St. Peter's rod
The St. Peter's rod is an Ottonian reliquary from the Limburg cathedral treasure . It contains part of the staff of the Apostle Peter , which was divided between the dioceses of Cologne and Trier in the 10th century . The reliquary made around 980 in the workshop of Bishop Egbert of Trier is one of the most important works of Ottonian goldsmithing.
The story of the St. Peter rod
The legend of the apostle Peter sent his students Eucharius , Valerius and Maternus to Gaul to evangelize around there. Maternus died and his companions returned to Rome. There Peter gave them his staff, through whose power Maternus could be brought back to life. Eucharius and Valerius became the first bishops in Trier, Maternus finally became the first bishop of Cologne, so that the staff was considered an important relic for both dioceses. According to the inscription on the reliquary, the staff was brought to Metz due to the invasions of the Huns . The Archbishop of Cologne Brun (953–965) finally reclaimed the staff for the Petrus Cathedral in Cologne , probably given it in 953 from Adalbero von Metz . Around 980, Bishop Egbert von Trier succeeded in making Trier's older claims to the staff clear to his Cologne official brother Warin and in receiving part of the staff. Egbert had the reliquary made for this part around 980. The staff was kept in Trier until the ecclesiastical principalities were dissolved in 1802 and then came into the possession of the Dukes of Nassau . Duke Wilhelm I gave it to the newly founded diocese of Limburg in 1827, along with other relics such as the Limburg Staurothek .
The relic itself, a wooden stick that was shared between Cologne and Trier, is probably a late antique consular stick . In 1354 Emperor Charles IV had a piece 19 cm long cut off from the Trier piece in return for his participation in the appointment of a new Archbishop of Trier .
The reliquary
The reliquary is shaped like a long scepter with a ball knob and a long shaft. Overall, it is 174.5 cm long, the rod has a diameter of 8.5 cm, the diameter of the pommel is 10.5 cm. The pommel is divided into eight fields by a horizontal band decorated with stones and filigree and two vertical bands. At the top of the fields there are emails with the symbols of the four evangelists, including emails with half-length portraits of Saints Peter, Eucharius, Valerius and Maternus. Below the pommel is a strip of inscriptions with the names of the apostles, including a band with trapezoidal fields, which is alternately filled with half-figures of the apostles in enamel and filigree fields with precious stones arranged in triangles. Under these fields there is a band with large, spherical stones, under this another band with trapezoidal enamels with the half-length portraits of the remaining six apostles, who alternate with precious stones set in triangles. Under this volume there is another volume of inscriptions with the other names of the apostles. A silver-gold-plated strip with an inscription in niello , which tells the story of the stick and ends with Egbert having a piece of the Petrus stick, which was shared between Cologne and Trier, is inserted into this cover, runs the entire length of the stick's capsule . Under the two ribbons with the apostles there are two vertical ribbons, each with ten embossed depictions of popes, beginning with Clemens , ending with Benedict VII , who was in office when the staff was formed , and the bishops of Trier, beginning with Agritius and ending with Egbert himself.
The decorative elements
The triangles made of pearls and sapphires below the pommel are elements of a late antique neck collar, which were reused on the St. Peter rod. Reuse forced the trapezoidal shape of the apostle enamels, which were originally made for the stick. The enamels of the pommel were also originally made for the rod, as they are melted on curved supports that are adapted to the curvature of the pommel.
In 1955, four of the enamels on the Rod of Peter were replaced by replicas, namely the Maternus and Eucharius attached to the pommel, as well as the Lion of St. Mark and the Angel of John, as the originals had largely lost their glass filling. The enamel with the apostle Peter is missing on the neck of the staff, the enamel showing the apostle Philip is badly bruised. All the enamels on the stick are fully melted, with a wide gold rim surrounding the enamelled surfaces. In the case of the busts of the apostles, the edge is encircled by dotting, which is considered a characteristic of the Egbert workshop and also occurs, for example, in the enamels of the Otto Mathilden Cross in Essen . In the case of the busts of the apostles, it is noticeable that none of the images of the apostles resemble any other, as the direction of view, clothing and hairstyles vary. The enameller may have used templates from book illumination, which was also operated under Egbert in Trier, or shared templates. Motif similarities exist particularly to a sacramentary from Trier in Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 10501), which is dated to after 984 and in whose book decoration the Gregor Master was involved.
Use of the reliquary
The St. Peter's rod served as a symbol of power for the Archbishops of Trier, even if it can hardly be grasped by one hand due to its size. The staff was carried in front of or against the bishops, a pictorial evidence for this exists in the pictorial chronicle of Baldwin of Luxembourg . Today the staff is in the Limburg Cathedral Treasure. The St Peter's rod was symbolically presented to the new bishops of Limburg until 1953 when they were inaugurated. In 1953, for reasons of conservation, a new cover was created for the relic, the St. Peter rod created by Egbert has been empty and only a museum object since then.
