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Architectural Sculpture in the Church InteriorsPetr Jindra / Aleš Mudra

In a number of churches in north-west Bohemia we find vault corbels and keystones in the form of figurative works of sculpture. The works that have been preserved form two distinct groups. One is connected with smaller, rural churches from the 14th century, while the other is found in large, urban churches, mostly from the second quarter of the 16th century. Only three sets of sculptures from a monastic environment have been preserved, but two of them are extensive and well-executed.456

The church represents a defined space for the presentation and “epiphany” of divinity, a space embed-ded in the created world. The idea of the Christian God always makes reference both to the work of creation (opus conditionis), and to the work of salvation (opus restaurationis).457 The created world – the orb of the lands (orbis terrarum, Ps 23, 1), as the positively-understood work of God mirrored in the construction of the church, is also a world disturbed and subjugated by the operation of evil forces. As such, however, this material world that has been attacked by decay is also a place of salva-tion – a place in which God became incarnate in Christ, and into which the church is situated as a me-dium of renewal. The building of the church (with the liturgy performed in it) thus in itself refers to the relationship between uncreated, perfect divinity and the created, imperfect world, which in its variety of form draws attention to the idea of the perfect unity of God’s being, in which it participates. At the same time, however, it also thematises the confrontation of divinity and sacredness with the fallen and sinful world. The church thus generates a wide range of meanings, which are dominated above all by the supremacy of God, as universally manifested, and the triumph of good and of Christian values over evil, heresy and lack of faith. These meanings are processed in terms of ideas from basic apotropaic, expurgatory, repressive or exclusionary functions up to the subtle reciprocal relationships

456 In the St. Catherine’s church in Chomutov administered by the Teutonic order (cat. no. VII–4) and the cloisters of the Osek Abbey (cat. no. X–3). These groups do not fall in their nature entirely into the interpretational framework of this study, and will thus be dealt with separately. The hospice church of the Holy Spirit on the edge of Most, administered by the Order of the Holy Cross, has overall proportions and a distribution of figurative sculpture that makes it belong more to the group of country churches, and so we will mention it in the context of that group.

457 “Nam opera restaurationis multo digniora sunt operibus conditionis; quia illa ad servitutem facta sunt, ut stanti homini subessent; haec ad salutem ut lapsum erigerent.” – hugo de st. VictoiRe: De sacramentis Christianae fidei, Prologus. In: PL 176,183–184; cf. here Lib. I, kap. XXVIII. In: PL 176, 203–204.

102. Havraň, St. Lawrence church, keystone with a monk in the western bay of the chancel

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between the sacred and the profane, between a mainstream cult, order and corresponding social norms on one hand and what is marginal, transgressory, disorderly and extreme on the other; be-tween the ideal, exemplary and governing here and the repellent, punished and governed there. These meanings are communicated in the space of the church in the form of a discourse modelling the experience and regulating the behaviour of members of the community and of the Church present in the church building.

Architectural sculpture, as a layer of material representations tied to the construction of the building and intentionally inserted into specific spaces in the church, is in our view one of the semantically ac-tive, semantically activating and communicating media of this discourse. We assume that the sculp-tural architectural elements in the sacral interior had not only an aesthetic role but also a referential and semantic function that was connected with both the significance and the function of the space, and also with the liturgical activity of the real and symbolic “body” which is presented in it.

The different zones of the church are semantically defined and hierarchised according to their function and according to the presence of the “body”, to which the given functions are ascribed. In the sacral space (as a result forming a mysterious unit) the following bodies are present in hierarchical order: (I) the sacramental body of Christ (corpus Christi – corpus verum, naturale), made present during the mass when the offertory (offertorium) is carried out by the priest (II), who is the first to receive it and who then distributes it (communio) to the body (III) that is formed by the participants in the service (corpus societatis). The whole makes the body of the Church (ecclesia), the united body of Christ and his people (corpus mysticum),458 which is also represented by the actual building of the church. In the spatial structure of the church building there is a distinction between the privileged spaces, in which the privileged bodies I and II are found (the chancel and sacristy), and the areas in which the body III is present (the nave). A special role is played by the narthex, the entry to the building as a whole, symbolising the Church itself – here, too, intentional use was made of architectural sculpture.459

In rural churches elements of architectural sculpture are found almost exclusively in chancels with a po-lygonal termination and a cross-ribbed vault, or in the sacristy (in other words, in the privileged areas that are occupied by privileged bodies I and II), and they are concentrated on corbels and keystones. In addition to plant motifs, the most frequently found motifs on corbels are human heads, or masks. The communicatory function and symbolic references of the sculptured heads in this space cannot easily be characterised; we assume that they embraced, in a complex way, a wider range of interconnected

458 On the development of the concepts of the body of Christ and the body of the church (corpus Christi / corpus mysti-cum) in the Middle Ages see kantoRowitz 1997, 195sqq.

459 See for example the parish church, today the cathedral of St. Bartholomew in Plzeň with its monstrous masks in the area under the tower. – hRuBý 1996, 605, cat. no. 235; jindRa 2014, 311. On the symbolic structure of the church in this sense see saueR 1924.

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semantic levels. On the basic level the figurative corbels support the semantic references that are latently already present in the space and place itself. These concern (a) the construction and spatial conception of the building, and (b) the significance and function of the space together with the pre- sence of the “body” that carries out the given function in it. These references are not of an essential character, but more of a contextual one. They cannot in most cases be given firm meanings, because while their semantics may constitute, in a lapidary way, the special significance of the space and the relevant knowledge and action of the subject in them, this semantics is also shaped by the interference of historical and local issues and specificity. It works with the fluid, polysemantic nature of the symbol as such. Architectural figurative sculpture may today defy clear-cut classification, but at the time that it was made, in the given zones and places, it undoubtedly played a successful role as a defining and meaning-producing element that instructed the individual and helped him to reflect on the function of the space so labelled and on the hierarchical relationships that govern the different zones of the church.

