1 Merimée, P., Notes d'un voyage dans le midi de la France, 1835 , ed. Auzas, P. M. (Paris, 1971), 58.Google Scholar This essay is adapted from a chapter in my doctoral thesis (“Romanesque Vézelay: The Art of Monastic Contemplation” [Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1999]). I would like to thank Anne Duroe, Ilene Forsyth, Elizabeth Parker, Elizabeth Sears, Thelma Thomas, and Terri Tinkle for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the present study.Google Scholar

2 Merimée, , Notes , 62.Google Scholar

3 Schmitt, J.-C., “‘Gestus’ – ‘Gesticulatio,’” La Lexicographie du latin médiéval et ses rapports avec les recherches actuelles sur la civilisation du moyen âge (Paris, 1981), 383–87. See also Schmitt-Wiegan, R., “Gebärden,” in Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, 1 (Berlin, 1964), 141. In English, “gesture” had a much wider meaning, including facial expression, through the nineteenth century (OED 6: 476). See also n. 9 below.Google Scholar

4 “Omnium hominum communis sermo” (Institutes, 11, 3, 87). A similar conception of gestures was echoed by later authors. Augustine, for example, states: “hoc autem eos velle ex motu corporis aperiebatur tamquam verbis naturalibus omnium gentium, quae fiunt vultu et nutu oculorum ceterorumque membrorum actu … (In addition, their intention was evident from their body movements which are, as it were, the natural vocabulary of all races, and are made with the face and the inclination of the eyes and the movements of other parts of the body …)” ( Confessions , ed. O'Donnell, J. [Oxford, 1992], 1: 7–8; my translation is adapted from Confessions , trans. Chadwick, H. [Oxford, 1991], 11). There remains a tacit expectation among some art historians, based largely on post-Renaissance thought, that gestures in art are primarily a vehicle for conveying emotions. Such a characterization of gestures in art appears in the important works of C. Bell, Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting (Birmingham, La., 1984 [1806]); Darwin, C., The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (New York, 1972 [1896]); Johann Joachim Winkelmann, Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst (Dresden and Leipzig, 1756), 21–26. See also the informative article of Knowlson, J. R., “The Idea of Gesture as a Universal Language in the xviith and xviiith Centuries,” Journal of the History of Ideas 26 (1965): 495–508.Google Scholar

5 Influences antiques dans l'art du moyen âge français (London, 1937; repr. with an introduction by Pressouyre, L., Paris, 1996), 223. For other discussions of the Ganymede capital see Adhémar, J., “L'enlèvement de Ganymède sur un châpiteau de Vézelay,” Bulletin monumental 91 (1932): 290–92; Ambrose, , “Romanesque Vézelay,” 188–89; Aubert, M., Richesses d'art. La Bourgogne. Sculpture, 1 (Paris, 1930): 17; Calmette, J. and David, H., Les grandes heures de Vézelay (Paris, 1951), 253; Crosnier, A. “Iconographie de l'église de Vézelay,” Congrès archéologique de France 14 (1848): 223; Despiney, C., Guide-Album de Vézelay (Vézelay, 1930), 124; Diemer, P. “Stil und Ikonographie der Kapitelle von Ste.-Madeleine, Vézelay” (Ph.D. diss., Ruprecht-Karl-Universität, Heidelberg, 1975), 113, 282–85; Forsyth, I., “The Ganymede Capital at Vézelay,” Gesta 15 (1976): 241–46; Kolve, V. A., “Ganymede/Son of Getron: Medieval Monasticism and the Drama of Same-Sex Desire,” Speculum 73 (1998): 1014–67; Mâle, E., L'art religieux du xii^e siècle en France (Paris, 1922), 368; idem, Religious Art in France: The Twelfth Century , trans. Mathews, M. (Princeton, 1978), 366; Meunier, P., Iconographie de l'église de Vézelay (Avallon, 1862), 26; Porée, C., L'abbaye de Vézelay, Petites monographies des grands édifices de la France (Paris, 1909), 62–63; Quinn, P. A., Better Than the Sons of Kings: Boys and Monks in the Early Middle Ages (New York, 1989), 7–8, 185–88; Salet, F., Cluny et Vézelay. L'oeuvre de sculpteurs (Paris, 1995), 153; idem and Adhémar, J., La Madeleine de Vézelay (Melun, 1948), 182–83; Weisbach, W., Religiöse Reform und mittelalterliche Kunst (Zurich, 1945), 145–47.Google Scholar

6 Camille, M., “Mouths and Meanings: Toward an Anti-Iconography of Medieval Art,” in Iconography at the Crossroads. Papers from the Colloquium Sponsored by the Index of Christian Art, Princeton University 23–24 March 1990 , ed. Cassidy, B. (Princeton, 1993), 43–57.Google Scholar

7 Gombrich, E. H., Symbolic Images (London, 1972), 11–13.Google Scholar

8 “Les techniques du corps,” Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 39 (1935): 271–93; repr. in Sociology and Psychology (London, 1979), 365–86. There is a vast literature on this point. See the pioneering work of Birdwhistell, R., Introduction to Kinesics (Louisville, 1954); idem, Kinesics and Context: Essays on Body Motion Communication (Philadelphia, 1970). For more recent research see Harper, R. et al., Nonverbal Communication: The State of the Art (New York, 1978); Poyatos, F., ed., Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Nonverbal Communication (Toronto, 1988).Google Scholar

