The Tassilo Chalice Style: Problems of Interpretation and Definition

Abstract

In this article it will be argued that the so called Tassilo chalice style was not merely a hollow "artistic expression" transferred to the continent where it became fashionable and where it spread in a slightly changed form. In accordance with the recent theory which percieves the Germanic animal style as a materialisation of a certain political identity in the early medieval Europe the author will try to establish a new framework for understanding the so called Tassilo chalice style. As a key element of precisely defined artefacts, it was a powerful and efficient tool for political identification and the legitimization of power. These artefacts express the socio-political conditions of the second half of the 8th century on the one hand but they must also be understood as tools for the establishment and maintenance of these conditions on the other. After the final assimilation of the regions along the Rhine (between the North Sea and the south-eastern Alps) in 'Charlemagne's state, this artistic expression slowly disappeared. There was neither place nor need for it in the new socio-political context.