(a) From the point of view of the tectonic structure of the spatio-semantic pattern of the building, the essen-

tial function of the corbel as support for the vault, and at the same time its exclusive position in a sacral space that was not accessible to lay people, in other words the chancel and sacristy, is of key impor-tance. In the tectonic system of Gothic architecture the corbel is an element that, in vault construction, played a crucial role in transferring the weight of the vault to the vertical support, bearing the vault ribs on the wall. Only in the post-classic phase of Gothic architecture did this self-evident construc-tional element end, and the possibility arose of a fluent transition between the vault and the support, or for the ribs to be led straight out of the wall, column or pillar. To enhance the basic functional role of this element (it signalises a change in the construction regime between the vertical wall and the vault jutting out from it) it would, of course, have been enough to use a purely geometric, utilitarian form, or a form that was structured architecturally using abstract decoration, in the form of blind tracery, for example. If in a number of cases this faster and cheaper solution was abandoned in favour of forms us-ing plant decoration, animals, people, angels and monsters, which made greater demands on the stone masons, then it should be asked what the motivation and purpose of this choice was.

The explanation that offers itself is that figurative architectural sculpture in the privileged spaces of the church reflects, in its relation to the key points of construction of the building, the very order of the created world, permeated with causal relationships and connections that can be looked at rationally and reconstructed in conceptional and physical form. The order of the world is thus given contours in the construction, its causal connections emphasised by figurative forms that at the same time are bearers of particular meanings. More concrete interpretations of them are, however, limited both by the insufficiency of our knowledge as a result of the time interval and the lack of sources, and also by the polysemantic nature of these forms. The lack of a clear semantic message is also added to in this

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case by the low cultural level of the rural environ-ment, which took over models from higher culture intuitively and without a precise understanding of their original meaning.A specific role among the figuratively-worked con-struction elements is played by the keystone, which does not hold up the vault, symbolising heaven, but is its culmination, closing it off and thus becoming a corner stone in the construction. Unlike corbels, the iconography used for the keystone is entirely concrete in meaning, being above all of a Christologi-cal respectively soteriological nature (see below).

(b) In relation to the space it should be realised that the figuratively-worked elements of its architecture make the specific spaces and places more significant compared to others purely by reason of their existence.

At the same time, they give it the beauty of a plant form representing the work of creation (opus conditionis), but also the distribution of views and the mute speech of facial expression in the case of human heads, which are reminiscent of the work of salvation (opus restaurationis).

Here it is worth remembering that the origin of the universe in the act of creation is believed to be the source of its sacred features. From Augustine, via High Scholasticism to the late Middle Ages, nature was understood as the trace and letter of God; the ontological structure and order of the natural world express God’s will.460 The understanding of the universe as a pointer to the holy is a legitimate one in the Christian concept: according to Hugo of Saint-Victor, it would not be wrong to call the whole of creation a theophany.461 The composition of the universe and nature contains the aim of the Creator, who “knows best, having the perfect skill, how to beautify this universe by opposition and diversity of parts”.462 From the point of view of ontology, the relation-ship between divine being and the world of created beings was defined for mediaeval thought by Boethius: unlike the absolute unity of divinity, nature is “what gives each thing form through its

460 Cf. auReLius augustinus: De civitate Dei 21, 8. In: PL 41, 721.461 hugo de s. VictoRe: Miscellanea. In: PL 171, 518b.462 auReLius augustinus: De civitate Dei 16, 8. In: PL 41, 486. Translation by heaLey 1906, 96.

103. Dubany, church of SS. Peter and Paul, corbel with vegetation in the chancel

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specific difference”.463 In the case of figural forms, above all heads of various types, the person (in the modern age the subject) is defined as “the in-dividualised essence of rational nature” (“naturae rationabilis individua substantia”). In the privi-leged spaces of the church, therefore, the absolute simple entity of divinity, here present by means of the eucharist, is juxtaposed with the presence of ontologically-diverse entities that represent the (complex) created world, and among which, in the general visual concept (in other words in the indif-ferent face/mask) is included the being at the top of its hierarchy: man as the individualized basis of rational nature and a special subject of salvation. Indeed, it is this created world, here represented symbolically in sculpture, in which God became incarnate. In the presbytery the act of incarnation is ritually and repeatedly made present. The natu-ral and personificatory images that are carved in stone in exposed places of the construction system and in the privileged spaces of the church thus need to be understood both in terms of mediaeval ontology, in other words the fact of the creation of the world, and in terms of soteriology, the fact of the salvation that took place in it.

–The figuratively-worked corbels also have a narrower semantic layer in the concrete iconography, which

often has a typological significance. These need not be Old Testament scenes themselves; the Old Testament world and period may be referred to by architectural motifs or plant ornamentations in their form alone. In such a case the weight-bearing element of the corbel expresses a typologi-cal relationship between the Old and New testaments and at the same time the subjugation of the first to the second – as in the case of the figural forms of the prophets and sibyles, supporting the Church of the New Testament, the pillars of which are the apostles and the head is Christ. It is also possible that the unspecified heads can count in their genealogy the ancient model of the Atlantes,

463 “Natura est unam quamque rem informans specifica differentia“. – Boëthius: Liber de Persona et duabus Naturis contra Eutychen et Nestorium. In: PL 64, 137. Cf. thomas aquinas: Summa Theologiae, 3A, 2. 1.

