so-called lay chalice and the practice of intinction or the dipping of the host
Into the blood and so on even unored from the sacrament of the altar the blood of Christ remained a central symbol in aspiration of medieval devotion shaping the practices of Christianity for centuries to glaze with to gaze with the gluttonous avidity of a wine lover on such a scene as surely to
Project modern sensibilities on one of the primal iies of medieval religious life perhaps though we might also Imagine in gazing at that wine-filled chalice Through The Eyes of the two generations of burgundi and Aristocrats who commissioned and supplemented this book and I’ll come back to this image
Later near the end of this lecture’s crooked path which winds alongside a flowing stream of medieval blood and medieval wine to develop this conceit further we might think of the twinned histories of blood and wine as Great Rivers flowing in tandem as human labor over centuries cultivates and ferments
Grapes into wine that in turn infuses human blood Alters human behavior for better and worse feeds the hungry tra moves in barrels across oceans and channels and along rivers inspires moralizing commentary and CTIC poetry becomes the blood of God while moving certain Mortals to imagine themselves as
Gods in their own right for medieval culture wine was a conduit like no other between the sacred and the secular always muddled categories that the history of wine does little to clarify and that the culture of wine past and present depends on even thrives on we can see this ambivalence the ambiguous
Imminence of wine almost everywhere we look in medieval culture for for wine and the wine trade cut across the careers and works of so many of the era’s writers Latin and vernacular alike Jeffrey choser for example came from a family of venters and wine Traders and
SP spent much of his early life in London’s ventry Ward um right here along the river named for the the venters and wine traders who receive shipments of wine along the banks of the temps Cher’s writings grapple constantly with the social functions and moral ambivalences of wine the medieval commodity that
Preoccupied his poetic imagination perhaps more than any other consider the general prologue portrait of the Summoner whose legal work summoning people for appearances before the ecclesiastical courts deres its latinate Peta and even its compromised trade crafts from the tradecraft from the effects of the wine he drinks hordes and
Coerces in the form of bribes well loved he garlic onions and a laus and for to drink in strong Wayne r as blood than what he spake um and C as he were wood and one that he were drunken had the wean then would he spake no word but Latin a few terms
TW or three that he had learn at of some decree no wonder is he heard it all the day um so he learns that he hears this Latin all all day but doesn’t know it so he learns a few phrases and and well who
That A J can klep and wat as well as KH the pope a a blue jay can can say wat as well as the pope can but who so could other thing him grope than Hadi spent all his philosophy um IID just a miscellaneous tag of Latin he
Was a gentle Harlot and a keen a betra fellow should men knocked fiend he would suffer for a quart of wean a good fellow to have his concubine in other words he’d he’d let someone that he was going to bring to the court have his concubine
For a court of of wine every 12 months a 12 month and excuse him at a full and give him give him full full remission or or not even summon him to the court the Summoner is Cher’s most wine soaked Pilgrim drinking wine as red as blood
That infuses his own blood and even bends his language into a Gloppy and ignorant Latin pared drunkenly as a mark of his shallow relationship to the church which he betrays by allowing adulterous men of the dasis to buy off his legal scrutiny with a mere Court of the Beloved
Intoxicant along with the Summoner rides the Franklin whose relation to wine is healthier perhaps though just as thoroughgoing and oddly profound a Franklin was in his compy wheat was his beard as is the dice of his complexion he was sanguin well loved he be the mara to AAP in wean of
AAP and wine to living in Delite was ever his W for he was epicurus ow son his bread his aisle was always after on a betra inven man was nowhere known the Franklin’s portrait contains Cher’s sole mention of epicurus in his Corpus evoking the name here to summon
The anonomous Delights of a life of Venice and enjoyment not only is the metaphorical son of the is he the metaphorical son of the famous pleasure Seeker though he is an inven man an extraordinary word indeed a non word appearing here and only here in the entire Corpus of English writing the
Franklin is envin or Enwin endowed or gifted with wine whe whether in quantity quality or Essence the poem leaves unsaid the Shipman too is a knowledgeable Enthusiast Discerning the origins of the best wines to smuggle or sneak on his trips across the Channel full many a dra of wead draw for Border
Word will that the Chapman slap the host meanwhile in L wine as part of a ritualized Ascent to the terms of the pilgrimage as he has them set out we been accorded to his judim and thereupon the wi was fet an we drunken and to rest
Went iton not wine but the wine a formulation that stages the bringing in of wine is an expected right marking the agreement among the fellowship as to the rules and expect expectations of the tale-telling game wine is an agent of social cohesion its communal drinking a token of sound judgment and
Aent what a powerful contrast this ritual benevolence Cuts with the partner’s taale where the Spectre of wine haunts the narrative’s Grim moral universe as the very grease of homicide while warning against drink and Madness the narrator holds up certain varial of wine as the perverting Wellspring of Illusion fantasy and
Madness no capu from the wheat and for the red anomaly for the wheat wean of Lepa that is to sell in fish straight or in chaper this wean of spine crepus suly and other weeners growing fast be of which their reases switch fos that when
A man hath drunken Dro his th and WTH at home in shape he is in spine ricked at the tune of Le not at the Rell n at Buu tun and then will he say Samson Samson choser here um evokes the Andalusian town of leap a region near the Portuguese border
That imported large quantities of wine to England um in the late 14th century particularly during John of gant’s campaign for the castian crown in Spain Spanish wine has the capacity to transport the drunken customer to another land even if he’s he thinks he’s in cheapside London or some vinicultural
Region of France such as LA rashelle or Bordeaux the general prolog prologue Urbane Illusions to BAU toown of course evoke the wines of that renowned region already venerated in Cher’s day for their quality and consistency and like their Burgundian cousins the outcome of centuries of knowledgeable cultivation largely by the monastic
Orders we get an intriguing early Glimpse at some of the implications of this viticultural expertise in A Treatise by St Bernard of clairo called the the apology to Abbott William written in 11:25 the immediate context for the Treatise was the long-running dispute between the white monks the cians and
