THE ROLE OF THE SENSES IN MEDIEVAL LITURGIES AND RITUALS C O N F E R E N C E Padua, 21-23 September 2022

Abstract

Medieval spectacles displayed a great range of multisensorial devices in order to attract the audience’s attention so as to indoctrinate them both civically and religiously. We will establish a specific taxonomy of devices aimed at inciting the audience’s full five senses by means of analyzing three different historical resources: the detailed stage directions which often accompany the dramatic texts from that time, some stage direction’s notebooks, and specific scenic trickery (secretz). We will also draw upon a range of spectacle’s expense accounts and the iconography therein to set out a meticulous interpretation of their engaging capacity. Smell was stimulated with meaningful odorous effects that could either evoke sacrality (scents of incense, olibanum, and storax), the transient space of the venerated object (the myrtle spread through the streets where the processions of the Corpus Christi, the Saint Patron or the entourage of the royal entrance had to pass through), or the divinity’s residence (delectable scents dispersed in the paradise’s set). In contrast, the infernal scenario was designated by unpleasant odors such as burnt sulfur and other combusted elements like hair and nails clipped from saddle animals. The ears were also the target of representative sound devices. Just as Hell was connotated with metallic sounds, irritating ringing and a varied range of firecrackers, Paradise used to be a harmonious string music, little barrel organs, plainsongs, or well-chorded polyphony –all melodies that were denied to the devil and Evil. Logically, for theatre’s eminently visual nature, sight was the most invigorated sense. Through all kind of artifices and a playful repertoire of mirabilia, the medieval spectacle impinged the audience’s visual frame. Moreover, the very disposition of the audience, crowded around the space of the spectacle’s contemplation, instigated a participative friction amongst spectators and the pious kiss of the relics and those objects which, for having appeared on stage, had also acquired a sense of sacrality. In some liturgic actions such as the Mandatum, the audience was urged to participation with an inevitably sensual spur. Lastly, taste could be stirred in some meaningful scenic actions close to the eucharistic spirit of the communion. Altogether these specific devices triggered a multisensorial reception charged with intention that, with the anti-theatrical Crusade unleashed by the counter-reformist Church, fueled the most refractory part of the moralists: they considered, indeed, that in theatre people went to sin with the five senses.

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zuleika.murat@unipd.it
valentina.baradel@unipd.it
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archeologia, storia dell’arte, del cinema e della musica
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www.beniculturali.unipd.it
THE ROLE OF THE SENSES
IN MEDIEVAL LITURGIES AND RITUALS
CONFERENCE
Padua, 21-23 September 2022
Palazzo Bo - Aula Nievo
Sponsored by the ERC StG Project “The Sensuous
Appeal of the Holy. Sensory Agency of Sacred Art and
Somatised Spiritual Experiences in Medieval Europe
(12th-15th century) - SenSArt”. This project has received
funding from the European Research Council (ERC)
under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and
innovation programme (grant agreement No 950248)
Organising Committee
Zuleika Murat, Università di Padova
Valentina Baradel, Università di Padova
Sara Carreño, Università di Padova
Scientic Committee
Valentina Baradel, Università di Padova
Sara Carreño, Università di Padova
Matteo Cesarotto, Université de Tours / Centre d’études
supérieures de la Renaissance (CESR)
João Luís Inglês Fontes, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa
Zuleika Murat, Università di Padova
Salvador Ryan, St Patrick’s Pontical University, Maynooth
To attend online please register at https://forms.gle/
S6tMjNQnCxoxWpHc6
THE ROLE
OF THE SENSES
IN MEDIEVAL LITURGIES
AND RITUALS
PADUA
21-23 September 2022
PALAZZO BO - AULA NIEVO
CONFERENCE
Corso di Dottorato in
STORIA, CRITICA E
CONSERVAZIONE
DEI BENI CULTURALI
BnF, Ms Français 13342, cc. 46v-47r
THE SENSUOUS APPEAL OF THE HOLY

