Rewarding Devotion: Indulgences and the Promotion of Images

Abstract

The indulgence is one of the Church’s mechanisms for encouraging pious practices which has generally had a bad press. This paper is concerned with its use in the veneration of three images: the Veronica, the arma Christi or instruments of the Passion, and the Man of Sorrows with the indulgence referring to the Mass of St Gregory. It addresses in particular the circumstances of the original grant of indulgence (whether real or spurious) and the role played by the indulgences in the transmission of these images in devotional manuscripts in England. The earliest of these indulgenced images, the Veronica, is also the most famous, and the one whose origin is most clearly attested. The Chronica maiora of Matthew Paris tells how the Veronica suddenly reversed itself while being carried in procession in 1216. Innocent III responded by composing a prayer in its honour, with an associated indulgence of ten days for each time the prayer was recited. It is noteworthy that although Innocent’s indulgence is commonly referred to as creating the new category of indulgenced image, the indulgence is attached to the prayer, and there is no suggestion that it was necessary to view the image. As is made clear in the Chronica, the addition of a representation of the image (plate 1) was prompted by the fervour of devotion: people did it for themselves. Thus two related, but not identical, impulses joined together to produce the indulgenced prayer to be said before the image, the model for all other indulgenced images. An early example of the prayer used as part of an exercise in devotional propaganda is found in the Revelations of Mechtild of Hackeborn. These normally followed the liturgical year, and on the day of the exposition of the relic she had a vision, aimed at arousing piety towards the image, in which she saw Christ in Majesty, with those who honoured the holy face with a special prayer approaching him,