The black monks the cluniacs over who was most closely following the AER auster rules of Life laid down by St Benedict the rule of Benedict the Guide to citic Life that had shaped monastic alter for many centuries after serving as the Abbot of Clair vau for a number of years Bernard
Was approached by a fellow sstan to write an attack on the cluniacs for their own scathing and hypocritical denunciations of the cians Bernard accepted the challenge but the resulting Treatise is in part a kind of tongue and cheek satire of the dispute itself who are we Bernard asks
His fellow Sans to crit criticize our cluniac brethren for their laxity when our own moral looseness is so apparent everywhere around us wouldn’t we be indulging in the Sin of Pride if we were to denounce another order for the same vices and lapses of which many of us are
No doubt guilty ourselves what sort of order is it Bernard writes that has you peering and prying after the moates in your brother’s eyes before each of you is removed the beam from his own rather than a full frontal assault on the cluniacs Bernard Resorts instead to understatement and scathing
Comparison criticizing izing the other order for its vanity its sensual excesses and its disregard for the moral life even while pointing out the frequent failures of his San Brethren to measure up to the ideals of the regulated life eventually Bernard comes around to the subject of gluttony the
Overindulgence in food and drink on the part of both orders the beef brief chapter on drink scrutinizes what was apparently a new monastic practice around the consumption of wine as Bernard describes it there are things it is embarrassing to say that though it should be more embarrassing still to do
Them if hearing about them brings a blush it will cost you none to put them right the fact is that three or four times during the same meal you might see a half-filled cup brought in so that different M wines may be not drunk or drained so much as carried to the nose
And lips the expert pallet is quick to discriminate between them and pick out the most potent and what of the monasteries and there are said to be which regularly serves spiced and honey wine in the refectory on major feasts we are surely not going to say that this is
Done to nurse weak stomachs the only reason for it that I can see is to allow deeper drinking or Keener pleasure but once the wine is flowing through the veins and the whole head is throbbing with it what else can they do when they get up from table but go and sleep it
Off here sample size portions of various wines are are sniffed and tasted compared to one another not for the the sake of consumption but for the pure pleasure of discernment the ritual of wine is not Eucharistic but onelic not sacramental but aesthetic Bernard quickly moves on to a more typical denunciation of excess
The intoxicating overindulgence In sweetened wines and their decidedly um non-medicinal effects on the blood what stands out though is that rather stunning description of the expert pallets of his Brethren I’ve given you masso’s translation but a more literal rendering of that key phrase sagasi probion at kellerer cognit would
Emphasize the Discerning trial in quick recognition entailed in the sampling clearly of a wine that had been tasted before known with the familiarity of a connoisseur Bernard is depicting what can only be described as a wine tasting in the refectory of a 12th century Monastery with varietals judged against
One another and chosen for Tang nose and strength Bernard will return to these sampled some years later that with very different AIMS in mind one of his late sermons for Advent distinguishes between three categories of person all of whom drink wine from the single cup of God’s
Grace but each type of person will drink a particular type of wine that signifies a state of fallenness the Lord holds in his hand a cup containing pure wine mixed wine and drgs and all the Sinners of the earth will drink from it the cup represents
The passion and so he says can you drink the cup which I will drink this cup is in the hand of the Lord it is held in his power because he offers it to whom he wants when he wants offering from it what he wants some people drink pure
Wine from this cup namely those who renounce themselves for the Lord alone and taking up their cross follow him some drink mixed wine from the cup these are people who have entered upon the way of poverty but without fully renouncing themselves or their parents but those
People drink the drgs who in order to saate the desires of the flesh endure the pain and weariness with which the world abounds dissipated into vanities and senseless Foles here again there’s a discrimination between the different types of offered wine in a cup this time though it is God in collaboration with
One’s mortal state that chooses among the spiritual varietals Bernard himself was according to his biographers a light Drinker though even when the writers of his life comment on the Abbott’s legendary moderation they do so in the very term Bernard had used in condemning the monastic wine tasters in his
Apology uh with regard to Wine he writes in the middle of this passage he often said to us it becomes a monk to be so careful as to taste the drink without emptying the cup he dealt with himself this way as often as he allowed wine to
Be brought to him it was seen after the meal that the vessel from which he had drunk seemed to be hardly tasted and indeed almost as full afterward as before like the monks he had once excoriated though with very different implications Bernard himself is remembered as a taster of wine rather
Than a drunken gulper these three snapshots from the writings of the life writings and life of Bernard of clairo speak to varying aspects of his order’s sensual and interpretive relish and wine its appeal to the pallets of his fellow monks its allegorical utility and his sermonizing its betokening of the Abbott’s legendary
Self-denial taken together they point to the blossoming blossoming of enological connoisseurship within the Royal aristocratic and ecclesiastical cultures of Western Europe from the 12th through the early 15th centuries not only an increasingly sophisticated approach to viticulture and viniculture as wine historians have well documented but the emergence of something else the early
Rise of the onile the disdainful sniffer the wine snob some 50 years after the great Abbott’s death we get another hint of this sense of refinement in the French Court of Philip Augustus whose Reign was the subject of a Latin Chronicle by a certain regor a French Monk and chronicler for the year
1201 records a visit by King John of England he doesn’t tell us as much about King Philip’s audience with the English Monarch but one story he does relate gives us a glimpse of a of a Venice ritual worthy of Bernard’s monks in that same year on the eve of
The Cal of June John King of England came to France he was received most honorably by King Phillip and most gloriously welcomed in the Church of the Blessed Don with hymns praises and a solemn procession thereafter the king of the Franks led him into Paris with great
Respect and he was received With Honor by the citizens lodged in the king’s Palace and attended to most devotedly in all respects all of the different wines of the Lord King were set before him in his people and he was freely invited to taste them I’ve cheated a little bit
