1 The Groenendaal Passion as Rapiarium
Compiled in late fifteenth-century Brabant, Metropolitan Museum Album 2003.476, known as the Groenendaal Passion, is a customised manuscript prayerbook organised around first-state impressions of the Grosse Passion, a series of twelve prints designed, engraved, and published ca. 1480 by the master engraver-goldsmith Israhel van Meckenem, who was resident in Bocholt (North Rhine-Westphalia) [Figs. 11.1â11.20].1 All twelve show evidence of plate tone, and the set as a whole is an early printing, exceptionally fine, probably acquired for the express purpose of illustrating the meditative spiritual exercises on the Passion of Christ that the series currently anchors [Figs. 11.4â11.15].2 The book takes the form of a rapiarium, a collection of religious texts in Latin and Middle Dutch gathered from various sources in order to facilitate pious devotion and prayerful edification.3 As a rubricated title on fol. 16r indicates, it mainly consists of extensive excerpts from Heinrich Susoâs Hondert articulen der passien Iesu Christi, a Middle Dutch translation of the Hundred Meditations on the Passion of the Lord that serves as Part III of his Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit (Little Book of Eternal Wisdom).4 Amplified by texts perhaps borrowed from an assortment of Dutch manuscripts known as the Secret Passion,5 from a Middle Dutch (partial) manuscript of the Pseudo-Bonaventureâs Meditationes vitae Christi, and possibly also from incunabula such as Dat liden ende die passie Ons Heren Jhesu Cristi (Life and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ), Tboeck vanden leven Jhesu Christi (Book on the Life of Jesus Christ), and Devote getijden van het leven Ons Heren (Devout Hours of the Life of Our Lord), this extracted and augmented version of the Hundred Articles coalesces into an intensely affective indeed distressingly vivid account of the physical and spiritual suffering of Christ (fols. 14vâ41v) [Fig. 11.1].6 Most of the prints are embedded as folios within this recension of Susoâs Passion sequence ordered in conformity to the canonical hours, from Prime to Vespers, and written in dual columns beneath brief rubricated tituli numbered 1â100 to coincide with the respective articulen [Figs. 11.1 & 11.19], and surrounded by/annotated with marginal glosses in Latin.7 Plate 1, Christ Washing the Disciplesâ Feet and the Departure of Judas, with the Agony in the Garden and the Last Supper (in the background), initiates the articles (fol. 15v) [Fig. 11.4]. Interspersed amongst them are plates 2â10, Betrayal and Capture of Christ to Pietà and Lamentation over the Body of Christ (fols. 18v, 20v, 24r, 26r, 28r, 30r, 32r, 34r, 39r) [Figs. 11.5â11.13]. Plate 11, Resurrection, with the Harrowing of Hell and the Three Maries en route to the Tomb (in the background), demarcates the manuscriptâs final section, which consists of exercises, mainly scriptural paraphrases interwoven with prayers suitable for Compline, focusing on events after the Deposition and Lamentation, especially the preparation of Christâs body for burial, the final parting of Mary and Jesus, the Entombment, and the Resurrection, Harrowing of Hell, and apparitions of the risen Christ (fol. 41r) [Fig. 11.14]. Plate 12, Supper at Emmaus, with Christ and the Two Disciples on the Way to Emmaus and Christ and the Magdalene in the Garden (in the background), marks the conclusion of the manuscript (fol. 44r) [Fig. 11.15]. Moreover, in the early sixteenth century, Latin texts were written on the versos of most of the prints. In all cases, the texts of the Middle Dutch articles as well as the Latin glosses and the inscriptions on the versos are closely coordinated to the Passion prints, even while elaborating upon them in ways to be discussed infra.
Articles 41 and 42 of the Hondert articulen der passien Iesu Christi and Israhel van Meckenem, Flagellation of Christ, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving. Groenendaal Passion, fols. 23v and 24r. Album: late fifteenth century; each folio ca. 260 Ã 204 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
The Middle Dutch recension of the Hundred Articles is preceded by the bookâs other texts, written in Latin and included in the following order: a comprehensive list of monastic orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, starting with the Canons Regular (rubricated) and including the Johannites, Alexians, Ruthenians, the Hospitallers of Saint James in Altopascio, the Canons Regular of the Valley of Scholars, etc., followed by lists of apostles and early Christian âcanonsâ, canon-popes (up to the twelfth century), and other celebrated canons (fol. 2 verso ff); a liturgical calendar for the use of Canons and Canonesses Regular, including two clerics associated with the abbey of Groenendaal, Johannus Leuwis conversus totus (28 February) and Johanis Ruysbroec primus prior, 1384 (2 December), founder of Groenendaal (fol. 3 recto ff); a passage from the Speculum perfectionis of Brother Leo (fol. 6r), which serves as preface to the sayings of the Twelve Masters of Paris (fol. 6v) and other masters, such as Saint Bernard and Albertus Magnus (fol. 7r); an opening admonition and a âFine, Devout, Spiritual Epistleâ (fol. 10r); a list of Susoâs hundred articles, in the condensed form of tituli, subdivided into the seven canonical hours, from Matins to Compline (fol. 10r); another calendar, this time consisting of âChurches, Relics, Indulgences, [and] Stational [Churches] of Romeâ, organized according to Augustinian usage and once again making mention of Johann Ruysbroec, primi prioris viridisvallis (fol. 11 recto ff); and liturgical prayers commemorating the Last Supper and focusing on the eucharistic bread and wine (fol. 14r). These texts are followed by the amplified Hundred Articles, beginning on fol. 14v. The book ends, as mentioned above, with further spiritual exercises on the Passion, aligned with Compline. An appendix of Latin notes on bodily medicaments, written at a later date, serves as a kind of epilogue to the spiritual exercises that concern the health of the soul. In fact, the pharmacopia enumerates the âvirtues of Cardoanisâ solely (stalks of artichokes or white thistles); variously prepared, this ingredient can be drunk to bring down fever, chewed to sweeten the breath, applied as an anointment to heal burns, etc.
The auction house Sothebyâs examined the manuscript before offering it to the Metropolitan Museum. Codicological analysis demonstrates that the Passion series was inserted into the original collation before binding.8 Watermarks in the paper of several text pages can be identified as Briquet 1811 (Louvain, 1485â1498), and the original blind- and panel-stamped leather binding resembles Bodleian Auct[arium]. 2.Q.3.33, a manuscript from a Belgian house of the Windesheim Congregation. The opening list of monastic orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, with the Order of Canons Regular marked in red, along with the two calendar entries on Jan van Ruusbroec, founder of the Groenendaal Priory, and the death entry on Jan van Leeuwen, the so-called goede kok of Groenendaal (in calendar one), suggests that the volume may have belonged to that famous monastery.9 Not only are the calendars and many of the listed names Augustinian, they are also adapted to Windesheim usage. No less significant, the manuscript is marked with the coat of arms of the Fonteneys and Fonteyns families (from whom it passed into the collection of the family of the Prince de Croy); they would have acquired it upon the suppression of Groenendaal in 1784 and the dispersal of its library. If the manuscript is indeed from Groenendaal, it may have been written by members of the scriptorium, such as Nycholaus Sybrand, Petrus van der Ee, Henry Heest, and/or Jan Haren, and bound by the house binders, Giles Pijns and/or Jan Peters (Kinderen). More than one scribe worked on the manuscript; although the hands are for the most part conformable, at least two, a tighter and a looser one, are discernible. The anonymous author of the entry in the Sothebyâs Catalogue points out that the flyleaf (mis)attribution of the Hundred Meditations to âBonaventuraâ, partly erased but still legible, lacks the honorific âSanctusâ, which might date portions of the manuscript to before his canonisation in 1482.10
Tacitly written in the voice of a spiritual adviser who admonishes and encourages an exercitant but also often makes common cause with him in meditating the corporeal and spiritual suffering of Christ, the Groenendaal Passion is agentive in form and function. It not only describes a set of spiritual exercises but purports to engage fully in their implementation. The book both offers a plan of action and activates that plan. To whom was this machina (apparatus) directed? Groenendaal was an Augustinian priory whose canons regular, bound by the Rule of Saint Augustine, had been affiliated with the confederation of Victorine monasteries since the mid-fourteenth century.11 The Chapter of Groenendaal formally joined that of Windesheim in 1412. As it happens, a Middle Dutch translation of the Rule together with the commentary by Hugh of St. Victor was composed at Groenendaal around this time.12 The Rule, in its âRegulations for a Monasteryâ, stipulates that devout reading be part of the monkâs daily activities:
And chapter 5, section 9 of the Rule proper enjoins the brother tasked with caring for and distributing the houseâs books to perform his service responsibly âwithout grumblingâ.14 In the fourteenth century, the example of Jan van Leeuwen, who is said to have learned how to read and write at Groenendaal,15 of the learned Willem Jordaens, who strove to balance his daily commitments to contemplative prayer and the âhandiworkâ of âreading or writingâ,16 and of Jan van Dureghem (also known as Jan Spiegel), who continually meditated the Passion, reading, writing, and praying in his cell,17 reveals the extent to which holy books were woven into the fabric of daily life at the Groenendaal Priory. The priests and lay brothers also encountered books at mealtimes: the âRegulationsâ command that âwhen seated at table, they are to be silent and listen to the readingâ.18 These books would have been scriptural or exegetical, but chapter 5, section 10 of the Rule casts a wider net, stating simply: âBooks are to be requested at a definite hour each day; requests made at other times will be deniedâ.19 As Geert Warnar puts it: âFor most of Groenendaalâs clerics [â¦] contact with books was a daily activityâ.
By the later fifteenth century, when the Groenendaal Passion was compiled, the houseâs clerics and lay brothers were expected to be literate both in Dutch, on the model of their spiritual founder Jan van Ruusbroec, and in Latin, on the model of scriptural exegetes such as Willem Jordaens.20 Within this community, the Groenendaal Passion, written in Dutch and Latin, would have appealed both to novices receiving spiritual instruction and to full-fledged canons regular adept at spiritual exercises. The book would also have been seen as fully consistent with two aspects of meditative prayer endorsed and exemplified by Ruusbroec in such treatises as the Spiritual Tabernacle. First, as he here dwells with incredible specificity on the material construction and appurtenances of the Solomonic tabernacle before pivoting to consider the spiritual significance of its constituent parts, so the Groenendael Passion describes the corporeal suffering of Christ in painstaking detail before reflecting upon its beneficial spiritual effects on the votary.21 (As we shall see, this shift in emphasis from the corporeal to the spiritual is underscored in the Groenendaal Passion by the parallel shift from reading in Dutch to reading in Latin.) Second, as Ruusbroec acknowledges that the cruelties of the Passion, spiritually nourishing as they are, can yet be difficult to ingest, especially for newcomers to the spiritual life, so the Groenendaal Passion first delivers in large measure the bitterness of Christâs suffering, then circles back to temper this mordancy by affirming that the chief cause and effect of the Passion are the loving mercy of Christ.22 Viewed in this light, the Groenendaal Passion perfectly matches the skills, interests, and preoccupations of the community housed at Groenendaal Priory.
2 Dual Meditative Modes
Written in dark brown ink by multiple hands, in what the Metropolitan Museum describes as a âNetherlandish hybrid bookhandâ, the double-columns of text of the amplified recension of the Hundred Articles include short Latin headings in red, numbered 1â99, that itemize the hundred stages of the Passion at the top of the respective folios, in tandem with the subjects of the longer Dutch texts below.23 Numerous short marginal glosses in Latin, excerpted from Ludolphus of Saxonyâs Vita D.N. Iesu Christi, reinforce the Dutch descriptions of episodes from the Passion, offering a condensed account of the fuller portrayal in the adjoining column of text [Figs. 11.1 & 11.19]. Here the Latin and Dutch are firmly coordinated. On fol. 21v, for example, next to the graphic description of how Christ was spat upon and slapped in the house of Caiaphas, the Latin reads:
Then they spit upon his face. [Whence Matthew] does not say [simply] that they spit, but rather, that they spit up, as if to say that they spit by hawking. [But] others struck his face with their palms [â¦] from which blows the man was more afflicted that by the blows to his neck, more than those to his head. For all senses are in the face, and there the tender members are easily injured.24
And on fol. 29v, next to the description of Christ shown to the people and condemned to die by the cross, the Latin tag, paraphrasing Psalm 21:7 and Isaiah 9:6, reads:
See, my soul, how that man was pressed down by all things and despised. Oh, do you see the spectacle? Behold the government upon his shoulder.25
A second sequence of Latin texts, far longer than the marginal tags, appears on the versos of several of the prints â Christ Washing the Disciplesâ Feet (fol. 15r), Betrayal and Capture of Christ (fol. 18r), Christ Brought before Annas, with Denial of Peter and Mocking of Christ (fol. 20r), Flagellation of Christ in the Presence of Pilate, with Christ Brought before Herod (fol. 24v), Christ Crowned with Thorns, with Mocking of Christ (fol. 26v), Christ Carrying the Cross (fol. 32v) â and on the recto of Ecce Homo [Figs. 11.9, 11.16, & 11.17]. Likewise excerpted from Ludolphusâs Vita Christi, these texts markedly differ in content and tone from the Dutch. Written in a more cursive hand, in lighter brown ink, most likely in the (early) sixteenth century, they invite the reader-viewer to contemplate the pictorial images in a new light, that is, in a way different from that exemplified by the very detailed and, in their verbal imagery, insistently corporeal Dutch texts. One might best think of them as constitutive of a complementary mode, an alternative register, whereby to meditate the death of Christ. I shall presently have much more to say about this dual meditative mode. One of the prints, the Ecce Homo, incorporates a handwritten inscription in Latin that draws a parallel between what the Jews saw when Christ was shown on the podium and what the congregation sees (but also cannot see) when the priest displays the host during the consecration rite; just as the printed image depicts how Christ was beheld by the people, so the host, when it is elevated, is Christ himself, notionally visible in the fullness of his suffering humanity, even as his impassible divinity is withheld from human eyes [Fig. 11.9]. The inscription paraphrases Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 111a q.74â77, on the Eucharist:
For the sacrament of the altar is a memorial of the Lordâs Passion, and Christ suffered according to [his] humanity, but he was impassible according to [his] divinity. Therefore the priest, there showing Christ, more properly says, âBehold the manâ than âBehold Godâ, although he was himself both man and God; but as he was a suffering man in that showing, so as God he lies hid.26
The Ecce Homo is thus an image of Christ as he appeared in the flesh to the Jews, and as he now appears to us sacramentally, again in the flesh, not as a mere image but as a living sacrifice, humanly passible and divinely transcendent. The manner in which the inscription highlights the paradoxical status of the print â more than simply picturing Christ, it bears witness to how he was seen then and should be seen now, as present rather than mediated through an image â testifies to the nuanced consideration of images that the Groenendaal Passion in its current form, compounded of Van Meckenemâs prints and of texts written in Dutch and Latin, invites and cultivates.
