14
The Material Culture of Devotion and Vestiture
Eudes of Nevers at Prayer
Maureen C. Miller
Can the inventory compiled after the count’s death tell us anything about his beliefs? Historians seeking to explain the origins of the crusades have adduced many factors behind this European phenomenon, with religious beliefs and motives chief among them.1 This inventory does not, of course, get us into Eudes’s head or heart. It does, however, offer evidence of the place of Christian practice within the household of an elite crusader and some hints as to the count’s devotions.
The inventory literally identifies a place for Christian rites: the chapel (chapelle). Indeed, the reference to “the chapel” reveals that upon arrival in Acre Count Eudes already had the means to outfit a space consecrated to Christian worship, but that he found that “old chapel” wanting and created the “new chapel.”2 We can only conjecture about the old chapel’s inadequacies: perhaps it was too meager to accommodate the members of his entourage or too shabby for his tastes or status. Eudes spent at least 150 bezants on the decoration of his new chapel while the outfittings of the old chapel had been stored in “boiled-leather chests.” Some elements of the new chapel’s decor are named. There were two “new” embroidered wall hangings, a chest, and “the tent from Château-Pèlerin.” The latter suggests that the highly decorated portable liturgical spaces used by knightly elites on campaign could be redeployed within interior spaces as decor.3 The chest was most likely used to store liturgical books and furnishings.
The chapel’s liturgical furnishings, the material objects and adornments used in the celebration of Christian rites, were a mix of old and new items. The list of “old” vestments may catalog those brought from Europe and used by Eudes’s household chaplain Guillaume on the journey to the Holy Land. The old chasuble, alb, amice, stole, and maniple constituted the basic priestly attire for the saying of Mass, the central Eucharistic rite of medieval Christianity. The rochet and two surplices were loose, usually linen, tunics worn over a cleric’s long dark robe when saying the office or performing other non-Eucharistic rites.4 These garments are followed in the inventory by various altar linens: cloths used to drape the altar, the square linen cloth called a “corporal” upon which the Eucharistic vessels were placed, and two “linen hand cloths” used to dry the celebrant’s hands after they were washed preceding the consecration.
More precious were the vessels used on or near the altar. While it is not clear what the ivory box listed among the altar linens contained, the two “decorated pyxes” were containers, usually of silver or gold, used to store consecrated Hosts, and the monstrance, also usually an elaborately wrought holder of precious metal, was used to display the Eucharist.5 The latter suggests that Count Eudes was attuned to the new devotions of his time: across the thirteenth century Eucharistic piety intensified, leading in 1264 to the establishment of the new universal feast devoted to the body of Christ, Corpus Christi.6 Prayerfully gazing upon the consecrated Host displayed in a monstrance, whether fixed on the altar or carried in a procession, became over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries so popular and intense a devotion that ecclesiastical leaders began restricting its practice. But in 1266 when Eudes departed life in Acre, keeping a monstrance for display of the Host on the altar in his new chapel participated in a new papally sanctioned devotion just gaining ground.
The most highly decorated and precious objects in the count’s chapel were listed first among the inventoried “things for the chapel.” Leading off this list was the chalice, the vessel used for the wine that when consecrated became, in Christian belief, the blood of Jesus Christ. These liturgical beakers were crafted from precious metal and often decorated with filigree, gems, and enamel work: what is later listed on Roll D as a “goblet set with stones and enamels” in the new chapel may be this chalice. This sacred cup is followed in the inventory by two reliquaries, one cross shaped and holding a piece of the “True Cross” (the wooden cross upon which Jesus was crucified), and the “reliquary that the patriarch gave the count.”7 The latter could well have been what is called a “portable altar.” Ecclesiastical custom and legislation required that the altar used for Mass be consecrated, and the rite of consecration included the secreting of saintly relics within it.8 The needs of highly mobile elites, like Eudes of Nevers, led to the development of consecrated flat coffers containing relics that could be placed upon a regular table to serve as the sacred altar upon which the Eucharist was confected. Surviving medieval examples feature marble or granite slabs on top and ornately decorated—usually with carved ivory or enameled work—side panels.