9 Schmitt, J.-C., La raison des gestes dans l'Occident médiéval (Paris, 1990). See also Greenblatt, S., Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Chicago, 1991), 89–93. Some close reading of gestures in medieval art have been made, including: Bonne, J. C., L'art roman de face et de profil. Le tympan de Conques (Paris, 1984), 91–95, 258–63; idem, “Depicted Gesture, Named Gesture: Postures on the Autun Tympanum,” History and Anthropology 1 (1984): 77–95; Ladner, G. B., “The Gestures of Prayer in Papal Iconography of the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries,” in Didascaliae. Studies in Honor of Anselm M. Albareda , ed. Prete, S. (New York, 1961), 247–75; Rump, G. C., “Dialogstruckturen in mittelalterlicher Plastik: Reims, Innere Westfassade,” Dialoge: Beiträge zur Interaktions- und Diskursanalyse , ed. Heindrichs, W. and Rump, G. C. (Hildesheim, 1979), 240–59; Schapiro, M., Words, Script, and Pictures: Semiotics of Visual Language (New York, 1996), 25–93; Schlief, C., “Hands That Appoint, Anoint and Ally: Late Medieval Donor Strategies for Approbation through Painting,” Art History 16 (1993): 1–32. For general comments on problems associated with interpreting gestures in art see: Gombrich, E. H., “Ritualized Gesture and Expression in Art,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences, no. 772 (1965): 391–401; Gundersheimer, W., “Clarity and Ambiguity in Renaissance Gesture: the Case of Borso d'Este,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 23 (1993): 1–17; Hood, W., Fra Angelico at San Marco (New Haven, 1993), 195–236; idem, “Saint Dominic's Manners of Praying: Gestures in Fra Angelico's Cell Frescoes at S. Marco,” Art Bulletin 68 (1986): 195–206; Janson, H. W., “The Right Arm of Michelangelo's ‘Moses,’” Festschrift Ulrich Middeldorf , ed. Kosegarten, A. and Tigler, P. (Berlin, 1968), 241–47; Johnson, D., “Corporality and Communication: The Gestural Revolution of Diderot, David, and The Oath of the Horatii,” Art Bulletin 71 (1989): 92–113; Thomas, K., “Introduction,” in A Cultural History of Gesture , ed. Bremmer, J. and Roodenburg, H. (Ithaca, 1992), 1–14.Google Scholar

10 PL 176: 925–52. See the discussion of this text in Schmitt, , Raison des gestes , 174–93.Google Scholar

11 See, for example, Bynum, C. W., The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (New York, 1995), 115–225.Google Scholar

12 See the helpful comments of Hallinger, K., “Klunys Bräuche zur Zeit Hugos des Großen (1049–1109). Prolegomena zur Neuherausgabe des Bernhard und Udalrich von Kluny,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Kanonische Abteilung 45 (1959): 99–140. See also Iogna-Prat, D., “Coutumes et statuts clunisiens comme sources historiques (ca. 900–ca. 1200),” Revue Mabillon, n.s. 3 (1992): 23–48.Google Scholar

13 This text has been edited by Jarecki, W., Signa loquendi. Die cluniacensischen Signa-Listen eingeleitet und herausgegeben (Baden-Baden, 1981), 121–41. Jarecki's edition is based on the following manuscripts: Liège, Bibl. Univ. 1420 (12^th century); Paris, B.N. lat 2208.2 (12^th century); Paris, B.N. lat. 13874 (12^th century); Paris, B.N. lat. 11732 (17^th century); Paris, B.N. lat. 13877 (17^th century); Paris, B.N. lat. 18353.2 (11^th century); Paris, Bibl. Ste.-Geneviève 1614 (ca. 1200); Trier, Stadtbibl. 497 [1238] (15^th century). In addition, Jarecki consulted the following printed sources: d'Archery, L., Spicilegium veterum aliquot scriptorum …, 4 (Paris, 1661): 119ff; Hergott, M., Vetus disciplina monastica (Paris, 1726), 169–73; Martène, E., De antiquis monachorum ritibus (Lyons, 1690), 882ff. (repr. Antwerp, 1738, 827ff.). For a French translation of this list based on a different edition of the text see G. de Valous, Le monachisme clunisien des origines au xv^e siècle. Vie intérieure des monastères et organisation de l'ordre, 1 (Paris, 1935): 391–96. See also the concordance found in van Rijnberk, G., Le langage par signes chez les moines (Amsterdam, 1953). For an English translation see Ambrose, “Romanesque Vézelay,” 258–86. Bruce, S. is preparing a dissertation at Princeton University on this and other Clunaic lists that will contribute much to our knowledge of these signs.Google Scholar

14 Diemer, P., “Das Pfingstportal von Vézelay – Wege, Umwege und Abwege einer Diskussion,” Jahrbuch des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte 1 (1985): 102–4; idem, “Stil und Ikonographie,” 5 n. 36; Salet and Adhémar, La Madeleine, 23 n. 2; Saulnier, L. and Stratford, N., La sculpture oubliée de Vézelay (Geneva, 1984), 2.Google Scholar