Two further images were placed at the front of the manuscript: a Netherlandish woodcut of Christ the Man of Sorrows, ca. 1490â1500, appears on fol. 8v, facing Saint Jerome Kneeling in Penitence before the Crucifix, ca. 1470â1480, on fol. 9r [Figs. 11.2 & 11.3]. Unlike the Passion series, which is bound, both these prints are pasted in. Framed in black, as if draped in mourning, the Man of Sorrows contains three xylographic inscriptions in Dutch: above, a brief ejaculatory prayer (âHail, most merciful man, Jesusâ); within the pictorial field, âBehold the Manâ, a call to set eyes on this image of Christ portrayed in the form he takes in Isaiah 53, a prophecy of the whole of the Passion; below, a prayer of supplication in verse.
O Lord Jesus Christ, your Passion, cross, nails, and deathly spear, scourges, tears, red wounds, sweat, water, blood, and great pain must be a comfort to my soul in the utmost necessity.27
The Man of Sorrows is hand-coloured in brown, flesh colour, yellow, black, and red lake, which is used to portray his many bleeding wounds.28 The Cologne School Saint Jerome in Penitence is a metalcut embellished with punched dots and hand-coloured in green, yellow, brown, orange, gold, and red lake.29 Staring intently at the Holy Face, Jerome bares his chest, preparing to strike it with a stone, thereby striving to imitate the battered body of Christ. His creased sternum and sunken diaphragm resemble Christâs, and so, too, does his pale flesh colour â comprised by the natural colour of the unpainted paper. Together the two prints imply that Jerome perfectly conforms himself to Christ, abiding by the injunction to âBehold the manâ, inscribed on the Ecce Homo; he beholds the Man of Sorrows in effigie, suffering with him by way of the effigy of Christ hanging dead from the cross, before which he earnestly kneels and prays. This exemplification of the imitatio Christi or, better, of the imitatio imaginis Christi, anticipates the argument of the âFine, Devout, Spiritual Epistleâ that immediately follows on fol. 10r.
The epistle introduces the preliminary list of the hundred articles that does double duty as a table of contents for the fuller treatment of these articles soon to follow. The votary, addressed as âdearly beloved and cherished brotherâ, is given a template for meditating upon Christ in the Passion, implicitly modeled on the metalcut exemplum of Saint Jerome kneeling before an effigy of the Crucified. If he is properly to fulfil his professed vocation and show himself obedient to the divine will (naest alre professie ende gehoersamheit), the canon must daily fashion for himself an interior image of Christ on the cross (gecruyste beelt) â literally, a âcrucified imageâ, connately, a âcrucifixâ, and metonymically, âChrist crucifiedâ â which he shall set within his heart for at least a quarter-hour, mornings and evenings, training his eyes upon the Holy Face, more particularly upon the Saviorâs weeping, blood-stained eyes.30 The term gecruyste beelt conveys the impression that this heartfelt image, if it is truly to be efficacious, must have a material presence similar to that of an actual effigy, comparable in this respect to the crucifix before which Jerome kneels and castigates himself. The visible traces of carving in both the woodcut Man of Sorrows and metalcut Saint Jerome provide further allusions to this requisite material effect, which then gives substance, by process of metonymic transference, to the body and flesh of Christ whose suffering the votary strives to experience. In the epistle, the âcrucified imageâ/âcrucifixâ transforms seamlessly into a living image of Christ or into Christ himself, who responds to the votary by gazing back at him.
I adjure you with all my strength that you be pleased to [recite] mornings and evenings, for about a quarter hour, more or less, some verses most fitting, as the grace of God allots and allows. At which time you shall turn inward (inkeren) and set in your heart that crucified image/crucifix (gecruyste beelt) of our most dear Lord Jesus Christ. And you shall then train your inner eyes, with great humility and self-abnegation, on that head crowned and pierced with wounds, and on that marred, torn face hanging down to one side on his blessed shoulders, made like unto a leprous man. When you behold this image/effigy standing in your heart, think then how he trains his bloody, tear-stained eyes on you and speaks, lamenting and saying, âO my dear child, see what I suffer for you. I have chosen you for my bride; my joy is to be beside you. And thus be not content to cast me off, for to be parted from you is more bitter to me than this heavy passion and pain, than dying that miserable deathâ. These words and their like, you will fix in memory.31
Christ is as if brought to life by the heartfelt exercise of seeing him in the form of a gecruyste beelt while reciting select prayers.32 The phrase âmade like unto a leprous manâ (gelijc gemaect eenen melaetsschen mensch), a condensation of Isaiah 53:4 â âand we thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflictedâ â licenses the votary to amplify the image he conjures up, by seeing it as the fulfillment of the Isaian prophecy of the Passion. The epistleâs author adds that the truth of the speaking image we seem to hear has a fully sensory force, even if our ears do not actually hear what is spoken (or, presumably, see what is visualised): âAnd then, evenings and mornings, think upon the Son of Godâs suffering, and upon his presence speaking to you. And so it is, in truth, even if our external ears do not hear his voiceâ.33 In conclusion, he avers that this speaking image is so efficacious that it will prove more beneficial to the exercitant than reading the Psalter or practising the discipline, that is, drawing blood with the scourge or fasting rigorously.34 Engaging with the image of the Crucified, in other words, is more powerful, not only spiritually but also bodily, than communing with Christ by denying oneâs appetite or lacerating oneâs flesh.
The epistle, in its emphasis on efficacious image-making, responds to the bookâs opening admonition, taken from the Speculum perfectionis by way of Hendrik Herpâs Spieghel der volcomenheit, which urges the votary to conceive of God as his intimate âsecret friendâ who adorns his soul in the manner of a âskilled image-makerâ (beeltmaker alsoe abel) [Fig. 11.18].35 Godâs incomparable skill is discernible in the two kinds of image he has wrought: first, in the loving gift of his Son (who is the image of God) to his secret friends, whose souls he thereby ornaments; second, in gifting them with sorrows whereby they are given the opportunity to suffer with Christ and, having thus been converted themselves into likenesses of him, to become living warrants of Godâs ability, as beeltmaker, to fashion multiple images of Christ in the Passion.
For these are the loving gifts of God, which he gives to his secret friends in order to ornament their souls. For never was there so skilled an image-maker, who with greater, more diligent care did draw after the lines of an image wrought after the perfection of the model from which he makes it, than God almighty who from eternity, out of his immeasurable wisdom, did foresee and foreordain how he should bring his secret friends, by means of such [co-]suffering, to a perfected likeness of Jesus Christ.36
The process of suffering after the image of Christ brought forth and fixed firmly in the heart, as described in the epistle, derives from the Speculumâs conception of God as the beeltmaker who supplies his votaries with the wherewithal to convert themselves into living images of the Son. The technical complexity of the process â consisting of an image of an image, more particularly, of lines diligently drawn after an image exactingly mimetic of its model â speaks to the decidedly pictorial character of the divine image-making at issue. The opening admonition and the epistle also provide a joint rationale for the use of the printed images that anchor the fuller text of the Hundred Articles and the additional texts interpolated or appended to it.
The admonition also recalls and, I would venture to guess, is modeled on the prefatory statement that initiates the Hundred Articles in Heinrich Susoâs Büchlein von der ewigen Weisheit. The Articles consist of meditations and prayers on the Passion, subdivided into the seven days of the weeks and the seven canonical hours. Suso explains that these brief meditative exercises were dictated to him by a preacher who received them by divine revelation âat a time when he stood before a crucifix after Matins, and fervently complained to God that he could not well meditate on his tormentsâ.37 The Articles are therefore said to originate from the action of looking intently at an image of Christ crucified, a counterpart to the gecruyste beelt invoked at the start of our manuscript. At the close of the Hundred Articles, after the exercises on the Passion of Mary, above all on her empathetic co-suffering with Christ, Suso recounts how the final section resulted from the authorâs encounter with a second sacred image, this time embroidered rather than sculpted. Hesitant and unsure how to finish the chapter appertaining to Mary, the author had left the last page of the manuscript blank, impeded by âa state of spiritual derelictionâ. Having besought Maryâs help, he was visited in his chamber by a choir of angelic youths who âhad in their hands a picture, above all measure lovely, of our Blessed Lady [â¦] worked in clothâ, her mantle red and purple, with damask embroidery, but the unfinished ground still âwhite as snowâ. One of the youths then takes a needle and thread and adds cross stitches to the âforepart of the mantleâ, showing that âit was given him [too] to complete the ground, the blank space, and the spiritual picture, which had so long been denied himâ. Suso adds that this authorâs every spiritual exercise was based on images like these, sent by God âin the way of some similitudeâ clearly âmanifested to himâ.38 The connection drawn in our manuscript between God the beeltmaker and the votary whose meditative exercises are inspired by a gecruyste beelt, perfectly aligns with Susoâs emphasis on material images as spiritual instruments that facilitate meditation on the Passion of Christ and the Virginâs compassion.
3 Complementarities of Image and Text
Although Van Meckenemâs Passion prints are situated condignly throughout the manuscript, in places where they correlate to the figurative imagery of the adjacent prayers, the nature of the Dutch and Latin texts â the ways in which they read the pictures and are variously anchored by them â differs considerably. Let us begin by looking briefly at some of the links between text and image. Take the Flagellation (fol. 24r), which depicts Christ, his body facing forward, bound to a column at his wrists and ankles, so tightly that his feet dangle in mid-air [Fig. 11.7]. This is how the Dutch text describes him (fol. 25r): â[â¦] and they turned our Lord around, with his holy face forward, and with his wounded back against the column, and bound his injured, bloody hands very high above his head, tightly with cutting cords. And they bound cutting cords [â¦] round his holy feet, so tightly against the column that he could not move, and only the tips of his holy feet grazed the floorâ.39 The verbal account, though it diverges slightly in saying that his toes barely touched the floor, agrees with the pictureâs emphasis on the fact that Christ had no place to rest his feet. The long Latin text written on the back of the print (fol. 24v) coordinates with the forward-facing pose of Christ, who is fully displayed to the viewer, as if addressing him. The Latin emphasises that Christ finds himself in this position as a direct consequence of our sinful condition; he has been made visible by reason of our contrition and exigent shame. The prayer is dialogic: âI have come forth/been made visible (ex[s]titi) as a man abandoned by cause of your remorse and total perplexityâ.40 That Pilate stands at the front of a group of onlookers at left behind Christ, lays stress on our more privileged position vis-à -vis the Lord. The faded drops of red on the feet of Christ were perhaps added in response to the Dutchâs textâs particularising description of the blood that flowed over his ankles and feet.41 The touches of gold applied to Pilateâs turban and scepter, the helmets, headgear, swords, and daggers of the people around him, the cords, whips, and scourges, and the candle above the door, as also to Christâs hair and, in the background, to Herodâs crown and cloth of honor, illustrate the notion that the sorrows of the Passion are spiritual adornments; as stated explicitly in the opening epistle, we become perfected by turning these accessories into objects of meditative devotion.
The Carrying of the Cross (fol. 32r) resembles the Flagellation in that Christ is shown face-forward, with no other figure looking directly at the Holy Face [Fig. 11.11]. (Just behind him, the stooped figure of Mary making the sign of the cross, her head inclined in parallel to her Sonâs, alone registers that she participates fully in his suffering.) Most of the henchmen are positioned behind Christ, and neither of the two men in front of him meets his gaze. The Dutch exercise answers to the print, stating that none of the soldiers could bare to look at the face of Christ, quite unlike the votary whose task it is to attend to the Holy Face (fol. 33r): âThen could they not stand to see that merciful visage [â¦]. Ah, hold this sweet, tender countenance always before your external eyes, and on his account eschew every adornment of [your] headâ.42 As Van Meckenem portrays Jesus turning his face toward us, so the Dutch text insists that our face must ever be turned toward his. His eyes swivel round toward Simon of Cyrene but also toward the host of his tormentors processing behind the cross, and the Dutch coincides by declaring that even though âthey handled him cruelly, he yet looked at them gently and kind-heartedly, as if to say, âO dear children, if you have no compassion for me, at least have compassion for yourselvesââ.43 By contrast, the compassion shown by Mary correlates to the Latin text written on the back of the print: referring to Thomasâs words in John 11:16 (âLet us also go, that we may die with himâ44) and Peterâs in John 13:37 (âWhy cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for theeâ), none of which came to fruition, the Latin eulogizes Maryâs steadfast accompaniment of Jesus: âLet it suffice to bring these words to remembrance, so that the attentive eye of piety, feeling compassion for the groaning affections of so great a mother, may merit hereafter to be rewarded with the fruit of that pious loveâ.45 The phrase âeye of pietyâ refers both to the votaryâs outer eyes that are encouraged attentively to study the print, and to his inner eyes that are expected meditatively to dwell on its particulars.
