The Epigraphic Presence on the Borghorst Cross (c. 1050)

Abstract

Around 1050, a magnificent crucifix was donated to the former female collegiate church of St Nikomedes (now parish church) at Borghorst, Westphalia (Fig. 1–2).1 The Borghorst Cross, as this crucifix is more commonly known, is a reliquary splen­ didly decorated with gold, gems and precious stones, as was a long­standing custom in church practice. Just like many other reliquaries of the same period, it includes inscriptions to identify the images depicted on both sides of the cross and the relics concealed inside. These inscriptions form the subject of this paper. Using the Borghorst Cross as a case study, this article hopes to contribute to a better under­ standing of the interplay between inscriptions and relics, by exploring how writing, as both a textual and visual device, interacted with the physical context in which the relics were placed, contributed to its meanings, and engaged medieval audiences.2 The type of context that concerns us here is, first, that of the portable reliquary and, second, the wider architectural and liturgical context in which the inscribed reliquary was displayed and set in motion, as an object meant to be seen and contemplated by the faithful who came to pray in the church. Although the focus is on one case study, the methodology of this paper has been developed on the basis of a large corpus of inscribed reliquaries from western medi­ eval Europe.3 It addresses the inscriptions as material components of all reliquaries, exploring their textual and visual functioning within the larger system to which they belong. Using the epigraphic programme of the Borghorst Cross, I argue that the ways in which epigraphic texts on reliquaries conveyed meanings and contributed to these objects’ significance and functions, were inherently linked to the interactions between the inscribed text and its context, including the inscriptions’ interactions with the surrounding images, materials, decorations, the shape of the reliquary, the relics concealed inside, and the faithful, the author or spectators of the epigraphic object. The cross of St Nikomedes allows me to explore some of these interactions,