Legal and art-historical classification
The Archdiocese of Trier has been claiming to chair the synods of the bishops of Gaul and Germania since the middle of the 10th century. The reason was based on the fact that Peter sent the three first Trier bishops Eucharius, Valerius and Maternus and gave them his pastoral staff. Before Egbert took office, the first Eucharius vita was written in Trier, which also emphasized this right, and the "Sylvester Diploma", an alleged rescript of a document by Pope Silvester I , written in Trier before 969, was invoked . Due to these circumstances, Emperor Otto II . against Archbishop Dietrich 973 Trier as the metropolis of all Gaul and Germany and the archbishop as vicar called the Pope, which by popes Benedict VI. (972-974) and Benedict VII. (974-983) was renewed. These Trier claims in "Galliam Germaniamque" conflicted with those of the Mainz primate, who exercised them in "tota Germania et Gallia", but only as a person and not by virtue of his office. Trier's claim to leadership continued into the 11th century, but the privileges received were ultimately only titles of honor.
The St. Peter's rod was created as a legal monument. It also served in the dispute between Trier and Cologne over the prerogative of apostolic establishment and succession in order to underline Trier's claim to be the oldest diocese in the empire. The structure of the staff corresponds to that of a two-zone apse: the precious stone on top of the pommel, which symbolizes the Majestas Domini , is followed by the evangelists, then Peter and his three disciples, who founded the diocese of Trier, the apostles and finally the popes, who were the people of Trier Equal to bishops. By following the architecture, the staff also appears as an allusion of the heavenly Jerusalem . This theological-political program is carried by the emails that are behind the used spolia on the staff in the hierarchy of materials, together with the inscription. In terms of craftsmanship, the Egbert workshop 980, three years after Egbert took office, was already working precisely and mastered full smelting perfectly. The enamels on the stick are the first to be ascribed to the Egbert workshop. Due to the quality of the enamels and the technical difficulty of producing curved enamels such as those on the pommel of the stick, the enameller performing the work must have already been experienced. Either there was already an enamel workshop in Trier before Egbert, or Egbert sold his workshop to another, unknown location. The St Peter's rod is considered to be the first of the three main works of the Egbert workshop that have survived; it was followed by the Andreas portable altar and finally the cover of the Codex aureus Epternacensis .
literature
- Ernst Günther Grimme : Goldsmithing in the Middle Ages. Form and meaning of the reliquary from 800 to 1500. M. DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1972, ISBN 978-3-7701-0669-1 , pp. 26-27.
- Franz J. Ronig (Ed.): Egbert. Archbishop of Trier 977–993. Commemorative publication of the Diocese of Trier on the 1000th anniversary of death , Volume 1 (catalog and table volume), self-published by the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier 1993, No. 43.
- Sybille Eckenfels-Kunst: Gold enamels. Studies on Ottonian and Early Salian gold cell melts , Pro Business Verlag, Berlin 2008 (also Diss. Stuttgart 2004).
- Rolf Lauer: staff (so-called Petrus staff). In: Peter van den Brink, Sarvenaz Ayooghi (ed.): Charlemagne - Charlemagne. Karl's art. Catalog of the special exhibition Karls Kunst from June 20 to September 21, 2014 in the Center Charlemagne , Aachen. Sandstein, Dresden 2014, ISBN 978-3-95498-093-2 , pp. 200–202 (on the Cologne piece of the staff).
- Philippe Cordez: treasure, memory, wonder. The objects of the churches in the Middle Ages , Regensburg 2015, pp. 82–89.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Eckenfels-Kunst, p. 45.
- ^ Bernward von Hildesheim and the age of the Ottonians . Catalog of the exhibition Hildesheim 1993, No. IV-52 (on the Cologne piece of the staff).
- ↑ a b c d Franz J. Ronig (Ed.): Egbert. Archbishop of Trier 977–993. Commemorative publication of the Diocese of Trier on the 1000th anniversary of death , Volume 1 (catalog and table volume), self-published by the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier 1993, No. 43.
- ↑ a b c d Eckenfels-Kunst, p. 47.
- ↑ a b Eckenfels-Kunst, p. 46.
- ↑ Eckenfels-Kunst, p. 277.
- ↑ The Archbishop of Mainz as a primate of Georg May
- ↑ Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen: Spolie and environment in Egberts Trier (Hanns Swarzenski to the memory), in: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte , Vol. 50 (1987), pp. 305–336, here: p. 316; Abstract .