Translating the paraphrastic bibendum as tasted rather than the more literal drank but I think the context of this account allows for this Feer rendering particularly in light of the Chronicles literary environment which includes a fascinating but little studied poem by enry dond a Norman poet more famous for
His Battle of the Seven Liberal Arts as well as a de on the life of Philip the chancellor the battle of the wines at 200 lines in Octo cabic couplets represents perhaps the most elaborate representation in medieval verse of we would what we would now call Wine
Varietals held up against one another in a pitched battle over taste and strength sir listen to a great story the poem begins that happened the other day at the table of the Good King Phillip who gladly wet his whistle with good white wine he found it Noble and generous so
He praised it greatly for the goodness and the sweetness that the wines possess the king drank without restraint the king who is courteous and wise sent all his Messengers to go and seek the best wine that they could find in any land land following this order the king’s Messengers eventually managed to bring
Him more than 80 vintages from France and elsewhere from the Glorious wine of Cyprus to the execrable wine of atom what follows over the next 100 lines is a catalog of place names each associated with a particular personified variety and quality of wine with each town or Region’s offerings speaking as a knight
Prepared to do battle for Royal recognition all came together in a gathering on the table before the king as God spoke to the swan each wine proved its worth by its quality by its potency to well refresh the king of France an English priest then took his
Stole he had a very muddled mind he started with sir Mo from The Vineyard of B and serart from Shalon who had a swollen belly and heels and master Roger of aom who brings on the gout and cramps these three wines bring on scabies to Great shame and disgrace beating
Striking with a stick the court priest chased them away and told them never to enter where any honorable man frequented certain wines flee from the table turning their Reigns The Poet writes for if the priest saw them I truly believe he would kill them other wines the priest allows to remain for he
Senses they are of good quality Bona soon the wines start arguing among themselves then a number of them band together against the French wines the latter taking the floor again to oppose their beneficial moderation to the unfortunate ven venos of strong wines such as those from lower burgundy the poet evokes the bitterness
Of the battle the spectacle of wines competing on the table before the king if wine had feet or hands I know well they would have fought each other at the same time he writes the wine sparkled so that the Great Hall in the chamber seemed full of balm and Amber it seemed
An Earthly Paradise everyone would wish to be there Knight clerk townsman Canon the lame the mute the leper and the monk French wines defended themselves well against foreign vassals and responded courteously you may be stronger than us but we are fresh and fragrant they claim the poem’s emphasis on the fine
The fine Taste of French Wines culminates in the white varietals of potier the wine that has no need of Carters presumably because people will carry it away themselves or drink it in place this wine hooks everyone with the coldness of its Rock line that lines that perhaps register a rising awareness
Of what the modern somier might call terroir that ineffable sense of place infused into wine varietal by virtue of their microclimate the composition of their soils the latitude in which they grow the king never chooses a single winner instead rewarding the the Dozen best wines of the bunch with offices he
Makes the cypriate wine in Apostle dubs others Cardinals and legates and makes three Wines in the Kings and and three others in the counts the poem concludes with a vow to take the wine that God gives us whether its quality is peer worthy or as humble in taste as a country
Parson this growing sense of Venice distinction is more subtly and surprisingly inflected in language around Sacrament in particular the theological and institutional controversies surrounding the role of wine in Eucharistic ritual subtle transition back to blood one of the Curiosities of medieval sacramental culture was the vastly different practices involved in sourcing
The bread that makes the host versus the wine that fills the Chalice with some exceptions the making of the host was an exclusively local Enterprise involving detailed instructions to Parish priests traveling friars and monks pertaining new ingredients and rituals around its preparation the hosts used by religious
Houses were most often baked under the supervision of the sacrist and in many parish churches there even surviv charged outdoor ovens used for the baking of the Eucharistic bread while there are isolated accounts of the bread being brought in from neighboring parishes and miracles associated with them there’s no evidence of an
International bread trade that would have furnished hosts from far-flung locals thus William durandis the great lurgical commentator mandates that the host be made by the celebrant himself wine on the other hand could come from practically any anywhere whether from The Vineyard surrounding a monastery celebrating mass or from
Across the sea as Nicholas of oimo puts it in the early 15th century a country that cannot make its own wine should import enough for the celebration of the Eucharist wine shortages sometimes had a direct effect on Eucharistic practice inflecting the terminology of sacramental Theology and interpretations
Of canon law when Johannes Andre a bolones canonist insisted that pure wine not not spiced wine or vinegar had to be used for the sacrament he was clearly venting at local violations of ritual practice another canonist mandated against the practice of disguising the taste of unfermented wine through
Practices such as dipping a flax cloth and partially fermented grape juice or Musto and tinum the phrase translates literally is uncolored must grape must being the unfiltered Mash Gathering color from the mated skins that distinguish red from white white from blush the statute statutes of liage for 1287 mandated the frequent renewal of
The wine for Eucharistic celebration due to the degradation of its scent and taste over time Thomas of cabam too called for replenishing of the Eucharistic Stores um so that essence or the essence or the Essentia of the wine would not perish Pope Innocent III in his long and influential Trea on the
Sacrament of the altar asks how a priest is supposed to know whether there’s too much water in the wine we taste it he says prior to the ceremony of the mass a Papal mandate for preconcentrated wine tasting among the clerical celebrants such doct doctrinal pronouncements and regulations about
Wine in the Eucharistic service have often b rightly as signs of an intense religious care of reverence accorded to what was or would be after all the material of Sacrament but like Bernard’s account of wine tasting in 12th century monasteries or um the the a poem about
An English priest judging the best wines of France what such moments also help us perceive is a clerical culture of vinicultural Distinction that arose across the religious communities of medieval Europe and help shape the idioms of blood piy and the language of lurgical commentary and even canon law
