A STRATIFICATION OF DEATH IN THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE: A RECONSIDERATION OF THE CADAVER TOMBS OF ENGLAND AND GERMANY ___________________________________________________________________ A Dissertation Submitted to The Temple University Graduate Board ___________________________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ___________________________________________________________________ by Scott Gratson Diploma Date May 2019 Examining Committee Members: Ashley West, Advisory Chair, Art History Tracey Cooper, Art History Philip Glahn, Painting Laura Weigert, External Member, Rutgers University i © Copyright 2019 by Scott Gratson _____________ All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT This analysis is on the function of cadaver or transi tombs in the south of England and Germany from the fifteenth to early sixteenth centuries, at particular moments when theological and cultural shifts related to Church reforms and the Reformation were tethered to new considerations about death, memorial, and changing concepts of the soul and matter. The study begins with a focus on the tombs of Henry Chichele (1364–1443) in Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, England, and Alice de la Pole (1404–1475) of Saint Mary’s Church in Ewelme, Oxfordshire, England. Additionally, the memorial relief of Ulrich Fugger (1441–1510) in Saint Anna's Church in Augsburg, Germany, acts as a bridge to Hans Holbein’s painted Dead Christ in the Tomb (1521) in the Kuntsmuseum Basel, in which Christ is simultaneously portrayed as an effigy, transi, and resurrected body. This was also an extended period when notions of visuality changed, along with preferences for different media and pressures on images and objects. As the demands of verisimilitude and discourses about presence and matter changed, media progressed from three-dimensional sculpture and carved relief to oil paint on wood. Transi tombs embodied this trajectory, altering uses and impressions of materials as they progressed from metal to stone to relief carving and paint. Transi tombs, in particular, structured time as a malleable construct, through the incorporation of varying images and their configuration in different visual strata and degrees of vividness and decay. By merging motifs of the dead with the Resurrected Christ, the transi tomb phenomenon situated death in relation to the viewer’s experience of mortality, memorial, and remembrance. Through these changing images and media, public perception of death was inextricably transformed, coinciding with the advent of the Reformation. iii DEDICATION For Jodi. For Devon. For Aria. Forever. “Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after.” 1 1Virginia Woolf, Orlando (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1992), 78 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have been a student in the Tyler School of Art for almost a decade. I could not have asked for a more superb group of faculty members to instruct, mentor, and guide me in my new and fascinating field. I have had the chance to complete my education with some of the best art historians in the world, a gift given to me through Temple University. For that opportunity, I am deeply thankful. There are no words to adequately express my regard for the members of my dissertation committee: Dr. Ashley West, Dr. Tracy Cooper, and Dr. Philip Glahn from the Tyler School of Art, as well as Dr. Laura Weigert from Rutgers University. They willingly read hundreds of pages of research, considered innumerable theories and citations, and perpetually provided me with the guidance necessary to complete a degree in this incredible discipline. I am humbled by their dedication and acumen. In particular, I wish to recognize the mentorship and assistance of Dr. West, who guided my research and writing since we first considered the topic of this dissertation while strolling through Sebalduskirche in Nuremberg several years ago. Her knowledge of all things pertinent to the Reformation and Northern Renaissance art is as boundless and inspirational as her dedication to scholarship, research, and academe. I can only hope to be as erudite and learned as her. I am a Professor of Instruction in the Lew Klein College of Media of Communication. I am deeply appreciative for my colleagues’ continuing willingness to support me in my art history endeavors, especially the members of the deans’ suite and the faculty throughout my college. v Some time ago, my students in the Communication Studies Program remarked that they had deepened their knowledge of art history through my affiliation with the Tyler School of Art. I am humbled that a student who may have known me through my work with LGBTQ issues or student athletic advising or philanthropic endeavors would come to see art as an important part of their lives through