Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages

By Lucy Donkin

Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages illuminates how the floor surface shaped the ways in which people in medieval western Europe and beyond experienced sacred spaces.

The ground beneath our feet plays a crucial, yet often overlooked, role in our relationship with the environments we inhabit and the spaces with which we interact. By focusing on this surface as a point of encounter, Lucy Donkin positions it within a series of vertically stacked layers—the earth itself, permanent and temporary floor coverings, and the bodies of the living above ground and the dead beneath—providing new perspectives on how sacred space was defined and decorated, including the veneration of holy footprints, consecration ceremonies, and the demarcation of certain places for particular activities.

Using a wide array of visual and textual sources, Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages also details ways in which interaction with this surface shaped people's identities, whether as individuals, office holders, or members of religious communities. Gestures such as trampling and prostration, the repeated employment of specific locations, and burial beneath particular people or actions used the surface to express likeness and difference. From pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land to cathedrals, abbeys, and local parish churches across the Latin West, Donkin frames the ground as a shared surface, both a feature of diverse, distant places and subject to a variety of uses over time—while also offering a model for understanding spatial relationships in other periods, regions, and contexts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781501753855

Book preview

STANDING ON

HOLY GROUND IN THE

MIDDLE AGES

LUCY DONKIN

Cornell University Press ◆ Ithaca and London

For JGD, in memory of RAD

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

CHAPTER 1. Holy Footprints

CHAPTER 2. Church Consecration

CHAPTER 3. Trampling Underfoot

CHAPTER 4. Standing on Ceremony

CHAPTER 5. Places of Prostration

CHAPTER 6. Between the Living and the Dead

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index of Manuscripts Cited

Index of Biblical Citations

General Index

Cover

Title

Dedication

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

CHAPTER 1. Holy Footprints

CHAPTER 2. Church Consecration

CHAPTER 3. Trampling Underfoot

CHAPTER 4. Standing on Ceremony

CHAPTER 5. Places of Prostration

CHAPTER 6. Between the Living and the Dead

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index of Manuscripts Cited

Index of Biblical Citations

General Index

Copyright

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Guide

Cover

Title

Dedication

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

Start of Content

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index of Manuscripts Cited

Index of Biblical Citations

General Index

Copyright

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Christ flanked by St. John the Evangelist and St. Peter, with miners beneath, Schauinsland window, Freiburg im Breisgau Minster, 1340s.

2. Sancta Sanctorum reliquary box, sixth century. Vatican City, Vatican Museums, inv. 61883.

3. Site of the Ascension, Church of the Ascension, Jerusalem.

4. Plan of the Church of the Ascension showing the footprints of Christ, in a tenth- or eleventh-century manuscript of Bede’s De locis sanctis. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 2321, fol. 139v.

5. Ascension, Stammheim Missal, Saxony, 1170s. Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 64, fol. 115v.

6. Naddo Ceccarelli, reliquary tabernacle with Virgin and Child, Siena, ca. 1350. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

7. Reliquary of the True Cross including stones from the site of the Ascension, Swabia, before 1138 with seventeenth-century additions. Katholische Kirchengemeinde Unserer lieben Frau, Zwiefalten.

8. Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, ca. 691 onward.

9. Processional cross containing a relic de petra s. Mychahelis, Constance, ca. 1300. Chorherrstift Beromünster.

10. Greek and Latin alphabets, pontifical, northern Italy, twelfth century. London, British Library, Harley MS 2906, fol. 19v.

11. Diagram of the consecration of a church, miscellany of works by Bede, Brittany, late ninth century (diagram, late ninth or early tenth century). Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 477 (461), fol. 9r.

12. Diagram of the alphabet cross, pontifical, Italy, eleventh century. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Lit. 359, fol. 2r.

13. Diagram of the alphabet cross, pontifical, France, fifteenth century. Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Lat 142, fol. 37v.

14. Bishop writing the alphabet cross, missal-pontifical of Luçon, early fifteenth century. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 8886, fol. 355r.

15. Bishop writing in the cross of ashes, pontifical, Lyon, late fifteenth century or early sixteenth century. Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 565, fol. 91v.

16. Greek and Latin alphabets, pontifical, Lyon, late fifteenth century or early sixteenth century. Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 565, fol. 100r.

17. Bishop writing in the cross of ashes, Pontifical of Giovanni Barozzi, Bergamo, 1450s. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 1145, fol. 79r.

18. Diagram of the consecration of a church with the bishop writing the alphabet cross, pontifical, Paris, late thirteenth century. Toledo, Archivo y Biblioteca Capitulares, MS 56-19, fol. 100v.

19. Bishop writing the alphabet cross, Pontificale Romanum Clementis VIII pont. max. iussu restitutum et editum (Rome: Luna, 1595), 314. Oxford, Bodleian Library, P 2.1 Th.

20. Eastern section of the nave pavement at the abbey of Pomposa, early eleventh century.

21. Pope Paschal II, in a sketch of the floor mosaic of St.-Martin d’Ainay, Lyon, 1607. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Dupuy 691, fol. 79.

22. Panel with cruciform design from the twelfth-century floor mosaic of St.-Martin d’Ainay, Lyon. St.-Martin d’Ainay, chapel of Ste.-Blandine.

23. Cav. Vico, drawing of the mosaic pavement in the presbytery of Acqui Terme Cathedral, ca. 1845. A. Fabretti, Musaico di Acqui nel R. Museo di Antichità di Torino, Atti della Società di archeologia e belle arti per la provincia di Torino 2 (1878): fig. III.

24. Plan of the mosaic pavement in the choir of the abbey church of St.-Bertin, Saint-Omer; from E. H. J. Wallet, Description d’une crypte et d’un pavé mosaïque de l’ancienne église de Saint-Bertin à Saint-Omer (Douai: Aubers, 1843), pl. IV.

25. Mosaic pavement in the apse of St.-André-de-Rosans, twelfth century.

26. Drawing of the presbytery floor of Novara Cathedral by Carlo Francesco Frasconi (1754–1836). Novara, Archivio storico diocesano, Fondo Frasconi, XIV/13.

27. Douce Ivory, cover of a Gospel lectionary, Aachen, ca. 800. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 176.

