ABSTRACT
The monks of Weingarten relied on Judith’s reputation as a high-status patron in their celebration of the relic of the Holy Blood, which they claimed to be Judith’s most substantial gift to the abbey in two related texts: De Inventione Sanguinis Christi and De Translatione Sanguinis Christi; the earliest extant copies are in a Vitae Sanctorum manuscript made at Weingarten c.1200.1 A third Weingarten text, known as Ea Tempestate, provides quasi-biographical information about Judith and Welf as donors of the relic (see Appendix 3 for full translations).2 Taken together, the texts associate the relic not just with Judith but with a parade of powerful figures from the mid-eleventh century. As a religious object, the Holy Blood was endowed with infinite spiritual value; as a political object, it represented the largesse, piety, and power of those who owned it.3 The narrative provided in the first text (De Inventione) largely accords with political and papal relationships in Germany and Italy in the middle of the century; contemporary chronicles and other sources problematize some of the details of De Inventione, but its narrative is largely plausible and probably mostly accurate. The second, De Translatione, is rather more problematic in its presentation of continental politics, to the extent that its version of events is ultimately unconvincing. The third, Ea Tempestate, similarly contains obvious errors in chronology that call its accuracy into question. The Weingarten monks who compiled these texts desired to present their most important possession as legitimate, precious, masculine, and aristocratic; the three texts show clear signs of the monks’ revision and manipulation of their oral and written sources to achieve these goals. These texts, then, provide a view of the afterlife of Judith’s patronage, as it were; rather than historically accurate narratives of Weingarten’s acquisition of the Holy Blood relic, the texts show the strength and endurance of Judith’s reputation as high-status patron.