104. Brozany, St. Gotthard church, corbel with blind tracery in the chancel

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the counterparts of the Caryatids, who in anthromorphic fashion expressed the theme of the burden and its support.464 In the case of the corbels in the form of angels, there is undoubtedly a semantic reference to the fundament of the vault of heavens, of the divine sphere. Especially in the late medi-aeval period, angels became an instrument of divine causality and were considered to be forces that moved the heavens, represented by a vault.465 Typically again, in the chancel and the sacristy, the keystone as the “corner stone” often bears the true face of Christ in the spirit of the biblical words “This is the stone which was rejected by you the builders, which is become the head of the corner.”466 The tectonic construction (without the top quoin the church would crumble) is thus naturally related to the iconography of the sculpture (without Christ there would be no Church). The keystone as the central node of the vault, which symbolises the heavens, has at the same time an eschatological meaning. It is created in such a way so as to clearly manifest its culminating and uniting function at the node where the ribs come together. If the vault represents the heavens, then the keystone, indicating their centre, is a place where “aperti sunt coeli” (“the heavens were opened”),467 where it is possible, via an image, to glimpse, together with Ezechiel,“visionem magnam” (Ez 1, 1),468 that is made concrete in the New Testament as the face of Christ, presenting the effigies Dei. The keystone with a veraicon thus at the same time simulates the vision of God in his glory. Through this channel, communication with the heavenly sphere also took place during the transubstantiation: the priest turns his gaze upwards towards Christ’s face on the keystone, raises up the host and says: “Look upon them (the sacraments) with a graceful and tranquil countenance”.469

Both the church spaces accented by architectural sculpture (the chancel and the sacristy) have an ex-clusive significance. In the chancel the divinity in Christ’s body and blood is rendered present in the eucharist by means of the priest, while in the sacristy the equipment needed for the liturgy of the mass and to serve the eucharist is kept. The figurative corbel thus generally divided the space not only in terms of composition, but also in terms of zones of significance. On both the horizontal

464 The ancient Atlantes were taken into the repertoire of Romanesque sculpture, which is shown in the region by a relief in Brozany, secondarily placed on the outside of the high Gothic termination of the chancel next to the buttress. Cf. schweizeR 2007.

465 gRegoRy 1999, 558.466 Acts 4, 11. Other biblical passages on the same theme: Ps 118, 22; Mt 21, 42, 44; Pt 2, 7.467 The significance of the keystone as giving a symbolic view into heaven is explicitly shown by the function of the hol-

low keystone, used in liturgical performances of, for example, Christ ascending into heaven. The resurrected Christ literally disappeared through the keystone into heaven. See below in the case of Benešov nad Ploučnicí.

468 In the commentary to Isaiah Jerome replaced the plural “visiones Dei” (visions of God), used in accordance with a model in the Vulgate, with the singular “visio magna”. Cf. hieRonymus stRidonensis: Commentariorum in Isaiam Prophetam lib. XVIII. In: PL 24, 621: “Ezechieli aperti sunt coeli, et vidit visionem magnam”.

469 kuBínoVá 2006, 263.

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and vertical plane it acted as a semantic watershed between the sacred and the profane, and at the same time functioned as a means of communication between the two worlds. In this sense the monsters were also given a function. They expressed a strong sense of the mysterious, which the mediaeval period carried forward from the mythology and animistic traditions of the ancient world to God as the only source of creation.470 In addition to this, they rep-resented evil that has been chained and made to serve, subjected to the Church and to heaven.

– Corbels in the shape of a human head became

known in the Czech lands in the 13th centu-ry via the court art of the Přemyslid dynas-ty.471 The placing of crowned heads (ideal portraits of kings and queens) on the bor-der between the profane and sacred sphere can be explained here by an attempt to present, in vivid fashion, the position of the ruler between heaven and earth, the sacred nature of his government, for which the Přemyslid family had been chosen by God himself, delegating to the family part of his rule on earth.472

In the 14th century, during the rule of the Luxembourgs, the figurative corbels were

470 Cf. auReLius augustinus: De civitate Dei 21, 8. In: PL 41, 720sqq.

471 homoLka 1982, 70, 96sqq.472 A classic study of the role of the king as a me-

diator between the earthly and heavenly: kan-toRowitz 1997.

