bmgn - Low Countries Historical Review | Volume 131-1 (2016) | pp. 36-58
Embodied Piety Sacrament Houses and Iconoclasm in the Sixteenth-Century Low Countries
anne-laure van bruaene
On the eve of the Beeldenstorm, a great number of churches in the Low Countries had a sacrament house, a shrine for the Corpus Christi, often metres high. These monstrance-like tabernacles were nearly all destroyed by iconoclasts between 1566 and 1585. This essay discusses the dialectics between the construction and destruction of sacrament houses before and after the Beeldenstorm. It argues against a strict divide between material devotion and spiritual belief by highlighting the intertwining of Catholic and Calvinist embodied pieties. Fuelled by their opposing conceptions of the Eucharist, Catholic devotees and Protestant iconoclasts both engaged with sacrament houses and other expressions of the Corpus Christi devotion (processions, miracle cults et cetera) in a deliberate and intensely physical manner.
Belichaamde vroomheid. Sacramentshuizen en iconoclasme in de zestiende-eeuwse Nederlanden Aan de vooravond van de Beeldenstorm stond in heel wat kerken in de Nederlanden een sacramentshuis, een vaak metershoge toren met het uiterlijk van een reusachtige monstrans, waarin het Corpus Christi werd tentoongesteld. Deze tabernakels werden haast allemaal vernield door iconoclasten tussen 1566 en 1585. Dit artikel bestudeert het samenspel tussen het optrekken en afbreken van sacramentshuizen voor en na de Beeldenstorm. De centrale stelling luidt dat we af moeten van een strikte scheiding tussen materiële devotie en spiritueel geloof. Zowel katholieken als calvinisten beleefden hun geloof op een belichaamde manier en hun handelingen waren steeds verweven. Vrome katholieke leken en protestantse beeldenstormers hadden sterk conflicterende ideeën over de eucharistie, maar juist daarom gingen ze op een heel bewuste en uiterst lichamelijke manier om met de sacramentshuizen en andere uitingen van sacramentsvroomheid zoals ommegangen en mirakelcultussen.
Published by Royal Netherlands Historical Society | knhg Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License doi: 10.18352/bmgn-lchr.10178 | www.bmgn-lchr.nl | e-issn 2211-2898 | print issn 0615-0505 van bruaene embodied piety 37 1 These opposing theological These opposing theological 3 “Papist Idolatry”: The Mentality the Image- of and Andrew in: Judith Pollmann in 1566’, Breakers Early in the Identities (eds.),Spicer Dissident (Aldershot 2009) especially Countries Low Modern 186-191. Palmer The Wandel, in Lee discussions Recent and Incarnation Reformation: in the Eucharist 2006); (Cambridge Nelson Amy Burnett,Liturgy ‘The History Social and the Communion of 211 & Present theReformation of Eucharist’, Past (2011) 77-119.
3 I use the words ‘physical’ and ‘material’ ‘material’ and ‘physical’ I use the words 2 The controversy surrounding these pieces ofThe controversy surrounding these pieces micro-architecture was Also, the sacramentAlso, house, a sophisticated one Gothic mentioned) (as – the church, of the of arch the top – that reachedsome in to places polychromed the pavement,was demolished to down right just a tree. as one chops down thereabouts. their devotion doing little were Still, women good twice, because the evident opposition between iconoclasts and devotees must and devotees because the evident opposition between iconoclasts twice, Both religion as an embodied experienced not conceal their common ground. piety: their spiritual belief embodied in physical acts and material was large-scale The destruction of the monumental sacrament houses, artefacts. will ten metres in height, sometimes exceeding miniature towers in churches serve as a case in point. part and parcel of piety in the years the furious debates about Eucharistic not only among learned theologians but also leading up to the Beeldenstorm, The major bone of the Catholic contention was among ordinary people. dogma of claims that Christ transubstantiation or of which the Real Presence, This made the consecrated host an is physically present in the Eucharist. to the outrage ofobject of Calvinists who intense veneration for Catholics, propounded a symbolic reading of understanding it as an act communion, of instead of remembrance a transforming rite. The opposition is set between, on the one hand, the violent iconoclasts who on the one hand, between, The opposition is set house as iftore down the sacrament tree and on the other, a sacrilegious it was pray kneel and female parishioners who continued to the simple but devout Vaernewijck’s Van Although obviously partisan, in the midst of the debris. in this essay: the Beeldenstorm to make the point I want remark demonstrates a physical and material reaction ofwas to the physicality and Calvinists materiality of Catholic devotion. Evoking iconoclasm in his own parish church in Ghent, Marcus Van Van Marcus in Ghent, church own parish in his iconoclasm Evoking one of1566 to the witnesses prolific reliable and our most Vaernewijck, writes: Beeldenstorm, Iconoclasts and Their Motives Motives Their and Freedberg, David Cf. Iconoclasts Alastair 1985); (Maarssen Duke, ‘Calvinists and ‘Item tSacramentshuus, modeerne een constighe ende es), plaetsen in sommighe voorseijt (zoo ghestoffeert an met schilderie, boven tot dwelck den vander reecte, boghe keercken bij was tot afghebroken,den pavemente ghelijc men eenen boom af haut. Ghoede vraukins deden noch haer Vaernewijck, daer ontrent’;devotie Van Marcus en Nederlanden in die tijden beroerlicke die Van 1566-1568 in Ghendt i, Ferdinand voornamelick (ed.)Vanderhaeghen (Ghent 1872-1881) 147.
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Pieter Claeissins the Elder (1499/1500-1576), The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple. The painting shows the interior of the church of St. James in Bruges with north of the high altar a sacrament house. Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth. Reproduced by permission of Chatsworth Settlement Trustees. van bruaene embodied piety 39
6 is For these reasons reasons these For 4 Arie de Groot, ‘Beelden in de Dom van Utrecht Kunsthistorisch eeuw’,in de zestiende Nederlands Vroom, Financing 48-51; W.H. (1994) 45 Jaarboek The Ages: Middle in the Building Cathedral (Amsterdam Faithful 2010) the 647. of Generosity Alsemberg, Andenelle, Anderlecht, Antwerp, Aubin-Neufchâteau, Bocholt, Averbode, Braine-le-Comte, Bruges, Brussels, Diest, Dion- Diksmuide,le-Val, Ghent, Gistel, Groenendaal, Halle, Hasselt, Herentals,Hakendover, Heylissem, Hoogstraten, Kettenis, Kortrijk, Leuven, Lier, Limbourg, Mechelen, Nieuwpoort, Nivelles, Walcourt, Walhorn, Soignies, Tongerlo, For the Zoutleeuw. Wetteren, Wenduine, Netherlands he lists fifteen Axel, Alkmaar, places: Anjum, Bergen op Zoom, Breda, Delft, Godlinze, Haarlem, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Holset, Huizinge, Meerssen, Millingen, Utrecht, See Woerden. , 429-442.Timmermann, Presence Real
7 Nevertheless, there is enough evidence from from there is enough evidence Nevertheless, 5 This proliferation on the eve ofThis proliferation on the eve the Beeldenstorm 7 Sacrament houses are manifestly less studied than they should be, they should be, less studied than houses are manifestly Sacrament Utrecht Cathedral seems to have sported a particularly impressive tabernacle sported a particularly impressive tabernacle Cathedral seems to have Utrecht 1442). (consecrated c. conceptualizations also had profound social implications. social profound also had conceptualizations confirmed by the narrative accounts of the Ghent chroniclers Marcus Van Van confirmed by the narrative accounts of Marcus chroniclers the Ghent who mention the presence and Campene Van and Cornelis Vaernewijck subsequent destruction of sacrament houses in almost every Ghent parish and in the nearby Benedictine abbey of and convent church St. church This is corroborated by Jozef who in his detailed study of Scheerder Peter. sacrament houses, built for the constant spectacle of spectacle for the constant built of the body houses, sacrament in Christ as signs of but also functioning the host, and for aspiring individuals status be read as Calvinists that can reactions from fierce physical provoked groups, in their own right. and social statements theological The first reason is very material indeed: reasons. and this for two different only a few ofin the Low Countries the monumental sacrament houses Still dates from before the Beeldenstorm and only a handful . remain in situ, 1450, in Leuven (c. of Peter in the church extant are the tabernacles St. the 5m), 1490-1500, (c. in Bocholt of Lawrence the village church St. 12m), of Leonard the church St. 12m), (1537-1538, of James in Leuven church St. of Catharine in and the village church 18m) St. in Zoutleeuw (1550-1552, 7m). Zuurbemde (1555-1557, textual and archaeological sources that the sacrament house was an essential an essential sources that the sacrament house was textual and archaeological of from around the middle feature in many churches the fifteenth century. Timmermann in Belgium places that lists 38 had one or more sacrament before houses century:the middle the of seventeenth Aalst, The sacrament house in the Basilica the of Holy Sacrament from originally in Meerssen dates c. 1510, but was largely reconstructed Staf in 1912. ‘Sacramentstorens Gelder, in Brabant’,Van De 167- (1972) 83-104; 194 (1972) 193 folklore Brabantse 205-242; (1972) 200; Jeremy 195 Dupertuis Bangs, Countries Low in the ArtChurch & Architecture 1566before 105-107; (Kirksville Achim 1997) and Houses Sacrament Timmermann, Presence: Real Christ, of Body the c. 1270-1600 2009) (Turnhout 324-329. 