ABSTRACT
Visual images of the episcopate and especially portraits of historical bishops celebrate the place of the episcopacy between secular and spiritual politics. Medieval episcopal portraiture followed established iconographies of power, such as the bishop enthroned, suggestive of images of Christ in Majesty and secular ruler portraiture, or the bishop as donor, reflective of early Christian representations of the transmission of the law as well as royal donation imagery.1 Around the turn of the millennium, however, a new iconography for episcopal portraiture emerged that depicted the bishop in liturgical postures, such as blessing a congregation, celebrating the eucharist, or dedicating an altar. These liturgical portraits highlight both the spiritual and social legitimacy of the episcopacy by referencing the ritual actions that made the bishop indispensable to the communities he served. In the following essay I will examine a portrait in the Benedictional of Engilmar of Parenzo as a case study of the episcopal liturgical portrait.2 Drawing significance from the rituals they represent, liturgical portraits can
1 The most famous example of the blending of the secular and spiritual connotations of the ruler enthroned image type can be found in Ernst Kantorowicz’s reading of the frontispiece of the Aachen Gospels (Aachen, Domschatzkammer, MS 5594, fol. 16r). Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton, NJ, 1957), pp. 61-78. Kantorowicz’s reading of this miniature inspired subsequent research that resulted in a large bibliography dedicated to an “iconography of kingship,” which highlights the medieval philosophy (or, following Kantorowicz, the “political theology”) of the ruler as rex et sacerdos. Of special note for the history of art is Percy Ernst Schramm and Florentine Mütherich, Denkmale der deutschen Könige und Kaiser, vol. 1, Ein Beitrag zur Herrschergeschichte von Karl dem Großen bis Friedrich II., 768-1250, Veröffentlichungen des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte in München 2 (Munich, 1962). For scholarly investigations of the donor portrait see Elizabeth Lipsmeyer, “The Donor and his Church Model in Medieval Art from Early Christian Times to the Late Romanesque Period” (Ph.D. diss., Rutgers University, 1981). See also Joachim Prochno, Das Schreiber-und Dedikationsbild in der deutschen Buchmalerei (Leipzig, 1929).