The Betrayal and Capture of Christ (fol. 18r) depicts Jesus offering no resistance to his captors, neither to Judas who kisses and embraces him nor to the soldiers who seize and bind him [Fig. 11.5]. Indeed, his head inclines toward Judas, and his eyes meet his gaze sidewise. The Latin, inscribed once again on the verso, corresponds to these features of the print (fol. 18r):
You made apparent, good Jesus, how ready your spirit was for the Passion. [â¦] and at the sign they received from him who was first in disgrace, you revealed yourself. For you turned not away from the kiss of the beast stained with blood, approaching to kiss [your] most holy mouth. You in whose mouth no evil was found, sweetly brought yourself into close contact with that mouth abounding in malice.46
Christ, continues the Latin, was staging an image of his benignity, âexhibiting all [such] things as might soften the pertinacity of [Judas]â.47 The print centers on two antitheses: Christ again faces the viewer, whereas Judas is shown in profile, and his resignation contrasts not only with the violence of the soldiers but also with Peterâs attack on Malchus. The Latin, picking up on these devices, directly addresses the reader, urging him not to react like Peter, to be neither enraged nor indignant:
But if he suffers, for whom, I ask, does he suffer? Why do you desire the sword? Why are you enraged. Why are you indignant. If like Peter you were to cut off someoneâs ear, if you were to raise your sword arm, if you were to cut off someoneâs foot, he himself would heal every [limb], raise up every person slain.48
The Dutch, likewise consonant with the print which shows Judas enfolding Christ in a tight embrace, declares that that he grasped him so fiercely in his arms that he could feel the Lordâs heart beating heavily in his chest (fol. 19r). So, too, the swordsman seizing his arm, and the thug grasping his hair and raising his arm to strike a blow, are consistent with the characterisation of the henchmen as âcruel wolves who took hold of the dear Lord with devilish fury and pulled him with great violence, some grasping his neck, some his beard, some his hairâ.49
The Latin text on the verso of Christ before Annas, with the Denial of Peter and the Mocking of Christ accords with the complex twisting stance of Jesus (fol. 20v): as soldiers haul him before Annas, he turns his head gently toward Peter, who enacts his threefold denial at left; at the same time, his left leg and knee project forward, more toward the viewer than Annas [Fig. 11.6]. The Latin tallies with both aspects of the print, calling upon the beholder to see how Jesus laid eyes kindly on Peter, even while his disciple repudiated him, and then calling upon Christ to look upon the votary as lovingly as he gazed at Peter when, soon after, he repented his betrayal:
See with what affectionate eyes, with how much mercy and efficacy he gazed at Peter denying him for the third time, at the moment when, having converted and returned to himself, he wept bitterly. Good Jesus, would that your sweet eye would gaze at me, I who at the voice of the wanton handmaid, namely, of the depraved works and passion of my flesh, have so often denied you.50
The Dutch text associated with Pietà and Lamentation (fol. 39r) supplies a rationale for the notably different presentation of Christ here, versus the prior print, Christ Awaits Crucifixion (fol. 34v), in which his face is wan and drawn, his limbs gaunt, his chest caved in, and his overall appearance deathly [Figs. 11.12 & 11.13]. In Pietà and Lamentation, on the contrary, he looks robust and muscular, even in death; his eyes and cheeks are no longer sunken, and his wounds appear discreetly visible rather than conspicuous. The Dutch elucidates these changes apropos the miracle wrought by Christ for the benefit of his followers who up to now were sore-oppressed:
When the worthy mother of God and the whole of this dear company were thus in great sorrow, then did our dear Lord purge his holy body of all its wounds, intending this miracle and solace for his honorable mother and cherished friends who were so disconsolate, that his holy body might show none other than the five holy wounds, in his hands, feet, and his hallowed right side, which he held open for us as a sign of victory [â¦] O when they saw that holy body so beautiful and made whole, with no injuries displayed other than the five holy wounds, then were the worthy mother of God and the others very comforted.51
The Dutch also comments on the empathetic relation between Mary and Jesus, made apparent by the parallel tilt of their heads: in particular, it calls attention to the way in which she holds up her Sonâs lifeless head while staring intently into the Holy Face.52
The Dutch, more than the Latin, remarks upon specific details of the prints, such as the smooth surface of the bread held by Christ in Supper at Emmaus (fol. 44r) [Fig. 11.15]. The text observes that when he broke bread with his disciples, the pieces he blessed were so even that they looked as if cut by a knife.53 And with regard to the Pietà and Lamentation, the text states that Christâs body was too long to lie wholly upon the Virginâs lap; she propped up his shoulders with one arm, whereas his limbs and legs lay upon the ground.54
In more general terms, the Dutch texts provide a raison dâêtre, ex post facto, for several distinctive structural features of Van Meckenemâs print series. First, there is the graduated scale of the multiple episodes that appear in the fore-, middle-, and background of many of the images: the Washing of the Disciplesâ Feet, for instance, incorporates the Washing in the foreground, the Last Supper in the middle-ground, and the Agony in the Garden in the background [Fig. 11.4]. The Dutch dwells equally on all three events, but the order of presentation matches the gradually diminishing scale in the print, with the Washing coming first temporally and the Agony last. The art historical literature often points out that the Last Supper has been relegated to a less prominent place than the liturgically insignificant Washing, and that this poses a heuristic and hermeneutic challenge to the viewer, who must labour to grant the Last Supper its due. The Dutch normalises the printâs configuration on temporal grounds, but in calling upon the votary scrupulously to visualise the various scenes, as a prelude to full if virtual participation in these events, it also assists him to move through the picture and to foreground each successive episode as he does so.55 Wherever the scenes lie in the prints, the texts encourage the exercitant to bring them fully into view, moving them into the forefront of consciousness, so to speak.
Second, just as Van Meckenem includes both near and far views, so the Dutch texts explicitly acknowledge that meditation on the Passion involves shifting from a near to a far view and vice-versa. To cite a few examples: we are asked to keep vigil with Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, visualising his anxious, sweat- and blood-stained face, and then to discern, as did he, how Judas and the high-priestâs henchmen entered the garden, approaching from a distance.56 Having drawn near to Christ, in other words, we join him in seeing from a distance what approaches from afar. This process is consonant with the staged viewing experience offered by printâs multiple foci: we see Christâs face, already anxious in the scene of Washing, from close by; then from farther off in the Last Supper, and still farther away in the Agony in the Garden. Farthest away is the approaching mob [Fig. 11.4]. By moving our eyes closer to the image, we can bring its smaller, more distant details into ever clearer focus. The texts facilitate this process by urging the votary to draw near to Christ, to gaze at his face, and feelingly to observe how he reacts to impending events: âConsider, O my soul, how tired your bridegroom was when in the night he saw that light from afar and heard those people coming, armed and greatly clamorousâ.57
The Latin texts occasionally do this as well, though less frequently than the Dutch. Written on the verso of Washing of the Disciplesâ Feet, the long inscription first positions the votary at the threshold of the image, where he too waits expectantly for the Lord to wash his feet: âSee and await, and last of all, offer him your feet to be cleansed, since he whom he has not washed will have no part in himâ.58 Then the votary is transported to Gethsemane where he accompanies Peter, James, and John, seeing Christ, who has withdrawn to pray, from a distance. But unlike them, he can and must situate himself closer, and, from this more privileged vantage point, bear witness to the showing forth by Christ of his passible, vulnerable humanity:
And though he had taken Peter and the sons of Zebedee with him, he withdrew to a solitary place. If you will, see from a long way off how he gave himself over to our need. See how he to whom all things belong began to be afraid and to sink down sadly, saying, âMy spirit unto deathâ. And from this, my God, take pity on me, you who showed your humanity, in a certain manner seeming to forget that you are God.59
Another example of the close correlation between the Dutch texts and the prints occurs in relation to the Carrying of the Cross [Fig. 11.11]. As Mary stands behind Christ, sharing his burden spiritually, so the text asks us to imagine how he approached her and she him, while he moaned and sighed under the weight of the cross. At the moment they meet, she is heard to say: âO my one and only son, ill-fated, desolate, disconsolate; your heavenly Father has abandoned you, your angels dare not help you, your apostles have fled, and I your poor mother cannot help you who abandon yourself to the most pressing necessityâ.60 Then Christ moves on, climbing to the summit of Golgotha, leaving Mary, John, and the holy women behind at the foot of the mountain, debarred by thronging mob.61 This second episode correlates to the background scene in the print, which depicts Mary swooning amongst Christâs followers, at the base of a rocky escarpment. With regard to Christ Awaits Crucifixion, in which the crucifixion scene, seen from below, appears in background, just beyond the shadowy cliffside beside which Christ is seated, the Dutch describes how Mary reached the summit only after the cross had already been raised [Fig. 11.13]. We are to imagine her arrival, the bitter grief she felt when she first laid eyes on her crucified Son, and how she cast her gaze upward at Jesus, then downward at the mob who had robbed her of her Son.62 The background scene allows for these meditative devices, inviting the viewer to climb up the mountainside (and up the image) and find Christ a second time, hanging on the cross, after having first seen him waiting in the foreground, his eyes fixed on the hole being drilled in the crossbeam.
Third, the Dutch texts, such as the lengthy passage adjacent to Christ Washing the Disciplesâ Feet, occasionally expound upon the multifold appearances of Christ in the prints, which often portray him two or three times in succession [Fig. 11.4]. Having itemized one set of torments they then compound it in quick and iterative succession with another episode, adjacent in space and time, which then concatenates breathlessly to a third, a fourth, a fifth (fols. 14vâ16v). This profusion of episodes attests to the multiplicity and immensity of the Lordâs suffering, and also speaks to his desire to suffer on behalf of humankind, as one of the prayers of supplication, spoken in the voice of Christ, affirms by imagining his body greatly manifolded:
O my heavenly Father, this is now my affliction, that the whole of the human race will not be saved. And then I wept for the death of the sinner, and for those who would make themselves unworthy of my suffering and bitter death. Were it possible to have as many bodies as there are stars in the sky, I would fain give them all up to the death I have suffered, rather than allowing even one sinner to remain lost on my account.63
The strength of the assertion becomes all the more evident later on, in one of the prayers attached to Christ Awaits Crucifixion, which instructs the votary to consider how Christ shed all his blood when one drop would have been sufficient to save the human race [Fig. 11.12].64 The multiple Christs, seen from this perspective, are iterative warrants of the Saviourâs love for his fellow men.
4 Affabulatio and Visieringh
There are many other points of intersection between the Dutch and Latin exercises and the Passion prints they accompany, but it is also true that the nature of the relation between the prints and these texts, written as they are in various inks and hands, the Latin for the most part directly on the prints, the Dutch on the surrounding folios, is markedly different. The differences mainly turn on the kinds of amplification engendered by the mutual association between text and image; the texts elaborate upon the images, projecting layers of verbal imagery onto them. Whereas the Latin layers can best be designated affabulationes (narrative enhancements adapted from the exegetical tradition), to use a term codified by Geert Grote in Tractatus quattuor generibus meditabilum, the Dutch layers are narrative enhancements based on rhetorical conjecture only loosely connected to Scripture or the exegetical tradition.65 For want of terminology as precise as Groteâs, one might refer to them as visieringhen, a fifteenth- and sixteenth-century term that derives from visieren (in Latin, speculari, contemplari, imaginari, excogitare, respectively, âto conjectureâ, âview attentively or observe contemplativelyâ, âimagineâ, âdevise, contrive, inventâ).66 Visieren also correlates to the Latin term adinvenire (to find out, devise).67 It appears in the Exposicie der Passien, a fifteenth-century manuscript known in two copies, where visieren signifies the action of elaborating upon the Passion without scriptural or exegetical warrant.68 To understand how these two systems of amplification operate, the key sources of both sets of texts should be kept in mind: whereas the Latin cites Ludolphus of Saxonyâs liturgical, exegetical treatise, Vita Christi,69 the Dutch augments Susoâs Hundred Articles by citing a congeries of manuscript sources known for their graphic accounts of the Passion, including Heinrich von St. Gallenâs Die Extendit-manum-Passion, studied by Kurt Ruh,70 the anonymous Christi Leiden in einer Vision geschaut, studied by Ruh and Albert Ampe, S.J.,71 and the diverse community of Passion manuscripts dubbed the Secret Passion by the art historian James Marrow (not to be confused with Dit es de heimelike passsie ons Heeren Ihesu Christi, studied by Desiderius A. Stracke, S.J.).72 Paraphrases from these Passion texts, collated with passages from Suso, greatly extend the sequence of meditative exercises attached to Van Meckenemâs plates 1â10, from Christ Washing the Disciplesâ Feet to Pietà and Lamentation (fols. 14vâ41v) [Figs. 11.4â11.13]. (The exercises associated with plates 11â12, the Resurrection and Supper at Emmaus, are mainly paraphrases from Scripture, from the Pseudo-Bonaventureâs Meditations on the Life of Christ, and from incunabula such as the Devote getijden van het leven Ons Heren, which assimilates the life of Christ to the canonical hours [fols. 42râ45v].73)
The Dutch extracts from the Secret Passion, Christi Leiden, and Extendit- manum-Passion minutely focus on the bloody wounds of Christ, dissolving or, better, anatomising his body into its torn and shredded particulars. The Latin excerpts from Ludolphusâs Vita Christi are incarnational in a more strictly theological sense: they anchor episodes from the Passion in the whole of the verum corpus and, implicitly, in the mind, heart, and spirit of Christ that inhere in this incarnate body. Inscribed, as we have seen, on the versos of the printed sheets, these extracts are modally distinct from the more aggregative Dutch texts. The Latin moderates the horrors of the Passion, constantly reminding the votary to consider the relation between the vita mortalis and vita vitalis (i.e., spiritualis) of Christ. By contrast, the Dutch externalises and exacerbates the bodily horrors of the Passion, harping on the hundreds of cuts, bruises, and wounds, administered violently and repetitively, that ultimately lead to the inhumane death of Christ. Van Meckenemâs plates function as the common ground for both manners and modes of Passion meditation. Indeed, one might argue that the narrative coherence of these semi-liturgical, bi-modal meditative exercises derives from Van Meckenemâs images, which depict the Passion as a series of scripturally-based events susceptible to the kinds of extra-scriptural elaboration on show in the Latin and Dutch texts.
The type of affabulatio found in the Latin insertions consists of the explicit use of typological allegory to characterise the Passion of Christ. The allegorical tropes, taken mainly from Isaiah and the Psalms, are applied to Christ so as to inspire the reader to reflect on how and why the Lord suffered on his behalf, and on how and why he should respond accordingly, amending himself bodily and spiritually by following the pattern set by his Saviour. For instance, the Latin text appended to Van Meckenemâs Washing of the Disciplesâ Feet begins by referring to Christ the Lord as a shepherd come to save the perishing sheep of the House of Israel (fol. 15r) [Fig. 11.4]: âAt last you came, Lord, to the sheep of the House of Israel who perished, openly exalting the light of the divine Word for the illumination of the world, and announcing the kingdom of God to all who were attending your wordâ.74 The passage is exegetical in that it comprises and condenses four prophetic texts, construing them as allusions to Christ:
Psalm 77:52: âAnd he took away his own people as sheep: and guided them in the wilderness like a flockâ.
Psalm 79:2: âO thou that rulest Israel: thou that leadest Joseph like a sheepâ.
Isaiah 40:11: âHe shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather together the lambs with his arm and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are youngâ.
Jeremiah 31:10: âHe that scattered Israel will gather him: and he will keep him as the shepherd doth his flockâ.
This leads to a further application of an Old Testament prophecy to Christ, whose entire life is seen as a prelude to the Passion, at the threshold of which he is now poised. Blasphemed by his detractors who called him the son of Beelzebub and attempted to stone him, Jesus yet remained patient, âhaving been made before them like unto a man neither hearing nor having reproaches in his mouthâ.75 This is a paraphrase of Psalm 37:15: âAnd I became as a man that heareth not: and that hath no reproofs in his mouthâ. It here serves to anticipate how peaceably and resignedly Jesus will respond to Judas and the mob when they come to capture him.
