Santiago Matamoros
Santiago Matamoros ( Saint James the Slayer of the Moors ) is a historical, religious and political subject from Spain . It depicts the apostle James the Elder , who, according to legend, intervened in favor of the Christian party in the Battle of Clavijo in 844.
Artistic representations and cultural references
In painting and sculpture, the apostle James is usually depicted as a pilgrim with a hat and cape. As Santiago Matamoros, however, he appears as a warrior on horseback, swinging a sword and slaughtering the enemy.
One of the most famous sculptures is in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela on the west wall of the north aisle. After the attack on the World Trade Center , however, considerations arose as to whether the bloodthirsty depiction could be viewed as a provocation. When it turned out that the terrorist attacks on commuter trains in Madrid in 2004 an Islamic reference, had the consultants recommended the provost , the severed heads at the feet of James' horse to make invisible. Since then, flowers have covered the ground, and the sculpture is officially called Santiago , without the addition of Matamoros .
Since many pilgrims from Hungary, Germany and Italy moved to Santiago de Compostela in the Middle Ages, some historians see connections between the figure of Santiago Matamoros and the cult of Ladislaus I of Hungary . Floris Holik discovered analogies between the poems about James and Ladislaus: the latter could be deliberate imitations of the chants in honor of the apostle. Sándor Bálint added that both were saints warriors, which may have contributed to the later merging of the two characters.
iconography
The depictions of the riding moor killer Santiago, which emerged in the Renaissance, are closely iconographically related to the sculptures of Saint George slaying a dragon, which were already known in the Middle Ages .
Web links
- Picture gallery on the website of the Municipality of Clavijo
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tobias Büscher: Galicia and Jacobsweg. DuMont Travel Guide, Ostfildern 2014, pp. 173 - 174. ISBN 978-3-7701-7397-6
- ↑ Ádám Anderle: Hungría y España. Relaciones milenarias . Szegedi Egyetemi kiadó. Szeged 2007, p. 16