Margot E. Fassler . The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts . New Haven: Yale University Press. 2010. Pp. xiii, 612. $55.00.
Samantha Kahn Herrick
Margot E. Fassler's big, ambitious new book explores the relationship among liturgy, history, and art. By examining Virgin Mary's veneration at Chartres cathedral between (primarily) eleventh thirteenth centuries, Fassler shows that, in promoting cult, clergy fused universal, sacred history their city's turbulent past. The cathedral's ritual art rendered visible resulting understanding of also drew viewers into work historical interpretation. book's deeply interdisciplinary analysis thus follows from notion that liturgy was both primary medium for grappling with guiding principle inspiring its artistic program (pp. 243, 286). liturgy's role “history making” represents focus. She argues major relic, a cloth identified as gown Mary wore Annunciation Nativity (p. 117), attention to Virgin's flesh 85). cult's consequently explicated significance this flesh: it “portal” through which God became man forever altered course 241, 248). This belonged her purity lineage. Bishop Fulbert (1006–1028), leading proponent, on apocryphal sources Carolingian exegete Rabanus Maurus make lineage key fulfillment Old Testament prophecies 95, 117). Liturgy explicating relic inspired an loomed large. view extended worldly sphere, where focus allowed contemplation shifting fortunes Thibaudian family, counts Blois‐Chartres tenth century aspirants thrones France England, well patrons and, occasionally, bishop 334). provided framework sense past broadly.
The American Historical Review