Satirizing the Sacred: St. Joseph and Humor in Northern European Art, Ca
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Satirizing the Sacred: St. Joseph and Humor in Northern European Art, ca. 1300-1530 Anne Louise Williams Norfolk, Virginia B.A., University of Virginia, 2008 M.A., University of Virginia, 2011 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Art and Architectural History University of Virginia May, 2015 Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Chapter 1: Thesis, Methods, and Historiography 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Historiography and Methods 4 Chapter 2: The ‘Domestic’ St. Joseph and the Earliest Evidence of His Cult 2.1 Humanity and Exemplarity 24 2.2 Joseph’s Hosen and Early Iconographic Evidence of His Cult 31 2.3 The Hamburg Petri-Altar and the ‘Domestic’ Joseph 56 2.4 Conclusion 89 Chapter 3: Early Modern Humor and St. Joseph 3.1 Sacred Laughter: The Character, Power, and Purposes of Humor 91 3.2 Joseph, the Beast, the Peasant, and the Fool 114 3.3 The Bawdy and the Chaste Saint 139 3.4 Conclusion 155 Chapter 4: The Miserly Saint 4.1 The Middle Class pater familias 158 4.2 Treasurer or Miser? 161 4.3 Conclusion 187 Chapter 5: Conclusion 189 Bibliography 199 Figures 220 ii Abstract Humor and satire were very much relevant, and even beneficial, for one movement in early modern Christianity, but late medieval theologians and popes were not interested in supporting a devotion that made light of its own saints. Surviving art, however, tells a different story—of Saint Joseph of Nazareth, whose popularity among the laity rose exponentially between ca. 1300 and 1530, while artists and patrons produced and consumed religious images that sometimes highlighted the hilarity of the saint’s circumstances with surprising verve. In this study, religious iconography from Germany, France, and the Low Countries is interpreted through the lens of contemporary ‘secular’ iconographic trends, as well as religious plays, legends, hymns, and jokes. Depictions of Joseph attest to the humorous and bawdy as inextricable parts of the saint’s cult, even as he came to be taken more seriously as an object of popular devotion. The material and literary evidence reveals that the saint could be, for his late medieval devotees, a simultaneously beloved, revered, venerated, and hilariously ridiculous figure. These findings reconcile two strands of interpretation that have polarized the saint into distinct early and late manifestations, one comical and derogatory and the other idealized. Scholars of the saint’s history, and of early modern history in general, have treated the power and purposes of humor too categorically, incorrectly considering the sober ecclesiastical and the ‘irreverent’ popular consciousnesses as occupying completely separate realms in the late Middle Ages. iii Acknowledgements I am indebted to all of my professors and mentors who inspired and encouraged me throughout my graduate career. I would especially like to thank Howard Singerman for inviting me to be his teaching assistant and John Lyons for awarding me a grant to participate in his Mellon Summer Writing Seminar, which forever changed the way I approach writing. Thanks are due to Ulrike Heinrichs for her support, advice, and insight as I finished my dissertation in Germany, and to the German-American Fulbright Commission for funding my research there. My dissertation’s completion was also made possible by the generous support of the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fund and the University of Virginia Carl H. and Martha S. Linder Center for Art History. I particularly want to thank my dissertation committee for being supportive and critical throughout the writing process. Bill McDonald gave me the invaluable gift of an introduction to Middle High German, and a wealth of information on the history of Joseph and German studies. Lisa Reilly always came to my talks and always had constructive and insightful criticisms of my work. Paul Barolsky encouraged me to think in new and creative ways, as only he can. Above all, I want to thank Larry Goedde for his indescribably wonderful mentorship and mind, and for being there at a time when I most needed someone to believe in me. I am sure that I would not be graduating now without the support of my family and friends. My parents were always supportive, even when I changed my career path from medicine to art history. They first exposed me to the world of art and instilled in me an appreciation for the humanities. For their wit and humor, I will always be grateful. I especially want to thank Jared and Gertrude, my dearest loves, for always reminding me that there is more to life than work, and that work is lifeless without play. 1 CHAPTER 1: Thesis, Methods, and Historiography 1.1 Introduction This is a study of a saint and of humor, a seemingly antithetical combination. Yet the combination of humor and