Medicijn voor de ziel

Abstract

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.