Around the Eucharist and its theological Armature the qualities of the wine the nose The Taste the texture the Purity the fru and and uh Rob robustness and acidity the density in the age all figured at various times into the languages and Logics of devotion and Sacrament while these categories of
Discrimination were hardly equivalent to the fetishized modern idiom of the SoMo y they do speak to what seems to have been a consistent concern in forming the era’s ritual culture whether the wine was good enough to be or become Christ outside the strictures of Sacrament a wider mode of appreciation
Characterizes religious language and imagery around the flow of wine through institutions visual art and poetry this sense of delectation informs even the most sober-minded devotions to the Holy Blood as in the Five Wounds of Christ a middle English poem inscribed um on the back of a parchment role from
The first Decades of the 15th century The Scribe perhaps the poet identifies himself in a decorated signature as William billing about whom nothing more is known written in 15 stanas of rhyme Royal the Five Wounds of Christ follows the forms and conventions of any number of this era’s Middle English writings on
The suffering of Christ though in this case with a particular focus on the laques elements of the passion offered to slake The Thirst of the eager faithful cometh near ye folks Ted in dryness um uh tempted in dryness Tempted By by dryness with the Dre dust of this
Earthly G Resort an on with all your visas to the five stris flowing over over all with precious payment for us in general make no delay who list come near and drink and fill all your berus up under the brink your herius up under the brink hail well in conduit of
Everlasting Leaf through laned through lanced so fair Without Me Lord is seed the flood is traveling most Aroma hail Precious Heart wounded so large and weed ha trusty true love or joy to proed hail Port of Glory with pain is all imbrued or all springed Le purple do in hu how
Sweet Su to a or Ros at Ransom PA plous H wholesome triacle most preservative again pestilence is ringing mischievously prizing in honor B to they on he hail ready red re Rudy red wean with all the gravest smart draw for the peep of the most loving ha blessed ever
In sanate that within the list Max her oratory nor an Earthly King should live so delicat at sewing sweetness from that distillator most Pleasant B has been in that lavatory melodious meus he should here in laress whether the joy is fail which he nay can express one remarkable aspect of this
Lyric surely part of the poet’s alluring circumlocutions is its avoidance of any mention of blood in its opening seven stanzas the word appears only twice in an adjec adjectival form and the final lines instead the poet’s Lexus derives from the many tastes colors and fragrances emanating from the body of Christ
Fragrant odor Scarlet flood aromatic floods spiced liquor the Hue of purple Dew even sweetness sucked from Distillery a term referring to the practice of distillation in its modern sense increasingly popular across the 14th and 15th centuries as the a uh the author of The roughly contemporaneous
Book of quintes Ence puts it in a recipe for fortified wine or burning water such as Brandy the strest burning water the strongest burning water is distilled out of pure mik we out of pure Mighty wine particularly striking though is that descriptive hail Ruddy red wine words that emphasize not the sacrality
But the color and texture of the unmediated untransformed wine Straight From the Heart of Christ the phrase anticipates nothing so much as a modern tasting note say this one on an organic D Felder from a producer in the NAA region of Germany Violet Candian Sandalwood perfume um sweet tart blackberries and plums in
This ripe Ruddy red wine medieval institutions too could be quite self-conscious about the special properties and uniqueness of their vintages qualities celebrated in spiritual writing and lurgical right consider here the case of Vine Garten the renowned Benedict Monastery situated Northeast of Lake constant already in the 11th century as the
Houses namesake suggest the area was emerging as a renowned viticultural region now home to some of Europe’s great reings like today’s venters medieval viticulturist were well aware of the geographical and climatic advantages afforded by the region situation in the ryin valley near the Eastern slopes of the heart mountains
Characterized by the vine friendly Limestone soil to the North and the L slom and ground Gran it to the south in addition to its prominent role in the reinland wine wine trade Vine Garten was also famous as a pilgrimage site that held several relics of the virgin in Christ including the famous
Relic of the blood of Christ collected by Legend at the crucifixion by Linus whose spear pierced Christ’s side Linus carried the blood to manua where it was later divided into several portions and given to Charlamagne among others one portion of the Charlamagne blood was bequeathed to vine Garten Abbey by velf
I first Duke of Bavaria and his wife Judith of Bavaria before vel’s departure on crusade in 1101 Vine Garten’s blood portion was then enshrined in a Rel a reliquary that thereafter became an integral part of the institution’s ceremonial life as it remains another of the aby’s relics is
Supposedly enshrined on the bed cover of the barold sacramentary now at the Morgan library in New York like many institutional claims to own the real blood of Christ the stories told in support of Vine Garten’s custodianship were met with great skepticism by secular and ecclesiastical Rivals alike in response to all the
Doubt Abbot Heron of vinearden commissioned Gard of cologne a Dominican Master active in the last Decades of the 13th century to write A Treatise in defense of the House’s blood Relic against Rising skepticism near the end of the Treatise Gard moves into panagal mode as he
Praises the True Blood and the Abbey as its natural and proper home it is really and truly the vine Garden The Vineyard of the Lord of hosts the true Vineyard of Sorak in which that sweetest Cypress grape my beloved ordered the purest must of its rose-colored blood to be kept and kept
Ready you the true Vineyard Vine Garden surpassing all others are where the health braking Health bringing wine out of the side of the Lord makes Believers intoxicated with the wonderful drunkenness of which the psalmist speaks you fertile and Fen Vineyard Vine gotten are planted by God so that you are made
Fertile God has led his mild rain flow out of the highest clouds his flesh which never bore sin so that you may become drunk with the juice of the grape the same Christ has poured out of totally pure blood from the wine Celler of his flesh and the Lord wanted this
Intoxicating wine this fructifying rain this Soul cleansing water to be drunk and stored up in his most glorious Vineyard Vine Garden The Abbey hurry therefore you Believers hurry here and purify yourselves hurry and strengthen yourselves hurry and be filled with sweet wine the evocation of mild rain here may
Refer to the rain shadow provided by the heart mountains to this area of the fults a feature of the area’s topography that allowed Vineyards to flourish despite the latitude as Riner yens has observed moreover this passage in gard’s tractatus likely describes imbibing a ritual that involved pouring a stream of