183-187, The classics are Natalie Davis, ‘The Zemon Sacred and the Body in Sixteenth-Century Social Lyon’, ‘The John Bossy, 90 (1981) 40-70; & Present Past & Past Institution as a Social Mass 1200-1700’, Present 100 29-61. (1983)
6 5 4 beeldenstorm: iconoclasm in the low countries
iconoclasm in Ghent lists no fewer than 25 lost sacrament houses in local churches and convents. Van Vaernewijck and Van Campene also refer in general terms to the demolition of tabernacles in other towns – Antwerp and Oudenaarde are named explicitly – and in the Cistercian abbey of Ter Duinen in Coastal Flanders.8 In sum, Johannes Eck’s succinct statement from 1538 that ‘a church without a sacrament house is not a church at all’ seems to have reflected the contemporary situation not only in his own German lands but also in most parts of the Low Countries, Flanders and Brabant in particular.9 However, within a century the momentum of these elaborate receptacles of the body of Christ was definitely over: most were destroyed in the Beeldenstorm or in the iconoclasms of the 1570s and 1580s, or they were removed after the new rules of the Council of Trent had made them obsolete. In other words, the dialectics of Calvinist iconoclasm and Catholic reform had such a great impact in the Low Countries that they completely redressed the religious material landscape, and the sacrament houses are among their most prominent casualties. A second reason for our lack of awareness is intellectual. Until recently sacrament houses, altars, fonts, choir screens and the like belonged to the exclusive domain of art history or, more precisely, of that of the odd student of church interiors.10 This is not only a matter of overspecialisation. The many studies of Eucharistic devotion in the late middle ages mention the stone embodiments of this piety only cursorily at best.11 The real reason lies in the fact that historians of the late medieval and early modern period have created an antithesis between spiritual (inward) and physical (outward) devotion, branding the latter as superficial, ritualistic and mechanistic. For Flanders, the work of the French priest Jacques Toussaert is notorious12, but even his critics use notions as optelvroomheid and heilseconomie (economy of salvation) when discussing the more materialistic features of popular devotion and highlight the movement of the Devotio Moderna or early humanist and evangelist
8 Cornelis Van Campene and Philip Van Campene, Fifteenth-Century Germany’, Past & Present Dagboek van Cornelis en Philip Van Campene (1566- 118 (1988) 47; Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The 1571), Frans De Potter (ed.) (Ghent 1870) 11, 12, 13, Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge 16, 17, 19, 62; Van Vaernewijck, Van die beroerlicke 1991) 292; Palmer Wandel, The Eucharist, 36. tijden, i, 75, 131, 138, 147, 152, 188; Jozef Scheerder, I found no references in Charles Caspers, Het wonderjaar te Gent (1566-1567) (PhD Catholic De eucharistische vroomheid en het feest van University of Leuven 1971, revised version) lxxxiv, Sacramentsdag in de Nederlanden tijdens de Late 86-104. Middeleeuwen (Leuven 1992). 9 Cited and translated in Timmermann, Real 12 Jacques Toussaert, Le sentiment religieux en Presence, 324. Flandre à la fin du Moyen-Age (Paris 1963). A 10 Bangs, Church Art & Architecture. recent appreciation in Judith Pollmann, Catholic 11 Charles Zika, ‘Hosts, Processions and Identity and the Revolt of the Netherlands, 1520-1635 Pilgrimages: Controlling the Sacred in (Oxford 2011) 20-21. van bruaene embodied piety 41
15 This 17 More generally, from the from the generally, More 13 (2011) among others have tipped have (2011) among others The Power of Images: Studies in Studies Images: of Freedberg,David The Power 1989); (Chicago Historythe Theory and Response of after Image Mia M. The Mochizuki, Netherlandish in the 1566-1672 Religion Iconoclasm, : Material (Aldershot 2008); Age Koenraad Golden Dutch Art Antwerp in Decorum: Jonckheere, Experiments (1566-1585) (Brussels 2012). after Iconoclasm an older study above; See is E. Maffei, La Renaissance la jusqu’à eucharistique réservation (Brussels 1942). (New Haven, London 1992); Caroline Walker Caroline Walker (New Haven, London 1992); Religion on An Essay Bynum, Materiality: Christian 2011). For the (New York Europe Medieval in Late Bogaers, Countries, Llewellyn see Low Aards, van verwevenheid De zelfbewust. en betrokken Utrecht, 1300-1600 in katholiek religie en cultuur (Utrecht 2008). 14
17 16 This relatively recent material turn in the This relatively 16 (2009), which discusses the still existing which (2009), Presence Real These views have been challenged from different standpoints. Eamon different standpoints. from been challenged have These views first Protestant historians to Max Weber and his followers, the Reformation the Reformation Weber and his followers, Max historians to first Protestant magical material, between the classic watershed be represented as has come to rational belief. spiritual, devotion and (1992) or Caroline Walker of The Stripping ground-breaking Walker (1992) or Caroline Altars the Duffy’s provocative Christian Materiality Bynum’s the balance by rehabilitating the material aspects ofthe balance by rehabilitating religion. late medieval circles as bearers of as bearers circles piety. heartfelt genuine, a more They refute any form ofThey refute any form not reasoning – the Reformation needed teleological often very physical engagement of happened – and invite us to take the have not surprisingly, Perhaps material objects seriously. ordinary believers with present in the earlier work ofsimilar ideas were already a number of art who has argued brilliantly Freedberg, most prominently David historians, offor the universal Power the dialectics between the (1989) by analysing Images acts of idolatry and iconoclasm. study of religion has finally led to a first major study sacrament houses, of Timmermann’s Achim tabernacles from the late thirteenth until the early seventeenth century. tabernacles from the late thirteenth until Sacrament houses can be viewed nowadays in many churches in central in central in many churches Sacrament houses can be viewed nowadays The tallest example belongs to the and east central Europe and the Baltic. essay complements Timmermann’s art-historical narrative by focusing on the narrative art-historical Timmermann’s essay complements contexts of iconoclasm rather than on the surviving works of art. Alexandra Walsham, ‘TheAlexandra Walsham, Reformation and “The The Reassessed’, Disenchantment the of World” 51 (2008) Journal 497-528. Historical Altars, the of Eamon Duffy, The Stripping c. 1400-c. in England 1580 Religion Traditional Devotie en negotie. Delft negotie. en Devotie Gerrit Verhoeven, Middeleeuwen late in de als bedevaartplaats als spiegel Volksreligie Paul Trio, (Amsterdam 1992); broederschappen De samenleving. stedelijke een van 1993). (Leuven Middeleeuwen late in de Gent te critique in Annemarie Speetjens,An excellent Quantitative Approach Late Medieval to ‘A Piety of Countries: in the Low Transformations Historiography and New Ideas’, in: Robert Lutton and Elisabeth (eds.), in Transition: Salter Pieties c. 1400-1640 Experiences, and Practices Religious (Aldershot, Burlington 2007) 109-126. Contexts
15 14 13 beeldenstorm: iconoclasm in the low countries