105. Kolín, church of St. Bartholomew, corbel with a fool between the nave and the chancel

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extended to churches in all social environments, from cathedrals to the smallest country church. They also achieved their greatest typological and iconographic variety. In addition to plant forms (leaves, flowers, fruits), most common in the preceding centuries, we also find heads and busts of people of both sexes, animals, angels, prophets, sibyls, shield-bearers, saints, demons, legendary and composite beings created from elements of various animals (monsters, chimeras) or from both human and plant elements (green men). A fundamental role in the spread and domestication of figurative architectural sculptures was played by the example set by the Prague cathedral lodge, which in the second half of the 14th century produced a huge quantity of figurative construction ele-ments, above all representing various fantastic creatures. The stone masons who passed through the Prague lodge or who were inspired by its works then found jobs on the construction of rural churches, and thus helped to spread Parleresque models throughout the kingdom. The articulation of parts of the church interior with the aid of isolated pairs of corbels, in other words the division of the hierarchically-differentiated spaces of the chancel and nave, is also found in the work of Peter Parler himself, in the church of St. Bartholomew in Kolín nad Labem. The extremely large corbels are here clearly acting as guards of the chancel, as the iconography of one of them indicates – a primitive face with its tongue sticking out, in other words a fool. The fool delineates the space re-served for the service by standing outside the order of society, on the edge of the community gathered in the nave.473 However, this figure is in itself a good example of polysemantic complexity and at the same time of the instructive lucidity of its semantic role: The dehumanised face delineates the sacred space, while at the same time it is drawn into it. The basic reference text with regard to the fool for mediaeval exegesis was the first verse of Psalm 13 (14) and Psalm 52 (53) “Dixit insipiens in corde suo: ‘Non est Deus’” (“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’.” ). The fool, who in his heart denies God, is thus forced to remain, paradoxically, a permanent witness to God’s repeated eucharistic presence. The form of the head of a fool in a space where bread and wine are trans-formed into the body and blood of Christ, and these are distributed to the people from whose “body” the fool is banished, thus represents the imposition of a punishment and forced subjugation to the central social norm of faith that is insisted upon. In this sense it also becomes an example regulat-ing human attitudes. However the face of a fool in the space where the eucharistic transubstantia-tion of a material substance into the body of God takes place does not just represent protection, punishment and example, but also does something entirely fundamental. The statement “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’.” is in reality a paradoxical invocation of what it denies, because it complementarily causes the exact opposite; it invokes God. Not without reason it is the opening verse of a psalm that every priest knew off by heart. “Vox imaginis” – the voice of the fool depicted on the corbel, delineating a space with a clear sacral identity, conveys this statement and thus sets

473 On the iconography of fools see ottoVá 2010, 137–161 with an English resumé (257–261) and references to specialist literature.

106. Bitozeves, church of Archangel Michael, corbel with a human head beside the sacrament niche

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off in the mind of the perceptive observer an associative mechanism in which all the above-mentioned semantic levels were ac-tivated in a complex way.–Figurative elements reached rural church-es in north-west Bohemia in a range that varied from individual heads to the more frequent pairs of heads to groups of 5–10, where an integrated iconographic pro-gramme may be assumed.474 Where there is an isolated corbel, the only one in the form of a human face in the entire church and located in the immediate vicinity of the sacrament niche [106],475 it creates an anomaly and draws attention to the place where the eucharist is stored, signalises the presence of God and encourages com-munication with him. Coming across an anomaly, one that is striking in a space, disturbs our usual perceptions, provokes an emotional reaction and inspires in the mind, which it addresses by disturbing it, a corresponding response: “These deliber-ate disturbances [...] are a mode of commu-

nicatio, a ‘voice’ [...].”476 In the case in question the head clearly indicates the boundary between the human and the divine, draws attention vividly to this boundary and opens up the possibility that it can be crossed by stimulating the mind to tune into another mode. Here, God is truly present in

474 On the issue of well-thought-out programmes, scepticism is shown by the author of the monograph on symbolic ar-chitectural sculpture on mediaeval churches in the Salzburg area, Peter Dinzelbacher. However, his stance is based on the limited number of objects in the area in question, and it does not rule out that the programmes may have existed in other regions (cf. dinzeLBacheR 2014, 90sqq.).

475 E.g. Hradiště (cat. no. V–27) or Bitozeves (cat. no. V–26).476 Bouché 2006, 306. Here cf.: “These discomforts provoke responses; our attention is drawn to them, our interest is en-

gaged, and we often react by seeking explorations that will resolve the anomaly and relieve the discomfort.” (ibidem, 310sq.).

107. Brozany, church of SS. Peter and Paul, groundplan showing the placement of figurative corbels: human heads (a) and vegetabile or architectural motifs (b)

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a small wafer; its communion, in other words participation in the Mass sacrifice, represented the only generally-available way of connecting during one’s lifetime with God, whose face could only be seen after entrance into the heavenly kingdom. The combination of the face and the eucharistic receptacle thus symbolically represents eschatological hope of achieving the goal of all Christians – salvation and bliss together with God in heaven.477

The pair of corbels at the boundary of the nave and the chancel, mentioned above in the case of Kolín, does not always take the form of fools. In post-Parler architecture we find it, for example, in Rothenburg o. T., where two green men delineate the western chancel, designed for the storage of the relic of the holy Blood.478 Elsewhere they take the form of indifferent male heads, as in the case of the eastern side of the chancel arch in Brozany (cat. no. II–45, 46). As shown by Michaela Ottová in the case of the cathedral of St. Barbara in Kutná Hora, the depiction of green men, or women is a phenomenon connected to the semantics of salvation and resurrection.479 This is confirmed by the specific and rare iconography of the “green lion”, preserved for example in the chapel of the church of St. Gaul in Prague,480 above the sacrament niche in the church of St. Cunigunde in Rochlitz (Saxony) and on the corbel from the ambulatory of the former Dominican monastery in Plzeň.481 In a symbolic composite of a lion with vegetation sprouting from its mouth, out of which came the roar that was thought to bring the young lion cubs to life, the soteriological significance of resurrection and salvation support each other.482

477 For these reasons the true face of Christ (veraicon) often appears on sacrament houses – cf. timmeRmann 2009, 270; mudRa 2012a, 129.

478 mudRa 2015c.479 ottoVá 2010, 131–161, 256–261.480 jindRa/mudRa 2013, 159–161.481 jindRa 2014, 311. The head was formerly mistakenly described as human (see hRuBý 1996, 605, cat. no. 235). We

are not sure of its precise location, but in keeping with our thinking we might expect it to be in the southern arm of the ambulatory at the entrance to the church of St. Margaret, on the very boundary of the nave and the choir. This coincides with description of the ambulatory by Josef Strnad who had still a chance to see it before its destruction in 1899 (stRnad 1896, 11). The description includes a note of “an imaginary animal (?) head” on the capital of two joined semipillars right at presumed place.