Wine wine over a blood Relic collecting it in a chalice and serving it to Brethren and visiting pilgrims in the case of Vine Garden this would almost certainly not have been consecrated wine the blood of Christ reserved for the Eucharist but wine from Vine Garten’s great store of its renowned
Vintages the passage Echoes a similar moment from the Vita of Edward of Abington Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1230s as his life records Edward quote was seen to wash with wine and water the marks of the five wounds on his crucifix then making the sign of the cross over
These ablutions he drank them with great devotion saying the words of Isaiah ye shall draw water with joy out of the wells of Salvation Vine Garten’s liturgy too continually evokes the aby’s wine making prestige in moments of self-conscious celebration rich with vinicultural terminology in the ninth respons for
Matens mustum produ it the monks sing of their own labor in the surrounding Vineyards the Lord produced new wine must from the Heavenly cluster of grapes which the cross pressed out like a wine press and gave it as a Solace for the faithful for it gladdens the hearts of
Those who receive it and Kindles their desire and then the verse for its libation is Immortal because it is pleasing to God and Hallows men and it Kindles their desire The Wine Press was of course a well-known Motif in the religious iconography of the later Middle Ages deriving from patristic commentaries on
Isaiah 633 I have trod The Wine Press alone as a figure of the crucifixion already in the early 3rd Century Teran had written of the Lord coming to the passion crushed and pressed out by the violence of the passion as if by a wine press tocaras or
As Gregory of avra writes in his commentary on the song of songs it is to be understood that Christ who is called a cluster Bas because he contains the many grains of Believers in himself pressed out by the venerable wood of the Cross had presented as a drink his own
Bloodshed as the Vintage of the passion subsequent centuries developed a rich visual tradition around this Motif which became an integral part of the more intensive blood piety of the high and later Middle Ages studied by Betina bildhauer and Carolyn bham among many others Christ is most often depicted
Stooped within the lengths of the wooden frame performing and you can see on the on the lower right the miniature at the bottom performing the labor of stomping the juice out of the grapes with his feet while positioned as a bunch of grapes himself the bis his body primed
To express wine from his wounds one of the offshoots of this mode of piety was the Fon vit or Fon patatus which depicts Christ either as crucified or as the Man of Sorrows filling a font or fountain with his holy blood as in this example in which the blood dripping
From Christ’s side fills the fountain beneath his feet or this vision of a Praying St Catherine the fountain replenished by Christ’s more gushing wound and this is another visual tradition that endures well into the early modern period in manuscript monument and print here in another book of ours by
Another Burgundian Master Christ sheds blood from a rhant Pulpit or Tabernacle and fills an octagonal Fountain surrounded by the odd populace as a recent reading of the fonv tradition puts it this allegory was made visible in art as a spring or fountain with the central figure of Christ whose
Water and blood are collected in the Basin so that Pious Souls May drink or bathe in them but I wonder if this is really what’s going on here or is it all that we’re seeing we medievalists I think tend to take these images somewhat for granted steeped as we’ve been in the
Visual and historical idioms of blood piety which can sometimes shade into an idiom of scholarly piety these faithful gathered at the fountain are spiritually drunk on the excessive flow of blood from the side of Christ not literally literally drunk on the stores of wine available by the
Barrel and ton in the cultures of luxury that would have produced such books yet such purely allegorical readings of fonv renderings risk overlooking their thriving secular doubles actual wine fountains proliferating across the Royal and aristocratic cultures of the high and later middle a ages vanishingly few of these objects
Survive though the ones that do suggest a rich Visual and imaginative source for their devotional and sanguinous counterparts as Steven flegel suggests devices such as the Cleveland table Fountain which probably displayed water rather than Wine were fairly common adorning the tables of the wealthy as a sign of conspicuous consumption and
Plenty this example of a tabletop wine Fountain now in Santiago de compostella was crafted originally in France for wine but completed in Spain where it was repurposed as an O sensorium for showing the Eucharistic host surrounding the bread with a babbling Fountain of wine the crafting of these devices
Involve Feats of mechanical Ingenuity largely undocumented in medieval sources an exception occurs in the notes of VR de honort a 13th century polymath known for ingenious architectural designs and schematic diagrams for perpetual motion machines and other kinds of devices who drew this wine Fountain accompanied by his explanatory text here is a siphon
Which may be made in a cup in such a way that there is a little Tower in its middle and in the middle of that a tube reaching down to the bottom of the cup the tube must be as long as the cup is empty and in the tower there must be
Three cross channels against the bottom of the cup so that the wine in the cup may go into the tube above the tower there should be a bird with its beak held so low that it may drink when the cup is full the wine will then flow
Through the tub and the foot of the cup which is double the bird should obviously be Hollow too The Burgundian Dynasty had a particular fondness for table fountains where filled with wine rose water um with water rosewater or wine with any number of household inventories listing these objects among other automata and domestic
Devices nor were wine fountains the exclusive Preserve of interior design as we know from sources like this iwi eyewitness account of the royal entry of King Charles I 6 into Paris in 1380 the following day which was Sunday when he was approaching Paris he redressed in a robe of silk all clad in
Gold FLIR with what joy and magnificence was he received by the city the citizens in dress that was half white and green went on Horseback to meet him at the chapel the streets and intersections of the Town were decked out in tapestries like temples you could hear on all sides
The harmonious sound of instruments there were also in many places crafted fountains from which spattered an abundance of milk wine and clear water which captured the view of passers by in spite of themselves the crowd that this spectal attracted could not in its Keen curiosity stop from admiring the novelty of these
Marvels notable here is the avidity of the spectators at the sight of The Fountains the cleverly wrot spectacle of three liquids flowing from a public novelty designed the attract to attract the eye and perhaps the the pallet 50 years later when Henry V 6 entered Paris a Chronicle entry for December 2nd 1431
Records another such fountain on one of the city’s Bridges and on the little saon Bridge there was a six surface Tabernacle on and around the fountain very richly made all covered with blue and gold Flur and underneath that there was a forest planted in which wild men and women were playing very elegantly