Similarly, the Latin text appended to Christ Crowned with Thorns describes him in terms of the fourth Servant Song from Isaiah 52 and 53, embedding this prophecy of the Passion within a paraphrase of Matthew 27:28â29 and Mark 15:17, on the Crowning with Thorns and Mocking of Christ (fol. 26v) [Fig. 11.8]. The paraphrase reads:
He is clothed in royal purple, but in that is more despised than honored. He wields a scepter but his reverend head is struck by the same. Their knees bent down to the earth before him, they acclaim him king and repeatedly leap up to spit at his gracious cheeks. With their palms they strike his jaws and dishonor his honorable neck. Behold, my soul: who is that who enters, who advances crowned, having the likeness of a king and yet filled full with the shame of a contemptible slave? But that selfsame crown is a torment to him, and wounds his beauteous [brow] with a thousand pricks.76
The passages from Isaiah, patently distilled in the catachresis of king and slave, are read by Ludolphus in the Vita Christi as an oracle of this episode from the Passion. For the canon aware of this citation and its scriptural sources, the clear implication to be drawn is that Christ was fully cognizant of the relation between his present circumstances and the prophecy they body forth.
Affabulationes of this sort were sanctioned by luminaries such as Geert Grote, founder of the Brethren of the Common Life and enthusiastic proponent of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine. In De quattuor generibus meditabilium, he writes that everything that may be conjectured, examined, or incontestably proved by reference to the Old Testament is most necessary to meditation, and that Christ and his actions may fully be discerned therein through the application of tropological and anagogical allegory; conversely, when Christ and his actions are interpreted spiritually, one can see through them to the plethora of Old Testament prophecies they fulfil. Allegorical exegesis furnishes the key link between the Old and New Testaments when they are meditated in tandem; this is where affabulatio comes into play, as an image-based exegetical practice that amplifies the Gospels by layering upon them the figurative imagery of the prophets. Affabulatio is the defining feature of Groteâs fourth category of meditative praxis:
But in the fourth order, many things are imagined and devised [â¦] according to and in support of the humbleness of our self, not so that such things are believed to exist, but because it is helpful to our feeble fantasy thus to imagine [them], and because [this] nourishes our slight mind more forcefully and fittingly and leads more firmly to the love of Christ.77
The Latin inscriptions added to Van Meckenemâs Passion prints comply with this conception of licit scriptural fabulation.
Contrariwise, the Dutch paraphrases added to the extracts from the Hundred Articles elaborate upon the Passion in ways that contravene Groteâs rule of allegory and system of covenantal analogy, as explicated by Marrow for the visual arts of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and by Ampe for Middle-Dutch Passion treatises of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.78 They convert the repertory of Passion prophecies into Passion imagery so concrete and graphically descriptive that it seems to operate more in the realm of the real than the allegorical, of visceral fact rather than of figurative exegesis. This type of fabulation dwells upon every blow and every humiliation, counting every species of wound and numbering them. The Revelations of Saint Bridget is repeatedly cited as the chief source of the precise numbers of tormentors and outrages enumerated: he was struck 60 times in the neck, 30 times on the mouth, spat upon 20 times in his face, and thrown 5 times to the ground and yanked up again in the garden of Gethsemane; blood flowed from his mouth 33 times at the Crowning with Thorns, his stomach, back, and ribs were pummeled 35 times, and his tormentors scowled at him viciously 80 times.79 The interior suffering of Christ is seen to originate from his exterior suffering, and both categories of tribulation are characterised as expressive of his superhuman love of sinful humankind:
Consider how the foul stinking spittle of the Jews made his tender heart fearful and faint when they spat at his graceful face and into his sweet mouth [â¦]. And as if he were [truly] a transgressor, he became [truly] fearful [â¦]. Whereupon his eyes were broken and caked with rheum from his bloody tears and the stinking spew of the loathsome ruffians. There were you, dear Lord, mocked, spat upon, defied, reviled, libeled, cursed, threatened, reproached, censured, defamed, blamed, humiliated [â¦]. And the more you were debased and defamed for my salvationâs sake, the more you loved me, and so the more I hold you dear.80
Fabulation of this kind, as Marrow has demonstrated, literalises the prophetic imagery of Psalm 21 (the Good Friday Psalm), Wisdom 2:12â20, Isaiah 52:13â 53:12, and Zechariah 12, by cataloguing in excruciating detail every injury inflicted on Christ, from cuts and bruises to stains and defilements. As documented by Ampe, certain commentators were resistant to this usage, claiming that it transgressed the bounds of exegetical propriety; the anonymous author of the Exposicie der Passien, for instance, contests the visieringhen characteristic of such exercises, mainly because they purport to be verifiably true rather than allegorically amplified, to be factual rather than fabricated. With reference to the two nail-studded boards that are said to have been hung before and behind Christ to pierce his shins and calves as he trudged to Calvary, the Exposicie asseverates:
It is thus to be feared that these two boards said to have hung from his garment are a willful lie. For the evangelists write nothing about them, nor does any teacher, nor anyone else, upon which to base a foundation of truth. But one reads [about them] only in a little book called Die verholen passie [i.e., Die heimelike passie], which was revealed, as they say, to a spiritual person. But therein stand many things that bear the likeness of truth. I fear that they greatly err who devise (visieren) such things for the sake of manufacturing compunction and devotion in the hearts of men, for the Passion of Christ is great enough in itself, and has no need of such things which fortify it with lies.81
As we shall soon see, the Dutch amplifications in our manuscript, perhaps to controvert scruples such as these, are said to have been ratified by Christ himself, who discerns amidst his current afflictions that he is fulfilling the key prophecies of his Passion. It is Christ, source of all truth, who attests that these visieringhen are real, not mere affective embellishments.
5 Two Routes to Golgotha: Affective Violence and Meditative Reflection in the Groenendaal Passion
Let us now more closely examine the differences between the adjacent Dutch texts and inscribed Latin inscriptions. Whereas the Latin tends to moderate the expression of strong emotion, the Dutch intensifies and expands upon Van Meckenemâs subtle portrayal of Christâs felt emotions, visible in his face, whether the sad resignation of the Betrayal and Capture of Christ, the desperate exhaustion of the Carrying of the Cross, or the anxious dejection of Christ Awaiting Crucifixion. Take the texts attached to the Capture of Christ [Figs. 11.5, 11.11, & 11.12]. The Latin emphasises that Christ controls the circumstances of his Passion, here fashioning them into a series of performative, meditative images for our benefit: in the garden of Gethsemane, at the moment he is seized, he stages one such image, making a show of his spiritâs willingness to suffer for our sakes.
How ready your spirit was for the Passion, good Jesus, you clearly showed, when of your own accord you went to meet the men of blood coming at you in the company of your betrayer, with lanterns, torches, and arms seeking after your spirit contemptuously. And at a sign from him who was first in disgrace, you revealed yourself.82
Everything that occurred there was exhibited to menâs eyes, above all the eyes of Judas, for the purpose of mollifying obdurate, sinful hearts (ut omnia illi exhiberes quae pravi cordis sui pertina[n]tiam emollire potuissent).83 The Latin closes by addressing the exercitant, urging him not to react as Peter did toward Malchus, to be neither enraged nor indignant, and to keep in mind that Christ, howsoever abject, remains ever mighty, having the power to heal every limb, raise up any person slain (ipse restituet omnia qui etiam si quem occideris suscitabit).84 Contrastingly, the Dutch brings the repudiation of Christ to the fore, along with the violence perpetrated against him (fol. 19r):
And we had better believed that he who ate great herbs (i.e., John the Baptist) was the Son of God, than this wine-drinker. And with this they struck his mouth and ears and cheeks [â¦]. With a great clamor, they brought him into the city, leapt upon him like ravening wolves. His pain and confusion could in no wise content them. They cast him down 40 times, and as he was half falling yanked him upright, pulling on the rope [around his waist], piercing him 43 times with goads, setting their fingers 15 times upon the dear Lordâs face, as if ripping it to pieces.85
The reference to âravening wolvesâ identifies Ezechiel 22:27 â âHer princes in the midst of her are like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood and to destroy soulsâ â as the distant source of this passage.
The Latin texts tend to cleave more closely than the Dutch to Van Meckenemâs images, and in elaborating upon them, they appear to respond to specific features rather than interpolating violent details into them. The Latin inscribed on Christ before Annas is a good case in point (fol. 20r) [Fig. 11.6]: it calls attention to Christ gazing at Peter, and begs the Lord to cast his gaze at the votary just as he looked lovingly at Peter at the time of his threefold betrayal (Utinam bone ihesu tuus me dulcis respiciat oculus).86 Like a chastened Peter, the votary should observe the circumstances in which Christ finds himself and learn to express merciful contrition at this sight, which should be appreciated as an epitome of patient modesty (insuper intuere nunc opprobrijs Dominum verecundum in tormentis vero patientem).87 To cultivate penitential compassion, the reader-viewer must reflect on the antitheses here made apparent: brought before Annas, Christ the truth is falsely adjudged blasphemous, the living source of joy and worthy object of prayerful devotion is instead defiled and disgraced, the Lord of all creation is treated like a contemptible servant. On the contrary, the Dutch concentrates fixedly on imagining excesses of defilement so extreme that words cannot describe them (nor images picture them): â[Then] with devilish, fell cruelty they led our dear Lord to Caiaphas. O, how they do treat our dear Lord, mishandling him on the street in ways not to be expressed in words (wt te spreken)â.88
The horror of the judgment scene is to be exacerbated by imagining how Mary came upon Christ being dragged away, so maltreated and debased that she could barely recognize his form and face (dat si sijn gestelnisse nau gesien conste).89 Conversely, the votary is to visualize how Christ, upon seeing his tearful, deathly pale mother, is cut to the quick by a sword of sorrow no less sharp than the one that cut through her (want als ons lieve here sijn lieve moeder aensach, dootverwich gedaen van weenen [â¦] och hoe doersneet dat sweert des rouwen deser twee alder haer herten).90 Another inciteful device involves visualising how the mob saw Christ: his captors stood at a distance to allow the people to see him and cast aspersions on him, but what they beheld was a man so battered as to be unrecognizable. Then one must imagine how the angels saw their Lord scorned and maltreated, but were not allowed to assist him. And finally, one should envisage Mary forced to observe her Son from afar, shunted aside by the great press of people.91 Each of these imagined details is a further blow-by-blow image laminated onto the printed image, pushing far beyond the limits of what is pictured and what Scripture corroborates.
Another difference between the Latin and the Dutch is temporal: the former often stops in mid-stride to digress on the meaning of the image we are viewing and its true cause and purpose. The Latin addendum to the Flagellation, to cite one example, explains that he âmade himself visible (extiti), a man abandoned by reason of our absolute contrition and shameâ (fol. 24v) [Fig. 11.7].92 This is to say that he is the veritable image of our sinful condition, a condition needful of atonement and fit to arouse feelings of guilt. The Dutch instead particularises the punishments visited on Christ, recounting that he was striped by three kinds of scourges â respectively formed of rods, cords knotted with metal hooks, and dried ox-sinews â wherefrom blood spurted everywhere, flooding the floors, while thick lumps of flesh adhered to the scourges. The emphasis falls on the horror of the scene, at the climax of which âthe Lord was pitiable to see, for then from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet there was nothing that had not been thoroughly woundedâ.93 The votary is then urged to think of Jesus as his bridegroom, who holds himself still, both in body and soul, amidst all this suffering, which he feels more grievously from within than from without.94 The abruptly sudden shift to the bridal imagery of the Song of Songs, and the concomitant adjuration, â[â¦] attend to your bridegroom Jesus with your inward eyesâ, brief as they are, function less to foster contemplative devotion than to shock the votary into acknowledging his sinful guilt and shame.95 He has betrayed his spouse, thrown him to the wolves devouring him.
In contradistinction to the Exposicie der Passien, cited above, the juxtaposition of the Latin and the Dutch does not constitute an implicit critique by the former of the latterâs form, tenor, and function. It makes better sense to consider how they work in tandem, as complements, the Dutch arousing horror and shame conducive to self-accusation and penitential contrition, the Latin harnessing that self-loathing to the task of meditative reflection and contemplative devotion. This becomes specially evident in the relation between the Latin and Dutch texts attached to Christ Crowned with Thorns [Fig. 11.8]. The Latin, as discussed supra, having framed this Passion episode in terms of Isaiah 52:13â14 and Isaiah 53:3ff, then addresses the votaryâs soul, enjoining it attentively to consider, i.e., to meditate, the paradoxical image of Christ the King as the Isaian servant (Attende anima mea quis est iste qui ingreditur habens imaginem quasi regis et nihilominus servi despectissimi).96 The Dutch instead demands that the votary scrutinise Christâs face and body caked with drying blood, his features so obscured that he appears barely human, the thorny crown pressed low on his head, streams of blood flowing from 72 puncture wounds.97 The compassion one perforce feels is described as reactive, the natural result of viewing this dire and pitiable spectacle, the sort of reaction sights distressing as these inevitably elicit. The mode might best be characterised as narrative rather than meditative, intensely poignant rather than affectingly ruminative. Encapsulated within the cascade of graphic particulars are a few brief thoughts about the love that motivated Christ to endure all this pain and suffering: âAnd if the pain and great humiliation of our Lord are very much to be marveled at, still more the great love that surpasses all. One drop of his holy blood had been enough to redeem every one of us, but so great was his love, that in order to draw us to it he could neither spare himself in any degree, nor wished to do soâ.98 But the emphasis falls not on thoughts such as these but on the material details of the Passion; these start up again immediately after the two lines just quoted. The verbal depiction of the Crowning with Thorns leads directly into a description of the Ecce Homo, the subject of the next print in the series; tellingly, instead of calling upon the votary to give thought to the Man of Sorrows and consider what it means to ruminate him, the text recounts how and why Pilate put Christ forward as an epitome of suffering, making him maximally visible to the people as a would-be king, scorned and chastised (op dat men onsen here so mismaect te bat soude sien) [Fig. 11.9].99 Not the image we should fashion meditatively, but the circumstances of Pilateâs image-making, his calculated strategy in showing Christ (in hopes of freeing him from certain death) is the topic at hand.