28. Personification of the Roman Church, Liber ystoriae Romanorum, Rome, late thirteenth century. Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. in scrin. 151, fol. 123v.

29. Amor celestis with St. Francis and Julian the Apostate, fresco in the Aula gotica, SS. Quattro Coronati, Rome, 1235–1246.

30. Cross positioned underneath an altar, nave floor mosaic, church at Shavei Zion, before 427.

31. Reconstruction of building A at Magen, with cross at the threshold. From Vassilios Tsaferis, An Early Christian Church Complex at Magen, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 258 (1985): fig. 15.

32. Cross from the early twelfth-century presbytery pavement of Novara Cathedral, Palazzo vescovile, Novara.

33. Detail of a cruciform design in the pavement of the right-hand side aisle, S. Menna, Sant’Agata dei Goti, ca. 1110.

34. Seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse, fragment of mosaic pavement now mounted on the wall, S. Evasio, Casale Monferrato, twelfth century.

35. Unicorn and basilisk, presbytery pavement, chapel of S. Maria, S. Benedetto Po, twelfth century.

36. Fides triumphing over Discordia, Camposanto floor mosaic, Cremona Cathedral, twelfth century.

37. Detail of the four animals of Psalm 90 (91), papal throne, 1280–1290. S. Francesco, Assisi.

38. Nero and Agrippina, 54–59 AD, reused as paving in the Sebasteion, Aphrodisias. Aphrodisias Museum.

39. Relief of Artemis and Cybele, ca. 400 BC, reused in the pavement of the synagogue forecourt at Sardis in the fourth century AD. Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, inv. no. 3937.

40. Statue of Athena, second century AD, reused as step in Room 12, Roman House H, Areopagos Hill. Agora Museum, Athens.

41. Mosaic floor with later insertion in triclinium, Room 3, Roman House H, Areopagos Hill, Athens.

42. Relief of Brahma, reused in the eleventh–twelfth century, Ghaznavid palace, Ghazni. National Museums of Afghanistan.

43. Detail of the inscription on the risers of the presbytery pavement, S. Nicola, Bari, early twelfth century.

44. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, view of the interior showing the omphalion and lines on the pavement, sixth century and later.

45. Giacomo Grimaldi, drawing of the inside of Old St. Peter’s showing the porphyry rota, Descrizione della basilica antica di S. Pietro in Vaticano, early seventeenth century. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Barb. lat. 2733, fols. 104v–105v.

46. Jean Fouquet, Coronation of Charlemagne, Grandes Chroniques de France, France, mid-fifteenth century. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fr. 6465, fol. 89v.

47. Irmgard Voss, plan of the twelfth-century pavement of S. Clemente, Rome, 1990. From Peter Cornelius Claussen, Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter 1050–1300, vol. 1, Corpus Cosmatorum 2.1, Forschungen zur Kunstgeschichte und christlichen Archäologie 20 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002), 320, fig. 252.

48. Nave pavement, S. Menna, Sant’Agata dei Goti, ca. 1110.

49. Pavement of the Baptistery, Florence, ca. 1225.

50. Detail of the nave showing processional roundels, from a plan of Wells Cathedral in 1784; reproduced between the two title pages of Herbert Edward Reynolds, Wells Cathedral, Its Foundation, Constitutional History and Statutes (Leeds: M’Corquodale, 1881).

51. Diagram for a Procession to the Cross on Easter Sunday, Processional of St. Giles’s Hospital, Norwich, late fourteenth century. London, British Library, Add. MS 57534, fol. 72r.

52. Pavement labyrinth in the nave of Chartres Cathedral, ca. 1220.

53. Dante at the entrance to Purgatory, Divine Comedy, Northern Italy, first half of the fourteenth century. London, BL, Egerton MS 943, fol. 79r.

54. Details of the symbols of the Evangelists, presbytery pavement, Novara Cathedral, early twelfth century.

55. St. Mark with his symbol, wall painting, baptistery, Concordia Sagittaria, twelfth century.

56. Details of the symbols of the Evangelists, presbytery pavement, S. Giovanni Decollato, Pieve Terzagni, early twelfth century.

57. Infernus and Satanas, floor mosaic, north side chapel, Otranto Cathedral, 1163–1165.

58. Christ leading Abraham and Sarah out of hell, Exultet roll, Bari, eleventh century. Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Lat 2.

59. Figure of Atlas, floor mosaic in the south side chapel, Otranto Cathedral, 1163–1165.

60. Double elevation of an emperor and co-emperor, Skylitzes, Synopsis historion, Sicily, twelfth century. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS Graecus Vitr. 26-2, fol. 10v.

61. Affronted griffins, nave pavement, abbey of Fruttuaria, San Benigno Canavese, late eleventh or early twelfth century.

62. Griffin silk, Byzantium, tenth century. Le Monastier-sur-Gazeilles, St.-Chaffre.

63. The avaricious in the fifth terrace of Purgatory, Divine Comedy, Northern Italy, first half of the fourteenth century. London, British Library, Egerton MS 943, fol. 97v.

64. Scenes from the Passion, including Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Cursus Sanctae Maria, Germany or Bohemia, early thirteenth century. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.739, fol. 22v.

65. Mode 2 from Modus orandi Sancti Dominici, southern France, second quarter of the fourteenth century. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Ross. 3, fol. 6v.

66. Mode 4 in Peter the Chanter’s De oratione et speciebus illius, Pegau, thirteenth century. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 432, fol. 68v.

67. Mode 5 in Peter the Chanter’s De oratione et speciebus illius, Pegau, thirteenth century. Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 432, fol. 69v.

68. Drawing of the floor mosaic of St.-Martin d’Ainay, Lyon, in 1852. Paris, Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine.

69. Reconstruction by H. Deneux of the mosaic pavement in the crossing of Reims Cathedral, late tenth century or early eleventh century. Henri Stern, Recueil général des mosaïques de la Gaule, vol. 1, Province de Belgique, pt. 1 (Paris: CNRS, 1957), pl. XLIVa.