15 Bourdieu, P., The Logic of Practice , trans. Nice, R. (Stanford, 1980), 69–70.Google Scholar

16 Previous discussions of this capital include Calmette, and David, , Grandes Heures , 241; Despiney, , Guide, 134; Diemer, , “Stil und Ikonographie,” 109, 377–79; Meunier, , Iconographie, 23; Porée, , Vézelay, 58; Salet, , Cluny et Vézelay, 161; Salet, and Adhémar, , La Madeleine, 192.Google Scholar

17 Gestures in Fall scenes are typically limited to the offering and receiving of the forbidden fruit. Occasionally, a figure is represented placing a hand to his or her cheek, a traditional gesture of lamentation that appears in earlier Genesis cycles at various moments in the narrative, such as the Shame or Expulsion. In the Carolingian Vivian Bible, Eve places her hand to her cheek as she and Adam hide from God (Paris, B.N. lat. 1, fol. 10v). An Expulsion scene on the Salerno ivories includes a similar gesture (ca. 1080; for date see Bergman, R., The Salerno Ivories [Cambridge, Mass., 1980], 87–90). This lamentation gesture is found on an earlier Vézelay capital of the Fall, which most likely dates to Abbot Artaud's building campaign in the first years of the twelfth century and which was reemployed in the nave. Other sculpted Romanesque examples of this pose in Burgundy include the Eve lintel fragment from Autun and a scene of the Shame on the south tympanum of Anzy-le-Duc. In his fundamental study, O. K. Werckmeister noted the importance of the Autun Eve's posture on her elbows as evoking a similar posture found in the penitential rites of Ordo L (“The Lintel Fragment representing Eve from Saint-Lazare, Autun,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 35 [1972]: 27). The penitent gesture super cubitos is also described in Cluniac customaries, including Udalrich's (PL 149: 705), suggesting broader observance of this practice. A possible analogue to Adam's hand-to-chest gesture that predates the Vézelay and Cluny capitals is found in the Genesis frontispiece of the Grandval Bible (London, British Lib. MS. Add. 10546, fol. 5v), in which the figure of Eve points to her chest. However, the relation between the Grandval Bible and the Vézelay capital is tenuous: Diemer relates the capital's iconography to Tours Bible frontispieces (“Stil und Ikonographie,” 378). Koehler relates these miniatures to the Cotton Genesis recension (Karolingische Miniaturen, vol. 1, pt. 2, Die Schule von Tours: Die Bilder [Berlin, 1933], 186–90). Kessler argues that the model available at Tours predated the Cotton manuscript itself, although it was within the same iconographic tradition (“Hic Homo,” 152–58). Adam performs a similar gesture, covering his chest with both hands, in an eleventh-century miniature of the Shame (London, Brit. Mus. Cotton Claudius B. IV, fol. 7v). See Dodwell, C. R. and Clemoes, P., eds., The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, 18 (Oxford, 1974).Google Scholar

18 Fundamental studies on Genesis iconography in the West, particularly images of the Fall, include: Cook, W. S., “The Earliest Painted Panels of Catalonia V,” Art Bulletin 10 (1927): 153–67; Green, R., “The Adam and Eve Cycle in the Hortus Deliciarum,” Late Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend, Jr. , ed. Weitzmann, K. (Princeton, 1955), 340–47; Kessler, H., “Hic Homo Formatur: The Genesis Frontispieces of the Carolingian Bibles,” Art Bulletin 53 (1971): 152–58 (repr. in idem, The Illustrated Bibles from Tours [Princeton, 1977], 25–28); Koehler, W., Die karolingischen Miniaturen, vol. 1, pt. 2, 186–90; Koshi, K., “Der Adam-und-Eva-Zyklus in der sogenannten Cottongenesis-Rezension: Ein Überblick über mögliche Mitglieder der verzweigten Cottongenesis-Familie,” Bulletin annuel du Musée National d'Art Occidental 9 (1975): 74–76 and passim; Neuss, W., Die katalonische Bibelillustration um die Wende des ersten Jahrtausends und die altspanische Buchmalerei (Bonn, 1922), 35–46; Tikannen, J. J., Die Genesismosaiken von S. Marco in Venedig und ihr Verhältnis zu den Miniaturen der Cottonbibel (Helsingfors, 1889); Weitzmann, K. and Kessler, H., The Cotton Genesis (Princeton, 1986), 42–43. Other traditions include the Byzantine Octateuchs, which are of different, probably Syrian, origin; see Weitzmann, K., “Observations on the Cotton Genesis Fragments,” Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend, Jr., 130. See also Thierry, N., “Le cycle de la création et de la faute d'Adam à Alt'amar,” Revue des études arméniens, n.s. 17 (1983): 289–329. For a critique of the notion of recension see Lowden, J., The Octateuchs: A Study in Byzantine Manuscript Illustration (University Park, Penn., 1992), 95–102; Stahl, H., “The Iconographic Sources of the Old Testament Miniatures, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 638” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1974), 7–21.Google Scholar

