Our official English website, www.x-mol.net, welcomes your feedback! (Note: you will need to create a separate account there.)
Anger’s Broken Sword: Prudentius’ Psychomachia and the Iconography of Becket’s Martyrdom
Journal of the British Archaeological Association Pub Date : 2020-09-08 , DOI: 10.1080/00681288.2020.1787630
Amy Jeffs

In some of the earliest images of Becket’s martyrdom, Reginald FitzUrse is shown breaking his sword on the saint's head; a detail at odds with the literal description of the martyrdom by the first hagiographers, who describe Richard le Bret’s sword breaking not on the head, but on the Cathedral pavement. This article contends that the iconography reflects the hagiographers’ allegorical, rather than literal, treatment of a martyrdom, in which Becket and the knights are polarised as embodiments of virtue and vice. The model for this interpretation was, it is argued, found in illustrated manuscripts of Prudentius’ ‘Psychomachia’, a Late Antique text about a battle between the Virtues and Vices widely read in medieval classrooms. In one episode, commonly illustrated over several scenes, Anger breaks her sword over the head of Patience. Echoes of the characterisation of both figures may be detected in hagiographical descriptions of Becket as unmoving and steadfast and of the knights, especially FitzUrse — the ursine associations of whose name was capitalised upon by the authors — as aggressive and, in the end, self-destructive. Allusions to the ‘Psychomachia’ by Becket’s commentators demonstrate the ways in which authoritative visual and textual sources were mined in the early years of Becket’s cult to lend spiritual weight to the story of his death, especially in the eyes of Christendom’s clerical elite. It shows the potential for visual metaphor to affect subliminally: to shift the focus from historical to allegorical truth, from the event to its meaning.



中文翻译:

愤怒的断剑:Prudentius的心理心理和贝克特s难的肖像

在贝克特s难的最早照片中,雷金纳德·菲茨乌尔瑟(Reginald FitzUrse)被示为在圣徒的头上摔断了剑;这些细节与第一位造血学家对the难的字面描述不符,后者描述了理查德·勒布雷特的剑不是在头上而是在大教堂的人行道上折断的。本文认为,肖像画反映了航海家对寓言的寓言而不是字面意思,而贝克特和骑士则被视为美德和邪恶的体现。有人认为,这种解释的模型是在Prudentius的“ Psychomachia”手稿插图中找到的,该手稿是关于中世纪的教室中广泛传播的美德与虎钳之战的晚期古董文字。在一集中通常在几个场景中说明的一集中,昂热将剑摔在了耐心的头上。在贝克特的不动产和坚定的骑士以及骑士,特别是菲茨乌尔塞(FitzUrse)的影像学描述中,可以看出这两个人物的回声,这些人的名字被作者所利用,是凶猛的,最终是自我的。破坏性的。贝克特的评论员对“精神机器”的暗示表明,在贝克特崇拜的早期,特别是在基督教世界的文职精英眼中,如何挖掘权威的视觉和文字资源来为其死亡的故事赋予精神上的分量。它显示了视觉隐喻潜移默化的潜力:将焦点从历史真相转变为寓言真相,从事件转向其含义。

更新日期:2020-09-08
down
wechat
bug