church of Our Lady in Ulm (c. 1460-1470, 26m).18 Particularly famous is the tabernacle in the Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg (1493-1496, 18m), commissioned by the patrician Hans IV Imhoff and executed by the master builder Adam Kraft, who included his own self-portrait at the monument’s base.19 The oldest sacrament house in the Low Countries that survives to this day was built around 1450 in the church of St. Peter in Leuven. The Gothic tower with its breathtaking miniature spires was designed by the influential town architect Matheus de Layens and became a model for later works.20 Its patron was the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, a wealthy collective body founded in 1432, which developed a sophisticated programme of Eucharistic piety that also included the commission of Dirk Bouts’ famous Last Supper (1464).21 Small tabernacles that functioned as containers for the consecrated host had existed earlier, but the elaboration of sculpted towers was a fifteenth-century invention typical for the broad Germanic region from the Low Countries to Hungary.22 It was one of the many manifestations of an ever-growing Eucharistic piety since the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. The new dogma of transubstantiation generated an important shift for ordinary believers in their sensory experience of the holy wafer – from tasting to seeing.23 The elevatio (the raising of the consecrated host) became the central moment in the mass. Officially, the elevatio signalled the importance of priestly mediation in the administration of the sacraments, but the frequent seeing of the host became in itself a matter of concern for many devotees.24 Some of them believed that it protected them from becoming blind or from suffering a stroke on that day. Another popular idea was that while watching the consecration one did not get older, which apparently prompted some people to hurry from mass to mass.25 This belief in the great powers of the host in the daily mass was mirrored by an enthusiasm for Eucharistic miracles, most often involving bleeding wafers or wafers turning into flesh.26 For the Low Countries alone, more than thirty places with local host miracle cults are documented for the period from the late twelfth to the early sixteenth century,
18 Timmermann, Real Presence, 81-89. 23 Timmermann, Real Presence, 1-5. 19 Ibid., 147-152. 24 Rubin, Corpus Christi, 63-82, 131-134. 20 Van Gelder, ‘Sacramentstorens’, i, 92-104; 25 Zika, ‘Hosts, Processions and Pilgrimages’, 31; Timmermann, Real Presence, 92-95. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, 95-102; Justin 21 Maurits Smeyers, ‘De broederschap van het Kroesen, ‘Pour veoir Dieu en passant. Het zien Heilig Sacrament’, in: Maurits Smeyers (ed.), Dirk van de hostie in de late Middeleeuwen’, Madoc Bouts (ca. 1410-1475). Een Vlaams Primitief te Leuven 20 (2006) 200-208. (Leuven 1998) 341-343. 26 Zika, ‘Hosts, Processions and Pilgrimages’, 48-59; 22 Rubin, Corpus Christi, 292; Timmermann, Real Rubin, Corpus Christi, 108-129: Bynum, Christian Presence, 9-10. Materiality, 139-145. van bruaene embodied piety 43 32 31 The Corpus 28 ; Kroesen, ‘Pour veoir Presence Real , 235-238; Caspers, De , 235-238; Christi Corpus In the Low Countries, Corpus In the Low Countries, 29 ) Gothic as it conveyed religious Dieu’, 203-204. Timmermann, Rubin, , 115-121. vroomheid eucharistische Amsterdam en het mirakel het mirakel en Margry, Amsterdam Amsterdam: P.J. devotie middeleeuwse Van Sacrament. het Heilig van (Amsterdam 1988); omgang stille 20e-eeuwse tot Antwerp: John Cartwright, ‘Forms and their Uses: The Antwerp in: Meg Ommegangen, 1550-1700’, 119- 1996) (Cambridge Drama (ed.), Festive Twycross Oudenaarde:131; Bart figuren. en Ramakers, Spelen tussen in Oudenaarde processiecultuur en Toneelkunst Tijd (Amsterdam 1996). Moderne en Middeleeuwen
32 31 30 In parallel, prestigious fraternities that acted as prestigious fraternities In parallel, 30
27 187.
Most monumental sacrament houses had a complex sculptural Most monumental sacrament houses had Scholars have rehabilitated the Corpus Christi devotion by stressing rehabilitated the Corpus Christi have Scholars The veneration ofThe veneration in the by the institution also enhanced the host was , Presence Real programme (most often depicting the Passion of but arguably this Christ), programme (most often depicting the Passion dazzling their subordinate to their theatrical tracery and pinnacles and to was recently claimed that ornament sensation of Ethan Matt Kavaler height. paradigmatic in the late (or flamboyant was its communal and civic values. Less attention has been paid to the fact that in Less attention has been paid to the values. its communal and civic large parts of the continent the carrying of host in procession the consecrated on the feast day of – both in small church Corpus Christi and during its octave its complement in the pageants – found processions and in large city-wide exhibition ofyear-round the host in specially designed tabernacles placed in the consecrated After mass, of north transept or choir the church. the nave, usually in a monstrance that could be kept there in a central shrine, was wafer sacrament housesThese glimpsed from behind a succession of wrought grilles. of integrated into the wall ranged from simply decorated niches rural parish in major city churches. to partly or completely freestanding towers churches middle of of century of the thirteenth Christi (celebrated Corpus the Feast in the Prince-Bishopric of diocese after Pentecost) eleven days which Liège – to belonged. sacrament house its early monumental Leuven with including for example, Meerssen where an impressive sacrament house was house was sacrament an impressive where Meerssen for example, including 1510. c. built Christi Feast enjoyed rapid and widespread success due to its appropriation rapid and widespread success due to its enjoyed Christi Feast late fourteenth century onwards, Especially from the by urban communities. Christi procession became one ofthe local annual Corpus popular the most expressions of civic religion. a burgeoning Christi processions with a wide regional appeal took place in Amsterdam, Amsterdam, a wide regional appeal took place in Christi processions with Antwerp and Oudenaarde. local protectors and promoters oflocal protectors and piety were instituted. Eucharistic , vroomheid eucharistische De , 164-212. Christi Corpus Rubin, Mervyn James, ‘Ritual, Drama and Body Social in & Present Past the Town’, Late English Medieval Zika, 3-29; (1983) 98 ‘Hosts, and Processions , 213-287; Christi Rubin, 37-48; Corpus Pilgrimages’, , 61-126. vroomheid Caspers, eucharistische De Caspers, For the Netherlands, the 232-233. also see ‘Bedevaart en bedevaartplaatsen database in Nederland’ theof Meertens Instituut (www.meertens.knaw.nl/bedevaart/). For the sacrament Meerssen, of house see Timmermann,
29 28 27 beeldenstorm: iconoclasm in the low countries
magnificence.33 Here the symbiotic relationship between the spiritual and the material was clearest. The sacrament house drew the viewers’ attention by what it meant – a tabernacle for the body of Christ – but also emphatically to what it looked like. This is curiously well illustrated in a miniature from a sumptuous Flemish prayer book from 1516, the so-called Rothschild Hours.34 The scene shows a consecration of the host including the characteristic raising of the elevation candles, burning of incense, kneeling and clasping of hands.35 Although worshippers are all intensely watching the elevatio, the miniature viewer’s eye is drawn to the gilded shrine in the beautiful Gothic sacrament house. The miniature is framed with the words ‘Caro mea vere est cibvs et sang [vis mevs vere est potvs]’ (Joh. 6:56) (‘For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed’) from the liturgy of the Holy Sacrament, underlining that the image is all about the doctrine of the Real Presence.36
Controversies
In the fifteenth century, the growing emphasis on the elevatio and on the prolonged exposition of the host, the enthusiasm for Corpus Christi processions and for pilgrimages to miracle host shrines gave rise to criticisms from reformers both inside (e.g. Nicholas of Cusa) and outside (e.g. John Hus) the established church.37 In the early sixteenth century, Luther was adamant in his condemnation of these practices:
[...] one shall abolish the sacrament houses and the procession on Corpus Christi day, because they are of no use and value and (in both, A.-L.V.B.) the sacrament is subject to great hypocrisy and mockery [...]38