19 Conant, K. J., Cluny. Les églises et la maison du chef d'ordre (Mâcon, 1968), 87–88. Conant argues that this capital was originally located in the choir of Cluny III, a conclusion that is now questioned. See, for example, Diemer, P., “What does Prudentia Advise? On the Subject of the Cluny Choir Capitals,” Gesta 37 (1988): 149. Adam performs a similar gesture on a sandstone relief, now in Switzerland, that strongly resembles the Cluny capital (Stettler, M., “Die Abegg-Stiftung Bern in Riggisberg,” Kulturelle Monatsschrift “Du” [May 1968]: 36). As yet, I have been unable to confirm the date, provenance, or authenticity of this work.Google Scholar

20 Diemer, , “Stil und Ikonographie,” 460–63; Porter, A. K., Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads 1 (Boston, 1923): 90–95; Salet, , Cluny et Vézelay, 115–23. See also Armi, C. E., Masons and Sculptors in Romanesque Burgundy, 1 (University Park, Penn., 1983): 177–90 and passim. Google Scholar

21 For a recent review of the literature on Anzy see Hamann, M., “Die burgundische Prioratskirche von Anzy-le-Duc und die romanische Plastik im Brionnais” (Ph.D. diss., Würzburg, 1998). For Neuilly see Cahn, W., “Le tympan de Neuilly-en-Donjon,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 8 (1965): 351–52. Cook, W. argues that the entire tympanum is arranged around phonetically similar words, though he does not address Adam's gesture (“A New Approach to the Tympanum of Neuilly-en-Donjon.” Journal of Medieval History 4 [1978]: 333–45). Much of Cook's analysis hinges on a capital, on which a knight in mail falls from a horse, which he misidentifies as a Fall of Simon Magus. The attributes of the figure seem more closely related to those found in medieval representations of the fall of Pride.Google Scholar

22 Biblioteca Provincial de Burgos MS. 846, fol. 12v; illustrated in The Art of Medieval Spain, A.D. 500–1200 (New York, 1993), 299.Google Scholar

23 Craigie, D., Elements of General and Pathological Anatomy (Edinburgh, 1848). See also “gula” in Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 4, ed. Wartburg, W. (Basel, 1952), 300–22.Google Scholar

24 Ambrose, , De Cain et Abel (CSEL 32.1: 353); idem, De Helia et ieiunio (CSEL 32.2: 412); Gregory the Great (Moralia in Iob, CCL 143B, ed. Adriaen, M. [Turnholt, 1985], 1531; cf. idem, CCL 143A: 679). This wording is echoed by Odo of Cluny in his Moralia in Job (PL 133: 459). For Peter Lombard see Commentaria in Psalmos (PL 191: 301); Rupert of Deutz, De gloria et honore Filii hominis super Mattheum (CCM 29: 83). Many other examples could be cited.Google Scholar

25 “Tribus modis Adam tentatus est, et superatus, id est gula, jactantia et avaritia. In his tribus iterum Christus tentatus est, et vicit victorem Adae” (MGH Epistolae, 4: 124).Google Scholar

26 The Glossa ordinaria, as printed in PL, compares Adam's temptation with Christ's three temptations: “In his tribus notantur gula, avaritia et superbia” (PL 114: 85–86). The glosses cite the authority of Bede and Rabanus Maurus. See also Homily 36 of Radulphus Ardens (PL 152: 1271).Google Scholar

27 If we adopt Garnier's characterization of such gestures in medieval art as indicating “acceptance,” we could argue that the Adam of the Cluny and Vézelay capitals signals, somewhat redundantly, that he accepts the forbidden fruit from Eve ( Le langage de l'image au Moyen Âge: Signification et symbolique [Paris, 1982], 184). However, such a narrow reading of the gesture seems unsatisfactory. Moreover, Garnier cites no examples that date before the middle of the twelfth century. It should be noted that since the eleventh century, cuer (heart) could imply the “dispositions secrètes de l'âme” (Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch , ed. Wartburg, , 2: 1173). In Provençal and Old French, the words for heart and body are homonyms (see also Bec, P., “Le corps et ses ambiguîtés chez Bernard de Ventadour et quelques autres troubadours,” in Le corps et ses énigmes au Moyen Âge , ed. Ribémont, B. [Caen, 1993], 9–12; Jansen, F., “Provençal cor and cors: A Flexional Dilemma,” Romance Philology 28 [1974]: 30). Might this suggest that Adam's carved gesture accents the corporal nature of his sin?.Google Scholar

28 Ahl, F., Metaformations: Soundplay and Wordplay in Ovid and Other Classical Poets (Cornell, 1985), 17–63; idem, “Ars est caelare artem (Art in Puns and Anagrams Engraved),” in On Puns: The Foundation of Letters , ed. Culler, J. (New York, 1988), 17–43. Blaettler, J. R. has argued that metaphors of virga and pes permeate the sculptural imagery of Silos (“Through Emmaus' Eyes: Art, Liturgy, and Monastic Ideology at Santo Domingo de Silos” [Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1989], 28–34 and passim).Google Scholar

