It all started with a headless Jesus

Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus. 15th century sculpture in Strängnäs cathedral (Sweden)

Every so often in the enigmatic world of Academia, when confronted with the arduous work of clever colleagues, a question springs to mind: How on earth did s/he come up with this topic? And what in it was so thrilling, so tickling, so calling out to be explored that it was considered worth spending at least four years of hard work on? Not that it doesn't seem interesting (it often does), it is just the level of specialization that might have a deterrent effect on the non-specialists in the field in question - i.e., sadly, almost everyone.   

For me, it all started with a headless Jesus. The time and place were the end of the 1990’s in the medieval brick cathedral of Strängnäs, Sweden, and I was presented to an image showing Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus. The sculpture was medieval, made of wood and displaying clear signs of neglect and being out of fashion during the past centuries - not a unique state for Catholic objects that for some reason were spared after the Reformation. Now, however, the image not only was given a prominent position in the cathedral, but even honored with a fresh rose and a living candle placed before it on a small altar. All in all, the signs were clear: This was a living relation, a devotion of and an interaction with the divine. ”—We have brought Mary back into the church!”, the Lutheran parish priest stated. It was when I approached and actually looked more closely on the Virgin that I discovered the headless state of baby Jesus. In an instant I discovered that I reacted in a number of habitual ways: as interested in the heritage field and historical matters in one way, as a former museum emplyee in another, and as a frequent visitor to Catholic churches in yet another way. 

The worn, historic image of Mary with a headless baby Jesus in her arms and candles and a flower placed before it sent out, at least to my mind, mixed signals: Was this a historical object to be regarded with nostalgia, was it part of a national or ecclesiastical heritage to be interpreted as sheer materiality, or was it the sacred image it was once made to be, and – despite the headlessness – still a relevant object for devotion? Or, I asked myself, could it actually be all these things at the same time – a state of hybridity, dependent on the beholder and its gaze, prerequisites and convictions? Standing there in the dusky church, a process started that eventually led to studies in Heritage politics, to a Master thesis in History of Ideas and science, and to the topic for the dissertation I am presently working on.

Skokloster Castle 17th century library, Sweden. (Photo: Bengt A Lundberg)

A clue to the ambiguous relationship to materiality, authenticity and sacredness that I became aware of when meeting the headless Jesus might be the years I worked in the rare book collection at Skokloster Castle. When being bought by the Swedish state in 1967 and transformed into a museum, Skokloster also formed a practice and a view on conservation that is still valid in heritage environments. Here it was actually possible to follow and understand the original building process from start to finish, through the books in the library, through letters ordering tools from Holland and other countries, through the same tools still preserved, and through the woodworks, ceiling constructions and lime mortar that were produced on the building site. Conservation was performed by using these original and authentic methods, and the golden rule was to add as little as possible - just to keep the old parts together. How this practice, with the carefully re-glued flakes of paints on the walls, sometimes clashes with the expectations of the visitors is quite vividly illuminated by the crass statement by an American tourist: "This place needs fixing.".

Being educated in this view, the supremacy of material authenticity, I had no problems with heritage objects looking really scruffy - as a matter of fact, the scruffiness just added to my belief in the authenticity. No, the problem with the headless Jesus was something else: it touched upon sacredness and the claims of being "alive" in its original function, as a devotional object. Could this work, even without a head?

In an article, presently under publication (November 2013, Gotländskt Arkiv), I explore the use of medieval religious materiality and practices on Gotland, Sweden, in premodern time and up to now. Without giving away too much of the article, it can be said that the general attitude towards sacred matter presently out of fashion has been severely unsentimental, down-to-earth and utilitarian, and that the appreciation of immaterial values in this category emerged with Romanticism, Piranesi's etchings of Roman ruins and the entrance of the Artist as a major character.

Today, authenticity and sacredness seem to merge in a highly subjective narrative, not primarily based on historical or theological facts, but on what might very well be the most influential currency of our time: Emotions. In this perspective it is hardly surprising that many visitors to the medieval church ruins of Visby, Gotland, express that they experience a particularly strong authenticity during the annual Medieval Festival ('Medeltidsveckan') when the former Franciscan church of S.t Catherine is filled to the brim with reenacting visitors watching jesters performing a fire show. The former sacred building has transformed into a live scene for medieval reenactment, and the result is experienced authenticity and - for some - even a sense of sacredness.

Returning to Mary and her headless baby Jesus, one question seems inevitable: Sacredness - is it objective, or is it all in the eye of the beholder?

