Ruminations

Women In Medieval Sacred Art

"It almost looked like robin's eggs."
"[The lapis lazuli crystals were preserved in the woman's dental plaque] a sticky bacterial biofilm that will calcify into a plaque, fossilizing]."
Christina Warinner, department of archeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

"[Alternatively the woman might have] performed emotive devotional osculation [devotional kissing] of illuminated books produced by others."
"Within the context of medieval art, the application of highly pure ultramarine in illuminated works was restricted to luxury books of high value and importance, and only scribes and painters of exceptional skill would have been entrusted with its use."
Study of 11th-Century German nun's remains

"Whoever she was or what she did, this nun] was plugged into a vast global commercial network stretching from the mines of Afghanistan to her community in medieval Germany through the trading metropolises of Islamic Egypt and Byzantine Constantinople [currently Islamist Istanbul]."
"The growing economy of 11th-Century Europe fired demand for the precious and exquisite pigment that travelled thousands of miles via merchant caravan and ships to serve this woman artist's creative ambition."
Michael McCormick, study co-author, Harvard University

Self portrait of Guda, a 12 ^th century nun. The inscription she holds reads, “Guda, peccatrix mulier scripsit et pinxit hunc librum,” translated as “Guda, a sinful woman, wrote and painted this book.”

Researchers were surprised when they discovered the presence of microscopic crystals of the gemstone lapis lazuli in the teeth of a German nun dating back to the 11th Century. It has never been known that women were employed as scribes or painters of medieval religious texts, where scribal employment was always thought to be male-dominated by monks who specialized in the scribal production of sacred texts, long before the advent of the printing press.

A new scientific paper published in the journal Science Advances, examines the evidence discovered and advances several theories that might explain the presence of this rare, treasured crushed gemstone in the dental cavity of a woman; that this nun had been employed as an artist who made use of that exquisite blue dye. That as she used her lips and tongue to twist her brush into a fine point, some of the dye made its way into her mouth, lodging in her teeth.

Dr. Warinner of the Max Planck Institute recalls the blue flecks discovered in the nun's tooth while she and her colleagues were studying the nun's remains for diet and disease. 1989 saw 150 or so skeletal remains both male and female excavated during renovations to a medieval monastery in Germany. The monastery had been used by men for the most part, but originally was a women's commune thought to be populated by wealthy, educated, literate and religious women.

The history of Europe itself; several waves of plague, conflicts, a catastrophic fire and dispersal all figured into the monastery's history. Dr. Warinner consulted a physicist and discovered that the flecks contained two minerals present together only in lapis lazuli a gemstone mined solely in a part of northern Afghanistan prized for its rich blue hue, processed into a dye called ultramarine used in lavish gospels and prayer books which European monasteries produced in their scriptoriums.

It is only one of several hypotheses, that the nun was employed as an artist of scribal devotionals. Another is that as a religious devotee she kissed illuminated books, thus exposing herself to the transfer of the pigment from manuscript to mouth and finally tooth. The study revealed the nun to have been between 45 and 60 years of age when she died, with no signs of disease or trauma detected.

She would have represented, according to Dr. Warinner, the "upper end of the social scale", coming from a family of wealth for whom sending one of their members to a community of medieval German convents presented no financial inconvenience. The two study co-authors, Drs. Warriner and McCormick feel confident from their interpretation of the evidence that she was a skilled painter entrusted with valuable materials provided by whomever it was who had commissioned the religious text being illuminated.

Wealthy families of the time commonly commissioned such sacred texts, sparing no funds to have an exquisite work of art produced glittering with liquid gold and crushed precious gems. A product that would represent their religious fervor as well as their appreciation for works of everlasting beauty, taking pride in the fact that they were able to afford such luxurious items representing a priceless family heirloom of the devout and wealthy.

The lapis lazuli itself represents a historical journey of trade and commerce typical of the day when Near Eastern gemstone traders, dye-makers in a major centre like Alexandria in Egypt and Venetian traders dispersed ultramarine dye throughout the length and breadth of Europe. A vast network of commercial trade stretched from the mines of Afghanistan to medieval Germany through trading metropoli of medieval Europe.

(A) Location of Dalheim and other monasteries discussed in the text. (B) Surviving stone architectural foundations of Dalheim’s Church of St. Peter and attached women’s monastery, shown in the circle (viewed from above and from the west). A modern building has been constructed on the site of the former cemetery. (C) Architectural plan showing the configuration of the church (black), the women’s monastery (light brown), and the location of the excavated portion of the cemetery (green). (D) Schematic view of the burial locations within the cemetery. The burial location of individual B78 is marked in green. Credit: C. Warinner.

Sometimes called “true blue,” ultramarine is made from the semiprecious gemstone lapis lazuli, which for centuries could only be found in a single mountain range in Afghanistan. Egyptian traders began importing the stone as early as 6,000 years ago, using it to adorn jewelry and headdresses. Yet they never figured out how to make a vibrant pigment from it. Riddled with minerals such as calcite, pyrite, augite, and mica, lapis loses its potency when it is ground up, turning from a bright blue to a dull gray.

Lapis first appeared as a “true blue” pigment in the 6th century, gracing Buddhist frescoes in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Around 700 years later, the pigment traveled to Venice and soon became the most sought-after color in medieval Europe. For centuries, the cost of lapis rivaled the price of gold. Given its hefty price tag, the color was reserved for only the most important figures (namely, the Virgin Mary) and the most lucrative commissions (namely, the church).

Legend has it that Michelangelo left his painting The Entombment (1500–01) unfinished because he could not generate the funds to buy ultramarine blue. Raphael used the pigment scarcely, applying it above base layers of azurite when depicting the Virgin Mary’s blue robe. The Baroque master
Johannes Vermeer, on the other hand, bought the color in spades, so much so that his indulgence pushed his family into debt.

Sarah Gottesman, Artsy