This essay explores the ways early medieval Christians used material artefacts associated with devotion as the ‘clothing’ of Christ and the ‘armour of light’. It takes different categories of material religion to show how the embodied embrace of the Lord, even in public contexts, was a powerful means to enable private and personal devotion and the sense of closeness to the divine. In particular, I will focus on pendants (enkolpia) hung around the neck and nestling close to the breast according to a practice widespread across the Christian world, and candles carried in sacred processions and held close to the bosom. My point is that tangible objects, made to be held (such as candles) or embraced and worn (such as enkolpia) became a prime means in the early Church – both east and west – for making the possibilities of salvation and sacred protection real to communities of worshippers in very difficult times, notably during and after the fall of the Christian Middle East to Islam. In crisis, it is the material artefacts of religion and their sensual effects, rather than theology or dogma, from which devotees can derive succour. In this paper I first set out to understand what place these objects held in the religious and spiritual habitus of believers. Second, I explore how the idea of putting on the Lord is reflected in liturgical practices and homilies related to the celebration of the feast of the Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple/Purification of Mary in seventh-century Jerusalem (a place connected to the manufacture and distribution of objects of personal devotion and pilgrimage souvenirs). Finally, I examine how this idea eventually spread to the West in connection with the celebration of that feast. Although the idea of the bosom as a locus for private devotion is a working hypothesis, it can help us catch a glimpse of, if not step into, the habitus of those believers who used objects of personal devotion as a way of embracing Christ and clothing themselves with him.
Putting on the Lord. The bosom as a locus for private devotion (seventh–ninth centuries)
Francesca Dell Acqua
In corso di stampa
Abstract
This essay explores the ways early medieval Christians used material artefacts associated with devotion as the ‘clothing’ of Christ and the ‘armour of light’. It takes different categories of material religion to show how the embodied embrace of the Lord, even in public contexts, was a powerful means to enable private and personal devotion and the sense of closeness to the divine. In particular, I will focus on pendants (enkolpia) hung around the neck and nestling close to the breast according to a practice widespread across the Christian world, and candles carried in sacred processions and held close to the bosom. My point is that tangible objects, made to be held (such as candles) or embraced and worn (such as enkolpia) became a prime means in the early Church – both east and west – for making the possibilities of salvation and sacred protection real to communities of worshippers in very difficult times, notably during and after the fall of the Christian Middle East to Islam. In crisis, it is the material artefacts of religion and their sensual effects, rather than theology or dogma, from which devotees can derive succour. In this paper I first set out to understand what place these objects held in the religious and spiritual habitus of believers. Second, I explore how the idea of putting on the Lord is reflected in liturgical practices and homilies related to the celebration of the feast of the Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple/Purification of Mary in seventh-century Jerusalem (a place connected to the manufacture and distribution of objects of personal devotion and pilgrimage souvenirs). Finally, I examine how this idea eventually spread to the West in connection with the celebration of that feast. Although the idea of the bosom as a locus for private devotion is a working hypothesis, it can help us catch a glimpse of, if not step into, the habitus of those believers who used objects of personal devotion as a way of embracing Christ and clothing themselves with him.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