70. Cosmati pavement, Westminster Abbey, London, 1268.

71. Dying man laid on a cilicium, Sacramentary of Warmundus, northern Italy, early eleventh century. Ivrea, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS 86, fol. 193v. L. Bettazzi et al., eds., Il Sacramentario del Vescovo Warmondo di Ivrea, fine secolo X: Ivrea, Biblioteca capitolare, MS 31 LXXXVI (Turin: Priuli & Verlucca, 1990).

72. Drawing of the pavement in the infirmary chapel, Marmoutier. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Touraine Anjou 5, fol. 139r (no. 1848).

73. Dante and Virgil walking on representations of Arachne, Lucifer, Rehoboam, and Saul in Purgatory, Divine Comedy, Naples, 1340s. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Holkham Misc. 48, p. 79.

74. Woman kneeling on a tomb slab, Book of Hours, Ghent, fifteenth century. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 3768, fol. 51v.

75. Detail of a plan of the west end of Lincoln Cathedral, showing the grave of Bishop William of Alnwick at 37. William Dugdale, Monastici Anglicani, volumen tertium et ultimum (London, 1673), between pp. 256 and 257.

76. Detail of the west end of Lincoln Cathedral from a plan executed before the cathedral was repaved in 1790, showing the processional roundels. William Camden, Britannia, trans. and enlarged Richard Gough, 3 vols. (London: John Nichols for T. Payne, 1789), 2:256, fig. viii.

77. Jacques Cellier, plan of Reims Cathedral showing le lieux ou sainct Nicaise fut decollé at N, sixteenth century. Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fr. 9152, fol. 68r.

78. Benedetto Bordon, miniature showing the floor mosaic and baldachino in S. Giustina, Padua, Revelatio sanctorum martyrum in choro, 1523–1525. Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, MS W. 107, fol. 18r.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS BOOK HAS been a long time in the writing and owes a great deal to the generous support of many institutions and individuals. The research project out of which it developed was started during a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. I am extremely grateful to the British Academy for their support and would also like to thank University College, Oxford, and the Oxford University Faculty of History for hosting the fellowship, and Bryan Ward-Perkins for acting as mentor. At University College I benefited particularly from the encouragement of fellow medievalists Sandy Murray and Catherine Holmes, while Oxford more generally was a stimulating environment for interdisciplinary research.

My interest in the topic, however, began earlier during graduate work at the Courtauld Institute of Art, kindly funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. An MA dissertation on the floor mosaic of Otranto Cathedral was followed by doctoral work on mosaic pavements in northern Italy. I would like to thank John Lowden most sincerely for his supervision of both of these projects and for his continued support over the following years. My PhD examiners Paul Crossley and Dorothy Glass also helped at crucial junctures. Further opportunities to think about the material came during a Rome Scholarship at the British School in Rome and an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto. Each was a highly collegial setting, and the insights of fellow researchers in these communities have informed the book in numerous ways. I continued to work on the project while holding teaching positions at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, the Courtauld Institute of Art, and the Cambridge University History of Art Department. My thanks are due to all these institutions, but I am particularly grateful to my present colleagues at the University of Bristol, especially in the Departments of History of Art and History and in the Centre for Medieval Studies, for their encouragement and patience.

The following friends and colleagues read parts of the book: Marianne Ailes, Joanna Cannon, Peter Dent, Tony Eastmond, Helen Gittos, Louis Hamilton, Kate Heard, Josie McLellan, Carolyn Muessig, Bryan Ward-Perkins, and Beth Williamson. I am very grateful to them all for their advice, and for the assistance of everyone else who kindly provided references, copies of their work, help in sourcing illustrations and other material, and guidance on transliteration: Jakob Bernet, Paul Binski, Claudia Bolgia, Michael Carter, Katie Clark, Donal Cooper, Roberta Gilchrist, Lindy Grant, Nagihan Haliloğ lu, R. Ross Holloway, Stuart Homan, Tom Nickson, Christoph Maier, John McNeill, Didier Méhu, Nicholas Orchard, Mario Perotti, Gervase Rosser, Anat Tcherikover, and Teresa Witcombe. I also owe thanks to the organizers and attendees of research seminars and conferences at which I was able to try out ideas, and to the friends who discussed the material with me. George Cawkwell and Janet McIlveen continued to enquire hopefully about the progress of the book, when others had resorted to tactful silence. I am particularly grateful to the two readers for Cornell University Press for their close reading of the manuscript as a whole. It goes without saying that remaining errors and misconceptions are my own.

I would like to express my thanks to the libraries, museums, and other institutions that provided illustrations, as well as to Ruggero Longo and Ermanno Orcorte, who kindly allowed me to use their photographs. More generally, the project has benefited from access to the resources of the Bodleian Library, the libraries of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Cambridge University Library, Bristol University Library, and the British Library. The Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation through the International Center of Medieval Art, and the University of Bristol each made a generous contribution toward the costs of publication, for which I am extremely grateful. At Cornell University Press, Mahinder Kingra, Bethany Wasik, Karen Hwa, and their colleagues have been a pleasure to work with, shepherding the book through the publication process with care and enthusiasm.

I owe my greatest debt to my parents, Robin and Jennifer Donkin, not just for their unfailing support in every aspect of life but also for instilling a lasting interest in places and why they matter.

ABBREVIATIONS

I HAVE USED the Douay-Rheims translation of the Latin Vulgate.

AASS

Bolland, Jean, et al., eds. Acta Sanctorum. 68 vols. Antwerp and Brussels: Societé des Bollandistes, 1643–1940.

BAV

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

BL

British Library

BnF

Bibliothèque nationale de France

CCCM

Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis

CCM

Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum

CCSL

Corpus Christianorum Series Latina

CNRS

Centre nationale de la recherche scientifique

CSEL

Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum

HBS

Henry Bradshaw Society

MGH

Monumenta Germaniae Historica

OR

Ordo Romanus

PG

Migne, J.-P., ed. Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca. 161 vols. Paris: Garnier, 1857–66.

PGD

Pontificale Guillelmi Durandi

PL

Migne, J.-P., ed. Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina. 221 vols. Paris: Garnier, 1844–64.