– a position shared by Zwingli and Calvin. In his De bijencorf der H. Roomsche Kercke (1569), the Netherlandish polemicist Filips Marnix van Sint-Aldegonde condemned the carrying around of the host under a silk baldachin and the use of ciboriums, monstrances and ‘Sacrament-huyskens’.39 Although these fifteenth and sixteenth century reformers held very different convictions
33 Ethan Matt Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic: 36 Franz Unterkircher, Das Stundenbuch des Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470- Mittelalters (Graz 1985) 48-54. 1540 (New Haven, London 2012) 4-5, 101, 185, 261. 37 Zika, ‘Hosts, Processions and Pilgrimages’. 34 Franz Unterkircher, Het Rothschild-brevier. 38 Cited and translated in Timmermann, Real Miniaturen uit een Vlaams getijdenboek Presence, 321, 342. (Amsterdam 1985) 70-71. 39 Philips Marnix van Sint Aldegonde, De bijenkorf 35 Zika, ‘Hosts, Processions and Pilgrimages’, 31; der H. Roomsche Kerke ii, A. Lacroix and A. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, 97; Kroesen, Willems (eds.) (Brussels 1858) 36. ‘Pour veoir Dieu’, 201-202; Palmer Wandel, The Eucharist, 23-25, 37; Timmermann, Real Presence, 4. van bruaene embodied piety 45
40 , 359. Similarly, in Similarly, 46 47 43 , 352, 363, 371; Johan, 352, 363, In the years leading up to Consecration itself and the , 202; Jonckheere,, 202; religieux sentiment Le 45 De Dageraad 41 Decavele, schateren. en schimpen Schertsen, Verberckmoes, Zuidelijke in de het lachen van Geschiedenis eeuw zeventiende en zestiende Nederlanden, 149. (Nijmegen 1998) Religion of Philip Benedict, Wars the during Rouen 67. 1981) 61,(Cambridge 63, Toussaert, Toussaert, , 169-175. in Decorum Experiments ‘dynckende dat ’t ghelove alzo vele doet als ’t vele alzo dat ’t ghelove ‘dynckende in Decavele, ibid. cited ghesichte’,
47 46 45 44 In 1539, during his trial, Gillis Damman Gillis Damman during his trial, In 1539, 42 , 599. More audacious was explicitly omitting to show respect for the host explicitly omitting to show respect for the More audacious was The authorities were most outraged when church space itself church The authorities were most outraged when was The dissatisfaction with the Corpus Christi devotion could also be devotion could also be The dissatisfaction with the Corpus Christi As theology mattered in those days, the debates these reformers the debates these days, mattered in those As theology 44 increasing elaboration of host shrines were particularly criticised. In 1525, In 1525, ofincreasing elaboration shrines were particularly criticised. host the village ofa former priest from that masses Melsen in Flanders preached just showed the hosts without because the celebrants were but spectacles, to anyone. administering them disturbed. In 1555, Joris van de Kathelijne, an engraver and damask worker and damask an engraver de Kathelijne, Joris van In 1555, disturbed. the city ofwho had recently returned from exile in interrupted a Emden, expressed in various physical ways. A subtle manner for those who wished A physical ways. expressed in various in the side to take seats during mass to remain faithful to Catholicism was ‘believing as that faith does as much aisle in order not to see the consecration, sight’. from Ghent uttered the conviction that ‘neither God nor the Sacrament dwells ‘neither the conviction that from Ghent uttered they dwell in a virtuous heart alone’. but in gold or silver, Reform-minded groups and individuals, in the Low Countries particularly, Countries particularly, in the Low groups and individuals, Reform-minded oftargeted the dogma defending a more spiritualistic transubstantiation, the no better than bread from Consecrated bread was stance on communion. heard phrase. a commonly was food-cupboard, instigated found their counterpart in the words and acts of in the words and found their counterpart instigated ordinary people. about the nature of true Eucharistic piety, they concurred that the overtly that the overtly concurred they of the nature about piety, Eucharistic true of veneration and physical material for the way had paved the host and devilish rituals. superstition France in the 1560s, Protestants refused to decorate their houses on Corpus Protestants refused to decorate their houses France in the 1560s, with garbage. Christi day and even showered the procession by not uncovering one’s head or not kneeling, both inside church or when both inside church head or not kneeling, by not uncovering one’s being paraded through the streets. the host was , people increasingly caused public scandal on the occasion of people increasingly caused public scandal on the the Beeldenstorm, bow or take offCorpus Christi processions by refusing to turning their hat, or even lowering their pants. abusive songs, singing their back, ., 266. Ibid noch ’t sacrament‘God en huusen noch in in gout selvere, maer huusen alleene in een duechdelyc herte’, in Decavele, De cited Dageraad De Dageraad van de Reformatie in Reformatie de van Johan Decavele, Dageraad De (1520-1565) 589-599. i (Brussels 1975) Vlaanderen Koenraad Jonckheere, Architecture ‘Classical The Debate: and Iconography the Communion Suggestion’,of in: Bart Ramakers (ed.), the Classicising Art in Antwerp: Understanding (1540-1580) Classic the Popularising Popular, 2011) 75-91. (Leuven
43 42 41 40 beeldenstorm: iconoclasm in the low countries
Gabriel van den Bruyne, Sacrament house in the church of St. James in Leuven, 1537-1538. kik-irpa, Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium, Brussels. van bruaene embodied piety 47
50 10.18352/ doi: 10.18352/bmgn-lchr.7446. This conclusion is in doi: 51 10.18352/bmgn-lchr.7443; 10.18352/bmgn-lchr.7443; -Low Countries Historical Review Review Historical Countries -Low , 324-325. Presence Real Read in their broader local 53 . See also the discussion also . See Identity Catholic On 13 June 1566, on the day of on the day On 13 June 1566, the 10.18352/bmgn-lchr.7444; 10.18352/bmgn-lchr.7444; 49 Timmermann, Koen Goudriaan, ‘Het einde van de 66-75. 8 (1994) Middeleeuwen ontdekt?’, Madoc Pollmann, in bmgndossier (2011) doi: 126:4 doi: bmgn-lchr.7445;
53 52 51 Material sources however, nuance this overall Material sources however, 52 The most dramatic physical performance in the years and months in the years and physical performance The most dramatic 48 , 328-329. In 1537, a new sacrament house (replacing an older one) was ordered one) was a new sacrament house (replacing an older In 1537, How did Catholics respond? In her recent book, Judith Pollmann Judith Pollmann In her recent book, How did Catholics respond? contexts, a number of contracts from this period documents the surviving contexts, showpiece A range of of backgrounds motives and the varying the patrons. the sacrament of that had never been without its controversies, orthodoxy house now became at the heart of a material dialogue between Catholics and Protestants. Franciscus de Campo of James in Leuven by its pastor for the church St. and a number of prominent assisted by two churchwardens (alias Sonnius), den Bruyne the contract with sculptor Gabriel van Remarkably, parishioners. transept should be a copy ofstipulated that the tabernacle in the north the, has masterfully described how in the early decades ofhas masterfully described the Reformation face of Low Countries remained passive in the many Catholics in the the sources of Using textual criticism and provocations the reform-minded. of with the she stresses the penitential character in this period, Catholicism garden’. should tend his own ‘each central idea that was the desecration of the mass itself. In May to the Beeldenstormleading up of the desecration was the mass itself. Hans weaver the tapestry near Oudenaarde, of in the church Pamele 1566, broke hands during the elevatio, grabbed the host from the priest’s Tuscaens probably inspired by a similar He was it on the ground. it in pieces and threw a few months earlier. incident in Brussels sermon on the Real Presence in the church of St. Michael in Ghent by loudly Ghent by in Michael of church in the Real Presence on the sermon St. also Geeraerts, tailor Pieter the 1564, In all falsehood. it was that exclaiming of in the church the consecration ridiculed to Ghent from Emden, returning John. St. picture. The sacrament houses in particular offer a good case in point, since in point, The sacrament houses in particular offer a good case picture. in their construction between the Timmermann distinguishes a new peak particularly in the county of of Flanders and duchy 1530s and the 1560s, In a number of were replaced with newer Brabant. cases older tabernacles ones that were more magnificent and elaborate. line with older observations that after 1520 traditional religion in the Low that after 1520 traditional religion line with older observations Countries declined rapidly. Corpus Christi procession in Antwerp, the rumour went around that during the rumour went Antwerp, in Corpus Christi procession hands. the host out of would snatch the pageant someone the priest’s , 149. De Dageraad Schertsen, schimpen schimpen Schertsen, Verberckmoes, ., 387-388; Ibid en schateren Godevaert Godevaert Haecht, van Van kroniek De 1574 te 1565 tot van troebelen de over Haecht Van Antwerpen (ed.) en van elders Roosbroeck i, Rob 48. (Antwerp 1929-1930) Decavele,