482 The well-known statement from the Physiologus, according to which lion cubs are born dead and the lion brings them to life on the third day with its own breath is also made by isidoR oF seViLLa: Etymologiae XII, 2 De Bestiis (5). This theme is worked in a remarkable way by the period sculptures of Madonnas on lions, when from out of the open mouth of the lion an imaginary roar comes both to the ear of Christ (who rises from the dead) and to the recipient (who will be resurrected at the end of ages). In the case of the green lion, instead of the imaginary acoustic element, the visually-distinct element of vegetation is used in the same semantic context (on lion Madonnas cf. mudRa 2014a). The interpretational level of the green lion in the sense of pointing to God as a source of resurrection and salvation could, however, easily be turned into the exact opposite, into a reference to death thwarting life (when the lion shows his teeth and chews shoots) – dinzeLBacheR 2014, 82).

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Without the aid of written testimony from the Middle Ages, the connection between these composite beings and salvation or salvation-related ele-ments can be only hypothetically con-strued. One of the possibilities is a re-interpretation of the motifs in ancient tradition in which humans merge with plants, or humans are changed into plants in connection with being res-cued (in the Christian transformation, salvation). The Middle Ages could draw such examples from the much-read Ovid,483 in which the transforma-tion of a person into a plant (tree) is connected with overcoming mortality in order to be permanently joined in love (Philemon and Baucis) or mourn-ing (Cyparissus), or with escape from sin and the finding of salvation (Apollo and Daphne, Myrrha) – in the case of Myrrha by means of penitence.484 A negative example is the transforma-tion of the Thracian women into trees of the forest, as a punishment for hav-ing torn apart Orpheus. However, it is not necessary – nor, for the most part, even possible – to equate the green men and green women with concrete figures from ancient mythology. It is better to understand them as a to-ken in the form of imaginary objects that in their peculiar composite sym-bolism of plant and human probably

483 dimmick 2002.484 Cf. andeRson 1990, 44; couLteR 2006, 30.

108. Brozany, church of SS. Peter and Paul, corbel with vegetabile motifs

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had also absorbed the above-mentioned allusions to salvation that ancient my-thology contained. At the same time it is remarkable how these subjects con-nect, in a complex way, the basic onto-logical levels of creation: (1) a non-living entity – the stone out of which the im-aginary face is carved, and in which it is presented,485 (2) an entity with vege- tative life – a plant, and (3) an aware being – a human endowed with reason. This hierarchically highest being is, in fact, a substrate of the plant entelechy enlivening dead material, for the vegeta-tive life grows and develops from its in-side, nota bene from its mouth, in other words a place out of which come words and thoughts.

As regards the indifferent human heads placed in pairs on the boundary of the chancel and nave, their basic se-mantic level seems to be the symbolic presence of a person (the individual-ised essence of rational nature – natu-rae rationabilis individua substantia in the above-mentioned definition by Boethius) as the subject of salvation, and its immanent com-munication activity. It is interesting to find that in various churches with the same construction-al form (a chancel with two vault bays) the same constellation is used, with the same, similarly-located iconography of the corbels, as if it had a semantically-stable role in the given place. On the middle corbel we repeatedly find a plant motif, while the corner corbels, which delineate the space, are given heads. We come across such cases at Brozany [108, 109] and Roudníky (cat. no. III–22) as well as in other places outside the region.486 In the very place where Christ’s sacrifice is repeatedly

485 Given that there is no documented existence of green men outside the imaginary world of sculpture (they appear in painting only to a small extent), their connection with the stone or wood can be understood as an essential one. – ottoVá 2010, 121.

486 For example Soběslav, the parish church of St. Peter and St. Paul; Znojmo, the parish church of St. Nicholas.

109. Brozany, church of SS. Peter and Paul, corbel with human head

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made present, with his symbolic resurrection during the raising of the host (elevatio), the de-piction of a plant form probably carries the sig-nificance of vegetative renewal with a direct reference to the resur-rection of Christ, and also to the future resur-rection of the dead at the Last Judgement. In this connection, however, Au-gustine’s meditation on being and consciousness is interesting; he consi- ders the role of entities that in their existence entirely fulfil God’s will, but cannot reflect on it,

because they lack sensibility and consciousness. Plants are such entities, and according to Augustine the forms with which they create beauty in the visible construction of the world are given to the senses for perception as if they wanted to be perceived and recognized as compensation for the fact that they are not capable of being sensible and conscious on their own. The juxtaposition of a depiction of a plant organism, representing the unconscious beauty of the construction of the world, and of the human face representing consciousness that reflects upon it and makes it present in the light of reason, is reminiscent of this meditation.487

The larger groups include the corbels and keystones in the chancel in Sulejovice and Dubany, and in the sacristy in Smolnice. In Sulejovice (cat. no. II–44) all the vault corbels in the chancel and sacristy are formed by human heads. While in the chancel there is a balanced ratio of male to female heads [111], in the sacristy there are only four male heads, executed notably more roughly than the corbels in the chan-cel. The most capable of the stone masons involved worked on the pair of men most exposed to view, at the sides of the altar [110]. One of these is convincingly psychologically characterised as a noble ascetic, while the other is portrayed as a frivolous hedonist. An attempt at psychologisation can also

487 auReLius augustinus: De civitate Dei 11, 27. In: PL 41, 340sq.