The difference between the two modes becomes all the more apparent through the collocation of texts adjacent to the Carrying of the Cross [Fig. 11.11]. The Dutch augments its account of outrages committed on the road to Calvary by describing a scene not pictured by Van Meckenem, the nailing of Christ to the cross once he reached the summit of Mount Golgotha. Laid prone upon the cross, his limbs are painfully stretched, his hands and feet pierced by large, faceted nails that push his flesh and sinew into the wood. So dreadful is the nailing, so shameless and baleful the executioners, that they surpass the human capacity to know or understand what actually transpired (dat men te gronte niet geweten en can).100 And yet the votary is given to see the Lordâs face, trampled by executioners who revile his merciful countenance, finding it unendurable (doen en consten si dat goedertieren gesicht niet gesien).101 All the suffering incurred at Calvary must be held before oneâs bodily eyes, i.e., seen as if veritably present, the Holy Face above all: âAh, hold this sweet, pitiable face ever before [your] external eyes ([wt]wendige oogen)â.102 The directive to gaze unflinchingly at the Lordâs bloody mouth, nose, cheeks, eyes, and beard harmonises with Van Meckenemâs Carrying of the Cross and Christ Awaiting Crucifixion, both of which center on a frontal view of the face of Jesus, turned toward the beholder [Figs. 11.11 & 11.12]: âAh, look at him well, who is nothing but wounds and blood, his holy beard plucked, holy mouth bruised and blood-soaked, nose split in two and burst open, cheeks broken and torn, eyes maimed and blood-stained, and holy hair damp and red with bloodâ.103 A new outrage is now added to the ones that preceded: once nailed to the cross, he is raised then thrown downward, the weight of the wood bearing down upon him.104
The Latin takes, so to speak, an alternative route to Golgotha. It asks the exercitant to see the spectacle unfolding as the fulfillment of Psalm 44:7, âThy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the scepter of thy kingdom is a scepter of uprightnessâ; Hebrews 1:8, âbut to the Son: Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a scepter of justice is the scepter of thy kingdomâ; and Isaiah 9:6, âFor a child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peaceâ.105 The eyes of the soul, the âeye of devotionâ (oculus pietatis) is advised to see the cross as an instrument of the triumph of Christ, a warrant of his power to save but also to judge the whole world.106 The process whereby abject suffering is converted into glorious victory is exegetical: not only are passages from Psalms, Isaiah, and Hebrews marshalled, but also Peterâs avowal in John 13:37, âWhy cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for theeâ, and Thomasâs in John 11:16, âLet us also go, that we may die with himâ.107 Quite unlike them, the meditans must cleave close to Christ, refusing to fall away, instead dying with him to arise with him, an implicit allusion to Romans 6:4: âFor we are buried together with him by baptism into death: that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of lifeâ. Whereas the Dutch invokes the [wt]wendige oogen, the meditative, exegetical work of reading the Passion as a prophecy of the Resurrection and all it portends for sinful humankind proceeds, in the Latin, by way of mobilising the oculus pietatis (fol. 29v):
See, my soul, how that man was pressed and spurned in all things, ordered to bend his back under the weight of the cross and to bear ignominy upon himself. O, do you see the spectacle? Behold his government upon his shoulder; this is the scepter of justice, the scepter of his rule.
I imagine that pious mother following [her] son, her voice saying: Thither you go, the sole propitiator, making sacrifice for all. Peter comes not to meet you, he who says, âFor you I would dieâ. Thomas deserts you, who says, âWith him let us all dieâ. And none of these but you alone are led forth, you who preserved me chaste, you my Son and my God. Even so, let it suffice to bring these words to remembrance, that the eye of piety, feeling compassion for the groaning affections of so great a mother, may merit to be rewarded with the fruit of his/her godly love hereafter.108
The theme of Maryâs love for Jesus is layered onto that of Jesusâs love for humankind, and his redemptive power is tied implicitly to her power of merciful intercession.
The final Latin inscription, one of the longest, when read in conjunction with the adjacent Dutch texts, serves to transmute their emphasis on the corporeal aspect of Christ crucified, as seen first by the crowd on Golgotha and then by Mary upon her arrival, into a contemplative vision of Calvary as the site of divine love, and of Jesus as its immeasurable source. The text is written on the recto of the sheet with Christ Awaiting Crucifixion on the verso (fol. 34r) [Fig. 11.12]. The Dutch turns on the antithesis between the manner of the peopleâs viewing of Christ and the manner of the Virginâs. The mob mocks the man they take for a criminal, sneering and shaking, wagging their heads and laughing to scorn, bodying forth the imagery of Psalm 21:7â9, as well as John 2:19: âThey cried out, are you the one who would destroy the temple and in three days raise it up?â109 Oppositely, Maryâs heart is wounded to the core when, after Jesus has been crucified, she pushes through the crowd to see her Son hanging from the cross, cruelly torn, pierced, and bloody.110 In the Latin, it is the soul that beholds Christ on the cross, hears him utter the prayer of supplication, âFather forgive themâ (Luke 23:34), and interprets the sight and the words by visualising an image of the Lord hanging between heaven and earth, uniting and conjoining them by means of the cross: âMediator of God and men, hanging midway between heaven and earth, nay rather, he who unites, conjoins terrestrial things to supernal, celestial onesâ.111 Christ in the Passion is transmogrified by the soul that sees through his suffering to its redemptive effect, recognising him at first sight as the most gentle and benign of men. Indeed, the Latin insists that one consider how neither his injuries nor the penalty he pays concern him or disturb his sweetness and tranquility of heart: âWhat man have you seen, more gentle, more benign? And again: in all this look closely at that most sweet heart, at the tranquil sense of duty it preserved. It attends to no injury, counts no penalty, feels no contumely, but instead feels compassion for those who torment himâ.112 For this reason, the soul finds itself contemplating Christâs humanity inseparably conjoined with his majesty, divine mercy, and ineffably loving piety: âBehold me, Lord, one who adores your majesty, not a slayer of your body, one who venerates your death, not a scoffer at your Passion, a contemplator of your mercy, not a contemner of your infirmity. Let your sweet humanity advocate on my behalf; let your ineffable piety commend me to your Fatherâ.113
If the soul now approaches closer to the cross and views the pallid face of Jesus from nearby, continues the Latin, let it feel compassion like that felt by Mary, and then, hearing Christâs words, âFather, why hast thou forsaken me?â (Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34), let it recognise that he was showing forth, i.e., exposing to view, as if in an image, the purpose and proficient effect of ejaculatory prayer (Insuper addidisti, âDeus meus ut quid dereliquisti meâ, ut ostenderes effectum orationis).114 Citing Psalm 41:2, âAs the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after thee, O Godâ, the soul gives voice to its realisation that what Christ truly exemplifies in the Passion is neither the suffering nor death to which mortal life is subject (vita mortalis), but the vital life of the spirit (vita vitalis), whose eternal font is Jesus himself, the fountainhead of beatitude and spiritual joy:
Also you added, Lord Jesus Christ, âI thirstâ. For what do you thirst, Lord Jesus: the wine of the vine or a riverâs water? Your thirst [is] my salvation, your food, my redemption. [â¦] Why, then, do you, [my soul,] not desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ? Why does the mortal life hinder you, and why does the vital life not incite you, beatitude flowing like a fountain, spiritual companionship and joy? Therefore long for, consider how great is, the multitude of your sweetness, how glorious are the things said about the city of God, where the light of life is, the font of absolute sweetness, the felicity of every man.115
In conclusion, the inscription calls upon the votary to be crucified with Christ, but in doing so, to train oneâs thoughts on the salvation enduringly to be attained (ut salute consequaris perseverantia).116 This text furnishes the perfect complement to Van Meckenemâs still figure of Christ awaiting crucifixion in the foreground, as also to the Crucifixion scene in the background [Fig. 11.12]. Whereas the Dutch amplifies both scenes by imagining them corporeally, the Latin elaborates upon them contemplatively, fixing the soulâs spiritual eyes on the conciliatory, pacifying, and joyful effects secured in and through Christ by all who trusting him fully, cultivate the vitam vitalem he bestows.
6 A Modal Turn: Asserting the Primacy of Marian Affection
The inscription discussed above is the last of the Latin inscriptions, even though three prints follow â Pietà and Lamentation, Resurrection, and Supper at Emmaus [Figs. 11.13, 11.14, & 11.15]. The reason that the three latter prints lack a text in Latin, I think, is that the substance and tone of the Dutch texts changes after the death of Christ on the cross. They become less visceral, more reflective, and exegetical, diverging from the imagery of the Extendit-manum-Passion, the Christi Leiden in einer Vision geschaut, and the Secret Passion. Instead, they more closely resemble the argument of Ludolphusâs Vita Christi. This thematic change is in part a consequence of the focus on the Virginâs empathetic, loving relation to Christ in the final section of the manuscript. Latin addenda modally distinct from the main text in Dutch were thus no longer required. The brief Latin heads atop the columns of text shift in tone: whereas they formerly compressed various Passion themes, they now function as ejaculatory prayers pleading for consolation of the spirit [Fig. 11.20].
Typical of this section of the manuscript is the account of how Mary beheld the Crucified: sorrowfully and thoughtfully, she first looked up at him, then down at the people standing round the cross, and considered the difference between his piety and their impiety (ende saget daer hange[n] u lief kijnt [â¦] saget nederwaert ende scouwende daer die gene [â¦] die uwen scat u beroeft hadden).117 Mary exemplifies and, more than this, models for our benefit a meditative connection to Jesus. This leads further to a series of meditations, more subdued than the previous ones, on the kinds and degrees of pain felt by Jesus in his five senses as he hung dying on the cross.118 Previously, his eyes, to cite one of the chief organs of sense, were said to have been punched, poked, and bloodied; now they cause pain at one remove, allowing him to bear witness to, to see as if presaging, the spiteful gestures directed against him and the visible sorrow experienced by his mother and friends. In consequence, after entrusting his mother to John and John to his mother (John 19:26â27), he pauses to meditate the mystery of the Passion, âraising his voice in a long prayerâ that begins, âMy God, my God, look upon meâ.119 This is the opening line of Psalm 21, and the reference to the prayerâs length (hief hi op een lanc gebet) makes clear that he recited the whole of the psalm, which is to say that even in the throes of the Passion, he chose steadfastly to reflect upon its typological meaning:
And he spared neither his bruised mouth nor his holy mangled, parched head, but read out the holy psalms of his sacred Passion, in order that his Father might look, with satisfaction, upon the misdeeds of men. And his godly voice trembled and burned, and was soft, and now was loud and wailing. And at once the world was covered over by a great darkness, [and] the sun left off from shining from the sixth hour to the ninth. Then our Lord cried out in a loud voice, âHeli, heli lamasabathaniâ, that is, âMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?â And think not that Christ murmured against his Father, for his will was in all things like unto the Fatherâs will. [â¦] O devout soul, suffer as if you had been abandoned, and pay heed to your hapless bridegroom on the holy cross.120
The earlier call to consider how Jesus suffered in his sense of sight sets the scene for this recitation of the Psalms, wherethrough the Crucifixion, indeed the whole Passion, is viewed through the lens of the Psalmistâs prophecies thereof. Jesus is to be seen considering himself and his straitened circumstances in light of the imagery of these Psalms:
Psalm 21:2, âO God, my God, look upon me: Why hast thou forsaken me?â;
Psalm 26:2: âWhilst the wicked draw near against me, to eat my fleshâ;
Psalm 26:9: âBe thou my helper, forsake me notâ;
Psalm 30:6: âInto thy hands I commend my spiritâ;
Psalm 34:11â12: âUnjust witnesses rising up have asked me things I knew notâ;
Psalm 34:15: â[â¦] scourges were gathered together upon me, and I knew notâ;
Psalm 34:19: â[â¦] who have hated me without cause and wink with the eyesâ;
Psalm 54:4â5: âFor they have cast iniquities upon me: and in wrath they were troublesome to meâ;
Psalm 56:5: â[â¦] the sons of men, whose teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp swordâ;
Psalm 68:21â22: âIn thy sight are all they that afflict me: my heart hath expected reproach and miseryâ;
Psalm 87:7â8: âThey have laid me in the lower pitâ;
and Psalm 108:25: âAnd I am become a reproach to themâ.
And most relevant, since it prophecies this very scene of Christ crucified meditating upon the Psalms, Psalm 108:4: âInstead of making me a return of love, they detracted me: but I gave myself to prayerâ.121
At the conclusion of this episode, the soul is charged to see how not even one kind word was offered to the crucified Lord, and how, on the contrary, his tormenters gnashed their teeth against him.122 Following the meditative example set by Christ, his situation can be identified as fulfilling Isaiah 63:3, âI have trodden the winepress aloneâ, and Psalm 111:10, âThe wicked shall see and shall be angry, he shall gnash with his teeth and pine awayâ. Soon after, in a prayer of supplication, the votary pleads for divine assistance in keeping the Lordâs death ever present in his heart, as it was ever present to the heart of Christ, there to be meditated (doer die tegenwordicheyt uwer bitter doot, die u altoes voer stont, dat u werdige doot nummermeer en moet comen wt mijnre herten).123
In sum, the final portion of the manuscript assimilates the modal characteristics of the prior Latin inscriptions which, cleaving close to the relatively subdued but expressive manner of Van Meckenemâs prints, provide a gloss on his images parallel to and distinct from that furnished by the Dutch texts that constitute the bulk of the book. Whereas these texts amplify Susoâs Hundred Articles by reference to treatises associated with the Secret Passion (as well as the Revelations of Saint Bridget and other Passion cycles), and enrich Van Meckenemâs Passion series by layering upon it detailed verbal images of the corporeal atrocities visited on Christ, the Latin texts instead focus on bringing the theme of divine mercy to the fore and on cultivating thoughts and feelings associated with the contemplative spousal imagery of the Song of Songs. The two sets of texts qualify each other, as well as commenting upon the printed images, in a proto-emblematic compound of the verbal and the pictorial that, in triangulating amongst a series of engravings and a series of texts, invokes two registers of vision to allude to dual meditative modes. The fact that the prints are material images lends a material effect to the verbal images, incarnational with respect to the Latin, corporeal with respect to the Dutch.
Cologne School, Saint Jerome Kneeling in Penitence before the Crucifix, ca. 1470â1480. Metalcut, hand-coloured in green, yellow, brown, orange, gold, and red lake, 255 Ã 179 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Netherlandish School, Christ the Man of Sorrows, ca. 1490â1500. Woodcut, hand-coloured in green, two shades of brown, flesh colour, yellow, black, and touches of red lake, 257 Ã 170 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Christ Washing the Disciplesâ Feet and the Departure of Judas, with the Agony in the Garden and the Last Supper, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 Ã 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Betrayal and Capture of Christ, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 Ã 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Christ Brought before Annas, with Denial of Peter and Mocking of Christ, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 Ã 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Flagellation of Christ in the Presence of Pilate, with Christ Brought before Herod, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, highlighted in gold, with touches of pen and red ink (on Christâs feet), ca. 205 Ã 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Christ Crowned with Thorns, with Mocking of Christ, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, highlighted in gold, ca. 205 Ã 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Ecce Homo, with Pilate and his Wife, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 Ã 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Pilate Washing his Hands, with Workmen Building the Cross and Judas Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 Ã 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Christ Carrying the Cross, with Mary, John, and the Holy Women in the Distance, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 Ã 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Christ Awaiting Crucifixion, with the Crucifixion in the Distance, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 Ã 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Pietà and Lamentation over the Body of Christ, with the Deposition in the Distance, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 à 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Resurrection, with Christ Breaking the Doors of Hell, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 Ã 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Israhel van Meckenem, Supper at Emmaus, with Christ and the Two Disciples on the Way to Emmaus and Christ and the Magdalene in the Garden, from the GroÃe Passion, ca. 1480. Engraving, ca. 205 Ã 151 mm
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Verso of sheet with Christ Crowned with Thorns. Groenendaal Passion, fol. 26v
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Verso of sheet with Christ Carrying the Cross. Groenendaal Passion, fol. 32v
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
âVanden hoechsten ende den alder costelijcsten scat ons heren ihesu christi der doecht des lijdsamheitâ. Groenendaal Passion, fol. 6r
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Articles 26, 27, and 28 from Hondert Articulen, with marginal notations. Groenendaal Passion, fol. 21v
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
âSit michi consolatioâ and âNunc et in agone[.] Amenâ. Groenendaal Passion, fol. 40r
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.476
Appendix of Cited Text Passages
1.