PPTS

Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society

PRC

Pontificale Romanae curiae

PRG

Pontificale Romano-Germanicum

PRXII

Pontificale Romanum saeculi XII

RS

Rolls Series

SGel

Sacramentarium Gelasianum

SGreg

Sacramentarium Gregorianum

SPCK

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

SRG

Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi

SRL

Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI–IX

SRM

Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum

SS

Scriptores

SSL

Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense

INTRODUCTION

Locus enim, in quo stas, terra sancta est.

[The place, whereon thou standest, is holy ground.]

—Exodus 3:5

IN THE BOOK of Exodus, God commands Moses to remove his sandals, for the place, whereon thou standest, is holy ground.¹ The same command is given to Joshua by the angel before the Battle of Jericho.² In a sermon on the Burning Bush, Caesarius of Arles (ca. 470–542) cautioned against taking these words literally, asking: How could that ground upon which they trod be holy, since doubtless it was like the rest of the earth?³ True holy ground, he went on to argue, is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ through whom everything heavenly and earthly is sanctified.⁴ During the Middle Ages, however, the ground on which Moses trod was venerated as a relic.⁵ Parallels were drawn between the place on Mount Sinai sanctified by the presence of God and the church interior sanctified also by ecclesiastical ritual and the remains of the saints.⁶ Indeed, on occasion, those standing on its own holy ground could be miraculously and forcibly unshod in deliberate reference to the biblical precedent.⁷ The example of Moses and its reception raise several issues to be addressed in the course of this book concerning the creation, definition, and veneration of sacred places in the Holy Land and the Latin West. More fundamentally, however, the passage draws attention to a relationship between body and environment that lies at the very center of the work.

The ground beneath our feet goes unnoticed for the most part. Yet it guides our steps and shapes our identity in many ways. We obey or disregard markings that indicate where to cross the road, stand back from the edge of the platform, or position ourselves on a sports pitch. A childhood game adds significance to cracks in the pavement. Crossing a college lawn or walking along a red carpet can reflect a certain status. Differing conventions in homes and places of worship remind us that our own treatment of the surface is culturally constructed. As I write this, pavements and floors across the world are newly marked with lines and signs that encourage social distancing in response to a pandemic. In the Middle Ages, too, the surface of the ground conveyed information to those who stood on it, prompted physical and imaginative responses, and marked out individuals and groups in accordance with the values and concerns of the time. Indeed, in some respects, it played a greater role than today in articulating space and identity, especially within ecclesiastical settings. With less seating than is now the case in most Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, the floor surface was more open, and processions and practices of prayer brought worshippers into more varied and dynamic engagement with it. This book focuses on medieval interactions with holy ground, within and beyond the church interior, asking how these shaped both place and person.

Studying a Surface

My main object of analysis is a surface—a point of encounter, and thus not primarily the substance of the ground, the people who moved across it, or even the actions that brought them together, though all of these play a part. Because of the logic of its subject matter, the book itself is also a point of encounter, between different fields and disciplines. In order to define the role played by the surface of the ground in articulating relationships between people and places, it has been necessary to bring together elements that are usually treated separately or as the principal focus of attention, in part as a result of broader historical and art-historical priorities concerning human actors and material objects. Commensurately, by illuminating the role of this surface, my intention is not only to establish it as a key agent in the definition of people and places, and a valid object of enquiry in its own right, but also to enrich these existing areas of interest and offer some new perspectives and avenues of approach.

Most sustained attention has previously been trained on the ground in the context of art-historical analysis of decorated paving. The present work has developed out of research interests in this area, and it complements existing treatment of this material and contributes to the field in various respects. Most notably, where art-historical discussion of decorated paving has tended to concentrate on the nature of the decoration, my approach here places the emphasis on its function as paving. Firstly, the book includes consideration of decorated pavements executed in different techniques—including opus tessellatum, opus sectile, and tiling—that are often considered separately.⁸ Of course, certain approaches were developed within particular technical and regional traditions. However, regardless of technique, as a decorative surface that was walked on, indeed as the only surface of a church building with which people necessarily came into contact, all decorated pavements share a fundamental characteristic. The experiences that specific techniques and individual examples offered to those who came into contact with them can fruitfully be analyzed by looking beyond a single type or instance. At the same time, I do not so much explore connections between works in particular decorative techniques as set them within a wider framework of the pavement, adorned or otherwise.

This is because the phenomenon of use and physical interaction with which I am primarily concerned applies to the surface of the ground in general. Those aspects of decorated pavements that acknowledge the presence of the human body, through form, figure, or text, are not symptomatic of decoration per se. Rather, in my view, the decoration represents a particularly elaborate, visible, and enduring response to a universal potential of this weightbearing surface. Where contemporary sources refer to actions that brought people close to the ground, characterize the pavement as trodden underfoot, and engage with the surface in the rite of church consecration, they mainly treat it as a whole (pavimentum, humus, terra). Moreover, decorated paving is only part of a spectrum of different approaches to the composition and differentiation of the floor surface, which extends from the bare ground to the richest of Cosmati creations. This spectrum includes elements with other principal uses such as tomb slabs. Equally, different areas or eras of more functional flooring, repairs, reused components, and even individual flagstones created material and visual variety that could take on significance and shape the actions of those using the space.

For the same reason, my approach to the floor surface also goes beyond paving to acknowledge more ephemeral forms of covering. In this respect it embraces both the soft architecture of textiles and temporary designs on the ground in ashes, chalk, and sand—the former an art-historical subfield in its own right, the latter more commonly addressed as part of the material culture of ritual.⁹ As well as forming an integral part of how the surface was composed and experienced, such coverings show it to have possessed a dynamism that was not simply generated by the movement of people. Finally, while focusing mainly on the church interior, the book encompasses the holy ground of loca sancta trodden by Christ and the saints. While configuring the surface, or parts of it, as a contact relic, these places both stemmed from and remained subject to the same logic of use as the ground elsewhere, and they shared qualities with other sacred sites in terms of material and patterns of physical engagement. Studying a surface as a point of encounter, therefore, allows us to do two things. By providing a framework for juxtaposing different ways in which the ground was constituted, marked, and used, it allows connections to be drawn between them as well as distinctions to be seen more clearly. It also establishes the expressive potential of the surface as a whole, especially as this involved those who came into contact with it.