110. Sulejovice, Holy Trinity church, corbels with human heads between the choir and the presbytery111. Sulejovice, Holy Trinity church, interior of the chancel

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be seen in the case of the other heads in the chan-cel, although it was less successful. The whole may represent the vari-ety of types to be found in human society, and thus the variety of limbs of the Church (1Cor 12, 27–30; cf. also the above-mentioned definition by Boethius of the person as the individualised es-sence of rational nature) on which the (heavenly) vault rests, and thus, metaphorically, care for the salvation of people. The low quality of the heads in the sacristy [112] then indicates

a strong interest on the part of the commissioner in having figural corbels in the space, despite the un-favourable conditions (a good-quality stone mason was not available for all the work). This, too, is an argument against the predominant opinion that this is indifferent decoration. It was not an effort at representation or an aestheticisation of the interior, and it was not about the quality of the craftsman-ship either. Rather, the corbels had a symbolic, probably apotropaic function.488 The fact that figural corbels were used in the sacristy also means that they could only be perceived by the priest (privileged “body” II) and most of the time they thus fulfilled their function without an ordinary recipient being present, as with, for example, the sculptural elements in the higher-located places of cathedrals, invisible to the naked eye. The basic layer of their symbolic function may be compensation for the phenomenon of horror vacui: people naturally feel safer if the corners delimitating a space are not empty, but “in-habited”. In this sense figural corbels may have functioned as elements of active magical protection: the face symbolises presence, or the very fact that the place is taken and can no longer be filled by de-mons (Mt 12, 43–44). The locating of these figural corbels in the corners means the whole inner space is constantly guarded. Behind the corbels with their faces, out of their view, spreads the outer, profane,

488 Cf. dinzeLBacheR 2014, 116–119.

112. Sulejovice, Holy Trinity church, corbels with human heads in the sacristy

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unguarded space, where evil forces may do their work without restriction.

The simple faces of indefi-nite expression489 may often personify nothing more than vox imaginis – a basic medium of com-munication, a voice in it-self. It is in this commu-nication function that we see the implicit semantic layer of the heads. Here it is worth remembering that the chancel is the space of the incarnate Logos, made present by the transubstantiation of the host (which is also why the figural corbels symbolically represent the world as the place of incarnation). The incarnate logos as the semantic and spatial centre of the presbytery is surrounded by communication expressed by faces and gazes protruding from the corbels. The communication function of the corbels in the form of heads and faces derives directly from the sacral significance of the space and its immediate connection with the incarnate logos referring to the Mass community: the “voices of faces” (voces imaginum) in a certain sense already symbolise in them-selves the (Mass) community (communio) and its participation in the sacrament (communio sancti al-taris), in other words, what the divine service is. The expressions on the faces may then be indifferent, since their function consists in doing what a human face as such does spontaneously – communicating by means of voice and mimicry, thus addressing those who perceive them and laying down in the space the conditions for the community.

Unlike the sculptures with undefined expressions, the heads in the sacristy in Smolnice (cat. no. I–26) have such extreme expressions that they give the impression of being mentally ill [113]. They are figures on the edge of the society of the mentally-stable, who in the given context once again delineate the boundary between the protected sphere of the church interior, visited by a community of people

489 E.g. Brozany, Hradiště, Roudníky.

113. Smolnice, St. Bartholomew church, corbels with human heads in the sacristy

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predestined for salvation, and the outer sphere of the damned. It is possible that these expressive faces also represent the role of the fool who denies God in his heart (cf. above).In the rectangular presbytery of the little church at Dubany with a single-bay cross vault (cat. no. II–41), we find only four corbels. However, they are relatively large, good-quality and low-set, so that they have a very strong effect on those approaching. One is covered by leaves, another carries an idealised woman’s head covered by a veil, while the remaining two represent green men (not demonic types, but young, harmonious faces that represent rather positive types). The vault ribs meet at a keystone with a relief of the Lamb of God – Jesus Christ. It is not impossible that the iconography of the sculptures here is cre-ating a token of the Church. The depiction of the woman corresponds to the Virgin Mary, or the Church, while the remaining corbels may, in this constellation, point to biblical plant metaphors.

According to St. Paul, for example, Christ is the head from which the limbs of the Church grow.490 He calls on the early persecuted Christians to put down roots in Christ491 and to draw strength from the root of the noble olive (the true God).492 The natural symbolism of the branches growing out of the root opens the way to the understanding of the Christian concept. The growth of vegetation in an upwards direction symbolises the path from the earthly world of suffering and damnation to the world of joy and salvation. Green men, embodying the connection between the human element and divine strength contained in vegetation, together create a programme that corresponds to the concept of “the Church as the organized body of Christian society united in the Sacrament of the Altar”.493

The above-mentioned use of an image of Christ on the keystone of the chancel as the cornerstone of the building and of the Church takes on various eschatological and soteriological forms in the churches

490 Eph 4, 15; Co 2, 19.491 Co 2, 7.492 Ro 11.493 kantoRowitz 1997, 196.

114. Dubany, church of SS. Peter and Paul, corbel with a woman’s head (Virgin Mary?) in the chancel

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of north-west Bohemia: a lamb with a victory standard (Dubany, Charvatce,494 Slavětín,495 the church of the Holy Spirit in Most496), the half-figures of Christ the Judge and the Man of Sorrows at Bedřichův Světec (cat. no. VI–19) or Christ kneeling at the cross in Slavětín.497 Where there are two keystones in the chan-cel, the second one tends to be reserved for the builder or patron of the church, whether it was a convent (Sulejovice, the church of the Holy Spirit in Most), a town (Havraň)498 or, as it most often was, a noble family.499 As Hans Belting has pointed out,500 the depiction of the donor and the family coat of arms replaces the real body of the person and family (or, in the case of a convent or town, the spiritual or lay community), “whose presence they extend both in time and space”.501 The likeness of the dona-tor and the coat of arms bring into the space in question the genealogical body of the family or spiritual or lay community with its past, pre-sent and future historical time; in the church, this medium allows the presence – alongside the sacramental body of Christ, the body of the priest and the body of the lay community – of a further “eschatological body” situated in the symbolic space of the vault-heaven, where it manifests faith in redemption and at the same time fills a representative and exemplary role. The half-figure of a monk with a model of a church and an inscription band on the keystone in Havraň, an excellent piece