With sticks and inside of the Basin of this Fountain there were three very beautiful sirens and from this fountain wine spiced wine and water were all flowing out the account pairs a delectation and female Beauty with a delectation in wine the Allure of the sirens and the Allure
Of the liquids offered by the fountain go hand in hand public wine fountains would remain a feature of urban space in Europe from the later Middle Ages through the early modern period serving multiple functions while providing both sustenance and occasional luxury to a variety of populations the state Shi yards and
Venice maintained a massive public wine fountain for Laborers until the end of the Republic short shortly before 1800 John stow’s anals published in London in 1605 record that when James I was making his progress from Scotland to in 1603 the celebrations organized in York on April 16th included a conduit that
Ran all the day uh with white wine and Claret every man to drink as much as he listed an account of the celebrations in Edinburgh marching the restoration of Charles II in May 1660 mobilizes the crucifixion itself as a wine dispensing machine Bells rang drums beat trumpets sounded and the multitude and people
Cheered the spouts of the Cross ran with Claret for the general benefit the crucifixion figures as well in a wine Fountain portrayed in this wood cut by Lucas kronic the Elder who depicts the reformer Yan hus along with Martin Luther Distributing communion to the Elders of Saxon a deliberate
Anachronism as the two reformers lived many years apart behind and above them an ornate two-tiered fountain in a Public Square provides the wine served in chalises like the account of Charles II the image intermingles the spectacular suffering of Christ and the public consumption of wine the most detailed and remarkable
Description of a medieval wine Fountain I’ve seen comes in a long and Anonymous historical poem about the Royal entry of charles8 Charles VII into the city of tuah in 1486 the poem exhibiting all the Pomp and decadence of late medieval ceremonial culture begins as the king and his Entourage make their way toward
The city Gates where they are greeted by the clergy of tuah carrying their cross in great procession there was no one who abstained from this each of them carried a beautiful Jewel of relics of the Saints in great honor beautiful surpluses capes of all sorts to receive
This triumphant King a child also gave him a very well-made shield on which was embossed the name Jesus in Golden letters and with it the crown of thorns the beautiful Shield demonstrated that Jesus wants to enter his Heavenly City through painful passion and suffering of this the Good King must have remembrance
Every day with a gracious will to think well of it and have hope soon after this sobering reminder of the suffering and blood of Jesus Christ the company arrives at the apex of the entry ceremony in the form of a beautifully rought fountain in the well-appointed space where wheat is sold
A fountain was masterfully created that featured three maidens from whose breasts poured forth delicious wine in three colors above them there was a scaffold where musicians made wonders play and the trumpet with them that sounded these three girls were very beautiful and to see them brought everyone pleasure we collected the
Flowing wine and cups of fine silver then we saw attached to the Scaffolding in a hole in H letter a beautiful tablet read what it said the Deep of the fountain I am the Fountain of champagne which waters all the country surrounded by the water of the sen I am one of the
Best lilies the Deep of the girls we three are of one United heart we give sweetness from our breasts without thinking badly of it but with great Delight because we three are good girls the poet pauses to gloss the three girls in the fountain and the virtues of
Their wines the first girl is Doctrine who who spouts clarate wine from her breasts the second Justice gushing with red wine indeed a frightening red and the third is Mercy whose breast spout sweet wine for the benefit of good peasants who would perish if not for the
People of the church and the good Town’s people of tuwa the deet offers drink liberally to All passers by to sample our good wines everyone is invited so long as they drink with abandon to drink with abandon perhaps we aren’t so far here from the em bibing abits of Vine Garten Abbey pouring
Locally sourced wine over the relics of the Holy Blood and serving it to hosts of arriving pilgrims nothing I have said here obviates the devotional sincerity of the painters poets and crafts people whose Works revered the Holy Blood whether the writer of The Five Wounds of Christ extolling the Ruddy red wine flowing
From a pipe in Christ’s side or The Burgundian Illuminator limming the gothic trimmings of the blood Fountain but I do wonder if such representations are always inspired by a frenzy for blood as Carolyn bam has called it and not instead or simultaneously a frenzy for wine that is the excessive flow of
Wine through the fountains and conduits of cities and towns on major occasions it may be that the very models for images such as this again from a Burgundian prayer book were precisely the wine Fountains of ceremonial entries the f tradition has a kind of perverse culmination in a great work by
Jand deogam a Flemish painter who flourished in the early 16th centuries century and created this Monumental work um for the wealthy Master of the Benedictine house outside the way here in the central panel of the triptic of the Holy bath a fountain hosts the writhing nude forms of a group of eager
Bathers egged on by one another to climb into the fountain somebody’s phone climb into the fountain and partake of its Bounty as one recent reading by an art historian interprets this panel quote the blood of this font may be Reviving The figures in the left foreground below the rim of the
Font are arising from either burial in the Earth or from purgatory this painting therefore conforms to the idea that baptism figures the Regeneration as completed after death Aman Duffy similarly finds in the painting a register of quote the minds of 15th century believers who are OB obsessed
With the physicality of the passion and almost tangible Adoration of the Salvation of their souls through Christ’s blood and Bel gom’s tryptic um nude figures are literally bathing in the blood of Christ the composition draws from both Eucharistic and baptismal imagery yet the painting also takes the
Era’s blood piety to such an extreme that it must have read somewhat parodically to the Urbane and sophisticated viewership of the later Middle Ages men such as its wealthy Patron the trip itic functions as a kind of Meta Picture in Leo Steinberg’s influential formulation it’s a painting that reflects on its own
Representational AIMS in this case by filling its visual Fields with an overdetermined Theology of blood the bander rolls Scrolls and floating signs inscribed with blood themed passages from the book of Isaiah and apocalypse words that tell us how the Mystic bass should be interpreted rather than how it
Seems to be experienced for example by the nude figures in the tub delighting in the bath while looking away from Christ or by the blly woman in the foreground adjusting her hat and hair as a massive tub of wine fills up behind her since M since Michael Camille’s
