Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle: Music, Relics, and Sacral Kingship in Thirteenth-Century France by Yossi Maurey (review)

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• Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle: Music, Relics, and Sacral Kingship in Thirteenth-Century France by Yossi Maurey
• Jennifer Thomas

Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle: Music, Relics, and Sacral Kingship in Thirteenth-Century France. By Yossi Maurey (Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, no. 35.) Turnhout: Brepols, 2021. [247 p. ISBN 978-2-503-59105-6; ISBN 978-2-503-59106-3 €95 (e-book)]

Much of medieval culture relates to the objects and impetus of personal devotion. The ritual act of pilgrimage moved believers from home to distant destinations, expanding their experience and faith, and marking their devotion. Crusaders in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries performed a type of pilgrimage as they journeyed to the Holy Land, awakening a consciousness across Europe of the material and spiritual power contained in the places and artifacts of the primitive Christian movement. The practice of affective devotion drew believers close to the emotions and actions of the central figures of Christian belief, and as saints became recognised as possessing the attributes of sacrificial faith, objects of veneration multiplied. Personal salvation loomed in the minds of believers, and the Church offered saintly models and essential pathways to that fervently hoped-for state. At this time, Europe oriented itself geographically and politically around leaders who understood and claimed their power as ordained by God. Sites of religious authority shifted from Jerusalem (which Crusaders swore to protect) to Constantinople (where treasures removed from Jerusalem anchored the eastern Christian capitol), to European cities and cathedrals, which sought sacred relics that would elevate their spiritual and earthly status. Relics engaged the devotion of the faithful, many of whom undertook pilgrimages to visit these powerful objects, the focus of their meditations, which awakened or affirmed their understanding and awareness of the reality of the gospel story and its miracles. These pilgrimage sites—such as Jerusalem, Constantinople, Rome, Tours, and Santiago de Compostela—attracted worldly and religious prestige, power, and capital.

The bourgeoning and diverse practices and beliefs emanating from both heavenly and earthly sources created a potent cultural moment vividly and thoughtfully explored in Yossi Maurey’s Liturgy and Sequences of the Sainte-Chapelle: Music, Relics, and Sacral Kingship in Thirteenth-Century France. In 1238, King Louis IX of France (canonised Saint Louis, 1297) purchased from his cousin Baldwin, Latin Emperor of Constantinople, some of the most potent relics of Christendom, which the deeply indebted Baldwin had pawned to a Venetian merchant. Acquiring these treasures for France, with the Crown of Thorns placed on Jesus’ head during his Passion as the pinnacle of the purchase, Louis sealed his identity as the rightful recipient of their power. Emulating ancient Israel’s King David celebrating the return of the Ark of the Covenant to Israel, Louis, ‘with bare feet and dressed only in a tunic, took up on his shoulders the sacred burden to be carried’ (p. 27), as he escorted the sacred objects into France. Less than two years later, a new trove of twenty-one relics from Constantinople joined them, including a ‘a large piece of the true cross’ (p. 102), the blood of Jesus Christ, his swaddling clothes, and a piece of stone from his sepulchre, along with the heads of Saints Blaise, Clement, and Simeon. As the old religious capitol lost its treasures and primacy, Louis sought to make Paris the centre of Christian identity in the West.

Relics require a reliquary, and in 1248, the architectural jewel of La Sainte-Chapelle, built within view of the cathedral of Notre Dame, was consecrated for this purpose. Notre Dame had developed a sophisticated, musically path-breaking liturgy focused on the Blessed Virgin, keeping pace with the construction of its soaring structure. Different in size, aesthetic, and purpose, the smaller Sainte-Chapelle served the French royal court, especially in its two special feasts commemorating the Crown of Thorns on 11 August and the Reception of Relics on 30 September. The liturgies of Notre Dame were carried on the sounds of innovative, intricate polyphony. La Sainte-Chapelle’s liturgical music, in contrast, drew upon a monophonic musical form—the sequence—that had established its literary and musical innovations in the late...