Le Saint-Sépulcre de Constance du XIIIe siècle, réceptacle eucharistique au service du “pèlerinage intérieur”

Abstract

The dodecagonal building which rises in the middle of Saint-Maurice’s rotunda, next to Konstanz cathedral, was built in approximately 1260 as a successeur to a previous Holy Sepulchre built in the mid-900s at the same time as the rotunda. Bishop Corrado (934-975), during his bishopric, transformed his town by setting up five churches intended to represent the five patriarchal churches of Rome and by acting as liturgical stations in the town. The Saint-Maurice’s rotunda was intended to work on the liturgical level as a replica of the rotunda of the Anastasis. By adding the rotunda to this group of five churches, Konstanz as secunda Roma also became a second Jerusalem. So why was the small ancient building of the Holy Sepulchre renewed shortly after the mid-13th century? It was not only due to concerns of modernism, but also to adapt it to its new role as a eucharistic receptacle, because it was the purpose of a weekly procession to worship the Eucharist.