Layers of Meaning

In order to analyze an expansive surface that could take many different forms and support a variety of people and things, this book adopts a stratigraphic approach. While this is partly a means to organize material and structure the work, more fundamentally, it also encapsulates the manner in which I understand the significance of people, places, and actions to have been constructed at the time. The stratigraphic framework envisages the ground as made up of a number of vertically stacked layers: the earth itself, permanent floor coverings, and temporary floor coverings such as textiles and vegetation. It also brings together a wider group of layered elements, encompassing the bodies of the living above ground and the dead below. In this way, it provides a method to explore interactions between the fixed environment, more ephemeral material and markings, and the people who—equally fleetingly—occupied particular places. Some of these interactions involved direct contact with the ground, such as Christ treading on the Mount of Olives before his Ascension, a bishop writing the alphabet cross on the floor in early versions of the church consecration rite, or a mendicant saint praying humbly on the bare ground. Others involved a more complex configuration of layers, for example a king lying prostrate on precious silks spread over costly paving, catechumens trampling on a haircloth, or a chorister singing on the gravestone of a former choirmaster. In each case, I contend, meaning lies in the particular combination and ordering of elements making up the floor surface, the identities of the persons involved, and the nature of their actions.

In focusing on vertical layering, my work brings a new perspective to the study of sacred space as this was experienced in everyday life. In particular, it complements a dominant scholarly emphasis on the horizontal conceptualization of space, which has tended to address the boundaries of areas and movement across them. For example, there has been considerable interest in the extent of sacred spaces and how this was defined, drawing distinctions in terms of jurisdiction, access, and degree of sacrality. This process operated at different scales, from the development of the idea of the Holy Land as a distinct territory, through the marking of parish and civic boundaries in rogation day processions and the encircling of the church in dedication ceremonies, to divisions—however permeable—within the church building.¹⁰ If spatial definition along these lines stresses edges, the sense in which spaces are shaped by something emanating outward from a center, from sound to sacredness, also presumes a predominantly horizontal dynamic.¹¹ Similarly, movement of people through space, from long-distance pilgrimage to routes around individual settlements and structures, takes place across a terrain, even if it might involve a degree of ascent and descent.¹² However, sacred space was also defined vertically. Most obviously, this applies to ideas of heaven and hell, but it has also been explored with respect to the church building and the parish in ways that connect these earthly entities with theological ones.¹³ My approach remains focused on the earthly. I concentrate on elements that came into physical contact or proximity immediately to either side of the surface of the ground, constituting a momentary whole. Looking at the vertical axis in this way, with an emphasis on layers of elements incorporating a single body, sheds light on particular places within the spatial entities and networks that extended across the surface of the ground. Some examples—such as Christ’s imprints in the Holy Land or the treatment of the pavement during the church consecration rite—contributed to the definition of these established units; others—a processional halting spot, for example, or a place where people walked over a tomb—constitute a more subtle articulation of space within these parameters. While often evident to an extent on the surface of the ground, they are rarely circumscribed by upright structures and are sometimes not marked visibly or durably at all. I argue that these vertical configurations played an important role in defining and inflecting sacred space—a role that transcended the limited time or extent to which they might be visible, functioned together with horizontally defined conceptions of space, and involved a particularly close relationship between body and place.

If the term stratigraphy brings to mind archaeological and geological cross-sections, the case studies capture a particular configuration of layers in a circumscribed place, such as might be found in a core sample. In suggesting this analogy to the modern reader as a way of visualizing my approach, I am not implying that this was a medieval way of representing space. Cross-sections, and in particular cross-sections through the ground, were not common in the Middle Ages, although some do exist and indeed explicitly engage with holy ground. The early fourteenth-century Schauinsland window of Freiburg im Breisgau Minster provides a particularly pertinent example (fig. 1). It shows Christ flanked by St. John the Evangelist and St. Peter, and immediately beneath their feet, in sections through subterranean space, three small figures of miners at work.¹⁴ The window is generally understood to represent the Transfiguration, eliding Mount Tabor with the nearby silver-mining mountain of Schauinsland. This elision would represent an unusual take on a widespread desire to inscribe the loca sancta of the Holy Land onto local landscapes, one in which the space above ground relates to the former and that below ground to the latter.¹⁵ Even if Christ and the two saints do not serve to represent a specific event, it is still a view of an imagined configuration of bodies and ground, rather than an imagined view through an actual disposition of elements. Nevertheless, it is important in demonstrating the potential to conceive of space above and below ground as part of a single entity, articulated by a mirroring of bodies. The window is a rare example of such a visualization, no doubt prompted by specific circumstances and experiences of the subterranean in Freiburg. However, a paucity of cross-sections does not necessarily mean a lack of interest in the phenomenon of vertical layering. Indeed, the practices examined in this book highlight the importance of the vertical axis, of being positioned above or below something or someone. Where cross-sections presume an external, disembodied viewer, texts and images offering a more embodied perspective shed light on an interest in venerating the ground holy figures had trodden, standing or avoiding standing on particular paving elements, spreading carpets under people and things, and requesting burial beneath particular individuals or activities.

In order to understand what these layerings meant to contemporaries, both in the moment and across a longer period of time, we need to set aside modern conceptions of archaeological and geological strata. There, in its simplest formulation, layers are built up over time, with the lowest representing the earliest period and the uppermost the most recent. Again, this concept was not unknown in the Middle Ages; indeed, pavements could be invoked as evidence of changing ground levels. In his Liber de causis proprietatum elementorum, Albertus Magnus noted the case of paving stones of marvelous design and beauty found when deep pits were being dug in Cologne. These were recognized as ancient works still in situ, and it was agreed that the ground was built up over them after the buildings fell to ruin.¹⁶ Nevertheless, for the most part, people seem to have assumed that they were walking much the same ground as their forebears and even figures from the more remote biblical and Early Christian past. Furthermore, the temporal relationship between the layers considered in this book is complicated by the combination of durable and ephemeral elements. The ground and permanent paving do indeed correspond to the basic model of addition over time, although the archaeological record shows that pavements could be taken up and reused or replaced rather than simply covered over, and burial could introduce newer material.¹⁷ However, people and temporary floor coverings, which could be laid down and taken up again in the course of days or minutes, created much more fluid upper strata, constantly changing across smaller areas of the floor surface. The lower set of strata presupposes a linear sense of time, the upper set a cyclical one. More fundamentally, though, I am not attempting to investigate the relationship between the layers in terms of chronology. Rather I am interested in the meaning of particular configurations of layers at a particular moment. Where a temporal dimension is involved, it is the significance of repeated use of the same place over an extended period of time.