49 50 48 beeldenstorm: iconoclasm in the low countries
Cornelis Floris de Vriendt, Sacrament house in the church of St. Leonard in Zoutleeuw, 1550-1552. kik-irpa, Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium, Brussels. van bruaene embodied piety 49
58 In fact, In fact, , 181-200; 54 Mededelingen van de de van e eeuw’, Mededelingen , 327-328. the also See Presence Real Around 1537 the university 56 Van Gelder, ‘Sacramentstorens’, Gelder, ii Van Timmermann, restorationextensive in Monumenten, dossier (2009) 28 nrs.and 3 & Archeologie 4. Landschappen Raymond Van Uytven,Raymond Van ‘Bijdrage de sociale tot in de Leuven te van de Protestanten geschiedenis eerste helft der xvi en Leuven voor Kring Oudheidkundige en Geschied- 3-38, especially 4-5. 3 (1963) omgeving ’s-Hertogenbosch en Antwerpen’, Factum. Post 2 (2010) Volkskunde en Geschiedenis voor Jaarboek 37-60.
58 57 The reasons for the church fabric’s initiative are initiative fabric’s church The reasons for the 55 Sonnius’ plan for a new but at the same time traditional plan for a new but at the Sonnius’ 57 Another impressive sacrament house from this period was this period was Another impressive sacrament house from , 167-180. , 325-326. In 1536,, 325-326. a Presence Real not stated in the contract, but there is enough evidence to suggest that it was that it was evidence to suggest but there is enough in the contract, not stated of at the start was Sonnius statement ofa bold theological a curate. its young inquisitor and later became theologian, Catholic as a staunchly brilliant career Antwerp. and and bishop of ’s-Hertogenbosch In fact, the sacrament house replaced an older tabernacle from 1469-1470, from 1469-1470, the sacrament house replaced an older tabernacle In fact, a very conscious decision on was at a high cost, indicating that its building, Suykerbuyk has Ruben couple. the part of a childless the donor and his wife, of for the church Wilre the intricate patronage ofrecently unravelled Van included the financing of which a wide range of liturgical services Zoutleeuw, and the commissioning of many religious works of a cope monstrance, art (a and a number of as Frans Floris and altarpieces by influential painters such these material objects combined a fashionable Interestingly, Aertsen). Pieter by then famous, sacrament house in Leuven’s church of St. Peter. of church St. in Leuven’s house sacrament famous, by then the result was a stylistic update, aptly termed by Timmermann as a form ofTimmermann as a form by aptly termed a stylistic update, was the result innovativism’. ‘conservative town of Leuven was seriously challenged by reformed thought, which would which town of by reformed thought, seriously challenged Leuven was heavily Sonnius was big heresy trial in 1543 in which eventually lead to a people expressed In the 1520s and 1530s not only had many implicated. number of but also a robberies had taken doubts about the sacraments, James that had especially targeted and St. of Peter place in the churches St. the sacred vessels. commissioned in 1550 for the collegiate church of St. Leonard in the small of church commissioned in 1550 for the collegiate St. who lord of Oplinter, Brabantine town ofWilre, Zoutleeuw by Maarten van The artist who executed the commission belonged to the regional nobility. The Antwerp. who ran a large workshop in Vriendt, Cornelis Floris de was in 1552 in the north transept and installed was which Zoutleeuw tabernacle, remarkable not only for its height was soon after received a brass railing, (18m) but also for the antique style of its elaborate sculptural programme. sacrament house was very likely in retaliation to heresy in general and against very likely in retaliation sacrament house was these minor acts of in particular. iconoclasm Gert Gielis, ‘Franciscus Sonnius, “vader aller bisschoppen”nieuwe en van eerste bisschop Timmermann, sacrament house was ordered for the of church St. Gommarus in Lier with similar stipulations; , 10. Gothic Renaissance Kavaler, Edward Van Even, ‘Renseignements Even, inédits sur Van Edward les artistes le tabernacle qui ont exécuté et la balustrade en cuivre de l’église de Saint-Jacques, d’Art Royales Commissions Bulletin des à Louvain’, Gelder, Van 16 (1877) 393-428; et d’Archéologie ‘Sacramentstorens’, ii
56 55 54 beeldenstorm: iconoclasm in the low countries
antique style with an emphatically orthodox iconography centring on the Passion of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Van Wilre’s project thus combined a wish for the commemoration of his soon to be extinct family line with an early Counter-Reformation artistic programme.59 Equally intriguing is the contemporary construction of a sacrament house in the choir of the parish church of St. Nicholas in Ghent.60 There are striking similarities with the Zoutleeuw project: in both cases the donors’ childlessness seems to have been an important motivation for building a monument that would ensure their memory and salvation through the prayers of ordinary devotees. Like Maarten van Wilre († 1558) and his wife Maria Pylepeerts († 1554), the Ghent donor Andries Seijs († 1557) and his wife Anne Wymeersch († 1562) were buried at the foot of their Eucharistic shrine.61 Nevertheless, their social profiles were very different. A rich salesman of linen cloth, Seijs was an offspring of a guild family that accumulated political mandates in the city magistracy.62 Status aspirations played an important role in the commissioning of the sacrament house, which was probably built in a more traditional Gothic style. The 1553 contract with local sculptors from the Moerman family stipulated not only that the tower be ‘somewhat more pious and higher’ than originally planned, but also that the construction would be ‘thirty pounds groten better than any other sacrament house in Ghent built in the same stone’.63 Other sources, including the acrimonious epitaph on the gravestone Seijs’ widow ordered around 1560, suggest that the childless couple lived on very bad footing with their heirs.64 Antagonism based on money and religion seems to have been closely intertwined in the Seijs family. Andries’ nephew Joos, also a prosperous linen cloth seller, is named as one of Ghent’s leading Calvinists in the 1560s and 1570s.65 Like Leuven, Ghent was a city marred by religious unrest at the time of the building of the new sacrament house; book burnings and executions of heretics had become common occurrences.66 One year earlier, in 1552, the Calvinist exile from Ghent Maarten Micronius had published in London Een claer bewijs, van het recht gebruyck des Nachtmaels Christi, ende wat men van de misse houden sal, a polemical treatise on the Lord’s Supper and the abuses of
59 Ruben Suykerbuyk, ‘Novelties for a Nobleman: 63 ‘wat vromere ende hooghere’ and ‘derdich Stylistic Aspects of Religious Patronage in ponden grooten betere dan eenich Sacraments Zoutleeuw’s St Leonard’s Church (1548-1558)’, huus binnen Ghendt van gelijcke steene’, see the North Street Review 18 (2015) 35-46. transcription of the contract in De Smidt, Twee H. 60 Firmin De Smidt, Twee H. Sacramentstorentjes in de Sacramentstorentjes, 9-10. Sint-Niklaaskerk te Gent (Brussels 1971). 64 Willems, ‘Berymde grafschriften’, 375; University 61 Jan Frans Willems, ‘Berymde grafschriften te Library Ghent, ms. 2693 (genealogical notes Seys Gent’, Belgisch Museum 2 (1838) 375. family). 62 Dambruyne, Corporatieve middengroepen. 65 Dambruyne, Corporatieve middengroepen, 658-659, Aspiraties, relaties en transformaties in de 16de-eeuwse 831. Gentse ambachtswereld (Ghent 2002) 293, 532. 66 Decavele, De Dageraad, passim. van bruaene 51 embodied piety Micronius Micronius 67 , i, 522-523. Beggars, Iconoclasts, and Civic Civic and Arnade, Iconoclasts, Peter Beggars, Revolt Dutch the of Culture The Political Patriots: (Ithaca, London 2008) Alastair 90-165; Duke, ‘Calvinists and “Papist Idolatry”’. broederscappen in, ende heydensche processien ende ommeganghen, sonderlijck daermen denct een mirakel ghedaen sijne. te Brusel, Als te Loeuen, Ghendt, ende in andere plaetsen meer geschiet, betert’, god Bibliotheca Reformatoria Neerlandica