Image on the edge we’ve tended to find our perverse reversals in the margins of medieval art those monstrous grotesques and sexualized hybrids that look on and comment subversively from the Lial spaces of culture I wonder if these lurid spectacles of Christ’s Holy Blood might be performing a similar kind of
Function but at the center rather than the margin by some estimates the average towns person in the later Middle Ages consumed the equivalent of a liter per week of undiluted wine even as certain aristocracies grew increasingly Discerning about its quality and even its prestige in this Spirit I’ll conclude by
Coming back to the image with which I began this scene of the mass of St Gregory from Getty 37 the prayer book of Charles the Bold Duke of burgundy an image that overlays the blood piety of the later Middle Ages with a fountain of red liquid pouring from a great height
Arresting The viewer’s Gaze the blood that pours from the breastlike wound in Christ’s side that fills the Chalice on Gregory’s altar embodies a vision of suffering while also gesturing at those spectacles of Venice consumption that formed a regular part of the era’s ceremonial cultures not rabian free-for-alls as celebrated by M bakine
For their carnivalesque reversals were taken by um Yan hoisa as signs of the medieval world’s alnal decadence and Decay but rather as part of the long-standing currents and rhythms of ritual and Civic life throughout the Middle Ages perhaps our overly theologized expectations can sometimes blind us to what is before our eyes to
The evidence right there on the page and in the image blood and wine mingled in Myriad ways over the medieval centuries in chales in bodies in prayer books and liturgies and poetry and art in streams of devotion and Delight from which we still Sip and taste today thank you for listening as I’ve
Tried to follow some of these crooked and babbling streams into the past thank [Applause] you are we on yeah great thank you so much Bruce that was fascinating um we have time for some questions so if there there’s questions in the audience yeah just raise your hand um and I will let
You know if we have any questions online can I ask a question here sorry oh yeah um you know you you described this whole beautiful medieval world but these people are also reading classical texts and U the whole wine culture in Homer Etc doesn’t feature in any of this
And is that a deliberate choice on your part or there was no actual uh you know carry over from medieval wine culture I mean uh classical wine culture into the Medieval World yeah that that’s a great question so um if if people online didn’t hear it the question was about
The um celebration in in let’s say the homeric epics which I think you mentioned but you can also see it in plenty the Elder for example in the Natural History which has a really extensive description of of the qualities and tastes and and Bouquet what we would call the bouquet of wine
Um coming from many different regions so yes absolutely the way that that um those the the kind of ancient very SEC SEC you wouldn’t even call it secular but a kind of ancient um wine culture get gets carried in um you see there’s some examples in the aid moral of
Commentaries on on some of avid’s passages on wine so yeah I mean it’s a vast vast subject and and I think the classical Legacy um I don’t know if it gives the Middle Ages a vocabulary for it I haven’t seen a kind of um typological or or um you know
Really a rigorous reading of a classical text that’s thinking about that particular aspect of it but it’s something to look for yeah thank you thank you so much that was really interesting um I was really interested in the depictions of the blood to Wine in terms of color and also the literary
Depictions of the different versions of wine and their color and so I was wondering if you’ve come across any sources either visual or literary that look at the role of white wine specifically and if that’s ever used Eucharistic in any sort of um like situation whether it’s intentionally or
If they ran out of red wine and they like really needed something so they like came in clutch with the white wine um yeah I was just really interested in that because white kind of has this idea of pure to it as well so that’s yeah
Anyway yeah so the the um the wine that that was used for that eming Relic ceremony at Vine Garten was almost certainly white um according to the one person who’s who’s worked on that so that that’s an answer but there’s also a whole preference for sweet white wine um
In going late 14th century into the 15th century for certain purposes um there’s a wonderful piece um in new medieval literatures um by very recent on Crusaders crusading culture and U the preference for sweet white wine supposedly kind of replicating um a miracle that takes place in the Holy
Land um so there’s that um there there’s a depictions of Crusaders bringing back sweet white wine from the Holy Land as a kind of Relic in itself that’s not red um so yes so I think there’s a lot and and I think in you know in most Eucharistic most mandates will say red
Wine um but you know those are often followed more in spirit than in letter so I’m sure you’re right in fact one of the reasons some these regulations keep coming up and people keep getting mad about it is because they’re constantly violated and people are using even milk
Sometimes um um and getting in trouble for it when they when they run out of wine thank you so much that was really interesting um I was wondering your your discussion of the the phones and also the sort of expectation of a sharing of wine made me think if if if we as
Medievalists are doing enough to think about communion in less Pious terms and think of it more about like the vector of the sharing of wine transferring more onto the sharing of blood in the church as something that you know creates a bond that’s more akin to friendship and
More about conviviality and more about bonds um and and creating stronger bonds within the community of church that word um Bond bonds oh yeah um and and and sort of yeah being being a substance that can encourage um a community and communion that uh is is a little less Pious maybe
Um and so could you say anything about that it may be that I just haven’t read enough on the subject and that people are doing that already yeah no that’s a that’s a wonderful question and um because I would say that the the piety of the interpretation is mostly ours and
The you know in the Middle Ages you have people like cesarias of heybach um in a in a passage that I I didn’t get to um talking about a communion some or a a Eucharistic celebrations in um certain monasteries getting out of hand because they use as an excuse to share wine uh
To drink more wine right um and you know that is a standard part of anti-clerical pmic um going into the 14th and 15th centuries as well um I think Wickliffe has a a section in one of his writings on you know this UNG gluttony associated with the sacrament um so that is you
Know that is that’s their interpretation not not mine and I and but I think it’s it’s very helpful to for me anyway to help us kind of skew our vision a little bit and be more um you know be more responsible to the sources that would read something like that would look at