29 Varro, , De lingua latina (7.32): “Cum tria sint coniuncta in origine verborum quae sint animadvertenda, a quo sit impositum et in quo et quid, saepe non minus de tertio quam de primo dubitatur, ut in hoc, utrum primum una canis aut canes sit appellata: dicta enim apud veteres una canes. Itaque Ennius scribit: Tantidem quasi feta canes sine dentibus latrat. Lucilius: Nequam et magnus homo, laniorum immanis canes ut. Impositio unius debuit esse canis, plurium canes; sed neque Ennius consuetudinem illam sequens reprehendendus, nec is qui nunc dicit: Canis caninam non est. Sed canes quod latratu signum dant, ut signa canunt, canes appellatae, et quod ea voce indicant noctu quae latent, latratus appellatus” ( On the Latin Language , ed. Page, T. E., 2 [Cambridge, Mass., 1938]: 298–300). Isidore of Seville, Etymologies: “Canis nomen Latinum Graecam etymologiam videtur habere … licet eum quidam a canore latratus appellatum aestiment, eo quod insonet, unde et canere” (PL 82: 438).Google Scholar

30 Luke, 18:13 (my emphasis).Google Scholar

31 See the helpful comments of Markus, R. A., “St. Augustine on Signs,” Phronensis 2 (1957): 60.Google Scholar

32 This sign is mentioned within the description for the signal of a monk who is literate: “Pro signo monachi, qui nutritus est in monasterio, generali signo premisso adde, ut minimum digitum labris admoveas pro eo, quod ita sugit infans; si bene est literatus, digitum contra pectus submitte, quod est signum sciendi” (Jarecki, , Signa loquendi , 136). William of Hirsau's list, compiled late in the eleventh century, reads: “Pro signo alicuius bene literati vel etiam pro signo sciendi cum summitate indicis in pectore aliquantulum frica” (ibid., 213). The hand-to-chest sign for comprehension found in Cluniac customaries does not appear in an eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon list ( Monasteriales indicia: The Anglo-Saxon Monastic Sign Language , ed. and trans. Banham, D. [Middlesex, 1991]). About half of the signs in this list are similar to those found in the Cluny lists. Similar signs might have been used in eleventh-century English monasteries, but never recorded. A sixteenth-century Cistercian sign language includes a sign similar to Cluny's for “knowledge”: “Scire: Motis articulis summis pariter digitorum ad pectus si vis datur inde scientia rerum” (Dimier, A., “Ars Signorum Cisterciensium,” Collectanea Ordinis Cisterciencium Reformatorum 5 [1938]: 171; repr. in Monastic Sign Languages , ed. Umiker-Sebeok, J. and Sebeok, T. A. [New York, 1987], 397). The general similarity between Cistercian and Cluniac sign languages has been recognized (Gougaud, L., “Le langage des silencieux,” Revue Mabillon 19 [1929]: 97; repr. in Monastic Sign Languages , ed. Umiker-Sebeok, and Sebeok, , 8; van Rijnberk, G., Le langage par signes chez les moines [Amsterdam, 1953], 163; repr. in Sign Languages , ed. Umiker-Sebeok, and Sebeok, , 25).Google Scholar

33 “Primo pro signo lectionis manui vel pectori digitum inpinge et paululum attractum ita fac resilire, quasi qui folium codicis evertit” (Jarecki, , Signa loquendi , 131). William of Hirsau's entry is as follows: “Pro signo lectionis manui vel pectori digitum indicem inpinge et paululum adtractum ita fac resilire, quasi qui folium codicis evertit” (ibid., 199).Google Scholar

34 “Pro signo infirmarii, qui obsequitur infirmis, pone manum contra pectus, quod significat infirmitatem, quamvis, quia et confessionem significat” (ibid., 138).Google Scholar

35 “Stans ante eum [sacerdotem], dexteram de manica extractum ponit super pectus, quod est signum confessionis” (PL 149: 707).Google Scholar

36 Luke 23: 48; see Augustine, , Sermon 67, 1 (PL 38: 433).Google Scholar

37 The Play of Adam (Ordo Representacions Ade) , ed. Odenkirchen, C. J. (Brookline, 1976), 78–84 (11. 277–92). Stage directions of the play are careful to stipulate that gestures should accord with speech: “nec solum ipse [i.e., Adam] sed omnes persone sic instruantur ut composite loquantur et gestum faciant convenientem rei de qua loquuntur …” (ibid., 42). The Temptation and Fall are the most elaborated sections of this play: Noonan, W., “Le Jeu D'Adam. Étude descriptive et analytique,” Romania 89 (1968): 171. The date (1125–75) and origin of the play is much debated (Play of Adam, 10–11; Frank, G., “The Genesis and Staging of the Jeu d'Adam,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 59 [1944]: 7–10; eadem, The Medieval French Drama [Oxford, 1954], 76). For analysis of the dialogue between Adam and Eve see Auerbach, E., Mimesis , trans. Trask, W. R. (Princeton, 1953), 145–73; Muir, L., Liturgy and Drama in the Anglo-Norman Adam (Oxford, 1973), 51–77. See also Fassler, M., “Representations of Time in Ordo representatione Ade,” in Contexts: Style and Values in Medieval Art and Literature, Yale French Studies, special issue (New Haven, 1991), 109–13. The Old Saxon Genesis B similarly elaborates Eve's speech to tempt Adam (Woolf, R., “The Fall of Man in Genesis B and the Mystère d'Adam,” in Studies in Old English Literature in Honor of Arthur G. Brodeur , ed. Greenfield, S. [Eugene, Ore., 1963], 197).Google Scholar

