The Eucharistic Man of Sorrows in Late Medieval Art
Dóra Sallay
Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU, Vol. 6 (2000)
Abstract
This essay concerns a group of late medieval images that depict Christ as the Man of Sorrow with Eucharistic symbols such as the chalice, host or hosts, grapevine, and stalks of wheat. These images, here referred to under the inclusive term “Eucharistic man of Sorrows”, occur in Western medieval art mainly between the middle of the fourteenth century and the first third of the sixteenth, but they were relatively rare.
The Central idea shared by these images is related to the doctrine and cult of the Eucharist, Which was at the heart of later religiosity. By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the two species of the Sacrament, the consecrated wine and host, became the objects of immense adoration in Western spirituality. The consecrated host was elevated, together with the chalice, for adoration during the mass, exhibited in a monstrance on the altar, and preserved in tabernacles distinguished by their splendid decoration and an ever-burning light placed by their side.
The Eucharist became the subject of innumerable tracts, sermons, poems, hymns, mystical writings, and other forms of medieval religious literature. Countless visions and miracles involving the sacrament and the Christ of the Eucharist occurred throughout Europe. The miracles resulted in Holy Blood-bleeding host-, and other Eucharistic relics, and there were also innumerable particles of the Holy Blood brought as relics from the Holy Land.
The Eucharistic Man of Sorrows in Late Medieval Art
Dóra Sallay
Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU, Vol. 6 (2000)
Abstract
This essay concerns a group of late medieval images that depict Christ as the Man of Sorrow with Eucharistic symbols such as the chalice, host or hosts, grapevine, and stalks of wheat. These images, here referred to under the inclusive term “Eucharistic man of Sorrows”, occur in Western medieval art mainly between the middle of the fourteenth century and the first third of the sixteenth, but they were relatively rare.
The Central idea shared by these images is related to the doctrine and cult of the Eucharist, Which was at the heart of later religiosity. By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the two species of the Sacrament, the consecrated wine and host, became the objects of immense adoration in Western spirituality. The consecrated host was elevated, together with the chalice, for adoration during the mass, exhibited in a monstrance on the altar, and preserved in tabernacles distinguished by their splendid decoration and an ever-burning light placed by their side.
The Eucharist became the subject of innumerable tracts, sermons, poems, hymns, mystical writings, and other forms of medieval religious literature. Countless visions and miracles involving the sacrament and the Christ of the Eucharist occurred throughout Europe. The miracles resulted in Holy Blood-bleeding host-, and other Eucharistic relics, and there were also innumerable particles of the Holy Blood brought as relics from the Holy Land.
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