These precious reliquaries were followed immediately in the inventory by two liturgical books: a missal and a breviary. The missal, an innovation of the eleventh century, brought together in one volume all the prayers, readings, and chants needed for the Mass.9 The breviary provided the psalms, readings, and hymns to perform what is called the divine office or the liturgy of the hours, a series of seven prayer services at fixed times across the night and day. While this devotion originated in monastic communities, it came to be enjoined on all priests as a sacred duty and practiced by devout lay persons as well. Does this mean that Count Eudes practiced this devotion? Perhaps, but not necessarily. The book was needed to allow his chaplain, Guillaume, to fulfill his duty to pray the divine office daily, and the inventory roll records it being given to him after the count’s death. It is certainly possible, however, that Eudes joined his chaplain in prayer for some of the offices. The late afternoon office of Vespers, for example, attracted increasing lay participation from the thirteenth century.10
The count’s piety is articulated most clearly, however, in the new apparel he had purchased or made for his new chapel. Here we encounter another meaning of the word “chapel [chapel].” Listed among the items Eudes had at the time of his death was “1 gold chapel made with stones and pearls.” From the late twelfth century, it became fashionable to commission matching sets of vestments made of costly fabrics and embellishments; this is the chapel referenced in the inventory and valued at 80 lb. t. The more detailed inventory of the new chapel’s contents on Roll B spells out the vestments comprising this chapel set: “a new chasuble of gold cloth, and tunic, and dalmatic, and 2 new liturgical cloaks all made of cloth of gold, and the altar cloths, front and back, 3 albs, 3 amices, 3 rochets, 2 surplices all new, 2 stoles and 3 new maniples.” Several features of this suite of matching vestments merit comment.
First, the number and type of vestments envision Mass conducted by three clerics and other liturgies or processions by the same number. The desire for harmonious visual splendor in celebrating the Mass in the count’s new chapel is evident not only in the golden vestments but also in the matching altar cloths. The set splendidly outfitted a priest (in amice, alb, stole, chasuble, maniple) assisted by a deacon (in amice, alb, stole, dalmatic, maniple) and a subdeacon (in amice, alb, tunic, maniple), all serving at a gold-draped altar. The two liturgical cloaks, or copes, could have been worn by cantors, been used in processions, or, perhaps, would have allowed the count’s chaplain to concelebrate the Mass with another visiting priest.11
Second, the materials used represent a significant financial expenditure. Note that the estimated value of 80 lb. t. is twice the pay, listed at the opening of the inventory, of one of the count’s knights. Cloth of gold was woven using silk core threads around which were wound strips of hammered gold. Producing such fabric required skilled labor, time, and resources. And this suite of vestments used such cloth prodigiously. The “chasuble of gold cloth” and the two “liturgical cloaks [copes] all made of cloth of gold” were constructed entirely of cloth of gold, while the other vestments (the tunic, dalmatic, albs, stoles, maniples, and altar cloths) would most likely have been trimmed with cloth of gold or gold-embroidered orphreys or bands. The summary description of the set, moreover, indicates that some, or all, of these vestments had embroidered embellishment incorporating gems and pearls.12 The aesthetics of the Mass were important to Eudes, and to many other elites who donated chapel to their local churches to ensure that the Eucharist and its saving grace were honored by the best they had to offer.
Third, these golden vestments visually asserted hyperelite status. Cloth of gold garments were used in royal ceremonial: the treasurer to Philip V of France, for example, bought cloth of gold from Tuquia for the king’s coronation.13 In ecclesiastical inventories, cloth of gold is found only at the top of the church’s hierarchy, at the level of popes, cardinals, and archbishops.14 Eudes of Nevers’s expedition certainly had the support of both Pope Clement IV and the French king, Louis IX, but note that these costly and glittering garments were not intended to clothe him. Indeed, the glimpse into the count’s wardrobe provided by the inventory reveals fine, but not extravagant, attire. Although pieces of costly Tartar cloth appear on the roll, very few expensive garments are attributed to Eudes himself: one overcoat (ganache) of cendal; a corset, tunic, and overcoat made from an iridescent scarlet fabric, and “one old belt of gold with pearls.” Like many elites, he had a taste for furs. The pelts of beavers, lynxes, and squirrels (grosvair, miniver) were used to line a few garments but mostly to trim them. The fabrics used in these pieces of clothing, however, were sober and relatively simple: brown tiretaine (a cotton-wool or wool-linen mix), black serge (wool), and camelin, an unadorned woolen cloth. Some of these were lined with cendal, a light silk, but in the thirteenth-century English court even “lesser clerks” received livery of camelin and cendal.15 Eudes’s most opulent dress was reserved for moments of religious veneration, however.