my tutelage. I hope that my explanations have been as illuminating as their interest in my work has been inspiring. I joke with my students that I almost became the topic of my own dissertation when I was struck by a car while bicycling in March, 2017. My students consistently reminded me that my time in a wheelchair would end, and that I would be back to walking through the cathedrals, chapels, galleries, and museums that I admire so much. My process of recuperation has been a fortuitous one, accomplished in no small means through my students’ support as they pushed and moved me onward toward recovery— in the case of Temple’s football team, quite literally. I am deeply grateful. I must note a day trip in the late 1980s that led me to Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. The day was rainy, dreary, and unseasonably cold, but the view of that immense collection of art could not have been more uplifting and memorable. It was there that the Cleaveley family of Sussex, England first introduced me to the depths and wonder of British art. It became a lesson well-learned and never forgotten, an inspiration for my work that continues to this day. Finally, thank you to Dr. Deborah DeZure, who introduced me decades ago to the tailless lion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, shepherding my ongoing interest and fascination with the artistic progression of humankind, and to the New York Public Library, where I started and finished my writing. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………...iii DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………………iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………………………………….…..v LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………..….……….....ix CHAPTER 1. A RECONSIDERATION OF TRANSI TOMBS AND THEIR IMPACT THROUGHOUT THE REFORMATION Project Justification and Theoretical Overview………………....……………….1 Summary and Exploration………………………………...…………………..…7 2. STRUCTURES AND IMAGES IN THE TRANSI TOMB OF ARCHBISHOP HENRY CHICHELE: A REACTION TO A GROWING REFORMIST MOVEMENT Description of The Tomb of Archbishop Chichele…………………..……..……15 The Rise of Archbishop Henry Chichele and Reformist Fissures of the Church in England…………………………………..………………………………………28 Transi Tombs and Late Medieval Piety in Relation to Death…..…….........……39 3: A GENDERED RESPONSE TO TRANSI TOMBS THROUGH A CONSIDERATION OF ALICE DE LA POLE An Overview of the Tomb of Alice de la Pole…………………………………..52 Visions and Interactions: Materiality and Womanhood in Alice’s Tomb…...…..69 Viewership of Alice’s Tomb in the Practice of Death: A Consideration of Gender…….………………………………………………………………...……77 vii 4: THE FUGGER CHAPEL AS A NEW [CONCEPTUALIZATION OF] TRANSI TOMBS Examination of Memorial Stones: The Fugger Epitaphs………………..………87 The Growing Position of Augsburg and the Fuggers within the Reformation...108 A Reconceptualization of Death and the Implications of the Fugger Chapel within the Reformation………………………..……………………………….115 5: RECONSIDERING HANS HOLBEIN’S THE DEAD CHRIST IN THE TOMB AS TRANSI, EFFIGY, AND RESURRECTION Explication and Analysis of the Dead Christ and its Impact…………...……...123 Holbein and Navigating Death through the Reformation………………………131 The Ontological Turn of the Dead Christ and its Legacy……………...………139 A Novel Memento Mori: Re-Reading the Dead Christ as a Transi Figure….…149 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS……………………….………………...…...157 REFERENCES CITED…………….………………………………………………...…172 APPENDIX FIGURES………………..…………………………………………...…………197 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1.1 Tomb of Archbishop Henry Chichele of Canterbury Cathedral (d. 1443), Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, Kent, England……………………………..197 1.2 Tomb of Archbishop Henry Chichele of Canterbury Cathedral, marble, effigy detail, Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, Kent, England ………………….….198 1.3 Tomb of Archbishop Henry Chichele of Canterbury Cathedral, marble, transi detail, Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, Kent, England...................................199 1.4 Church of Saint Mary the Virgin Church (c. 1435 – 1440), Ewelme, Oxfordshire, England….……………………………………………………………..…..……200 1.5 Tomb of Alice de la Pole, Duchess of Suffolk (d. 1475), alabaster, effigy detail, Ewelme Parish Church, Oxfordshire, England……..…………………………..201 1.6 Tomb of Alice de la Pole, Duchess of Suffolk (d. 1475), alabaster, transi detail, Ewelme Parish Church, Oxfordshire, England …………………………..….....202 1.7 Fuggerkapelle Memorial plaque of Ulrich Fugger, d. 1510 (1509 - 1512), marble, Saint Anna’s Church, Augsburg, Germany…….................……………………203 1.8 Hans Holbein the Younger. The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb (c. 1521), oil on wood, 12 x 79 in., Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland…………………..204