38 “Sic ergo illis primis hominibus iam uita erat dulcis, quam profecto amittere deuitabant, idque ipsum quibuscumque modis uel sonis significantem deum intellegere poterant. nec aliter eis posset persuaderi peccatum, nisi prius persuaderetur eos ex illo facto non esse morituros, id est illud, quod habebant et se habere gaudebant, non amissuros: unde suo loco loquendum est. aduertant itaque, si quos mouet, quomodo potuerint intellegere inexperta nominantem uel minantem deum, et videant nos omnium inexpertorum nomina non-nisi ex contrariis, quae iam nouimus, si priuationum sunt, aut ex similibus, si specierum sunt, sine ullo aestu dubitationis agnoscere” ( De Genesi ad litteram 8.16, ed. Zycha, J. [Vienna, 1894], 256).Google Scholar

39 “Cur enim non crearet, quos praesciebat bonis profuturos, ut et utiles eorum bonis uoluntatibus exercendis admonendisque nascantur et iuste pro sua mala uoluntate puniantur?” ( De Genesi ad litteram 11.6 [339–40]). Genesis B, from the so-called Caedmon Genesis (Oxford, Bodleian, Junius 11), includes an extensive dialogue between Adam and Eve. Although Adam blames Eve for her deceit, he concludes that he knew God's will and the consequences of disobedience ( The Junius Manuscript , ed. Krapp, G. P. [New York, 1931], 28 [lines 828–40]). For an English translation see Gordon, R. K., Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London, 1927), 122. Recently, the deliberate disobedience of Adam, Eve, and Satan in Genesis B has been related to political events in England around the year 1000 (Zimmermann, G., The Four Old English Poetic Manuscripts: Texts, Contexts, and Historical Background [Heidelberg, 1995], 36–46). In the lais of Marie de France, Adam alone is blamed for the Fall (Williams, B., ‘“Cursed Be My Parents’: A View of Marriage from the Lais of Marie de France,” in “The Fragility of Her Sex”? Medieval Irishwomen in their European Context , ed. Meek, C. and Simms, K. [Portland, Ore., 1996], 73). Similarly, Marie's fables often place women in a favorable light (Marie de France, Fables , ed. and trans. Spiegel, H. [Toronto, 1987], 24).Google Scholar

40 “Bene praetermissum est ubi decipitur Adam, quia non sua culpa, sed uitio lapsus uxorio est” (De paradiso 1.13 [CSEL 32.1: 322]). On this point see Clark, E. A., “Heresy, Asceticism, Adam, and Eve: Interpretations of Genesis 1–3 in the Later Latin Fathers,” Genesis 1–3 in the History of Exegesis , ed. Robbins, G. A. (Lewiston, 1988), 101. The apocryphal Vita Adae et Evae, based largely on ancient eastern texts, stresses the penance of the couple, who claim they were deceived by the devil rather than actively deciding to sin. For a general account of medieval interpretations of Eve's role in the Fall see Duby, G., Dames du xii^e siècle, 3 (Paris, 1995): 57–88.Google Scholar

41 Augustine's method of approaching the Bible permeated monastic scholarship, including that of Cluny. See, for example, Leclercq, J., The Love of Learning and the Desire for God , trans. Misrahi, C. (New York, 1961), 97–98; Smalley, B., The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 3^d ed. (Notre Dame, 1952), 45; Stock, B., Listening for the Text: On the Uses of the Past (Philadelphia, 1990), 118 and passim. Robertson, D. W. offers the most sustained examination of the influence of Augustine's thought on medieval culture (A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives [Princeton, 1962]).Google Scholar

42 “Prius namque intus ad cor hominis per semetipsum locutus est spiritus diaboli, ut superbiret, Deumque praeceptorem ferre, vel mandatum ejus portare despectui haberert. Nisi enim intus per superbiam prius tumuisset, foris fentatus tam facile non cederet” (PL 167: 287).Google Scholar

43 “Praeceptum datum est [to Adam and Eve], ut per meritum obedientiae gloriosius obtineret bonum. Multa concessa sunt, ut fragilitati humanae provideretur, et ut non posset excusari inobedientia” (PL 175: 40).Google Scholar

44 “Mortem miser tot miseros facturus elegit“ ( Sermons , 1, ed. and trans. Vorreux, D. [Paris, 1972], 132 [my emphasis]).Google Scholar

45 Kessler, , “Hic Homo,” 153. See also Jolly, P. H., Made in God's Image? Eve and Adam in the Genesis Mosaics of San Marco, Venice (Berkeley, 1997), 43–58; Phillips, J., Eve, the History of an Idea (San Francisco, 1984), 64.Google Scholar

46 For a discussion of this theme in patristic writings see Brown, P., The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1988); Bugge, J., Virginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Idea (The Hague, 1975), 5–29; Shaw, T., The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity (Minneapolis, 1998), 27–78.Google Scholar

47 Jungmann, J. A., Missarum sollemnia: eine genetische Erklärung der römischen Messe , 2 (Vienna, 1949): 267 n. 86.Google Scholar