FIG. 1. Christ flanked by St. John the Evangelist and St. Peter, with miners beneath, Schauinsland window, Freiburg im Breisgau Minster, 1340s. Photo: Rafael Toussaint, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi Deutschland.

Touching the Ground

As noted above, this book revolves around physical contact. In this sense, it contributes to a wider, well-established trend within the history of art, and medieval art history more specifically.¹⁸ There has been particular interest in devotional touch, where the hands and mouth are used to render homage to the figure represented. This phenomenon has been addressed both through depictions and descriptions of such actions, and through the traces of wear or accumulation of dirt left upon the works themselves, from a cross on a Te igitur page in a missal kissed by the priest to the worn feet of statues of the Virgin.¹⁹ Wear that is indicative of past engagement with particular images or parts of a work has been understood to prompt more actions of the same kind, and repeated touching, especially when it leaves an impression, has been seen to bring those involved into a community of believers.²⁰ There has also been consideration of more negative contact, which tends to go beyond simple touch to actions of deliberate damage or erasure.²¹ In the medieval West, this type of action seems to have been directed at particular figures who attracted religious or political censure, rather than expressing disquiet regarding images per se, as might be the case in Byzantium or the Islamic world.

While this book develops these ideas of positive and negative contact further, it goes beyond current historiographical preoccupations by focusing on different objects and other parts of the body. In the majority of cases, discussions of touch concentrate on the hands, although devotional tactility encompassed embracing, kissing, and even consuming elements of works of art.²² Here the emphasis is on those parts of the body that regularly came into contact with the floor surface. Most obviously, this means the feet, although I also consider practices in which the whole body lay flat in prostration.²³ In turn, corporeal contact with the ground involves a different balance between the senses of touch and sight. Unlike other works of art, for which vision is generally assumed to be the default mode of engagement however much importance is assigned to deliberate touch, the decorated floor was primarily a weight-bearing surface and only then something to be looked at. Only some pavements were adorned in ways that conventionally attract the attention of the art historian, and while these may have been treated by users of the space in a particular manner too, we have to consider that they also shared much with less visually distinctive floors, and that both experienced a range of physical contact that was likely not imbued with meaning at all. Sometimes treading on the ground had significance; sometimes it did not. Focusing on works touched by the feet also opens up an especially ambiguous dynamic of contact, since the action of treading possessed a wide range of potential meanings and consequences, with the identity of both the person treading and what was trodden on informing the significance of the action.

The book explores the full range of this spectrum, from the most positive, in which ground trodden by Christ and the saints was venerated as a contact relic, to the most negative, in which trampling something underfoot was expressive of triumph and disdain. At the same time, it also asks how these extremes related to the more common lived experience of engaging with cult sites, whether these were exceptional places marked by the presence of Christ or more conventional church interiors. In this respect, I go beyond scholarship on figurative pavements, which has traditionally focused on the negative implications of treading on images, while that on geometric floor decoration has highlighted the positive use of elements as liturgical markers.²⁴ A more flexible approach to the implications of standing on things allows figurative pavements to be seen in the light of scholarship on the wider relationship between art and liturgy, in which images are understood to be activated or set in motion by particular ritual occasions.²⁵ By looking at the surface more generally, the work also reveals correspondences between different kinds of holy place, from sites trodden by Christ in the Holy Land marked with marble roundels similar to those in opus sectile pavements, to a vision in which Christ leaves footprints in ash on the floor of Siena Cathedral and St. Francis walks in them.

As these examples imply, I consider the material and textual evidence for meaningful encounters with the ground as this was conceived by contemporaries as well as from a modern perspective. Such actions do not leave traces in the same way as the devotional touching of painted images, since permanent paving is designed to be durable, to be touched and to withstand touch in a different way from other decorated surfaces in art or architecture. There are some instances of wear evocative of past use, the deeply abraded steps at Wells Cathedral for example, or—more fixed in time—the dips in the steps from around the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, reused in the pavement of the Trinity Chapel at Canterbury Cathedral.²⁶ However, for the most part, the ground does not offer the modern viewer much detailed evidence of medieval practices as a direct result of physical contact. In contrast, during the Middle Ages, the ground was often read for testimonies of past engagement with the surface, being credited with preserving traces of contact with Christ and the saints. This commemorative capacity often involved a miraculous materiality, in which a hard stone received an impression of feet or knees as if it had been wax. Beliefs of this kind form an important aspect of the dynamic that is at the heart of this book. Yet there are also ways in which the floor surface was deliberately marked to acknowledge the phenomenon of human contact, in ways legible to both medieval and modern viewers of these spaces. Permanent floor decoration could allude to the presence of bodies above it, whether this was commemorated, expected, or requested. This type of communication could include verbal prompts to stand, kneel, or lie in particular places, but more commonly entailed a range of figurative or geometric markers that indicated where such actions should take place or had done so in the past. Taken alongside external textual and visual evidence for these practices it is possible to build up a picture of medieval use. Here, it may be useful to apply the distinction of prescriptive and descriptive, more commonly employed with reference to texts, to the floor itself. Although markers possess a certain agency, in which the ground affected what took place on it, just as liturgical texts only indicate what was intended, so visual and verbal instructions on the ground were not necessarily consistently observed. At the same time, there is a sense in which some markers, which both commemorated an action and invited its emulation, blur these categories. By encompassing various ways in which the ground could be read as prompting and recording physical contact, as well as the nature and significance of the contact itself, this book presents the ground as a surface with a particular and complex potential to be analyzed in terms of touch.