69 68 69 And to worship this adornedAnd to and fake idol, small houses, make they (and, A.-L.V.B.) ciboriums. They lift it up and carry it around. costly They make chapels, institute confraternities and pagan processions, in particular where think a miraclethey has taken place. As it happens in Brussels, Leuven, Ghent, and other places, God forbid. also directly connects sacrament houses with the other manifestations of manifestations houses with the other connects sacrament also directly the devotion: Corpus Christi While every well-informed citizen was acutely aware that Catholic dogma had acutely aware While every well-informed citizen was of the advent and the scope become highly contested, the Beeldenstorm were not a new phenomenon in later sixteenth century Iconoclasm was unexpected. but incidents in the Low Countries, Europe and there had been some minor of to beware we have any form of teleological reasoning by seeing it as an inevitable rejection of the exuberance and even decadence of late medieval Iconoclasm in itself reaction a quite dramatic physical material devotion. was a stone tabernacle with a hammer to the physicality of Smashing Catholicism. of an expression as much was embodied piety as were kneeling and praying seeing Catholics and Protestants to avoid We have before a sacrament house. both groups still shared also because in this period as necessarily antithetical, a common religious background. Whatever the social aspirations ofWhatever the social the donors ofof the new sacrament houses of well aware there is no doubt that they were the the mid-sixteenth century, act of certainly no unwitting was Their undertaking ritualistic controversies. a Catholic manifesto. piety; it was the Catholic mass. According to Micronius sacrament houses were a clear were a houses sacrament to Micronius According mass. the Catholic proof now they ‘But dogma of that the to idolatry: had led transubstantiation God here’. houses: worship on their sacrament dare to paint ‘Maer nv doruen nv ‘Maer sij aen haer Sacrament huyskens schilderen, hier Aenbidt God’, Bibliotheca tijd uit den Geschriften Neerlandica. Reformatoria deel: Eerste Nederlanden. in de Hervorming der , S. Hervormingsgezinden der geschriften Polemische Pijper (eds.) (TheCramer 486. Hague 1903) and F. ‘Ende om versierden desen ende valschen afgod aenbidden,te maectmen so huyskens, ciborien: Men heft hem op, ende men draecht het omme. Men maect capellen, hem costelijcke men stelt Iconoclasms
68 67 beeldenstorm: iconoclasm in the low countries
The fate of the sacrament houses in the early iconoclasms of the sixteenth century was mixed. In the Swiss region many were broken up, most notoriously in Zurich in 1526, where Zwingli had a direct hand in their destruction.70 More cautious Lutheran reformers took a different stance. In Nuremberg the sacrament houses and other religious objects were spared because they were seen as symbols of urban pride. In Ulm the city magistracy decided in 1531 that only the most contested elements – the grilles of the host shrine and the surrounding rail – needed to be removed, an order that was never executed. In other places such acts of selective iconoclasm were indeed undertaken. There is no doubt however, that the most comprehensive destruction took place in the Low Countries.71 Yet exactly how many sacrament houses were demolished in the Beeldenstorm is impossible to assess.72 A year after the events, in a public sermon in Antwerp attended by the Duke of Alba and other authorities, a Spanish monk raged against the ‘image breakers and repudiators of the sacraments’.73 Effectively, according to Cornelis Van Campene, all sacrament houses in Antwerp’s parish churches, convents and chapels had been ravaged.74 In the cathedral of Our Lady, iconoclasts had also shattered the prestigious altar of the Holy Sacrament and had trampled underfoot the consecrated host, saying ‘that is the Papists’ God’.75 In a similar vein, the account of Nicolas Soldoyer narrates that in the episcopal city of Tournai all ‘repositories of the venerable Holy Sacrament’ were broken and that in many churches the consecrated wafers were trampled on or abused.76 Ghent has the most detailed descriptions of the wreckage of sacrament houses and, as mentioned above, none survived, including Andries Seijs’ tabernacle that is explicitly referred to for its relative newness and expensiveness.77 Both Marcus Van Vaernewijck and Cornelis Van Campene make it abundantly clear that sacrament houses were among the preferred targets of iconoclasts. Van Vaernewijck sums up his long and detailed account of the Beeldenstorm with this measured judgment of the iconoclasts:
70 Lee Palmer Wandel, Voracious Idols and Violent 73 ‘beeltstormers en sacramentenverworpers’; Van Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Haecht, De kroniek, i, 238. Strasbourg, and Basel (Cambridge 1995) 98. 74 Van Campene, Dagboek, 11. 71 Timmermann, Real Presence, 321-324 and 330. 75 ‘dat is den Papen Godt’; Antwerpsch Chronykje 72 Scheerder refers to the destruction or damaging (Leiden 1743) 87. of the sacrament houses in Lestrem, Roeselare, 76 ‘repositaires du vénérable Saint-Sacrement’; Tournai, Breda, Axel, Hulst, Middelburg, Mémoires de Pasquier de le Barre et de Nicolas Amsterdam, Culemborg and Leeuwarden; Jozef Soldoyer pour servir à l’histoire de Tournai, 1565-1570 ii, Scheerder, De Beeldenstorm (Bussum 1978) 25, 32, Alex Pinchart (ed.) (Brussels 1865) 191, 241, 266, 293. 48, 64, 68, 70, 71, 80, 86, 94. 77 Van Campene, Dagboek, 17; Van Vaernewijck, Van die beroerlicke tijden, i, 152. van bruaene embodied piety 53 , 250. , 32-33. De Beeldenstorm In Bruges – where eventually Calvinists however, did not Calvinists however, – but above all they rejected – but above all they 83 81 79 Scheerder, Scheerder, Ludo Vandamme, ‘Het Vandamme, Ludo Brugge Calvinisme te in in: Dirk van der Bauwhede (1560-1566)’, beweging geuzentijd. in de and Goetinck Marc (eds.), Brugge te Hervorming de van Geschiedenis de tot Bijdragen 16de eeuw de tijdens Vrije in het Brugse en Brugge (Brugge 114. 1982) Brussels, State Archives of Belgium, of Brussels, of Archives Council State the also see 55, 59-62; especially f. inv. Troubles, Suykerbuyk. Ruben of contribution , ii tijden beroerlicke die Vaernewijck, Van Van
85 84 83 82 Yet this civic care was mirrored by Protestant rage. mirrored by Protestant rage. this civic care was Yet 84 In Leeuwarden, the cleansing of the church of St. Vitus the cleansing ofVitus of In Leeuwarden, the church St. 85 The rumour itselfThe rumour of is reminiscent of course many older 80 78
Not all sacrament houses were broken up, however. In some towns however. Not all sacrament houses were broken up, [...] there were ugly rumours,[...] there ugly were in the holy had that they fonts and water pissed had defecated in the baptismal fonts, a lie; but washad that possibly which they up the broken altars,completely the pipe organs and the sacrament this houses: was true. 82 special measures were taken to protect the prestigious tabernacles. In prestigious tabernacles. special measures were taken to protect the the complete destruction of able to avoid Diksmuide the magistracy was the and took particular care to safeguard the rood loft, interior, the church sacrament house and a number of sepulchres. them because they so magnificently communicated the doctrine of magnificently communicated the doctrine them because they so the Real he disclaimed – that a rumour – which recounts Vaernewijck Van Presence. the mendicant convents battered in Ghent’s havoc iconoclasts wreaking however not knowing taken from the sacrament houses, wafers Eucharistic in the shrines been so sly as to put unconsecrated hosts that the monks had to mislead them. miracle stories in which the Jews were the villains who had physically attacked attacked the Jews were the villains who had physically miracle stories in which murder. the host in order to re-enact Christ’s want to kill Christ; they challenged the dogma of transubstantiation. A few A the dogma of to kill Christ; they challenged want transubstantiation. had done nothing wrong;iconoclasts joked in their defence that they they at the doors of and since no one had had knocked a number of small houses, had wrecked they had banged so hard that they unfortunately answered, them. no iconoclasm took place in 1566 – a barrier was placed before the tabernacle in placed before was no iconoclasm took place in 1566 – a barrier of Saviour. the church St. In Roeselare, iconoclasts promised to leave the dismantling of iconoclasts promised to leave the sacramentIn Roeselare, they church but as soon as they entered the house to the local authorities, destroyed it anyway. He also gives a clue about the motives of the iconoclasts, ranging from motives of a clue about the He also gives the iconoclasts, objected to the Iconoclasts theological concerns. very materialist to deeply image-breaker costliness – one casually remarked that with sacrament houses’ easily build real houses the debris one could , 97. , Christi 126.Corpus ., i, 182. ., iv Rubin, Ibid Ibid ‘daer quamen leelicke maren van daer, als dat zij quamen‘daer maren leelicke van daer, in de wijwatervatenzouden ghepist ende in de ghedaen haers hebben, ghevouch vonten dwelc ooc moghelic was; maer ghelogen dat zij die autaren gronde afbraken, totter die hurghelen ende sacramentshuijsen, dat hem bevant waer te , tijden beroerlicke die Vaernewijck, Van Van wesen’; i, 188.