[Fol. 21v] Tunc expuerunt in faciem eius. [Unde Matthaeus] non dicit [simpliciter] spuerunt, sed expuerunt quasi excreando spuerunt. Alij [autem] palmas in faciem ei[us] dederunt [â¦] ex qua percussione plus affligitur homo, quam de percussione in collo, ultra quam in capite. In facie enim sunt omnes sensus, et sunt ibi membra tenera facile l[a]esibilia.
2.
[Fol. 10r] Begeve ic op u met al wes ic vermach, dat gi tsavons end smorgens, enigen varcien wilt, die u daer alder bequaemste toe is, omtrent een vieredeel van eender uren, of min of meer, na dat god graci geeft ende verleent. In welker tijt gi u selt inkeren, ende setten in u herte, dat gecruyste beelt ons liefs heeren iesu christi. Ende gi selt dan met groeter oetmoedicheit ende verniettenheit ws selfs, u inwendigen ogen slaen op dat gecroende doerwonde hoeft. Ende dat mismaect ende verscoerde aenscijn, dat geneycht hanget op sijn gebenedide scouderen, gelijc gemaect eenen melaetsschen mensch. Als gi dit beelt aensiet in uwer herten staende, so denct dan hoe hi sijn bloedige wenede ogen op di slaet. Ende sprect u toe aldus clagende ende seggende. O mijn lief kijnt siet wat ic voir di lide. Ic hebdi voir mijn bruyt wtvercoren, mijn geneuchte is bi di te wesen. Ende en wilt mi nu doch niet verstoten. Want van di te sceyden is mi bitterde dan dese lastige passie ende smertte, ende die ellendige doot te sterven. Dese woirde ende deser gelike wilt vestigen in uwer memorien.
3.
[Fol. 10r] Och niet saliger niet beters en mach een mensch doen, dan dat hi hem oeffent inden liden ende passie ons liefs heeren[.] Want als sanctus albertus seet. Dat een simpel gedachte of oeffeninge der passien iesu Christi, is beter orbeliker ende salichliker die sielen, dan dagelijc gegeeselt te worden totten bloede toe, of dan een iaer lanc alle dage gevast te water ende te broede, of oec een iaer lanc dagelijc enen davids souter gelesen.
4.
[Fol. 6r] Want het sijn die liefte gaven gods, die god sijnen verborgen vrienden geeft om haer siel daermede te vercieren. Want noyt en was beeltmaker alsoe abel, die met grooter nerstiger sorchvuldicheit, die trecken van eenen beelde arbeit te trecken nae der volcomenheit exemplaers, daer hijt na maket, als god almechtich van ewicheit, wt sijnre ongemetenre wijsheit heeft voersien, ende voer geordineert vanden verborgen vrienden, hoe hise brengen soude, met sus danige middel des lidens tot eenre volcomelike gelikenisse ihesus christi.
5.
[Fol. 25r] [â¦] onsen here ende keerden om met sinen heiligen aenscijn voerwaert, ende met sinen doerwonden rugge aender columpnen, ende bonden sijn gequeste bloedige hande boven sijn hoeft soe hoege, ende stijf met scerpen corden. Ende si bonden hem met scerpen corden [â¦] om sijn heilige voeten so stijf aender columpnen dat hi hem niet gerueren en conste, ende dat sijn heiligen voeten niet dan metten teenen dat paviment en raecten.
6.
[Fol. 40v] Doen die werdige moeder gods ende al dit liefgeselschap was in also groter droefheyt doen verscoonde ons lieve here sijn heyligen lichaem van allen sijnen wonden tot enen miracule ende troest sijnre eerwerdige moeder, ende sijnre liever vriendekens die so seer bedruct waren, so dat in sijn heylige lichaem geen wonden en toenden dan die heylige vijf wonden, in sijn handen voeten ende in sijn heylige rechte side, die hielt ons hem open tot enen teeken der victorien. [â¦] O doen si sagen dat heylige lichaem dat also scoon ende geheel was, dat nergens quetsure en openbaerde dan sijn heylige vijf wonden doen waert die werde moeder gods, ende die ander seer getroest.
7.
[Fol. 16v] O mijn hemelsce vader dits nu mijn bedrueffenis, dat allet dat menscelike geslecht niet salich werden en sal. Ende doen beweende ic den doot des sonders, ende om die ghene die hem mijns lidens, ende bitteren doots onwerdich souden maken. Waert mogelijc dat ic so menigen lichaem hadde als daer menige sterre inden hemel is, die woude ic alte mael liever geven in die doot also icse geleden hebbe, dan dat ic eenen sondaer van mijnre wegen verloren bleef.
8.
[Fol. 21v] Overdenct hoe bange ende flau hem sijn teerder hert was vanden vuylen stincende spekelen der ioden die si hem in sijn scoen aenscijn spogen ende in sinen sueten mont. [â¦] Ende hem wert so bange recht of hi daer in verstut soude hebben. [â¦] Also dat sijn ogen waren gebroken ende verbacken vander geronsel sijnder tranen bloede ende vanden stinckende gespuwe der vuylder boeven. [â¦] Ende hoe gi snoeder, ende versmader sijt werden om mijnre salicheit so gi mi meer behaect.
9.
[Fol. 17r] Ende at gruen cruyt dien haddens wi bat geloeft, dat hi gods sone hadde geweest, dan desen wijn drencker. Ende met dien sloegen si mi voer mijnen mont, ende aen mijn oren, ende aen mijn wangen. [â¦] Ende met groten geruchte brachten si hem in die stad, si liepen om hem als gapende volve. Si en mochten sijnre prijnen ende confusien niet versaedt werden. Si hebben onsen lieven here xlwerf neder gestoeten, ende als ons here half neder was so hebbensi hem averrecht op getrocken meeten zeele ende hem xliij werf, met hekelen gestoeten ende setten haer vingeren .xvwerf in dat heiligen aenscijns ons lieven heren recht of sijt met stucken wt gehaelt souden hebben.
10.
[Fol. 23r] Ende dan gingen si verre van hem op dat hem alle dat volc wel sien soude. [â¦] Si hadden onsen here so deerlijc mismaect, datmen nauwe die gestelnis van sijnen aensicht en sach. [â¦] Ende die engelen sagen haren here in deser groter versmaetheyt, ende si en dorsten hem niet helpen mer met groter werdicheyt bewaren si sijn here tranen, ende sijn dierbaer bloet. Ende sijn werdige moeder seer bedruct volchde van verren na met dootliken wee ende si en const hem niet gehelpen.
11.
[Fol. 33r] Och besiet hem wel want gi en sieter niet aen dan een wonde ende bloet, sijnen h[eilige] baert is hem wtgetogen, sijnen h[eilige] mont is doerwont ende al vol bloots sijn h[eilige] nose is al ontwee gesmeten ende geborsten sijn h[eilige] wangen sijn al gebroken ende gescort, sijn oogen sijn doerquest ende vol van bloede, ende sijn h[eilige] haer is al nat ende root van bloede.
12.
[Fol. 29v] Vide anima mea quomodo per omnia vir iste coarctatur et spernitur. Sub crucis onere dorsum incurvare iubetur et sui ipsius portare ignominiam. O spectaculum, vides ne? Ecce principatus eius super humerum eius, haec est virga aequitatis virga regni sui.
[Fol. 32v] Hac voce ut reor pia mater filium sequebatur dicens. Vadis propitiator solus ad immolandum pro omnibus. Non tibi occurrit Petrus qui dicit: Pro si moriar. Relinquit te Thomas qui ait: Cum eo omnes moriamur, et nullus de his nisi tu solus duceris qui me castam conservasti filius meus et Deus meus. Verum haec verba ex magnae pietatis affectu producta ita ad hoc memorasse sufficiat ut oculus pietatis attendens. Dum tantae matris gemebundis affectibus compatitur, fructui pij amoris illius aliquando remunerari mereatur.
13.
[Fol. 34r] Adiecisti etiam[,] domine ihesu Christe[,] sitio. Quid sitis Domine ihesus: Vinum de vite aut aquam de flumine? Sitis tua, salus mea[;] cibus tuus[,] redemptio mea. [â¦] Cur igitur non cupis dissolvi et esse cum Christo? Cur te retardat vita mortalis, et non provocat te vita vitalis, beatitudo fontalis[,] societas et l[a]etitia spiritualis? Desidera igitur et considera quam magna multitudo dulcedinis tuae, quam gloriosa dicta sunt de civitate Dei, ubi est lumen vitae[,] fons totius dulcedinis[,] et beatitudo utriusque hominis.
14.
[Fol. 36r] Ende hi spaerde niet sijnen gequesten mont, noch sijn h[eilige] doerwonde verdoernde hoeft mer hi las die heiligen psalmen wt, van sijnder h[eilige] passien, op dat hi sijnen vader genoech soude doen voir die misdaet der menscen. Ende sijn h[eilige] stemme was bevende ende vijerende, ende als nu was si stille ende als nu was si geluyt ende seer wenende. Ende terstont waert een groet duysternisse over al die werelt, die sonne liet haer scijnen vander sester uren totter nonen. Doen riep ons here met luyder stemme. Heli heli lamasabathani. Dat is mijn god, mijn god, waer om hebstu mi gelaten. En wilt niet dencken dat christus murmureerde tegen sijnen vader, want sijnen wille was gelijc den vaderliken wille in alle dingen. [â¦] O devote siele lijt u als gi gelaten sijt, ende merct uwen troesteloesen brudegom aen, inden h[eilige] cruce.
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Moolenbroek J.J. van, âDe gevarieerde overlevering van een vijftiende-eeuws prozaverhaal over het lijden van Christus en de mirakelen na zijn doodâ, Ons Geestelijk Erf 68 (1994) 30â75.
Parshall P., âA Dutch Manuscript of ca. 1480 from an Atelier in Brugesâ, Scriptorium 23.2 (1969) 333â337.
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Ruh K., âDe Heimelike Passie ons Heeren Jesu Christiâ, in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters, Verfasserlexikon III, 2/3 (Berlin: 1981), cols. 642â644.
Ruubroec Jan van, Vanden blinkenden steen, Vanden vier becoringhen, Vanden kerstenen ghelove, Brieven, ed. G. de Baere â Th. Mertens â H. Noë, trans. A. Lefevere, in Jan van Ruusbroec, Opera omnia, vol. 10, ed. De Baere, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis (Turnhout: 1991).
Schreiber W.L., Handbuch der Holz- und Metallschnitte des XV. Jahrhunderts (3. Aufl.), 12 vols. (Stuttgart: 1969â1976).
Stracke D.A., âEen brokstuk uit de Passie des Heerenâ, Ons Geestelijk Erf 11 (1937) 121â190.
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Vita Jesu Christi e quatuor Evangeliis et scriptoribus orthodoxis concinnata per Ludolphum de Saxonia ex ordine Cathusianorum, ed. A.-C. Bolard â L.-M. Rigollot â J. Carnandet (Paris â Rome: 1865).
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Warnar G., Ruusbroec: Literature and Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century, trans. D. Webb, Brillâs Studies in Intellectual History 150 (Leiden: 2007).
Willeumier-Schalij J.M., âGrondpatronen voor Middelnederlandse Levens van Jezus in gebeden (Ludolphus van Saksen, Jordanus van Quedlinburg e.a.)â, Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 93 (1977) 76â85.
The moniker Groenendaal Passion was first applied by the auction house Sothebyâs, London, in 2003, when it offered for sale the manuscript now known as Metropolitan Museum Album 2003.476. According to Sothebyâs anonymously authored Catalogue of Old Master, Modern, and Contemporary Prints (London: 2003) 25, the manuscript contains traces of the coat-of-arms of the Fonteneys and Fonteyn families, from whom it passed to the family of the Prince de Croÿ sometime in the eighteenth century; also see Bambach C.C. â Barker E.E. â Plomp M.C. â Orenstein N. â Stein P. â Rippner S., âRecent Acquisitions: A Selection, 2003â 2004â, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 62.2 (2004) 14.
On Van Meckenemâs Grosse Passion, see Riether A. â Metzger C., âKatalogâ, in Riether, Israhel van Meckenem (um 1440/45â1503): Kupferstiche â Der Münchner Bestand, exh. cat., Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München (Munich: 2006) 211â225; on the early impressions pasted into the Groendaal Passion, see Sothebyâs Catalogue 22. On Van Meckenemâs strategic efforts to market prints exploitable for the production of manuscript prayerbooks, see Rudy K., Image, Knife, and Gluepot: Early Assemblage in Manuscript and Print (Cambridge, UK: 2019) 226â239, 293â294.
On rapiaria and their close association with the meditative practices of the devotio moderna, see Hascher-Burger U. â Jodersma H., âIntroduction: Music and the Devotio Modernaâ, Church History and Religious Culture 88.3 (2008) 313â328, esp. 320, 323â324.
The titulus reads âCentum Articuli dominice passionisâ. On Susoâs Büchlein, the second of his four German books compiled in the Exemplar, and its close relation to the Horologium sapientiae, the most widely circulated of his Latin mystical treatises, see Künzle P., O.P., Heinrich Seuses Horologium Sapientiae: Erste kritische Ausgabe unter Benützung der Vorarbeiten von Dominikus Planzer O.P., Spicilegium Friburgense 23 (Freiburg Schweiz: 1977) 28â54. On early Dutch versions of Susoâs Hundert Betrachtungen über das Leiden Jesu Christi, and their transmission and popularity, see Meyboom H.U., âSusoâs Honderd artikelen in Nederlandâ, Archief voor Nederlandsche kerkgeschiedenis 1 (1885) 173â207; Parshall P., âA Dutch Manuscript of ca. 1480 from an Atelier in Brugesâ, Scriptorium 23.2 (1969) 333â337; and Deschamps J., âDe Middelnederlandse vertalingen en bewerkingen van de Hundert Betrachtungen und Begehrungen van Henricus Susoâ, Ons Geestelijk Erf 63 (1989) 309â369. On dissemination of the Honderd articulen, with specific reference to the textâs primary audience, Franciscan Tertiaries, both Regulars and Seculars, see Aelst J. van, Vruchten van de Passie. De laatmiddeleeuwse passieliteratuur verkend aan de hand van Susoâs Honderd artikelen (Hilversum: 2011) 46â92, esp. 46â67; on Susoâs portrayal of sanguinary cruelty in the Passion, ibid., 68â77. On Susoâs two conceptions of bild (image), respectively apophatic and cataphatic, as a transient stage in the process of mystical elevation and as a necessary instrument of mystical knowledge and instruction, see Falque I., ââDaz man bild mit bilde us tribeâ: Imagery and Knowledge of God in Henry Susoâs Exemplarâ, Speculum 92.2 (2017) 447â492, esp. 452â464.
