Threads of Authority: The Virgin Mary’s Veil in the Middle Ages

Abstract

In 1031/32 the monastery of New Minster in Winchester, England, commemorated benefactions from the reigning king, Cnut, and his spouse, Queen Emma, by creating a Liber Vitae for the altar of its church. 1 The book’s text—a list of benefactors and the order for prayers on behalf of their salvation 2 —is prefaced by three full-page illuminations. The first shows Cnut and Emma making their gift by placing a large cross on New Minster’s altar (see figure 4.1); the following pair shows the afterlife, where the Devil garners the damned from his book of sins while the blessed—introduced to Peter by the Liber Vitae itself 3 —enjoy the rewards of their benefactions in Heaven. The theme of generosity rewarded is anticipated already in the opening scene, where—before the approving eyes of New Minster’s monks at the lower margin—the royal donation is acknowledged with divine recompense. Christ himself in a mandorla hovers over the cross, flanked on his right by his Mother and on his left by Peter, the two patron saints of New Minster. Below St. Peter, an angel lowers a crested crown onto Cnut’s head, and below Mary a similar angel lowers a veil onto Emma’s. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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