494 Cat. no. II–36.495 dienstBieR 2014.496 UPČ II, 436.497 In Bedřichův Světec and Slavětín the keystones are flat and only painted.498 The secondarily-placed emblem of the town of Most from the year 1550 on a keystone of the polygonal termination.499 E.g. the Koldic family in Roudníky (cat. no. III–22), the Vlčeks in Minice and in Libčeves (cat. no. V–21), yeomen

from Brloh in Smolnice (cat. no. I–27), the lords of Ervěnice in Slavětín etc.500 BeLting 2011, 62–83.501 The individual depiction and coat of arms meanwhile “conveyed different conceptions of the body, for the genealogical

and the individual body cannot be reduced to a common denominator”. – BeLting 2011, 63.

115. Dubany, church of SS. Peter and Paul, corbel with a green man in the chancel

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of sculpture [102], belonged to the above-mentioned semantic level, but because we unfortunately do not know the history of the place at the presumed time of its crea-tion (the first third of the 14th century, cat. no. VI–17) we cannot identify it. The closest monastery is Osek, but it cannot be ruled out that Havraň temporarily belonged to one of the Saxon monasteries (as in the case of the above-mentioned Sulejovice).

–Exceptional groups of sculptural elements

have been preserved in north-west Bohemia in the big urban parish churches, above all in Louny, Most, Ústí nad Labem, Chomu-tov and Benešov nad Ploučnicí. Compared to the rural buildings, some of the town churches are unusually rich in figurative corbels and keystones – in Most, for exam-ple, there is a group of shields consisting of no fewer than 36 items. However, their use was not automatic, as is shown, for ex-ample, by the church at Ostrov nad Ohří, which has chapels similar in design to the church in Most, but is entirely without figurative sculpture (cat. no. XI–27). Collections of corbels and keystones in specific urban churches, connected to each other by the period of their creation (c. 1523–1550) and partly maybe also by their authors, are found in the context of broad, high three-aisled hall churches. The function of the more demandingly-worked corbels and keystones was here often to represent the people, families and corporations as benefactors of the church.

In Most they are the keystones of the radial chapels with the emblems of the guilds, the “church fathers” (Kirchenvater in German, representatives of the municipality as the builder of the church), burghers, noblemen and the Osek Abbey [116].502 Of all those who had chapels built here, the one who stands out the most is the abbot Bartoloměj, who is represented on the vault of the chapel, built in a prominent place

502 Cat. no. VI–4; ottoVá/Royt 2014, 25–35.

116. Most, church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, vault of the Osek Chapel117. Most, church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, vault of the Osek Chapel, keystone with a portrait

of Abbot Bartholomew

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in the easternmost part of the ambulatory of the church, in three ways [116]: with a Cister-cian emblem featuring the initials BA (Bartho-lomeus Abbas?) [118], his assumed family coat of arms and a portrait bust [117]. The abbot’s unusual self-confidence is shown by the fact that he had himself depicted in the same way as the emperor and the sultan are depicted on the vaulting of the nave, with the relief being carried out by the same stone mason.503 In Utraquist Louny, where there was clearly not so much of a need for space for altar foundation as in Catholic Most, the representation of the town patrons focused on shields above the gal-lery. Unfortunately, it has not proven possible to connect the preserved emblems with respec-tive individualities (cat. no. V–5).We have somewhat better sources for Ústí nad Labem. Here on the vaults of the nave there are shields with dates and the symbols of crafts (cat. no. III–5). Pretzels with the ini-

tials PB and the year 1524 [119] would correspond to the baker Paul (Paul Bäcker), who is mentioned as a reeve504 and as an alderman.505 However, a knife-maker corresponding to the initials MS and the year 1523 [119] has not been found in the sources.506 The initials probably belonged to Melchior Schwerzel, who was mayor, alderman507 and clearly also a representative of the cobbler’s guild.508

503 mannLoVá-Raková 1996.504 In 1512, 1513: KSP, f. 275 va, 276 va, 277 va, 278 ra, f. 278 vb, 281 va, 282 ra, 282 va, 283 vb, 286 va, 286 vb; hieke/hoRcicka

1896, 211.505 In 1521: hieke/hoRcicka 1896, 188.506 The only burgher named Nožíř (“Knife-maker”) at this time is Nicholas (Mikuláš Missnar/Meyssner, died 1509), who

had a son Vavřinec (Lorenc).507 hieke/hoRcicka 1896, 184, 187, 209–211. Mayor in 1501, 1502, 1510, alderman 1498–1521. According to the records

in the KSP, partly concerning property transactions, he was so well-off that he would have certainly have been able to afford to contribute something towards the church.

508 When in 1514 the statute of the cobbler’s guild was published, he was listed as Melchior, cobbler, right after the mayor. – hieke/hoRcicka 1896, 180.