Locating Gestures

So far, I have presented this investigation and its layered subject matter as evolving from the ground up, with a material core to which the human body is added. Yet regarding both the historiographical framework for the enquiry and the logic behind the ensembles of elements it focuses on, there are also important ways in which the body forms a starting point and the material context is brought to bear on it. In addressing the actions of trampling and prostration, this book contributes to the study of gesture, which has been a topic of interest for medieval historians and art historians for some decades now. Attention has been paid to formalized motions of the body prescribed by particular rituals, especially those expressing triumph and supplication.²⁷ As part of these studies, there has been consideration of visual representations of particular ritualized gestures, both descriptive and instructive. There is also a literature on gesture in art more generally, here encompassing a wider range of motions, including less formalized ones.²⁸ However, while attention is given to the spatial configuration of the participants in the rituals concerned, there is rarely consideration of the difference made by the physical environment to the significance of the action in question. Nor, more specifically, has there been much thought given to what it meant to perform a particular gesture on a work of art, figurative or otherwise.²⁹ By adopting a stratigraphic approach, which sees the body and its immediate physical context as a single entity for the moment in which they are in contact, I demonstrate how gestures that brought the person into a charged relationship with the ground were intrinsically informed by the bare earth, textiles, images, tomb slabs, and other entities on which they might be performed.

This book considers representations partly as evidence for these practices and fleeting configurations of body, matter, and image, but also recognizes the independent identity and agency of such depictions. Some actions were depicted more often than they were practiced, while others were relatively common but rarely shown. As noted above, standing on something could have positive or negative implications for the thing underfoot. However, the strong visual tradition of representing trampling arguably limited the extent to which similar-looking but differently construed actions were shown. For example, the part of the vision mentioned above in which St. Francis treads in Christ’s footprints may never have been depicted because it came too close to a better-known subject of both figures trampling negative things underfoot. Representational traditions also had the potential to shape how certain actions and configurations of elements were witnessed, acting as a middle ground between rituals on images and images of rituals. People and the images or forms they trod on could together make up an ensemble that was itself reminiscent of a familiar scene. In some cases, such as the papal throne in Assisi with a relief of the asp and basilisk under the feet of the living pope, or the potential for the clergy to stand on the gates and personification of hell in the floor mosaic of Otranto Cathedral (Apulia), the reference was to an iconography of trampling. At Novara Cathedral (Piedmont), in contrast, where deacons used the symbols of the Evange-lists as liturgical markers, it will have called to mind representations of the Gospel writers and their symbols with no such connotations. My main intention in considering images on other supports is to enrich our understanding of gestures and other actions as these took place on the ground. Nonetheless, the notion that certain iconographies could provide a framework for the visual impact of human figures combined with their material setting—or, in other words, that the effect of people standing on one image was to resemble another—also has implications for the compositions that acted as a point of reference.

Defining People and Places

A stratigraphic approach illuminates the relationship between person and material environment, giving them equal weighting in the enquiry if not necessarily in the individual instances of interaction. I see this relationship as dynamic, with contact or proximity having the potential to shape one or both of the components. On the one hand, this transformation might affect the place, as when the ground trodden by Christ and the saints effectively became a contact relic, or the attention paid to the floor surface during the consecration rite contributed to the definition of the church as holy. In this respect, this book contributes to the substantial literature on the conception and creation of sacred space.³⁰ It forms part of an increased interest in relics of place and the material qualities of sacred locations, especially in the Holy Land.³¹ However, where these studies tend to define their subject matter by substance, site, or event, this book looks at places marked by a particular type of contact. This approach enhances our understanding of sacred space by highlighting the role of holy feet in forming holy ground, but also by providing a framework that encompasses subsequent engagement with the site. Concentrating on forms of interaction common to those whose presence created sacred places and those who venerated them allows us to see more clearly how restricting or repeating contact informed the place over time. Meanwhile, while recent work on ecclesiastical buildings as sacred places has illuminated aspects of their ritual definition and ways in which they were shaped and inhabited by the human body, it has not paid sustained attention to interaction with the ground.³² Doing so clarifies the dynamic part played by this surface in formal practices of sanctification and their commemoration and reveals the potential for individual bodies to use the same surface to create circumscribed areas of heightened personal or communal significance, showing how institutional and informal processes of change intersected.

Within both these spheres, encompassing a range of interactions with the ground shows how a rhythm of contact contributed to the construction of sacred space. Where locations were defined by the presence of Christ or by consecration ritual, one-off contact effected or helped to effect permanent change. In the case of ground trodden by holy figures, repeated use by less august individuals might be avoided to maintain the sanctity of the site. Elsewhere, and in rituals with other ends, such use conveyed over time a less charged but nonetheless significant aura to a place and its substance. For example, habitually praying in the same spot gave it meaning for the person concerned, while using particular markers in rites of passage built up their importance over generations. By treating a single aspect of the loca sancta—the ground—alongside the same aspect of the consecrated church interior, this book also adds a new dimension to the study of the relationship between the sacred places of the Holy Land and those of western Europe, as well as between places defined by divine intervention and man-made ritual more generally. The former has tended to focus on evocations of the built environment and topography of Jerusalem and its surroundings and on the transportation of relics.³³ Considering the ground as a common reality and resource within these different environments, and focusing on the vertical dynamics of sanctification and use in each place rather than horizontal links between them, allows for a different perspective that transcends specifically Jerusalem-focused piety. This sees the interactions made possible by a weightbearing surface, and the capacity of the ground to signal these encounters though impression, material, text, and image, as constituting a shared component of the creation of holy places within and beyond the Holy Land.

