Bride of Christ and Groom of the Church: Liturgical Clothing in Consecration Rites
Based on extant sumptuous apparel—a precious nun’s crown from the twelfth century, valuable Episcopal insignia, and other medieval liturgical vestments sewn of costly silks—this lecture will reveal the meaning of such textile artifacts within the act of consecration. Various liturgical texts describe the objects’ allegorical significance. This finds its expression in the quality of the materials besides the pictorial decoration of the objects. The idea that participants become the brides of Christ and grooms of the Church falls apart if based on the consecration rite. The role of textiles in this rite is evident, which is significant when discussing the various sources of a medieval visual culture.
PD Dr. habil. Evelin Wetter is curator at the Abegg-Stiftung in Riggisberg, Switzerland. From 2000 to 2006 she was a research fellow and coordinator of art historical and cultural research at the Center for the History and Culture of East Central Europe (GWZO) at Leipzig University. In 2009 she completed her habilitation at Leipzig University and has taught there since.
Wetter’s publications include a book on Bohemian pictorial embroidery, which was awarded the Werner-Hauger Prize of the Central Institute for Art History in Munich in 2001. She was the editor of Die Länder der Böhmischen Krone und ihre Nachbarn zur Zeit der Jagiellonenkönige (1471 – 1526), Kunst – Kultur – Geschichte (2004); also of Formierungen des konfessionellen Raumes in Ostmitteleuropa (2008); and Iconography of Liturgical Textiles in the Middle Ages (2010). Her most recent books are Objekt, Überlieferung und Narrativ, Spätmittelalterliche Goldschmiedekunst im historischen Königreich Ungarn (2011) and Zwei spätmittelalterliche Betnüsse aus den südlichen Niederlanden (2011). Her catalogue raisonné of the collection of medieval embroideries in the Abegg-Stiftung has been published in association with the exhibition “Ornamenta – Textile Images of the Middle Ages” in 2012.