48 “Tria quae fiunt in percussione pectoris, id est pectus, sonus, manus, significant quod poenitendum est de iis quae mente, voce, opere peccavimus” (PL 177: 346). Passage cited by Suntrup, W., Die Bedeutung der liturgischen Gebärden und Bewegungen in lateinischen und deutschen Auslegungen des 9. bis 13. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1978), 170. Suntrup provides further examples of the penitential significance of this gesture. In the Play of Adam (p. 102), Adam and Eve strike their breasts as a sign of lament.Google Scholar

49 The stage directions of the Play of Adam mention that a bent posture is the appropriate expression of the guilt of Adam and Eve: “Tunc ambo surgent, stantes contra figuram, non tamen omnino erecti sed ob verecundiam sui peccati aliquantulum curvati et multum tristes” (p. 90); “Cum fuerint extra paradisum, quasi tristes et confusi, incurvati erunt solo tenus super talos suos” (p. 100). The directions further indicate that Adam is to beat his breast in lamentation, a gesture of ancient provenance, after he is ejected from paradise: “et residentes percucient pectora sua et femora sua, dolorem gestum fatentes” (p. 102). Adam's gesture on the Vézelay capital might convey this sense.Google Scholar

50 Play of Adam , 90.Google Scholar

51 Augustine, , for example, observes: “Omnium enim animalium corpora, sive quae in aquis, sive quae in terra vivunt, sive quae in aere volitant, inclinata sunt in terram, et non sunt erecta sicut hominis corpus. Quo significatur, etiam animum nostrum in superna sua, id est in aeterna spiritalia erectum esse debere. Ita intelligitur per animum maxime, adtestante etiam erecta corporis formo, homo factus ad imaginem et similitudinem Dei” ( De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1, 28). Passage cited by Somers, H., “Image de Dieu: Les sources de l'exégèse augustinienne,” Revue des études augustiniennes 7 (1961): 113. Somers provides many instances of similar arguments in Augustine's works. For the status rectus problem see Javelet, R., Image et resemblance au douzièrne siècle, 1 (Paris, 1967): 257–66; Schade, H., “Das Paradies und die Imago Dei,” Probleme der Kunstwissenschaft, 2 (Berlin, 1966): 121–25. For early church fathers see Pellegrino, M., “II ‘Topos’ dello ‘status rectus’ nel contesto filosofico e biblico,” in Mullus: Festschrift Theodor Klauser (Münster, 1964), 273–81. For discussion of classical tradition see Wlosok, A., Laktanz und die philosophische Gnosis: Untersuchungen zu Geschichte und Terminologie der gnostischen Erlösungsvorstellung (Heidelberg, 1960), 8–47.Google Scholar

52 For medieval commentaries on this passage see Viarre, S., La survie d'Ovide dans la littérature scientifique des xii^e et xiii^e siècles (Poitiers, 1966), 134–38.Google Scholar

53 For the Fall's relation to entrance into temporality and corporality see, for example, Ambrose, De paradiso 7, 35; Augustine, De uere religione 30–31 (CCL 32: 222–24); idem, De Genesi contra Manichaeos 20–21; idem, De diversis quaestionibus octaginta tribus 51, 72 (CCL 44A: 78–82, 208); Cassian, , De institutis coenobiorum 12, 4 (Institutions cénobitiques , ed. and trans. Guy, J.-C., SC 109 [Paris, 1965]: 456): “haec ei sola cogitatio facta prima ruina est, obquam desertus a Deo, quo se credidit non egere, instabilis repente ac utabundus effectus et infirmitatem propriae naturae persensit et beatitudinem, qua Dei munere fruebatur, amisit.” See also Javelet, , Image, 1: 261–62 and passim. Google Scholar

54 PL 149: 635–37. See Valous, , Monachisme , 1: 43.Google Scholar

55 Constable, G. et al., eds., Statuta, Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum, 6 (Siegburg, 1975): 69–70. See also Knowles, D., “The Reforming Decrees of Peter the Venerable,” in Petrus Venerabilis 1156–1956: Studies and Texts Commemorating the Eighth Centenary of His Death , ed. Constable, G. and Kritzeck, J., Studia Anselmiana, 40 (Rome, 1956): 11; Valous, Monachisme, 1: 28.Google Scholar

56 In addition, Adam's posture might have held an element of humor for Cluniac observers. The Cluniac liturgy called for monks to genuflect at various points in the liturgy, as well as during confession. In contrast, perusal of Cistercian customaries reveals that the newly created order explicitly forbade genuflection; rather, these monks were expected to bow deeply. Genuflection was not practiced in the Cistercian order during the twelfth century (King, A. A., Liturgies of the Religious Orders [Milwaukee, 1955]). Chapter 70, for example, describes the attitude a penitent takes during confession: “humilet se profunde de loco suo versus abbatem. nec tamen super genua vel articulos: et sic resideat” (Guignard, P., ed., Les monuments primitifs de la règle cistercienne [Dijon, 1878], 167). I thank E. Rozanne Elder for confirmation of this information. Calls for genuflection in Cluniac liturgies are found in the customaries of Bernard and Udalrich (e.g., PL 149: 692, 705, 713, 714, 734, 764). In statute 53, Peter the Venerable mentions genuflections taking place in a new monastery (or church): “… ubi sancta et secreta orationum aromata deo assidue accenderent, frequentibus metaneis vel genuflexionibus pio conditiori supplicarent, acribus saepe flagellis vel ob paenitentiam, vel ad meritum augendum corpus attererent, et his ac similibus sacris studiis, velut in heremo, ab hominum remoti conspectibus, incessanter se suosque dominoque commendarent” (Constable, et al., eds., Statuta, 105–6). See Peter's comments in The Letters of Peter the Venerable, 1, ed. Constable, G. (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 55, 74. See also the notes in the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis , ed. Marrier, M. (Paris, 1915), 117–18. Might the figure of Adam on the Vézelay capital, which neither fully bows nor fully genuflects, visually satirize the practices of the rival Burgundian order? A similar process is described by Freud in his analysis of joke techniques: ‘“condensation accompanied by the formation of a substitute’; and in the present example the formation of the substitute consists in making a ‘composite word’” (Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious , ed. and trans. Strachey, J. [New York, 1960], 19).Google Scholar