At the same time, I argue that what people stood or lay on, and indeed what and whom they lay beneath in death, spoke of and shaped their identity too. Such identities ranged from the shared to the highly individual. They included broad confessional affiliations, membership of a religious community, a place in a succession of officeholders, and even the unique nature of Christ. They encompassed extremes of human achievement, from saintly status to excommunication. Where someone requested burial beneath the spot in which they had prayed in life, a more personal sense of identity might also be involved. Although use of particular places could reinforce an existing status, for the most part, these identities were also fluid. Just as contact with the ground had the potential to transform the nature of the place, it could also help to change the status of the person treading or lying on it or on particular elements of floor covering. Ceremonies of baptism, consecration, coronation, penance, and the last rites could all involve the body in meaningful contact with the ground. Here a formidable literature exists on each area of ritual activity.³⁴ However, engagement with the ground tends to be noted only in passing, and—as with studies of gesture—relatively little attention given to the contribution of material context. This book therefore highlights ways in which the surface of the ground and its coverings could add to the articulation and efficacy of these types of rituals, as these were prescribed or adapted in practice. In some cases, the import of the ritual was reinforced through a certain likeness between person and material setting: ashes and hair shirt under a dying penitent; imperial porphyry and silk under a king; and more ambiguous combinations such as marble paving, hair cloth, and the humiliated remains of a saint. In other cases, changed identity was demonstrated more by what someone was prepared to tread underfoot: standing on a cross could be understood to seal conversion to Islam, while trampling on a fur cloak represented a repudiation of secular life. If this approach builds on the way identity is often seen to have been signaled by dress, paying attention to the dressing of places opens up a wider dynamic of interaction between body and material. Looking across a spectrum of rituals with a specific eye to their treatment and employment of the floor surface also reveals elements of a shared vocabulary, both between them and in common with rituals to do with the transformation of places.

As well as showing how contact between body and ground had the potential to define and shape the identity of individuals and groups, this book highlights ways in which such interactions forged relationships between people. From one perspective, this was achieved through a spatial alignment between the bodies of the dead beneath ground and those of the living above. People not only requested burial beneath the feet of all passers-by in an act of studied humility, and a desire for prayer and remembrance, but might also position themselves more specifically beneath processional routes and stopping places, particular participants in the liturgy, and similar officeholders to themselves. While such positioning could mean proximity to salvific or familiar rituals for the dead, it might also perpetuate certain identities beyond the grave and heighten the sense of the living as part of a community extending over time. From another perspective, there was also the potential for connections between different people who occupied the same space above ground at different moments. Here, using the same surface over time can be seen as expressive of likeness, for example between members of a religious community who might take their vows, receive punishment, and die in particular shared places. More restricted access and engagement spoke of more singular identities, such as imperial or episcopal status. In all of these configurations of body, material, form, and image, I argue, it is not just the combination of elements, but their relative status and sanctity that affected the dynamic between them and the significance of the whole.

Structure of the Book

The structure of this book reflects and utilizes the stratigraphy that is also its subject matter. It is divided into six chapters, each of which addresses a different dynamic between body and ground. Over the course of the work, the body moves from an upright position to a prone one, and from a position above ground to one beneath it. Where appropriate, chapters start with an unmediated encounter between person and ground, and then add in further layers and components. Within this overall framework, the chapters are grouped into three sets of pairs. The first of these analyzes the role of engagement with the ground in the creation of sacred space. Chapter 1 considers vestigia or imprints that testified to the presence of Christ and other figures of religious significance in a particular place, asking how holy feet shaped holy places. While attention is given to the characterization of the whole of the Holy Land as trodden by Christ, discussion focuses on three case studies of physical impressions that question its paradigmatic status by going beyond the region and Christianity: Christ’s footprints at the site of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives; the imprints on the rock in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which were venerated and identified variously by Muslims and Christians; and those of St. Michael at the shrine of the archangel on the Gargano Peninsula (Apulia). I argue that these vestigia sites demonstrated transformative contact through their form and material qualities, played an important role in the generation of environmental relics that stood in for the absent body of Christ and the immaterial archangel, and were also defined by the circumscription of further physical contact. The potential of such relics to render other places holy is demonstrated in chapter 2, which otherwise analyzes the treatment of the floor surface of the church building during the consecration ceremony. Particular attention is paid to the execution, representation, and interpretation of the alphabet cross. Initially written on the ground, the letters came to be impressed into ashes. I see this as forming a significant point of correspondence with the vestigia sites and with contemporary understandings of human memory and the internalization of spiritual knowledge. The characterization of the ground as receptive is also seen to have contributed to the acknowledgment and commemoration of the consecration ceremony in permanent pavement decoration. While attentive to the specificity of different rites, readings, and pavements, the chapter sets up broad conceptions of the surface on which many of the other interactions addressed in this book take place.

In other respects, the second set of chapters follows on from the discussion of vestigia, by investigating the negative and positive implications of standing on something more broadly, bringing this material together for the first time. Chapter 3 focuses on trampling, which was represented visually and textually more than it was experienced in reality. Concentrating particularly on the holy underfoot, the chapter demonstrates its role in interaction between different religious and confessional groups and shows how differing attitudes to images modulated how the action might be understood. Where trampling took place, I argue, it tended to involve objects placed on the ground or reused in the pavement specifically in order to be trodden on, intersecting with wider questions surrounding the significance of spoliated materials. Although some of these practices aimed to desecrate the objects concerned, the chapter also identifies a discourse of trampling, which not only featured metaphors of triumph but also included accusations of trampling on holy things. The latter often tarred those involved with impiety without necessarily understanding the sanctity of the thing so treated to be compromised. In time, place, and medium, all this was relatively remote from the creation and use of medieval ecclesiastical pavements. Chapter 4 thus turns to the use of elements in church pavements as liturgical markers. Where the first two chapters examine one-off transformative engagement with the ground, this demonstrates the impact of repeated use of particular places. After surveying the better-known evidence for geometric markers, it makes the case that images could act in a similar manner. Both could mark the place of participants and officiants in various rites, enhancing their identity. However, I understand form, material, and image to have combined differently with the bodies above them. Images had particular potential to engender different responses, encompassing positive and negative interpretations of standing on something within a single work. When witnessed in use, they also had greater potential to form ensembles that were themselves reminiscent of representations. Ephemeral floor coverings fulfilled similar functions but were directed even more at specific people. The chapter also asks how the employment of liturgical markers relates to the holy ground trodden by Christ and the saints. While each can be located on a spectrum of engagement with the ground, in which singular use reflected an exceptional identity and repeated use a shared one, one visionary experience of the church interior featuring holy individuals combined elements from both contexts.

The final two chapters treat the prone body, looking firstly at