Medieval Stained-Glass Windows and the Biblia pauperum - the Problem of Their Mutual Relationship Cover Image

Średniowieczne witraże a Biblia pauperum - problem wzajemnych relacji
Medieval Stained-Glass Windows and the Biblia pauperum - the Problem of Their Mutual Relationship

Author(s): Joanna Utzig
Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Visual Arts
Published by: Instytut Historii Sztuki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: Medieval Stained Glass; Stained Glass; Polish art;biblia pauperum;

Summary/Abstract: This essay examines the relations between schemes of stained-glass Windowsand a group of typological manuscripts known as the Biblia pauperum. The Latinterm ‘biblia pauperum’ (paupers bibie, bibie of the poor) madę a staggering career overcenturies and gradually gained popularity as an equivalent of sacred visual art of theMiddle Ages in generał. The proper meaning refers to a group of typological bookscombining text and image, popular in the later Middle Ages. However, the title is notoriginal (it appeared as late as the fifteenth century, and had not become established untilthe eighteenth century), hence it is pointless to investigate who the ‘pauperes’ might havebeen. Occasionally, the origins of the term ‘biblia pauperum’were (erroneously) attributedto Saint Gregory the Great. A conviction that images can replace the written word wasa recurrent theme in art theory throughout the entire medieval period.The main part of the article analyses the relationship between the Biblia pauperumillustrations and schemes of stained-glass Windows. There are only a few examples ofthis phenomenon, and one of them is particularly striking. It is a scheme of stained-glassWindows in the monastery at Hirsau in which each window copied one page of the błockbookversion of the Biblia pauperum. Further, some less evident examples of stained-glassWindows related to the Biblia pauperum can be mentioned in Stephansdom in Vienna, inthe churches in Lorch or Pram (Austria), in Brandenburg, and Cracow (St Marys Church).Usually, other typological compendia were used simultaneously with the Biblia pauperum.By contrast, a scheme of stained-glass Windows in the cathedral in Włocławek, appears notto be as closely connected to a group of early fourteenth-century Austrian Biblia pauperummanuscripts as was claimed in some earlier hypotheses. A reverse relation should be speciallyemphasized: perhaps the iconographic canon and composition of Biblia pauperumwere based on stained-glass Windows, as typological Windows, for example the GermanBibelfenster, were widespread already in the thirteenth

  • Issue Year: 2014
  • Issue No: 14
  • Page Range: 71-98
  • Page Count: 28
  • Language: Polish