The Vita Apostolica and Romanesque Sculpture: Some Preliminary Observations

Abstract

This paper explores the possibility of a relationship between Romanesque sculpture and the contemporary paradigm for spiritual life known as the vita apostolica. The emphatic directives of this concept were that members of religious communities hold all property in common and function together one heart and one soul, as did the apostles of Christ. These directives were given particular impetus during the Gregorian Reform when nostalgia for the early church was a guiding theme. The subsequent phenomenon, whereby monks and canons of the late 11th and 12th centuries believed they could imitate or model themselves on Christ's apostles in their own communal life, even to the extent that they might metaphorically experience the places, people and events of the apostolic age (e.g. thereby substituting the spiritual journey of their professional mission for actual travel to pilgrimage sites), is studied here with regard to its possible reflection in architectural sculpture. The discussion focuses on themes...