On the sobriquet Secret Passion, used to refer to extra-scriptural Passion narratives such as the Heimelike Passie, the Christi leiden in einer Vision geschaut, and Heinrich of St. Gallenâs Die Extendit-manum-Passion, see Marrow J.H., Passion Iconography in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, Ars Neerlandica 1 (Kortrijk: 1979) 24, 259 n. 100; and Ampe A., âNaar een geschiedenis van de passie-beleving vanuit Marrowâs Passie-boekâ, Ons Geestelijk Erf 58 (1984) 130â175, esp. 132â149. Marrow codified use of the term to cover a wider range of Passion narratives greatly amplified by apocryphal anecdotes not licensed by the Gospels; see Marrow, Passion Iconography 95â170. On the Heimelike Passie, also see Stracke D.A., âEen brokstuk uit de Passie des Heerenâ, Ons Geestelijk Erf 11 (1937) 121â190; and Ampe A., âLosse aantekeningen bij de âHeimelike Passieââ, Ons Geestelijk Erf 35 (1961) 186â214.
On these and other amplified Lives of Christ, see Goudriaan K., âMiddle Dutch Meditative Lives of Jesus on the Early Printing Press: An Exploration of the Fieldâ, in idem, Piety in Practice and Print: Essays on the Late Medieval Religious Landscape, ed. A. DlabaÄová â A. Tervoort (Hilversum: 2016) 219â239; on the publics addressed by Lives of this type, see DlabaÄová A., âDrukken en publieksgroepen: productie en receptie van gedrukte Middelnederlandse meditatieve Levens van Jezus (ca. 1479â1540)â, Ons Geestelijk Erf 79 (2008) 321â368. On Dat liden ende die passie Ons Heren, see De Bruin C.C., âMiddeleeuwse Levens van Jesus als leidraad voor meditatie en contemplatieâ, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 58 (1983) 129â173, esp. 168; Moolenbroek J.J. van, ââDat liden ende die passie ons heren Jhesu Christiâ: een bestseller uit het fonds van Gheraert Leeu in vijftiende-eeuwse contextâ, in Goudriaan K. et al. (eds.), Een drukker zoekt publiek: Gheraert Leeu te Gouda 1477â1484 (Delft: 1993) 81â110; and idem, âDe gevarieerde overlevering van een vijftiende-eeuws prozaverhaal over het lijden van Christus en de mirakelen na zijn doodâ, Ons Geestelijk Erf 68 (1994) 30â75. On Tboeck vanden leven Jhesu Christi, see Willeumier-Schalij J.M., âGrondpatronen voor Middelnederlandse Levens van Jezus in gebeden (Ludolphus van Saksen, Jordanus van Quedlinburg e.a.)â, Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 93 (1977) 76â85; Deschamps J., âDe âVita Christiâ van Ludolf van Saksen in het Middelnederlandsâ, in Historia et spiritualitas cartusiensis. Colloquii quarti internationalis acta, Gandavi Antverpiae Brugis 16â19 Sept. 1982 (Destelbergen: 1983) 157â176; De Bruin, âMiddeleeuwse Levens van Jesusâ 146â152; Kok I., âA Rediscovered Devote ghetiden with Interesting Woodcuts (CA 1117)â, Quaerendo 13 (1983) 167â190, esp. 171â172; DlabaÄová, âDrukken en publieksgroepenâ 330â346, 357â361; and eadem, âChatten met Scriptura: het leven van Jezus in een Antwerpse bestsellerâ, Boekenwereld 33 (2017) 25â29. On the Devote getijden van het leven Ons Heren, see Kok, âA Rediscovered Devote ghetidenâ; and DlabaÄová A., âIllustrated Incunabula as Material Objects: The Case of the Devout Hours on the Life and Passion of Jesus Christâ, in Hofman R. â Caspers C. â Nissen P. â Dijk M. van â Oosterman J. (eds.), Inwardness, Individualization, and Religious Agency in the Late Medieval Low Countries: Studies in the Devotio Moderna and its Contexts, Medieval Church Studies 43 (Turnhout: 2020) 181â221.
Each titulus offers a brief Latin condensation of the material covered in the column of Dutch text below.
Sothebyâs Catalogue 24: â46 leaves (last 2 blank, i.e., 32 leaves plus 14 prints), plus contemporary flyleaf, 261 Ã 187 mm, complete, collation: original flyleaf + i[6], ii[2 + 4] (2 prints added), iii[8 + 4] (4 prints added), iv[8 + 5] (5 prints added), v[6 + 3] (of 8 + 3, 2 further blanks cancelled at end, 3 prints added)â. As in the case of another folio-size manuscript prayerbook organized around Van Meckenemâs Grosse Passion â British Library, Sloane Ms. 3981 â the image sequence was the likely starting point of the Groenendaal Passion. The two manuscripts differ, however, in that BL Sloane Ms. 3981 primarily consists of the Hours of the Virgin, supplemented by excerpts from the Hours of the Cross, the Hours of the Holy Spirit, the Penitential Psalms, and the Vigil of the Dead, whereas Metropolitan Museum Album 2003.476 collocates Van Meckenemâs prints to Susoâs Hondert articulen. On BL Sloane Ms. 3981, see the trenchant discussion in Rudy, Image, Knife, and Gluepot 294â299.
On Van Leeuwen, a fervent follower of Jan van Ruusbroec, who laboured in the monastic kitchen and may have learned how to read and write at Groenendaal, see Warnar G., Ruusbroec: Literature and Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century, trans. D. Webb, Brillâs Studies in Intellectual History 150 (Leiden: 2007) 211â219.
On these circumstances of production, see ibid. 23â25.
Ruusbroec and his confrère Vranke vanden Coundenberg received the habit of the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine on 10 March 1350, the former as prior, the latter as provost; see ibid. 185.
Ibid. 210.
See Lawless G., OSA, Augustine of Hippo and his Monastic Rule (Oxford: 1987) 75.
Ibid. 97.
See note 9 supra.
See Warnar, Ruusbroec 238.
Ibid. 229.
See Lawless, Augustine of Hippo and his Monastic Rule 77.
Ibid. 97.
See Warnar, Ruusbroec 196: âMen such as Walter van Heyst, Hendrik Bondewijn, Johannes Fracijs, Willem Jordaens, and Johannes Stoever, who are recorded in the Groenendaal obituarium as having taken holy orders, were learned enough to understand the methods and techniques of exegetical commentaryâ.
On Ruusbroecâs embrace of material specificity as a source of spiritual allegoresis, see ibid. 206.
On Ruusbroecâs analogy of the Passion to myrrh, aromatic yet âextremely bitter in flavourâ, see ibid. 208.
See Bambach et al, âRecent Acquisitionsâ 14.
See Appendix 1. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi e quatuor Evangeliis et scriptoribus orthodoxis concinnata per Ludolphum de Saxonia ex ordine Cathusianorum, ed. A.-C. Bolard â L.-M. Rigollot â J. Carnandet (Paris â Rome: 1865) 621.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 29v: Vide anima mea quomodo vir iste per omnia coarctatur et spernitur. O spectaculum vides ne? Ecce principatus eius super humerum eius. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 647.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 28r, inscription on recto of Ecce Homo: Quia enim sacramentum altaris memoriale est Dominicae passionis et Christus est passus secundum humanitatem secundum divinitatem vero est impassibilis[.] Ideo sacerdos ostendens ibi christum congruentius dicit ecce homo quam ecce deus licet ipse et homo sit et deus[;] sed homo patens fuit in illa ostensione et Deus latens. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 643.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 8v: O here ihesu christe dijn passie cruys nagelen ende doot-speer gheesselen tranen wonden root, sweet water bloet ende u pijne groot, moet mijnder zeeilen troost sijn ter lester noot.
See Schreiber W.L., Handbuch der Holz- und Metallschnitte des XV. Jahrhunderts (3. Aufl.), 12 vols. (Stuttgart: 1969â1976) 2: nr. 908A; and Sothebyâs Catalogue 22.
See Schreiber, Handbuch 4: nr. 2674; and Sothebyâs Catalogue 22.
Although I focus on canons as the bookâs primary readers, novice brothers, as well as lay brothers, may also have had access to it. The latter group would have relied mainly if not exclusively on the texts in Dutch.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 10r: see Appendix 2.
Seen in conjunction with the Ecce Homo and Saint Jerome, the term inkeren may possibly embed a punning reference to inkt (ink), that is, to the two printed images that help the epistleâs reader to visualise Christ in the Passion.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 10r: Ende dan des tsavons ende smorgens dencken van des soens gods lijden, ende u toe sprekende wesen. Ende het is alsoe oec inder waerheit, al en horen wi niet sijn stemme met onsen wtwendigen oren.
Ibid.: see Appendix 3.
The term âsecret friendâ ultimately derives from Jan van Ruusbroecâs Vanden blinkenden steen, in which there are three categories of mystical disciples â âfaithful servantsâ (first rung of the mystical ladder), followed by âsecret friendsâ (second, higher rung), and then finally âhidden sonsâ (highest rung). See Ruubroec Jan van, Vanden blinkenden steen, Vanden vier becoringhen, Vanden kerstenen ghelove, Brieven, ed. G. de Baere â Th. Mertens â H. Noë, trans. A. Lefevere, in Jan van Ruusbroec, Opera omnia, vol. 10, ed. De Baere, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis (Turnhout: 1991) 126â136. The phrase âbeeltmaker alsoe abelâ is a citation from chapter 11 of Hendrik Herpâs Spieghel der volcomenheit; see Hendrik Herp O.F.M. Spieghel der volcomenheit. Deel I: Inleiding. Deel II: Tekst, Tekstuitgaven van Ons Geestelijk Erf 1â2 (Antwerp: 1931), 2:79, line 39. On this passage and its derivation from a Middle Dutch sermon by Johannes Tauler, see DlabaÄová A., âTauler, Herp, and the Changing Layers of Mobility and Reception in the Low Countries (c. 1460â1560)â, Ons Geestelijk Erf 84.1 (2013) 120â152, esp. 125â126.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 6r: see Appendix 4. Cf. Speculum perfectionis, ed. Antonius Hemertius (Antwerp: Symon Coquus, 1547) fol. 69r: Cap. XIIII. In fact, the passage closely follows Herpâs characterisation of God as a beeldemaker of the human soul, in chapter 11 of the Spieghel der volcomenheit; see Spieghel, ed. Verschueren, 2: 79, lines 39â46: âWant noeyt en was beeldemaker also abel, die mit so groter neernstighe sorchvoldicheit die trecken van een beelde arbeit te trecken na der volcomenheit des exemplaers, daer hijt na maket, als God almechtich van ewicheit wt sijnre onghemetenre wijsheit hevet voersien ende voer gheordiniert vanden verborghen vrienden, hoe Hise brenghen solde mit sodanighen middel des lidens tot een volcomen ghelikenisse Cristi Ihesuâ. The passage from the Groenendaal Passion also paraphrases chapter 49 of the Spieghel; see ibid. 2:315â317, lines 21â30. On Herpâs conception of God as a beeldemaker, as it relates to the teachings of Tauler, see DlabaÄová, âTauler, Herp, and the Changing Layersâ 125â126. Whereas Herp argues that metaphorical images of this type must finally be jettisoned by the exercitant who progresses toward imageless union with God, the Groenendaal Passion fully embraces images as meditative instruments. On the three-part process whereby Herp, having furnished various meditative images, gradually strips them away from the faculties of memory and will, see ibid. 123â128.
See Blessed Henry Susoâs Little Book of Eternal Wisdom, trans. R. Raby (London: 1866) 187. Cf. Heinrich Seuse, Deutsche Schriften: Im Auftrag der Württembergischen Kommission für Landesgeschichte, ed. K. Bihlmeyer (Stuttgart: 1907; reprint ed., Frankfurt am Main: 1961) 314.
Susoâs Little Book of Eternal Wisdom 201â202. Cf. Seuse, Deutsche Schriften 323â324.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 25r: see Appendix 5. Touches of red, perhaps added in response to the descriptive text, call attention to Christâs bloodied feet.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 24v: Ego homo perditus totius contritionis totius confusionis tuae causa extiti.
Ibid., fol. 25r: Ons lieve here stont in sinen eigenen bloede overgoten tot over sijn enkel met menich dusent wonden verladen.
Ibid., fol. 33r: Doen en consten si dat goedertieren gesicht niet gesien [â¦]. Och dit suete deerlijc aenschijn hout dit altijt voer van [wt]wendige oogen, ende laet om sinen wille alle cierheit des hoefts. Although wendige could be read, alternatively, as [in]wendige, i.e., âinternal eyesâ, the adjacency of the pictorial image causes the term to drift toward wt (outer) rather than in (inner).
Ibid., fol. 33r: [â¦] daer hadden si hem so wreedelijc op onsen here mer hi sach so onnoselijc ende goedertierlijc op hen recht of hi segggen woude. O lieve kijnderen en hebdi geen ontfermherticht op mi, ontfermt toch u selven.
Throughout this essay, biblical citations are closely based on the Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate published by the English College at Douay in 1582 (New Testament) and 1609 (Old Testament): see The Holy Bible, Translated from the Latin Vulgate and diligently compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and other editions in divers languages, ed. R. Challoner (New York: 1941; reprint ed., Fitzwilliam, NH: 2013).
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 18r, inscription on verso of Carrying of the Cross: Verum haec verba ex magnae pietatis affectu producta ita ad hoc memorasse sufficiat ut [ea] oculus pietatis attendens. Dum tantae matris gemebundis affectibus compatitur, fructui pij amoris illius aliquando remunerari mereatur. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 648.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 18r, inscription on verso of Betrayal and Capture of Christ: Quam promptus bone ihesu spiritus tuus ad passionem fuerit evidenter ostendisti. [â¦] et signo quod acceperant a duce flagitij teipsum manifestasti. Nam accedentem ad osculum sanctissimi oris tui cruentiam bestiam aversatus non est. Se os in quo dolus inventus non est ori quod habundavit malitia dulciter applicuisti. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 612.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 18r, inscription on verso of Betrayal and Capture of Christ: Sed et hoc benignitatis tuae erat domine ut omnia illi exhiberes quae pravi cordis sui pertinatiam emollire potuissent. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 612.