81 80 79 78 beeldenstorm: iconoclasm in the low countries
was an orderly affair under the control of the local magistracy, but nevertheless the tabernacle was smashed by a small group of outraged iconoclasts.86 However while Calvinist iconoclasts hated sacrament houses, many lay Catholics seemed to have loved them. When the so-called ‘Wonder Year’ came to an end in the spring of 1567, the redressing of the religious landscape became a high priority. As Andrew Spicer has recently established, higher secular and ecclesiastical authorities called for the rapid restoration of the church interiors in order to reinstate political stability.87 Local authorities followed with more specific directives, sometimes explicitly referring to the tabernacles.88 It is revealing that parishioners often singled them out for quick renovation. In Ghent this was the case for those in the churches of St. James, St. John, St. Michael and St. Saviour. Marcus Van Vaernewijck was directly involved as a churchwarden of St. James; a parish collection was organised to raise money.89 The contractors he and his fellow wardens hired in October 1567 were allowed to reuse the remaining fragments of the old tabernacle, but had to make sure that the new one was better.90 These material concerns seem to have caused some friction between the clergy and the Catholic laity. One of the first to be finished – only the upper half had been damaged – was the sacrament house in the collegial church of St. John, but Van Vaernewijck was displeased with the result: the tower was lower and smaller than it had been. He blamed the canons of St. John for having ‘little knowledge of the Gothic style’ and accused them of having intended to make the new upper half even smaller.91 On 12 August 1568, almost exactly two years after the Beeldenstorm, the restored sacrament house in Ghent’s church of St. James was consecrated. After a Corpus Christi mass, a procession with torches and candles went around in church and brought the ciborium with the host back to its tabernacle.92 A similar ceremony took place in Antwerp in February 1569 when in the cathedral of Our Lady the host was returned to its ‘old place’ behind the altar of the Holy Sacrament.93 Sometimes parishioners had to satisfy themselves for a while with a substitute. The churchwardens of St. Barbara in Culemborg showed particular creativity when in 1569 they hung up in church a design of the new tabernacle ‘to incite the good people and their hearts all the better to devotion and to give money’.94 Although the refurbishment of the church
86 J.J. Woltjer, Friesland in hervormingstijd (Leiden 91 ‘cleen verstant van zulcke modeerne’, ibid., 92. 1962) 151-152. 92 Ibid., iv, 203. 87 Andrew Spicer, ‘After Iconoclasm: Reconciliation 93 Antwerpsch Chronykje, 184. and Resacralisation in the Southern Netherlands, 94 ‘om de goede luyden ende herten des te beter tot c. 1566-1586’, The Sixteenth Century Journal 44 devotien te verwecken ende de hant daertoe te (2013) 411-433. reycken’, cited in Liesbeth M. Helmus, Schilderen 88 Van Campene, Dagboek, 63. in opdracht. Noord-Nederlandse contracten voor 89 See also the contribution of Michal Bauwens. altaarstukken 1485-1570 (Utrecht 2010) 125-126. 90 Van Vaernewijck, Van die beroerlicke tijden, iii, 91-92. van bruaene embodied piety 55
101 97 96 95 In Brussels 102 , 108. Critics of the devotion 98 Godevaert Van Haecht, a Haecht, Van Godevaert , 116. Identity Catholic 99 ., 11-12, 47, 92-93, 108, 210. 92-93, 128, 121, 47, ., 11-12, Pollmann, Johan Decavele, van ‘“Genève” Vlaanderen’, in: rebelse een Johan (ed.), Decavele Het van eind te bewind het calvinistisch over Opstellen droom. onder stad de (1577-1584) van Gent terugkeer de en (17 Spanje van koning de van gehoorzaamheid de 1584) (Ghent 1984) 40. september Ibid Van Haecht,, ii Van kroniek De A Common Art: Urban Ceremonial in Art: Ceremonial A Common Urban Thøfner, after and Dutch the during Brussels and Antwerp 2007) (Zwolle 96-102. Revolt
102 101 100 99 , 29; , 29; These were not empty dictates: in 1577 for example, the young mason in 1577 for example, These were not empty dictates: With the outbreak of the Dutch Revolt again the tables were turned. In the outbreak of Revolt again the tables were turned. With the Dutch The sacrament houses were definitely considered as more than a mark as more than a mark considered houses were definitely The sacrament 100 Contemporary chroniclers pay a lot ofContemporary chroniclers attention to these ceremonies and as the such ofshow a heightened awareness the material and physical details, number of Christi processions or the bell ringing in in the Corpus torches viaticum. the smaller processions accompanying the in Holland and Zeeland banned Catholicism. In the the early 1570s the geuzen in Holland and Zeeland banned Catholicism. Calvinists also seized power in the major cities of the southern Low late 1570s, longer took place and were replaced processions no As a consequence, Countries. to the despair of many lay Catholics. by Calvinist prayer days, , the of after the Beeldenstorm tense decade since in the politically , tradition, France, As in intensified. Christi devotion only over the Corpus controversies processions with Christi processions and the general both the annual Corpus authorities that were frequently imposed by the central the consecrated host public manifestations ofbecame the most important Catholic restoration. reacted in an equally physical manner: when a procession passed they turned reacted in an equally physical manner: when entered a side street; in church or quickly a wall pissed against their backs, communion or the kiss ofthey avoided peace. Jan Klincke was whipped and banished from Ghent for fifty years, because he banished from Ghent for fifty years, whipped and was Jan Klincke for the Corpus Christi procession. had refused to remove his cap in devotion Lutheran in Antwerp, was appalled that secular and ecclesiastical authorities appalled that secular and ecclesiastical was Antwerp, Lutheran in forced people to receive communion increasingly proclaimed ordinances that processions with the and to show respect for public in their parish church host. interiors was often financed by the parish community, wealthy individuals wealthy individuals community, by the parish financed often was interiors Loys bourgeois the rich as for example houses, to donate sacrament continued in 1577. Valenciennes in of Nicholas the church who did so for St. Jappin, In 1569, a Jesuit preaching in Ghent on the history of the Feast of on the history of in Ghent Corpus a Jesuit preaching the Feast In 1569, that the sight Trent reasoned by the Council ofChristi and on its affirmation to the Church. heretics back true devotion would bring of the processions’ 80-93. For France,, 80-93. Identity Catholic 59 (1973) 51-91. (1973) 59 , 91. Van Haecht,, i, 219, 222,Van kroniek De ii , 133, 135-136, 171; Margit 171; 135-136, , 133, Chronykje Antwerpsch Pollmann, Nataliesee Davis, ‘The Zemon Violence: of Rites Riot in Sixteenth-CenturyReligious Past France’, & Present Campene, Pollmann, Catholic , 225; Dagboek Van Identity Histoire ecclésiastique de la ville ville la de Boucq,Simon ecclésiastique Le Histoire Arthur M. Dinaux (ed.) Valentienne, de et comté Iconoclasm’, ‘After 1844) Spicer, 69; (Valenciennes 426.