Something like this and think oh come on you know like that that’s the um you know to to think of that so piously I don’t know but of course it’s both at the same time right um one the painter of this or an Abbot or you know someone
Who um you know is is reading this through uh early 16th century eyes might very well say well well of course it’s wine and blood at the same that’s the whole point is that you have all these people jumping in this wine Fountain and not looking at Christ
Um and they um and and but what but the painting is trying to teach them is that it is blood right and then so you have both at the same time that’s one of the one of the sources of of my own you know puzzlement in working in this project is
You know it’s both at once in some ways and it’s um yeah so I don’t know if that I’m a long answer to your question exactly too in like the the title of the talk the subtitle the medieval rights of wine right and the the main right the
One that we often think of working on medieval Christian culture is the Eucharist but there are many other rights of wine the canary Tales features one of them Bernard of clero in the refectory as a kind of um you know everyday quotidian ritual um and those
Are those are the things that I’m most interested in but I think we have that kind of over whelming lens of the Eucharist that kind of makes us overdetermine um everything else Heather oh sorry okay thanks that was really cool Bruce um uh I was just wondering if
Apart from um the Eucharist when everyone is partaking of wine if um being a Wine Drinker is a class discourse as well like is there a distinction between Beer Drinkers and wine drinkers you know socially like you know like there is another and and you
Know I I know there’s probably a lot of variation depending upon time and reasion yeah that’s the answer it’s it really depends when and where you are um in some places wine will be not rarely will just any old wine be a luxury object but certain you know the the
Dukes of burgundy certainly start having this real sense um of of vintages of you know preserve what what the really good wines are and holding back certain barrels getting upset because the really good wine fell off the ship right so we have accounts like that and the the crappy wine is
Still on the ship um so those you know that that that’s the kind of thing that I’m that I’m looking for that I’m that I’m really interested in but you know see again like the Venice shipyards they just brought it in by by the the ton to
Un and just you know it was a feast so because it was nutritional as much as anything else yeah exactly he thank you for that that was really fun um as I’m looking at this image of these people frolicking in the Mystic bath I’m reminded of sort of earlier medieval discourses about the
Problem with substance and accidents and that the reason why we take the body and blood under the guise of bread and wine it’s because it’s freaking disgusting to drink blood right so I was wondering if you know you thought that that might be part of the you know oddness of this
Image or if you think that in fact those sort of arguments are falling away in the later Middle Ages and people have just over time gotten this degree of comfort with the idea that you know yeah we drink wine we drink blood wine is the blood of Christ that that that sort of
Discomfort that was certainly encoded in earlier theology goes away that is really interesting Heather thank you I you know I don’t this shows you the the relatively early stage of this project I actually don’t know those sources that talk about blood being disgusting to drink therefore we should drink wine so
Please help me with that I’ll I’ll email you but um that’s that’s amazing so it like it the idea that that um this thing that is the Precious Blood of of of God is of Christ is repulsive in the literal sense um and that which why is has to be yeah yeah
That’s really interesting this is a wonderful talk I was wondering what you make of the one drop Trope which was such a big part of late medieval piety I can think of a passage from Richard rola’s meditations on the passion and he sort of gr he imagines himself graveling underneath
The cross and just just all he wants is one drop and he’s really obsessed with that he doesn’t want to luxuriate and all of these bads and all these sort just one drop how does that fit into this yeah very luxurious scenario you’re portraying for us yeah so you know what
There’s there’s the whole um controversy around the lay chalice later in the Middle Ages and that the idea that um either the Chalice should be completely kept from the Ley or that all that it takes to turn this into the blood of Christ is one drop of wine and the rest
Is water so you’re not feeding the the the congregation or whoever um even when you don’t when you don’t have the lay chalice you’re not feeding them a lot of wine right but then other other times people will say it has to be half and half or or there’ll be different
Formulas for it um but I think that that one the one drop figures directly into I’m sure that I’m sure that’s the source of it in the Eucharistic mandates for how how the the the composition of what’s in the Chalice um which can be uh which can change from um from decree to
Decree thank you um this was this was really interesting and I wanted to ask about um what I’m seeing as a kind of a distinction in some of the images that you’re sharing with us and the distinction I’m seeing is between um presentations of Christ as a kind of
Active participant in the generation of wine and um Christ’s body as something that is manipulated to produce wine so for example in the scene you showed us from the prayer book Christ’s body is like a vessel that’s being propped up and wine is being poured out um it’s
It’s almost as though he’s being manipulated in such a way that the wine will emerge as opposed to these scenes of kist in the wine press where he’s very much like an active participant in making that that wine appear and I was wondering whether this might be related
To the the kind of problem of the fountain as the mechanical dispenser of wine the thing that that produces wine on command um and so I guess my my question as I kind of resolve it is is how much Christ is a willing participant and how much Christ is something that is
Manipulated yeah that’s a that’s a great question and I I think it’s always both right you’ll often find Christ um I mean people know this um literature much better than I do the the in in a lot of uh poems and and treatises about the the sacrifice of Christ there’s a it’s a
It’s a willing sacrifice right we saw some examples of that yesterday um you know clawing out his his body to to feed the spiritually hungry um but other times you know and what’s so great about the wine press images is um again and I remember seeing these for the first time
Um in a in a class with with Carolyn bham um so many years ago was the that it’s both at once right this is the trash compactor closing in on Christ but it’s also Christ willingly stomping the grapes at the same time um so that you
Know that I don’t know if and unlike the wine fountains the very secularized Royal entry wine fountains um that’s that’s a kind of purely mechanical device that is I guess symbolic of the laress of the aristocracy that is that is providing the wine does that sort of answer your question or
Yeah right thank you to everyone us and thank you Bruce for that fascinating talk thank you