57 Rule of Saint Benedict 4.78; 58.9; 58.17; 60.9; 61.5. See also Bynum, C. W., “Metamorphosis, or Gerald and the Werewolf,” Speculum 73 (1998): 988; eadem, “Why All the Fuss about the Body? A Medievalist's Perspective,” Critical Inquiry 22 (1995): 17–18; Constable, G., The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996), 102–7; Williams, W., “A Dialogue Between a Cluniac and a Cistercian,” Journal of Theological Studies 31 (1930): 170–73; Valous, , Monachisme, 1: 55–63.Google Scholar

58 PL 156: 27. See also Miller, J. M., “Guibert De Nogent's Liber quo ordine sermo fieri debeat: A Translation of the Earliest Modern Speech Textbook,” Today's Speech 17 (1969): 50–51. This recalls Paul's Epistle to the Romans (6:19): “I speak a human thing, because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity, unto iniquity; so now yield your members to serve justice, unto sanctification.” Google Scholar

59 For this theme see, for example, Calati, B., “Monastic Spirituality: An Essay on the Rule or Methodology,” American Benedictine Review 15 (1964): 443–45; Leclercq, J., Otia monastica. Études sur le vocabulaire de la contemplation au moyen âge, Studia Anselmiana, 51 (Rome, 1963): 75, 105.Google Scholar

60 Weitzmann, and Kessler, , Cotton Genesis , 55–56.Google Scholar

61 The multiple but specifically monastic connotations of Adam's hand-to-chest gesture on the Vézelay and Cluny capitals may help explain its relatively frequent use in later works, such as a capital at La Sauve-Majeure: Dubourg-Noves, P., Guyenne Romane (La-Pierre-qui-Vire, 1969), pl. 82; Houlet, J., “Une résurrection: Les ruines de la Sauve-Majeure,” Jardin des arts (June, 1969): 19. Later sculpted examples of this gesture include a pier relief from the Ancien Hotel-de-Ville at St.-Antonin (Porter, Pilgrimage, pl. 358) and a tympanum of St. Gabriel in Provence. A cycle of capitals featuring episodes with Adam and Eve existed at the collegiate church of St.-Antonin, but Adam's hand-to-chest gesture is not used (Fau, J.-C., “Découverte à Saint-Antonin [Tarn-et-Garonne] d'un chapiteau consacré à Adam et Eve,” Bulletin monumental 135 [1977]: 231–35). This gesture also appears in manuscript illuminations, including one from the now destroyed Hortus Deliciarum, fol. 17v (reconstructed in Green, R. et al., Hortus Deliciarum, 2 [Leiden, 1979], 33). As this gesture was diffused, the specifically monastic meanings may have been less apparent to viewers.Google Scholar

62 The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture , trans. Misrahi, C. (New York, 1961), 73.Google Scholar

63 For paradoxes in monastic theology see the comments of Forsyth, I., “The Theme of Cockfighting in Burgundian Romanesque Sculpture,” Speculum 53 (1978): 282. The four levels of interpreting Scripture, most eloquently described by de Lubac, H. (Exégèse médiévale: Les quatre sens de l'Ecriture, 4 vols. [Paris, 1959–64]) were not systematically employed by early medieval theologians. Indeed, it has recently been argued that de Lubac's writings were not a historical analysis, but a theological synthesis (Hughes, K., “Coming to Terms with De Lubac: ‘Spiritual Exegesis,’ the ‘Fourfold Sense,’ and Contemporary Scholarship,” paper presented at the 34^th International Congress on Medieval Studies [Kalamazoo, May 6, 1999]).Google Scholar

64 Specifically this is an example of what Scheffler, I. labels M-ambiguity ( Beyond the Letter: A Philosophical Inquiry into Ambiguity, Vagueness and Metaphor in Language [Boston, 1979], 11–36). Scheffler's analysis owes much to Ludwig Wittgenstein's conception of the “language-game.” See also Steinberg, L., “Leonardo's Last Supper,” Art Quarterly 36 (1973): 298; idem, “The Seven Functions of the Hands of Christ: Aspects of Leonardo's Last Supper,” in Art, Creativity, and the Sacred: An Anthology in Religion and Art, rev. edition, ed. Apostolos-Cappadono, D. (New York, 1995), 40.Google Scholar

65 Sermons , 54, 132, 136, 146, 156, and 305.Google Scholar