Scaling Rhenish Treasury

Scaling Rhenish Treasuries

This seminar will undertake it to study the medieval objects in Rhenish Treasuries on site, primarily in Cologne, Aachen, Essen and Werden. Treasury objects are first of all value investments that could also be used to cover debts or back up loans. At the same time, they exceed their material worth by far. Reliquaries, for example, were highly hybrid objects that can be read as an attempt to render visible a worth beyond worldly measure. This was achieved by artistic means, making use of materials such as gold, silver, gemstones and rock crystal, and techniques such as enamelling (champlevé and cloisonné), embossing, filigree, niello etc. In fact, the relics of saints, that is the earthly remains of holy men and women could be considered a substance already partaking of paradise. We will investigate the strategies of display that reliquary makers have developed in the high middle ages in order to make the relic accessible to the senses and yet to safeguard it from possible theft. While studying single objects in a series of close-readings we will also study the different typologies of treasury objects. Finally, we will also consider treasuries as complex constellations of objects that can be read as a materialized history of the place they are kept at. We will thus apply different "scales of observation" to our object of study, by zooming in and out, adapting our scope to the questions we will be discussing, and we will attempt to reflect on our own "scaling" and on the frames of reference we adopt when talking about medieval objects.Due to good contacts to the respective institutions we can hope to get a closer view of the objects in question and also to have access to information regarding their material qualities and the techniques used in their fabrication as well as to their restoration history.