Rapprochement, antagonisme, ou confusion dans Ie culte des saints: Art et dévotion à Katharinenthal au quatorzième siècle

Abstract

Rapprochement, antagonisme, ou confusion dans le culte des saints: Art et devotion a Katharinenthal au quatorzieme siecle (Rapprochement, Antagonism, or Confusion in the Cult of Saints: Art and Devotion at Katharinenthal in the Fourteenth Century). John the Evangelist and John the Baptist each occupy a privileged place in the illuminations of the Gradual (A.D. 1312) from the Dominican convent of Katharinenthal (Thurgau, Switzerland). Their presence in this manuscript is equally revealing of a transformation in the iconography of the two saints John, from the fourteenth century on. Alongside well-structured images that unite them by joining each to a third element, the theme of the two Johns often evolves in three new directions: rapprochement, confusion, and antagonism. Their distribution among the illuminations of the Gradual corresponds directly to a rivalry in devotion growing out of discussions raised by Caesarius of Heisterbach, Thomas of Cantimpre, Jacobus de Voragine, or Guillaume Durand, and it ...