THE ROLE OF THE SENSES IN MEDIEVAL LITURGIES AND RITUALS
21 SEPTEMBER 2022
Padua, Palazzo Bo, Aula Nievo
9.00 Opening and Welcome: Jacopo Bonetto, Head of the
Department of Cultural Heritage, Università di Padova
Introduction: Zuleika Murat, PI of the ERC SenSArt Project,
Università di Padova
9.30 Session 1
(Chair: Zuleika Murat)
Holly Flora, Tulane University, The “Meditationes Vitae Christi”
and Sight and Sound in Female Religious Experiences
Valentina Baradel, Università di Padova, “Un bien petit livret
d’oroisons”. Sight, Sound, and Touch in the “Hours of Jeanne
d’Evreux”
Martina Bordone, Università di Firenze, Through Body or Eyes:
Experiencing Devotional Books in Late Medieval Italy
11.00-11.30 Coee break
Laura Slater, University of Cambridge, Liturgical Music and Lay
Devotion: Stimulating the Spiritual Senses
Leah R. Clark, University of Oxford, Sensing Devotion: Objects
and their Sensorial Practices in the Collections of Eleonora
d’Aragona, Duchess of Ferrara
12.30 Discussion
14.30 Session 2
(Chair: Valentina Baradel)
Francesc Massip and Alba Knijff Massip, Universitat Rovira
i Virgili, Universitat de Barcelona, With the Five Senses:
Spectacular Devices for Engaging the Audience in the Middle
Ages
Carla M. Bino, Università Cattolica di Milano, Moving
Movements. The Relationship Between Animated Crucixes and
the Faithful in 14th Century Umbria
Sara Carreño, Università di Padova, Bodily Interactions and
Sensorial Engagement in the Performative Rites of Late-
Medieval Santiago de Compostela
16.00-16:30 Coee break
Gillian Hurst, University of Bristol, The Sensorium at Syon
Abbey as Explored through Five Processionals: Phenomenology
and the Expansion of the Sensorial Canon
Marta Simões and Joana Antunes, Universidade de Coimbra,
Clad in Black / Bedecked with Flowers: Lent and Holy Week in
Portuguese Medieval Churches
17.30 Discussion
22 SEPTEMBER 2022
Padua, Palazzo Bo, Aula Nievo
9.00
Session 3
(Chair: Salvador Ryan)
Frederick Paxton, Connecticut College, Engaging the Senses in
the Death Ritual at Cluny
Florence Chave-Mahir, Independent Scholar, Exorcism in the
Middle Ages: a Performance for All Senses
Sarah Hamilton, University of Exeter, Rites for Travellers
10.30-11.00 Coee break
Micol Long, Università di Padova, Performances of Contrition
and Compassion? An Inquiry Into the Development of a
Medieval Ritual of Confession in the 13th Century
Ninon Dubourg, Université de Liège, The “Blind”, the “Deaf”
and the “Dumb”. Liturgical Practices of Sensory and Mentally
Disabled People
João Luís Inglês Fontes, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa,
Liturgy and Religious Experience in Eremitical Communities:
The Testimony of Male and Female Communities of Poor Life
(Portugal, 14th-16th Centuries)
12.00 Discussion
14.30 Session 4
(Chair: Micol Long)
Zuleika Murat, Università di Padova, Children in Medieval
Christianity: Embodiment and the Senses in Liturgies, Rituals,
and Prayers
Juliette Day, Helsingfors Universitet-University of Oxford,
Blackfriars Hall, The Sensory Impoverishment of Chrismation in
the Late Middle Ages
15.30-15.45 Coee break
Ariana Sider, University of Toronto, Materiality, Sensory
Experience, and Community in Late-Medieval Tournaisien Wills
Serena Franzon, Independent Scholar, Praying with the Senses:
Sensory Engagement in Relation to Medieval Devotional Jewelry
16.45 Discussion
23 SEPTEMBER 2022
Padua, Palazzo Bo, Aula Nievo
9.00 Session 5
(Chair: João Luís Inglês Fontes)
Brianne Dolce, University of Oxford, Listening and Understanding
in the “Acta Synodi Atrebatensis”
Eugeen Schreurs and Wendy Wauters, Koninklijk
Conservatorium Antwerpen, KU Leuven, Experiencing and
Interpreting the Soundscape of the Late Medieval Church of Our
Lady in Antwerp
10.15-10.45 Coee break
Henry Parkes, University of Nottingham, Sound and Vision in the
Fleury Night Oce
Giovanni Varelli, University of Oxford, Sonorities and
Topographies of Medieval Liturgical Processions
Matteo Cesarotto and Lorenzo Barletta E.C., Université de Tours
/ CESR, Eremo di Monte Rua (Padua), “Et nullam omnino operis
Dei partem cantando persolvant”: Music and the Camaldolese
Hermits Liturgy
12.15 Discussion
14.30 Session 6
(Chair: Sara Carreño)
Hólmfríður Sveinsdóttir, Universitetet i Oslo, Experiencing
Miraculous Healing in Medieval Norway. Case Studies from the
Museum of Cultural History
Elliott Wise, Brigham Young University, Epiphanies of Flesh and
Light: Framing the Elevation with the Chasuble of the Golden
Fleece
Katalin Suba, Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, The Crucixion
Scene on the Hungarian Coronation Mantle and its Liturgical
Allusions
16.00 Discussion
16.45 Conclusions
21 - 23 SEPTEMBER 2022 - PADUA