Eudes of Nevers’s costly, glittering suite or chapel of vestments in cloth of gold and gold embroidery studded with gems and pearls glorified the private celebration of the Eucharist and the clergy serving at the altar within his ostel. While elements of this golden set could have been used in processions, declaring publicly the crusader’s service to Christ and his church, its design beautified and emphasized the chanting of the Mass within the count’s new chapel hidden from the view of outsiders. Interior splendor for the sacrament that sustained him and his household seems prioritized in the count’s inventory over outward public display of either Eudes’s status or piety. That Eudes’s flesh was left in Acre, while his heart entwined with gold returned to France, suggests a similar privileging of private devotion over exterior display.
1. Bernard McGinn, “Violence and Spirituality: The Enigma of the First Crusade,” Journal of Religion 69 (1989): 375–79. See also the introduction to this volume, above.
2. Pringle characterizes both the old and new chapels as portable. On the differences between the two, see Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993–2009), 4:45–46, no. 378, and the Account-Inventory, Roll D Front.
3. On this tent and others, see chapter 6, note 17. Embroidery is usually described as “work,” as in opus anglicanum, “English needlework”; these two “worked hangings” were probably described as “plain” because the embroidery did not use precious (silver or gold) thread.
4. On the development and uses of vestments, see Maureen C. Miller, Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800–1200 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), especially the glossary, 247–52, for definitions and descriptions of individual vestments with illustrative drawings.
5. Later in the inventory, on Roll D Back, as part of a list of “things that were not yet sold” from “the new chapel” were “one silver covered cup” and “one cup of gold with a cover.” These very likely correspond to the “two decorated pyxes.” That they are crossed out on this later list suggests that they found a buyer. Other sacred vessels appear on the back of Roll D: a golden pitcher and two silver pots, likely used in the washing of the celebrant’s hands during the Mass, and two larger silver “containers” that could have been used for baptisms. On the pyx and reservation of the Eucharist as well as the monstrance and exposition of the Host, see Archdale A. King, Eucharistic Reservation in the Western Church (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965), 112–20, 136–43; Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 43–48, 288–94.
6. Rubin, Corpus Christi, 164–99; on procession and exposition of the Host, see G. J. C. Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 260–74.
7. See Account-Inventory, Roll B Front.
8. Snoek, Medieval Piety, 175–97.
9. In the early Middle Ages these materials were contained in discrete volumes for different actors: the sacramentary was the celebrant’s book (giving the prayers the priest spoke); evangelaries, lectionaries, or epistolaries provided the readings proclaimed by the deacon, subdeacon, or lector; and the gradual contained chanted antiphons and responses. See Josef Andreas Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia: Eine genetische Erklärung der römischen Messe (Vienna: Herder, 1949), 1:137–41, 273–306; in English, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, trans. Francis A. Brunner (New York: Benziger, 1951–55; repr. 1992), 1:103–7, 207–33; Cyrille Vogel, Introduction aux sources de l’histoire du culte chrétien au moyen âge (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo, 1973), 87–89; in English, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, trans. William G. Storey and Niels Krogh Rasmussen (Washington, DC: Pastoral Press, 1986), 105–6, 134.
10. Jonathan Black, “The Divine Office and Private Devotion in the Latin West,” in The Liturgy of the Medieval Church, ed. Thomas J. Heffernan and E. Ann Matter (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), 45–71.
11. On copes and their uses, see Miller, Clothing the Clergy, 91, 185, 250.
12. For gold thread, cloth, and examples of embroidery incorporating stones and pearls, see Miller, Clothing the Clergy, 96, 148 (on gold vestments being melted down for their gold and used as collateral for loans), 153–58; and Gale Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Maria Hayward, eds., Encyclopedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450–1450 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), s.v. cloth of gold.
13. Louis Douët-d’Arcq, ed., Comptes de l’argenterie des rois de France au XIVe siècle publié pour la Société de l’histoire de France d’après des manuscrits originaux (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1951), 5–73, here at 54.
14. Regesti Clementis Papae V ex Vaticanis Archetypis Sanctissimi Domini nostri Leonis XIII Pontificis Maximi Ivssv et Mvnificentia nunc primvm editi cvra et stvdio monachorum Ordinis S. Benedicti Appendices (Rome: Typographia Vaticana, 1892), 1:435, 440, 442–43; see also Maureen C. Miller, “A Descriptive Language of Dominion? Curial Inventories, Clothing, and Papal Monarchy c. 1300,” Textile History 48 (2017): 176–91, and, for an archiepiscopal example, R. Barsotti, Gli antichi inventari della cattedrale di Pisa (Pisa: Istituto di Storia dell’Arte, Università di Pisa, 1959), 19.
15. Owen-Crocker, Coatsworth, and Hayword, Encyclopedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles, s.v. tiretaine, serge, sendal, livery (uniform).