118. Most, decanal church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, vault of the Osek Chapel, keystone with the coat of arms of Abbot Bartholomew

195 119. Ústí nad Labem, church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, keystones on the vault of the nave

(probably with marks of Paul Bäcker and Melchior Schwerzel)

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In 1518 he witnessed the will of Andreas Schwat-zer, who left him a knife.509 The knife that appears in the emblem may be a reference to the attribute of St. Crispin, the patron saint of cobblers.510

In Benešov nad Ploučnicí the vaulting of the nave of the town church took place only after the start of the reformation, in 1552–1554 (cat. no. IV–22). On the vault of the main aisle, which otherwise lacks keystones, there are shields in the bay in front of the gallery on the rib crossings. They contain emblems representing the local pastor, Master Jacob Loblich of Rochlitz, the deacon Johann Pusch of Pirna and burghers who were benefactors of the church [120]. The full names of the donors with the years are accompanied by symbols of crafts (there is a baker, tailor, draper, weaver (?) and butcher [121]). The way in which the shields are distributed is interesting: although Lutheranism was introduced to Benešov at an early date by the Salhausen family from Saxony,511 the concentration of donors’ emblems around a hollow keystone follows the pre-Reformation practice. From the point of view of Catholic rite, this was one of the most exposed places in the church; the presence of the hollow keystone meant that it was possible for spectacular liturgical performances to take place here, some-thing that adherents to the Reformation condemned. The place indicating the transition between the earthly and the heavenly was particularly suitable for the location of the “eschatological body” of the donor and his family, or the “body” of the community (guild, brotherhood, town community etc.) since the gaze of those participating in church services was often drawn here. It was their prayers for the departed (also disdained by the reformers) that facilitated the transition between the above-mentioned spheres and strengthened the donors’ hope of salvation.512

509 hieke/hoRcicka 1896, 184.510 LCI VI, 3.511 just 2009, 71.512 Examples of coat of arms around a hollow keystone: Strausberg (Brandenburg), church of St. Martin; Torgau (Saxo-

ny), church of Our Lady; Nuremberg, church of Our Lady; Radovljica (Carniola), church of St. Peter. On the function of the hollow keystone see kRause 1987; tRipps 1998; on the interpretation in the context of sculptural and painted decoration of the vault: tammen 2000, 304–336; mudRa 2012b and mudRa 2016a (with references to older literature).

120. Benešov nad Ploučnicí, church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, vault of the nave with a hollow keystone surrounded by marks of the benefactors of the church

121. Benešov nad Ploučnicí, church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, vault of the nave, mark of Bartholomew Meissner

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In concluding the subject of the representational func-tion of corbels and key-stones we should also add that the function of the division of the liturgical space and the accenting of its parts, which we have analysed in a rural church of the 14th century, was not fo reign to urban churches of the Late Gothic period either. In the church of St. Nicholas in Louny, for example, all the vault cor-bels are markedly concen-trated along the line of the gallery, in a direction from the south main entrance northwards. They thus divide the western part of the church (the tower, the area under the tower and the gallery), a kind of hypertrophied narthex, from the nave itself. That this was a deliberate decision is clear from the fact that none of the vault springs on the walls of the aisles has a corbel – the ribs spring straight out of the wall, or from a flat template. The iconography of the corbels largely consists of ex-traordinary beings: dragons [123], a green man and an angel [122]. The exceptional hanging keystone consists of a stone pyramid ending in a rosetta and covered with a thin layer of plant tendrils made of polychromed wood. Out of the tendrils on the western and eastern sides peer the heads of bearded men with distinctive fools’ caps [124]. In the context of the above-mentioned interpretation of the fools located on the boundary of the chancel, it is possible that the oversized, stretched-out ears of these ones are meant to indicate that they are deniers of God, caught in the tendrils and forced to listen permanently to the singing of God’s praises that came from the literary brotherhood gathered on the gallery.513

513 The location of the fools may have been inspired by illustrations in Sebastian Brant’s popular and widely-known book The Ship of Fools (BRant 1494), where figures in fools’ caps appear in various forms and positions in the bordures, looking out from plant tendrils.

122. Louny, St. Nicholas church, corbels with an angel head and a green man above the gallery123. Louny, St. Nicholas church, corbel with dragons above the gallery

200 124. Louny, St. Nicholas church, hanging keystone with fools above the gallery

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A highlighting, hierarchizing and apotropaic function – dividing the area of the central aisle from the side aisles – can also be ascribed to the corbels on the inter-aisle pillars of the Church of Our Lady in Chomutov (cat. no. VII–7). A varied company of fools, imps and above all green men of various types is completed by the head of a one-eyed bearded man in a cap [125]. His form corresponds to the period iconography of Jan Žižka of Trocnov – cf. the head from the frame of the town coat of arms in the Tábor town hall from 1515–1516. The much-feared Hussite leader is represented in Chomutov as evil tamed: he is forced to serve by carrying a vault. At the same time he contains an adapted and locally-contex-tualised model of the fools who deny God and are forced to watch endlessly God being repeatedly made present in the Mass: Žižka, who had fought with the sword for communion in both kinds, here has to watch helplessly as laymen in a Catholic church are given the sacrament in one kind.514

514 The connection of the Hussites and the Utraquists with the image of the fool, stupidly turning away from the true faith, was clearly not unique, as is indicated by the above-mentioned period bestseller Ship of Fools (BRant 1498, fol. CVIIIv–CIXr), and, for example, the group of statues on the gable of the church of St. Barbara in Kutná Hora (ottoVá 2010, 160, 260).

125. Chomutov, church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, corbels on the inter-aisle pillars, Jan Žižka (left), a devil, a fool and a green man