Small, mass-produced pipe-clay figurines were popular devotionalia in the late medieval Low Countries. In this paper, focusing on representations of the Christ Child, I study the sensory and playful ways in which such objects were used as ‘props of perception’ in spiritual games of make-believe or role-play. Not only does this particular iconography invite tactile and playful behaviour, the figurines fit within a larger context of image practices involving visions and make-believe. Through such practices images were animated and imbued with a divine power. Contemporary written sources suggest that, especially for women, ownership of and sensory engagement with small-scale figures provided them with agency.
The Daughter Zion allegory has previously been interpreted as a failed allegory for mystical union, both because it relies on personification allegory and because some versions do not actually portray intimate union between the soul and God. Focusing on the Middle Dutch incunable Vander dochtere van syon een deuoet exercitie (A Devout Exercise on the Daughter of Zion), printed by Gheraert Leeu in 1492, I will offer a different interpretation that is based on what the narrative does, rather than on what it does not do. By creating complex characters with inner lives and by fuelling speculation about their motivations, the text creates potent candidates for an intense, mediated relationship with the divine that is similar to parasocial relationships with fictional characters. The text helps the (likely female) reader to develop the devotional skills that will aid her in her spiritual progress.
In an early sixteenth-century printed book from the Low Countries, we find the first visual images that depict Christ with the attributes of a worldly physician. This imagery was already in use in Middle Dutch literature since the thirteenth century. Building on the Augustinian topos of Christus medicus, these devotional texts display interesting developments towards concretization and interiorization. This article gives a comparative analysis of four of those texts: Boec der minnen, Der suster abteke, Vander dochtere van syon and Vander siecten der broosscer naturen. The findings nuance the notion that concrete images from daily life were only developed to meet the needs of a broad, lay readership.
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