Groenendaal Passion, inscription on verso of Betrayal and Capture of Christ: Sine rogo patiatur qui pro te patitur? Quid optas gladium? Quid irasceris? Quid indignaris? Si instar petri cuiuslibet auriculam abscideris. Si ferro brachium tuleris. Si pedem truncaveris. Ipse restituet omnia qui etiam si quem occideris suscitabit. This extended apostrophe distills and paraphrases the argument of Vita Jesu Christi 613â614.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 17v: [â¦] als die wreede wolven met duvelscer verwoetheit onsen lieven here so wreedelijc grepen, ende trocken met so groeter felheit. Sommege grepen hem metten halse. Die sommege metten baerde. Die sommege metten hare.
Ibid., fol. 20v, inscription on verso of Christ before Annas, with the Denial of Peter and the Mocking of Christ: Intuere quam pijs oculis quam misericorditer quam efficaciter tertio negantem respixit petrum quando ille conversus et in se reversus flevit amare. Utinam bone ihesu tuus me dulcis respiciat oculus qui totiens ad vocem ancill[a]e procacis. Carnis scilicet me[a]e pravis operibus affectibusque negavi. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 626.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 40v; see Appendix 6.
Ibid., fol. 42r: [â¦] so hielt altijt maria sijn heylige hoeft tusscen haer meechdelike handen ende sach een paerlijc op sijn suete aenscijn, ende custet so menichwerven, ende bestortet met haren heylige tranen.
Ibid., fol. 45r: [â¦] ende bract so effen, of met enen messe gesneden hadde geweest.
Ibid., fol. 40r: [â¦] ende met sijnen heylige scouderen op onser lieve vrouwen rechten arm, ende sijn doerwonden heylige leden als sijn heylige beene ende doerwonde voeten lagen op dat wit cleet.
Ibid., fols. 14râ16v.
Ibid., fol. 17r.
Ibid.: Denct o mijn siele hoe dijnen brudegom te moede was, doen hi inder nacht van verre sach dat licht, ende hoerde dat volc comen met groeten geruchte al gewapent.
Ibid., fol. 30r, inscription on verso of Washing of the Disciplesâ Feet: Specta et expecta et ultimo omnium tuos ei tuos pr[a]ebe pedes abluendos quoniam quem non laverit non habebit partem cum eo.
Ibid.: Et licet assumpto petro et duobus filijs zebedei ad secreta secesserit, vel a longe. Intuere quomodo in se nostram transtulerit necessitate. Vide quomodo ille cuius sunt omnia pavere c[o]epit et sedere tristis est inquiens anima mea usque ad mortem unde hoc deus meus. Ita compateris mihi exhibens hominem ut quodammodo videaris nescire quod deus es.
Ibid., fol. 29r: O mijn enich ellendich gelaten troesteloes sone, u hemelste vader laet u, u engelen ende dorven u niet helpen, u apostelen sijn nu van u gevloen, ic u arm moeder en can u niet gehelpen, ende gi laet u selven in die alder meeste noet.
Ibid., fol. 31v: Mer si en mocht bi hem niet comen, overmids die grote menichte des gewapende volcs, beide te voete ende te perde. Mer si bleef benede aenden voet des berchs met haren bedructen vriendekens iohannes, magdalena ende met haren twee susteren met groten moederliken drucke.
Ibid., fol. 36r: Si saget nederwaert ende scouwende daer die gene met onsprekeliken rouwe, die uwen scat u beroeft hadden ende also iammerlijc pijnden.
Ibid., fol. 16v; see Appendix 7.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 38r: Ons here hadde ons mogen verlossen met enen dropel bloets, mer sijn minne was soe groot dat hi niet eenen dropel bloets en woude behouden in allen sijnen lichaem hi en wout al wtstorten.
On affabulationes, which are based on plausible conjecture licensed by Scripture, see Groote G., Il trattato âDe quattuor generibus meditabiliumâ, ed. I. Tolomio (Padua: 1975), l. 71â76, 274â282, 344â358, as discussed in Ampe, âNaar een geschieden van de Passie- belevingâ 137â140. On the Dutch cognate visieringhe and the closely related term versieringe, see Maldoets A. â Kiliaan C. â Steenhart Q. â Hasselt A. van, Thesaurus Theutonicae linguae. Schat der Neder-duytscher spraken (Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, 1573) n.p.; Kiliaan Cornelis, Etymologicum teutonicae linguae sive dictionarium Teutonico-latinum (Antwerp: Jan Moretus, 1599) 625; and Verdam J. â Ebbinge Wubben C.H., Middelnederlandsch handwoordenboek (âs-Gravenhage: 1911; reprint ed., 1981) 689, 717.
On visieren, see Maldoets et al., Thesaurus Theutonicae linguae, n.p.; and Kiliaan, Etymologicum teutonicae linguae 625.
Ibid.
On this usage in the Exposicie, see note 81 infra. On the Exposicie, see Marrow, Passion Iconography 184â186.
On the Vita Christi, see Baier W., Untersuchungen zu den Passionsbetrachtungen in der âVita Christâ des Ludolfs von Sachsen: Ein Quellenkritischer Beitrag zu Leben und Werk Ludolfs und zur Geschichte des Passionstheologie, Anaclecta Catusiana 44, 3 vols. (Salzburg: 1977).
See Ruh K., Der Passionstraktat des Heinrich von St. Gallen (Thayngen: 1940); idem, âStudien über Heinrich von St. Gallen und den âExtendit-manumâ-Passions-traktatâ, Zeitschrift für schweizerische Kirchengeschichte 47 (1953) 210â230, 241â278; Hilg H. â Ruh K., âHeinrich von St. Gallenâ, in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters, Verfasserlexikon, III, 2/3 (Berlin: 1981) cols. 738â744; and Ampe, âNaar een geschiedenis van de Passie-belevingâ 136â141.
See Ruh K., âDe Heimelike Passie ons Heeren Jesu Christiâ, in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters, Verfasserlexikon III, 2/3, cols. 642â644; Ampe, âLosse aantekeningenâ; and idem, âNaar een geschiedenis van de Passie-belevingâ 136â143.
See note 5 supra.
On the Meditationes vitae Christi, see McNamer S., âThe Origins of the Meditationes vitae Christiâ, Speculum 84.4 (2009) 905â955. On the Getijden van het leven Ons Heren, see note 6 supra.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 30r, inscription on verso of Washing of the Disciplesâ Feet: Demum venisti Domine ad oves quae perierunt Domus Israel Divini verbi lampadem palam extollens ad illuminationem orbis terr[a]e, et regnum Dei cunctis annuntians obtemperantibus verbo tuo. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 574â575.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 30r, inscription on verso of Washing of the Disciplesâ Feet: [â¦] et factus es coram eis sicut homo non audiens et non habens in ore suo redargationes. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 575.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 26v, inscription on verso of Christ Crowned with Thorns: Regali purpura induitur sed plus in ea despicitur quam honoraetur. Sceptrum in manu gestat sed eoipso reverendum caput eius feritur. Adorant coram ipso positis genibus in terra et regem conclamant et continuo ad conspuendum amabiles eius genas subsiliunt. Maxillas palmis concutiunt et honorabile collum exhonorant. Attende anima mea quis est iste qui ingreditur habens imaginem quasi regis et nihilominus servi despectissimi confusione repletus est coronatus incedit. Sed ipsa eius corona cruciatus est illi et mille puncturis speciosum [caput] eius verticem divulnerat. Adapted from Vita Jesu Christi 642â643, this paraphrase elaborates upon Isaiah 52:13â14 and 53:3ff: âBehold my servant shall understand: he shall be exalted and extolled, and shall be exceeding high. As many have been astonished at thee, so shall his visage be inglorious among men and his form among the sons of men, etc.â
Groote, De quattuor generibus meditabilium, ed. Tolomio, l. 71â76: In quarto autem ordine multa secundum et ad nostrae parvitatis adminiculum imaginata et ficta modo inferius annotando assumuntur, non quod talia esse creduntur, sed quia sic imaginari iuvat nostrum imbecillem phantasiam, quia hoc et mentem parvulam lacte Christi fortius et aptius nutrit et ad Christi amorem reducit tenacius. On this passage, see Ampe, âNaar een geschiedenis van de Passie-belevingâ 138â139.
See note 5 supra.
See, for example, with respect to the number of Christâs persecutors at Gethsemane, Groenendaal Passion, fol. 17v: Sinte Birgitta vraechde onsen here ofter oec vele waren wtgeseynt om hem te vangen. Ons here antwoerde. Dochter gi selt weten datter gewapender mannen waren, cccc [= 400], ende cc [= 200] voetgangers. xxx [= 30], scutters, lx [= 60] mannen die vakelen droegen, ende l [= 50] die lanternen droegen.
Ibid., fol. 21v: see Appendix 8.
See Exposicie der Passien (Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 2694), fols. 85vâ86r, as cited in Ampe, âNaar de geschiedenis van de Passie-belevingâ 164â165: Daer om es te duchten, dat ene voirsienige loegene es van desen tween borden, die men seit, dat aen dit cleet hingen. Want de evangelisten en scrivent niet, noch geen leerare en seget, noch niemant, dair men enich fundament der waerheit op stichten mach. Maer men leset alleen in een boexkin dat men heet Die verholen passie, die geopenbairt was, alsmen seit, enen geesteliken person. Mair daer staen vele dingen in, de gene ghelikenisse en hebben metter waerheit. Ic duchte dat si grotelec misdoen, die sulke dingen visieren om compunctie ende devocie inder menschen herten te maken, want de passie Christi is groot genoech in hairselven, ende en heeft van genen dingen not, dat men se met loechenen versterken.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 18r, inscription on verso of Betrayal and Capture of Christ: Quam promptus bone ihesu spiritus tuus ad passionem fuerit evidenter ostendisti, quando venientibus una cum proditore tuo viris sanguinum et quaerentibus animam tuam cum lanternis et facibus et armis per contem ultro occuristi. Et signo quod acceperant a duce flagitij teipsum manifestasti. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 611.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 18r, inscription on verso of Betrayal and Capture of Christ: [â¦] ut omnia illi exhiberes quae pravi cordis sui pertina[n]tiam emollire potuissent. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 612.
See Groenendaal Passion, fol. 18r, inscription on verso of Betrayal and Capture of Christ.
See Appendix 9.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 19v, inscription on verso of Christ before Annas. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 626.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 19v, inscription on verso of Christ before Annas.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 19v: [â¦] ende gingen onsen lieven here leyden met duvelscer felheit tot cayphas wert. Och hoe si doen op onsen lieven here gebeerden opter straten dat en waer niet wt te spreken.
Ibid., fol. 22v.
Ibid.
Ibid., fols. 22vâ23r: see Appendix 10.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 24v, inscription on verso of Flagellation: Ego homo perditus totius contritionis totius confusionis tuae causa extiti.
Ibid., fols. 25râv: Och hoe deerlijc was ons here doen aen te siene. Want hi niet geheels en hadde vander cruynen sijns hoefs totten planten sijnre voeten ten was al doe[r]wont.
Ibid., fol. 25v: O devote siele merct nu uwen brudegom, ende siet hoe stil ende lijdsamlijc dat hi al dit swaer liden lijt van buten, ende noch is sijn liden veel swaerder van binnen.
Ibid.: [â¦] hebt altoes u inwendige ogen op uwen brudegom ihesum.
Ibid., fol. 26v.
Ibid., fol. 27r: Denct hoe dat die dorne crone op sijn hoeft gedruct wort, so dattet dbloet tot lxxij. steden wtvloyede met strangen als dumen.
Ibid.: Ende al is dit seer te verwonderen die pijne ende die grote smaet ons heren, nochtans die grote minne gaet boven al. Hi hadde ons allen mogen verlossen met enen druppel sijns gebenedijts bloets, mer die minne was so groet, dat hi hem geen sins gesparen en conste, noch en woude op dat his ons tot sijnre minne trecken soude.
Ibid.
Ibid., fol. 31v.
Ibid., fol. 33r.
Ibid.: Och dit suete deerlijc aenschijn hout dit altijt voer van [wt]wendige oogen, ende laet om sinen wille alle cierheit des hoefts. See note 42 supra on the term wendige, its inflections ([wt]wendige or [in]wendige), and its likely use here to signify external vision.
Ibid.: see Appendix 11.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 33v: ende wreeden gebeere hieffen si dat cruys in die locht, ende lietent swaerlijc neder vallen tegen den steen achtigen berch, met sijnen h[eilige] bloedigen doerwonden leden ondert swaer cruce, ende met sijnen bloedigen aenscijn inder onreynder erden.
Ibid., fol. 32v.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.: see Appendix 12. Cf. Vita Jesu Christi 647.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 33v: Ende al dat quade volc liep om dat cruce, daer ons here so deerlijc aen hinc roepende al spottende ende blasphemerende. Doen mochte ons here wel seggen. Al die mi sagen bespotten mi, si waechden haer hoefde ende riepen.
Ibid.: Och doen si haren lieve sone ontefermelijc aensach so iammerlijc begaet doerwont, ende al bebloet gelaten van sijnen hemelscen vader, ende bespot vanden menscen doen ginc een doot wee doer haer moederlijc herte.
Ibid., fol. 34r: Mediator Dei et hominum inter c[a]elum et terram medius pendens, imo superis unit c[o]elestibus terrena coniungit.
Ibid.: Quid hoc viro mansuetius quid benignius anima mea vidisti. Et iterum: In omnibus his considera illud dulcissimum pectus quam tanquillitatem servavit pietatis. Non suam attendit iniuriam non p[o]enam reputat non sentit contumelias sed ipsis potius a quibus patitur ille compatitur.
Ibid.: Ecce ego Domine tuae majestatis adorator non tui corporis interfector[,] tuae mortis venerator non tuae passionis derisor[,] tuae misericordiae contemplator[,] non infirmitatis contemptor[.] Interpellat pro me tua humanitas dulcis[;] commendet me patri [tuo] tua ineffabilis pietas.
Ibid.
Ibid.: see Appendix 13.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 34r.
Ibid., fol. 36r.
Ibid.: Aldus hangende was ihesus gepijnt in allen sijn vijf sinnen.
Ibid.: Als die suete goedertieren here sijnder liever moeder toegesproken hadde so hief hi op een lanc gebet. Deus Deus meus respice.
Ibid.: see Appendix 14.
Groenendaal Passion, fol. 36râv.
Ibid., fol. 36v: Want in alre sijnre pijnen ende noot, soe in sprac hem niemant toe een troestelijc woort, mer wt spotte, ende scipmpte scudden si haer hoeft op hem, ende arselden met haren tanden op hem.
Ibid., fol. 37v.