Objects that were imbued with sacred potencyplayed an integral part in the medieval religious experience. Even though not all religious authorities agreed on the legitimacy of the phenomenonand no ecclesiastical orthodoxy was ever reached on the role of images and materiality in the medieval West, religious objects, mainly figures and images, frequently animated and acquired life. This could, for instance,manifest itself inmovement, speech or bleeding, sometimes by way of miraculous, sometimes by way of mechanical agency.
In this talk, the phenomenon of living matter will be discussed usingmedieval Denmark as a case-study. Taking its starting point in the recent volume “Materiality and Religious Practice in Medieval Denmark” (ed. Croix &Heilskov,Brepols2021), living objects from mechanical anthropomorphic figures, via relic-endowed sculptures to miraculously bleedingwonderhostswill be discussed in order to give a full picture of the many facets of object-animationat the fringe of medieval Christianity. Although the Lutheran Reformation means that sources that enlighten us on object-animation are few and spread over a long time-period of c. 700 years, and although quite a few of them post-medieval and biased against animated objects, they paint a picture of a very rich religious culture wherein materiality played a key part.
Dr.MadsVedelHeilskovis a specialist in medieval religious cultureand materiality. Hisongoing research project iscalled“Animated Materiality in the Medieval Catholic West”and isfunded by the Carlsberg Foundation. Itsfirst instalment was carried out atÉDZdeshauteséٳdesensciencessocialesin Paris and focused on the intellectual and devotional side of object-animation. Its current instalment, “Techniques of Life”, ishoused at theCourtauldInstitute of Artin London. It focuses on the phenomenon of objects acquiring life as a process of becoming which can be broken down into specific artistic and artisanal actions.