The Merchant Scene of Biblical Drama: Rehabilitating the Female Input
This paper examines a ground-breaking innovation to medieval Easter plays: the creation of the extra-biblical merchant scene, in which the Marys purchase spices prior to their Visitatio Sepulchri . The patron of its earliest known representation was the female religious leader Uta von Kirchberg. An...
| Autres titres: | Special Issue: New Perspectives on Biblical Drama; Guest Editors: Sarah Fengler and Dinah Wouters |
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| Auteur principal: | |
| Type de support: | Électronique Article |
| Langue: | Anglais |
| Vérifier la disponibilité: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Publié: |
2024
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| Dans: |
Journal of the bible and its reception
Année: 2024, Volume: 11, Numéro: 2, Pages: 173-203 |
| Sujets / Chaînes de mots-clés standardisés: | B
Drame pascal
/ Scène de marché
/ Uta, von Kirchberg
/ Héloïse 1101-1164
/ Kunhuta, Böhmen, Königin 1245-1285
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| Classifications IxTheo: | CD Christianisme et culture HC Nouveau Testament KAC Moyen Âge |
| Sujets non-standardisés: | B
Visitatio Sepulchri
B Vic Ludus Paschalis B Kunhuta of Bohemia B merchant scene B Uta von Kirchberg B Heloise d’Argenteuil |
| Accès en ligne: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Résumé: | This paper examines a ground-breaking innovation to medieval Easter plays: the creation of the extra-biblical merchant scene, in which the Marys purchase spices prior to their Visitatio Sepulchri . The patron of its earliest known representation was the female religious leader Uta von Kirchberg. An illuminated roundel in the Uta Codex she commissioned towards the end of her term as abbess of Niedermünster (1002-25), depicts the Holy women purchasing spices from a spice merchant. Until the twelfth century, this remained the only representation of an Easter merchant scene, visual or textual. The only textual Easter merchant scene predating the thirteenth century is within the twelfth-century Latin/Catalan Ludus Paschalis of Vic Cathedral, near Barcelona, a highly influential Easter text whose transnational impact has been traced in numerous later Easter texts across Europe, including many with merchant scenes. Around 2000, musicologists David Wulstan and Constant Mews suggested the renowned composer and poet Heloise (c. 1090s-1164) as its author. Widely accepted by musicologists, their attribution’s significance for the female impact on the merchant scene is barely acknowledged. Here, I ask: ‘how did women influence the creation, promotion and development of the merchant scene’s visual, textual and performative manifestations?’ By repeatedly reattributing responsibility for decisive input into the development of the merchant scene from anonymous male scribes to identified female religious leaders, my interdisciplinary analysis moves women to the centre of this creative process. |
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| ISSN: | 2329-4434 |
| Contient: | Enthalten in: Journal of the bible and its reception
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/jbr-2023-0022 |