Jester from performance group 'Trix' performing a fire show in S.t Catherine's church ruin, Visby. (Photo: Helen Simonsson)

Byproducts of death: Thoughts on the fate of bones

Head of Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) 

In my department, Culture and Media Studies, a group of likeminded colleagues has started to discuss and write on various topics connected to the research field called Death Studies. It all started somewhere early this year with an e-mail popping down in my mailbox, where a Professor just wanted to check if anyone was interested in meeting and talk about death. This is one of the many great things with this job: I suspect such an approach doesn't appear in every office, but it did in mine.

Already up to my knees in the death field (since museums and heritage are tightly related to death, and also to rebirth), and after having received a blessing from one of my supervisors, I happily joined what is now commonly referred to as "the Death Group" (one simply has to like that, right?). It soon was obvious that the concept of "death" triggered a vast range of topics and aspects in our interdisciplinary circle; from the semi-death in cryonics, via zombies and dumpster diving, to Medieval Pietà - and much more in between. In June a special issue of Kulturella Perspektiv ("Cultural Perspectives") was published in Swedish, where my contribution bore the title (translated) "Death in the Souvenir shop: Mortal Remains as Cult and Curiosities" and touched upon the many layers of charging and re-charging in Christian relics.

In brief, I wanted to describe how the many similarities between the concepts 'heritage' and 'sacredness', similarities that are one of my starting points for my PhD project, partially derive from the collecting and veneration of relics. These relic collections eventually developed into art cabinets or proto-museums, and then into Western European museums as we are used to see them.
Relics could and still can be found in the shape of actual human remains, or as second and third degree relics, meaning something that has touched the remains or something that has touched something that was once touched by the saint - a contagious sacredness that is physically transmitted. Relics also strongly emphasizes the material aspect and the sensual relationship to sacred objects, an aspect that has been highlighted by Caroline Walker Bynum in Christian Materiality (2011) and Charles Freeman in Holy Dust, Holy Bones (2011).

Saint Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373): Here, there, and everywhere

From a museological point of view, what I find particularly fascinating is the constant re-charging and creation of new and very different narratives connected to relics. Saint Bridget of Sweden, for example, was not only a well documented spiritual person in 14th century Europe, she was also of royal ancestry and did not hesitate to intervene in high politics. When she died in Rome her body was 'ossificated', which meant the soft parts of the body were removed, and her bones (except for some of them that remained in her house in Rome) were carried in a shrine to Vadstena, Sweden, where she had founded her first convent. Like many bone relics from the Middle Ages and even from the times of the first Christians, Saint Bridget's bones can now be found in a number of countries, settings, contexts and narratives; a small flake of her bones was given to Uppsala Cathedral by Bridgettin sisters in the 1980's, an act that caused an animated debate since the cathedral is Lutheran and the veneration of saints and relics is not commonly accepted there. However, a special silver shrine was made and the relic was given an honorable place in a choir.

Just a few miles away, in 17th century Skokloster Castle with a collection of around 50,000 objects preserved through families and centuries, another flake of Saint Bridget is kept. Here, though, no silver shrine has been made and no veneration takes place, because this part of the Saint's bones is cathegorized as a museum object. It is properly listed in the museum inventory, and dated "19th century" probably due to the papal certificate from that time stating the authenticity of the bone fragment. What is Bridget doing there, in a Baroque collection containing numerous other things but not of a specifically pious character? The answer lies in one of the previous owners, the noble Brahe family, who (wrongly, as it later turned out) proudly announced themselves to be related to this famous saint and thus also of royal blood. This assumed relationship resulted in the collecting of Bridget memorabilia of various sorts and qualities, where the relic is just one of many items.

In my short article I ended up in the souvenir shop, where third degree relics are sold amongst the postcards and amulets with no specific demands on belief or intention with the buyer. I asked how we should understand this multi-layered existence that is a relic: as layer upon layer of death, or as a rebirth upon rebirth as new and different existences? This topic is fascinating, even without having touched upon the excitements of other aspects such as secular relics (pieces of hair etc from famous persons, Jimi Hendrix' guitar - or what's left of it - and so on), and I was glad to hear this morning when meeting my fellow Death Group members that our exploration of death and its connotations will go on and probably result in a publication, and perhaps also in a workshop or conference.

This, dear readers, is one of the many geeky sides of Academia: How contemplating Death can make you feel so vibrantly alive.