Popular Piety and Art in the Late Middle Ages: Image Worship and Idolatry in England, 1350-1500 (review)

Kathleen Kamerick refers to the process of working on this project as a "search for understanding holy images." The result is a kind of archaeological excavation of late medieval religious and social culture that was distinguished by its multifaceted approach to images.

Her first two chapters deal with both sides of the image controversies of this period in English history. The Lollards charged that images were prohibited in the First Commandment as idolatrous and that money spent on them should go to the poor, who were the true image of God. The defenders of images argued that the Incarnation of Christ meant that images of his human nature could be portrayed. Christ himself sanctioned their use by imprinting his image on Veronica's veil. In addition to this and other defenses, Roger Dymmok stated that God ordained them because of the superiority of sight over hearing. The defenders and attackers of images were, as Kamerick observes, concerned chiefly with how laypeople used them. The rest of Kamerick's study is an attempt to recover how the largest segment of the population used images.

Her third chapter examines the evidence of wills in Norfolk and Suffolk. She gives useful charts about the distribution of image gifts by gender and geographical distribution. Particularly valuable insights are offered in Kamerick's fourth chapter dealing with the social and political dimensions of the images used by various communities. The parish accounts of church wardens, as well as the membership lists and account records of gilds, indicate how individual groups gained a sense of communal fellowship in their support of specific images and the public spaces they occupied. Images could also inform political allegiances, as in the case of the cult images of the Lancastrian King Henry VI.

A highlight of this book is Kamerick's sensitive and probing analysis of the role of images in the lives of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. Holy images, especially the crucifix, helped Julian understand and feel Christ's Passion. Bodily and spiritual sight worked concurrently as a conduit to reveal God's love. Margery Kempe also fused bodily and spiritual senses in her visions. She was able to transfer the import of Christ's suffering on the cross to the suffering of animals and people in whom she saw the Lord. It is no wonder that she reacted bodily with loud weeping!

The sixth chapter deals with the variety of responses to images in prayer books that fused the acts of reading and beholding. Rather than replacing books for the unlearned, a justification for their use given centuries earlier by Pope Gregory, images combined with texts, both together comprising the book. In many cases the texts guided the viewing of the pictures. There was a dynamic interaction between image, rubric, and text. This required the reader to flip back and forth, merging visual and verbal devotion with the physical and temporal movements of reading. Kamerick goes on to discuss indulgences and charms that became associated with images. Yet, according to Kamerick, the massive iconoclasm of the early sixteenth century was sparked less by the questionable magical properties assigned to certain images than by the ways in which people attributed animate qualities to statues.

This book is indispensable for scholars of late medieval culture and for those seeking to understand this period of religious transition in England.