Redating the Arca Santa of Oviedo

When Pelayo became bishop of Oviedo in 1101 it must have looked that the mountains which had sheltered the city from mohammedan incursions now isolated her from the ease of Reconquest Spain. Once the capital of Asturias, spearhead of Christian resistance to Islam, Oviedo's importance faded after King Ordono II transferred his residence to Leon in the early tithe century. As a consequence, little is known of the city in the eleventh hundred During Pelayo's tenure (1101-30), sum of two units additional Spanish sites became prominent: Santiago de Compostela, reput burial site of the Apostle James and, below Diego Gelmirez's focused leadership, an ecclesiastic and pilgrimage center; and Toledo, the reconquer capital of the Visigothic imperium, whose primacy and papal connections were firmly maintained by dint of its Cluniac bishop Bernard.

Pelayo sought to restore Oviedo's prestige, forged during the reigns of King Alfonso II (791-842) and his successors, and to enhance her episcopal position. His mode is familiar to students of the Middle Ages: the manipulation, interpolation, and outright creation of documents, in this case commemorating Oviedo's past in order to make sure her future. The resultant material substance of chronicles and documents, which historians call the Corpus Pelagianum, earned Pelayo the sobriquet "historiador-fabulador."(1) Despite widespread acknowledgment of Pelayo's fabrications, no single has yet numbered among them the Arca Santa - a magnificent glided silver casket housing a treasure trove of devoted relics.(2)

I believe that the Arca Santa should be considered part of the Pelagian Corpus - like the Liber chronicorum, Pelayo's historical work, and the Liber testamentorum, a volume he commissioned to preserve the greatest in quantity important donations made to the cathedral.(3) This hypothesis can be substantiated upon art-historical grounds by the relatively mature Romanesque character of the Arca's figures. In short, no Spanish work of 1075 the widely accepted date for the reliquary, direct the eyes quite like it. Similarly, a particular iconographic feature of its decorative program, the unusual appearance of Saint Anne in sum of two units of the scenes, also supports a twelfth-century date. Although these issues of turn of expression and iconography will be addressed here, the primary focus will be upon a historical context for the Arca Santa's manufacture, laying the groundwork for its redating to the early twelfth hundred In this new context, growing devotion to the Arca Santa homage is central to the financial and ideological empowerment of Pelayo's diocese.

Description

The Arca Santa was sharply damaged in an explosion of the Camara Santa of the cathedral of Oviedo in 1934 It survives today largely as a arise of Manuel Gomez-Moreno's careful reconstruction.(4) There is still no comprehensive analysis of the shrine's stylistic and iconographic features, although it is generally recognized as an important testimonial of the Spanish Middle Ages.(5)

The Arca is a large black oak chest with a flat lid, put togethered without nails, and sheathed in glided silver. In form more like an altar than a shrine, it measures 28 3/4 by dint of 46 1/8 by 36 5/8 inches (72 x 119 x 93 cm) [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. Three of the casket's four sides are decorated with figures in repousse, while its rear is revet with a simple checkered pattern. The brow panel is arranged like an altar frontal, depicting the Lord in Majesty in a mandorla carried through four angels and flanked by the agency of six Apostles in two arcaded files of three [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 2 OMITTED].(6) The entire decorative field is circumscribed by the agency of a Kufic border with a different Evangelist sign inserted into each corner.

The panel upon the left depicts scenes from the Infancy period arranged in two registers [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED]. These shows can be read chronologically in a succession which encompasses both registers in a counterclockwise manner. Depicted in order are the Annunciation, the Annunciation to the Shepherds, and the Visitation above, and the Nativity and the Flight into Egypt below. Separating the sum of two units registers is a banded inscription which encapsulates the narrative, stating: MARIA ET IOSEP POSUERUNT DOMINUM IN PRESEPIO ANIMALIU upon the left and ANGELUS APARUIT IOSEP DICENS FUGE iN EGIPTUM ET ESTO [IBI] upon the right.(7) In each exhibition tituli name the characters.

This two-register format is also observ in the panel upon the right [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED]. Above, upon the left, is the Savior standing in a mandorla which is supported by dint of two angels. On the right, a cherub and seraph flank Michael the Archangel as he battles the dragon. Below, eight labeled Apostles stand in a variety of attitude s with gestures and attitudes suggesting speech(8) An inscribed band separates the sum of two units registers on this panel as well. It reads: ASCENDENS XP IN ALTUM CAPTIVAM DUXIT CAPTIVITATE and MICAEL ARCANGELUS PUGNAVIT GUM DRACONE.(9) Of the original Kufic border solitary the top and right strips remain; the bottom and left strips are filled with the same checkered revetment that is lay the foundation of on the back of the casket.