Wirth, Jean

Des signes dans l’image. Usages et fonctions de l’attribut dans l’iconographie médiévale (du Concile de Nicée au Concile de Trente). Actes du colloque de l’EPHE (Paris, INHA, 23–24 mars 2007), éd. Michel Pastoureau, Olga Vassilieva-Codognet, Turnhout, Brepols, 2015 ; 1 vol., 268 p. (Répertoire iconographique de la littérature du Moyen Âge. Les études du RILMA, 3). ISBN : 978-2-503-53673-6. Prix : € 90,00 - 2017.


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Canon Henri ex Palude († 1515) and the Cantorial Baton of Saint-Lambert Cathedral in LiègeIn 1495, Henri ex Palude, the canon and cantor of Saint-Lambert Cathedral in Liège, and a gifted, valued, and influential individual, gave the chapter a new and sumptuous cantorial baton. This cantor’s baton, the badge of a cantor’s liturgical duties, was a long shaft with a jeweled end of complex typology and remained in use until the end of the Ancien Regime. Although the baton has been lost, it is now known to us through a recently discovered heraldic drawing by the Canon of Wissocq, who, himself great-cantor in the seventeenth century, has left us a detailed description of the object. The jeweled end of the cantorial baton in use at Aix-la-Chapelle is preserved in the cathedral treasury. From its era, style, and typology, it is very much like the baton of Liège. By comparing these batons, we can make various hypotheses about their creator and the circumstances in which they were made, which can be linked to certain political events, such as Charles the Bold’s visit to Aix and the reconciliation of the Marck and Hornes lineages in Liège. Combining historical, heraldic, and archeological approaches allows a better understanding of an important and lost object in the patrimony of the Church of Liège.