religion was perfectly logical for the period of ca. 1300 to 1530 in western Europe, before the Reformation and resultant Counter-Reformation, which would turn Saint Joseph of Nazareth into a figure never to be laughed at again. While western Europe during this period was hegemonically Catholic, and believed in the importance of saints as tangible manifestations of God’s presence and favor, there was no problem with laughing at a saint like Joseph. This became a method of venerating him, of loving him, while acknowledging his faulty humanity. His sometimes comical faults were, in fact, what made him most important as the head of his holy family. St. Joseph was biblically cuckolded by God Himself, and at a very old age, paired with a very young, pregnant, and intangibly holy virgin. In the Bible he does not fully understand the importance of his role—he remains dumbfounded—until after the child is born. Joseph’s lack of enlightenment, his old age, his concern for the mere worldly details of caring for his family in the only ways he knows how, recounted in legends, stories, plays, and hymns—these were easily humorous to a medieval audience familiar with the challenges of parenting and surviving in a difficult world. But Joseph’s ‘imperfections’ were at once his perfections. He needed to be old and chaste, so that Mary might remain pure in the eyes of all. And Joseph’s delayed enlightenment regarding the importance of his foster- son allowed medieval Christians to relate to him in a way they rarely could with other 2 saints, for they, too, remained in search of enlightenment as followers of the Church and of Jesus Christ. It is my argument, therefore, that St. Joseph could be, for his late medieval devotees, a simultaneously beloved, revered, venerated, and hilariously ridiculous figure. My primary evidence is his religious iconography, which I interpret through the lens of other contemporary ‘secular’ iconographic trends, as well as religious plays, legends, stories, and jokes. It is not my assertion, however, that late medieval images of Joseph were always meant to be humorous, merely that there existed a strong trend of humorous Josephs that were integral and necessary to the popularity of his cult. There exist many images of Joseph from this period that nevertheless appear fully sober in message. I suggest that we move beyond simply using theological writings and church doctrine as bases for our interpretations of late medieval religious imagery—after all, most late medieval images were paid for, intended for, and made by the laity, an audience almost surely more familiar with more vernacular works than those written by contemporary or earlier medieval theologians. But works influenced by theological writings and church doctrine could also contain humorous elements—this apparently did not detract from their religious significance. This first chapter provides a brief background on studies of St. Joseph to date, and the reasons why this study is necessary in order to comprehend the significance of humor for St. Joseph’s veneration. The most important difference between this study and those preceding it is that it seeks not only to point out the presence of humor in Joseph’s representations, but also to articulate the significance of laughter as part of Joseph’s 3 veneration itself. I argue that images of Joseph do, indeed, poke fun at the saint, but that this fact in no way detracted from his veneration as a cult figure. The assumptions that funny images of Joseph were either not funny at all, or funny only in a completely degrading manner, are incorrect. Chapter two begins with a discussion of the earliest manifestations of Joseph’s cult in religious art, and proposes that these manifestations appeared earlier than prior scholarship has suggested. The chapter links a psalter and a set of ivories to a beloved, and humorous, legend that tells of Joseph’s loss of his stockings for a very munificent purpose. This legend and surviving cradle-rocking plays are then linked to one of the earliest preserved altarpieces depicting the strength, and the humor, of Joseph’s cult, the Petri-Altar by Meister Bertram of Hamburg. It is my assertion that in this work, theology and humor are in fact intertwined, and that this becomes apparent upon a close reading of the iconography. Laughter and religion were interconnected throughout the late Middle Ages, as chapter three demonstrates, building upon the case study of the Petri-Altar with a survey of similar comical Josephs. Chapter three reveals more extensively the visual puns and tropes that exist in a variety of Josephine imagery, by placing them within the context of contemporary comedy and satire. Analogies are drawn to secular and ‘profane’ prints, paintings, and tales. Chapter three examines the nature, power, and purposes of early modern humor, as well as its relationship to the sacred, and documents a variety of the comic elements of St.