Pilgrimage mirror

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Cast of an Aachen pilgrimage mirror on the bell of St. Peter's Church in Großen-Linden (1476). The mirror was placed in the small round center field.

Pilgrimage mirrors were devotional objects that were made in the Middle Ages for sanctuaries or pilgrimages . Which consists of a lead - tin - alloy cast grids frames often motives for adoring sanctuary of saints and angels and clerics showed had usually four to six pins or eyelets, little by means of which convex were attached. Especially with long-distance transfers of shrines should Pilgrims using the mirror something of the blessing light of the relics capture and can take home.

Pilgrimage mirrors were made in large numbers and sold to pilgrims during the sanctuary and pilgrimages. In the popular piety they were widespread. Due to the fragility of the filigree frame and the mirror, only very few mirror symbols have survived today. Such pilgrim signs were often used to decorate bells , so that some mirror signs have been preserved in this way.

Johannes Gutenberg was a well-known manufacturer of pilgrimage mirrors. In 1438 it was contractually regulated with Vogt Hans Riffe von Lichtenau that Gutenberg was allowed to set up a business community in Strasbourg to produce pilgrimage souvenirs for the Aachen sanctuary tour in 1440.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Rong: Medieval Aachen pilgrim signs from the 14th to 16th centuries . Aachen 2000, ISBN 3-00-006058-8 , 172 pp.
  2. ↑ Kathrin Steinhauer: "Gothic people want to see, even when they pray". The visualization and viewing of the sacred using the example of the Aachen Shrine Tour. (= Karlsverein-Dombauverein series of publications. Vol. 15). Aachen 2013, p. 63f.

literature

  • Stephan Füssel: Johannes Gutenberg , Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek 1999, ISBN 978-3-499-50610-9 .
  • Kurt Köster: Gutenberg in Strasbourg. The Aachenspiegel company and the unknown "afentur und kunst" , Verlag der Gutenberg-Gesellschaft, Mainz 1973, 82 pp.