98 97 96 95 beeldenstorm: iconoclasm in the low countries
on Corpus Christi day many people quietly walked the traditional route of the procession, a striking example of Catholic embodied piety.103 Calvinist rule also entailed new iconoclasm, imposed or at least tacitly supported by local authorities. In the wake of this destruction, churches were whitewashed and rearranged for Reformed services or were simply used as storehouses.104 We are much less informed on what was lost in this second wave of iconoclasm, let alone how many sacrament houses – old or new – perished. In Amsterdam, the tabernacle of the ‘Heilige Stede’ in which a famous miracle host was exposed, was wrecked in 1578.105 In the same year in Haarlem in a confusing reversal of things, the guilds pulled down the sacrament house and the altars in the main church, in order to prevent their complete demolition by Protestant soldiers who were impatiently waiting outside.106 In St. James in Ghent the new tabernacle from 1568 was levelled in 1579; the church itself was left in ruins until the fall of the Calvinist regime in 1584.107 After the Fall of Antwerp in 1585 Catholicism was quickly restored in the southern Low Countries. Due to the militancy of the returning Catholic exiles and of religious orders like the Jesuits, a new, much more combative and triumphalist religious identity was adopted.108 Initially, sacrament houses played their role as material signs of a new found Eucharistic piety. In Kortrijk, the old sacrament house that was knocked to pieces in 1578 was rebuilt in Gothic style in 1585-1586, using Matheus de Layens’ famous design for Leuven as an example. In Ghent, new sacrament houses were sculpted for the churches of St. James and St. Nicholas in the 1590s, while the city slowly recovered from the disastrous ending of the Calvinist regime. These sacrament houses, like those in a number of other towns built around 1600, were in a more contemporary late Renaissance or early Baroque style.109 However after the 1610s, due to the implementation of the rulings of the Council of Trent, the use of smaller tabernacles on the altar was promoted, leading in some cases to the Catholic destruction of sacrament houses. Although Eucharistic piety did not diminish, in the seventeenth century the monstrance-like, towering sacrament house finally fell out of fashion.110
103 Jan de Pottre, Dagboek van Jan de Pottre, 1549-1602, 107 Anne-Laure Van Bruaene and Michal Bauwens, B. de St. Genois (ed.) (Ghent 1861) 111, 116-117. ‘De Sint-Jacobskerk te Gent. Een onderzoek naar 104 Olivier Cammaert, ‘L’iconoclasme sous la de betekenis van de stedelijke parochiekerk in de République Calviniste à Bruxelles’, in: Monique zestiende-eeuwse Nederlanden’, Handelingen der Weis (ed.), Des villes en révolte: Les ‘Républiques Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde urbaines’ aux Pays-Bas et en France pendant la te Gent 65 (2011) 120. deuxième moitié du xvie siècle (Turnhout 2010) 47-52. 108 Pollmann, Catholic Identity, 125-158; Geert H. 105 Margry, Amsterdam en het mirakel, 37. Janssen, The Dutch Revolt and Catholic Exile in 106 Willem Janszoon Verwer, Memoriaelbouck. Reformation Europe (Cambridge 2014). Dagboek van gebeurtenissen te Haarlem van 1572- 109 De Smidt, Twee H. Sacramentstorentjes, 23-46. 1581, J.J. Temminck (ed.) (Haarlem 1973) 204. 110 Timmermann, Real Presence, 332-342. van bruaene embodied piety 57 (eating by sight). (eating by sight). Protestants blasted the Corpus Christi devotion for its central doctrine for its central doctrine Protestants blasted the Corpus Christi devotion Its construction was often an undertaking not of often an undertaking community Its construction was church the but of individuals or influential confraternities. rich wealthy lay patrons – after it seems that sacrament houses became more communal Paradoxically, Also, funded by parish collections. when their restoration was the Beeldenstorm, the study of material culture brings some necessary nuances to the perceived immobility of lay Catholics in the face of in the sixteenth- Protestant criticism so central to Precisely because the material was century Low Countries. or other church investments in sacrament houses popular theological debates, in the statements that are often absent objects can be read as clear confessional written sources. of but they also condemned its more direct physical and Presence, the Real ringing of clasping of bells walking, hands, sensory aspects – the kneeling, The point is that they were just as and burning of candles and incense. to engaging away walking from simply turning or physical in their rejection, oftheir whole bodies in the iconoclast destruction the sacrament houses. Therefore it is not a matter of ratio versus superstition or of modernity The good or a bad thing. whether one would see this as a versus tradition, Beeldenstorm and the subsequent iconoclasms of the 1570s and 1580s are first and foremost illustrative of an age when spiritual beliefwas embodied although they would have In sum, in physical acts and material artefacts. the aggression ofvigorously denied it, the iconoclasts who tore the tabernacles not so remote from the devotion ofdown with their work tools was the good maybe hoping around the sacrament house, little women who daily flocked for a true miracle but contenting themselves with the sight of the Eucharistic wonder. The sacrament house ofThe sacrament one specimen of course is only of the many pieces pulpits, – think of church micro-architecture the fonts, medieval in the late addition, In altars and tombs. pipe organs, stalls, choir screens and choir sculpted altarpieces, painted and the stained-glass windows, there were costly Through and so forth. candlesticks lecterns, reliquaries, statues, elaborate imagery they vied for the sophisticated ornament and materials, objects simultaneously embodied These material attention. churchgoer’s a social aspirations and this-worldly communal spirit, a transgenerational were obvious but intricate in the These relations clear set of religious beliefs. literally drew the eye since case of which house, the monumental sacrament host for the manducatio per visum it exposed the consecrated Conclusion beeldenstorm: iconoclasm in the low countries
Anne-Laure Van Bruaene (1975) teaches Early Modern Cultural History and Urban History at Ghent University. Most of her work concerns the Low Countries in the period from ca. 1450 to ca. 1650. Her main publications include: Frederik Buylaert, Jelle De Rock and Anne-Laure Van Bruaene, ‘City Portrait, Civic Body & Commercial Printing in Sixteenth-Century Ghent’, Renaissance Quarterly 68:3 (2015) 803-839; Susie Speakman Sutch and Anne- Laure Van Bruaene, ‘The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary: Devotional Communication and Politics in the Burgundian-Habsburg Low Countries, c. 1490-1520’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 61:2 (2010) 252-278; and Anne- Laure Van Bruaene, Om Beters Wille. Rederijkerskamers en de stedelijke cultuur in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden (1400-1650) (Amsterdam 2008). Email: [email protected].