18 19 A H A B 2007.2 18 19

Sancta Anna ora pro nobis. Images and Veneration of St Anne in Medieval Livonia

Merike Kurisoo

St Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, was one of the most beloved saints of the Late Middle Ages. Her cult spread across Europe and reached medieval Livonia quite early. Altars, chapels, confraternities, convents dedicated to her bear testimony to the popularity of her cult in the territories of today’s Estonia and Latvia. The present article focuses upon the development of the cult of St Anne’s in Livonia during the Middle Ages as well as in the post-Reformation period and its reflection in late medieval art.1 The works touched upon in this article have been partly elaborated on in special treatments and monographs; however, they have not been examined against the background of the cult of or the current topic – the cult of St Anne.2

Before delving into the artworks depicting St Anne and her family and the development of her cult in medieval Livonia, the cult of St Anne in Europe will be given a brief overview. St Anne has a reputation for poly-semantic symbolism. This originates from the broad spectrum of her guardianship and the various forms of her cult. St Anne has been venerated as a dedicated mother and wife, chaste widow, and influential grandmother. Every layer of society could find a guardian in St Anne, which made her popular among the high nobility, clergy, citizens as well as peasants. Although St Anne became considered a fashionable saint in the late Middle Ages, her cult was recognized in earlier times as well. Interest in St Anne had already surfaced in the first centuries of Christianity. While the New Testament hints at the members of Jesus’ family, one cannot find there or in any other canonical text any indica-tion of his grandparents. Of St Anne one only knows that somebody must have existed to be the Virgin Mary’s mother.3 The rest that is known about her or spoken of her in legends is fictional in character.

1 The article was completed with the support of the grant no. 6900

from the Estonian Science Foundation.2 Among the few studies on the medieval Livonian saints’ cult

are: H. Bruiningk, Messe und kanonisches Stundengebet nach

dem Brauche der Rigaschen Kirche im späteren Mittelalter. Mit-

teilungen aus dem Gebetet der Geschichte Liv-, Est- und Kurlands.

Vol. 19. Riga, 1904. W. Heine, „Hagiologisches aus Alt-Livland.

Studien und Analekten der Heiligenverehrung in Liv-, Est- und

Kurland vom Beginn des 13. Jahrhunderts bis auf die Gegenwart

von einem Livländer.“ Der Katholik 27–32 (1903-1905). A. Mänd,

„Püha Viktor – Tallinna kaitsepühak?“ (St. Victor– Patron Saint

of Tallinn?), Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi 3-4 [12] (2003): 9–29.3 B. Kleinschmidt, Die heilige Anna. Ihre Verehrung in Geschichte,

Kunst und Volkstum (Düsseldorf, 1930), 5–12.

18 19 18 19 Merike Kurisoo S a n c t a A n n a o r a p r o n o b i s . I m a g e s a n d V e n e r a t i o n . . .

The Veneration of St Anne is directly linked to the growing cult of the Virgin Mary and interest in the origins of Jesus.4 Legends of Anne might have come to replace the gaps related to Jesus’ origin. While the Gospels emphasize Jesus’ paternal kinship, the cult of St Anne highlights his maternal descent.5 Throughout the Middle Ages, one can trace certain developments in the cult of St Anne. During the first centuries of Christianity and the Early Middle Ages St Anne’s veneration was directly associated with the cult of the Virgin Mary; however, in the High Middle Ages St Anne’s cult became more independent and reached its culmination at the turn of the fifteenth century. Many argu-ments have been put forward that seek to account for the growth of this veneration. The expansion of the esteem paid to St Anne was connected to the rising importance of the notion of the Immaculate Conception. The picto-rial type of the so-called Anna Selbdritt (St Anne, the Virgin Mary and Christ Child) became the symbolic expression of this concept.6 The prominence of the veneration of St Anne was also linked to new developments in the saint’s cult during the late Middle Ages. At that time, the role of female saints had grown in such importance that viewed from today’s perspective this process can be termed the feminisation of holiness. In the fifteenth century, mother-hood obtained a positive social value, which was also connected to the cult of the saints.7 St Anne’s role was important for private devotion and she was one of the most beloved intercessors because of her family connections.8

Veneration of the Holy Kinship occupied a significant part in family cults of St Anne and Christ. In writings from the Netherlands and the German speak-ing lands, dozens of legends dedicated to St Anne’s life and family were com-posed in the late fifteenth – early sixteenth century. Alongside the Franciscans, the Carmelites also became important disseminators of St Anne’s cult. The foundation of the Holy Kinship lies in the so-called Trinubium legend or that of St Anne’s three marriages. According to the legends, St Anne was married three times: following the death of the Virgin Mary’ father Joachim, she mar-ried a further two times and had daughters from both marriages. Both daugh-ters were named Mary, but, to distinguish them, they are called by their fathers’ names – Mary Salome and Mary Cleophe. According to the legend, five chil-dren of the Virgins sisters became the disciples of Jesus: James the Great, John the Apostle, Jude Thaddeus, James the Less, and Simon.9 During the Middle Ages, the Holy Kinship was further elaborated upon: the family of St Anne’s sister Esmeria, whose youngest members were John the Baptist and the Bishop of Maastricht Servatius, was also included.10

4 Marienlexikon, vol. 1, AA-Chagall (St. Ottilien, 1988), 163.5 A. Dörfler-Dierken, Die Verehrung der heiligen Anna in Spätmit-

telalter und früher Neuzeit (Göttingen, 1992), 14.6 G. Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, vol. 4.2, Maria

(Gütersloh, 1980), 157.7 P. Sheingorn, “The Holy Kinship: the Ascendency of Martiliny in

Sacred Genealogy of the 15th Century,” Thought 64 (1989): 272.

8 T. Brandenbarg, “St Anne and Her Family. The Veneration of

St Anne in Connection with Concepts of Marriage and the Fam-

ily in the Early-Modern Period,” in Saints and she-devils. Images

of women in the 15th and 16th centuries (London, 1987), 124.9 Kleinschmidt, Die heilige Anna, 252–262.

10 W. Esser, Die heilige Sippe. Studien zu einem spätmittelalterli-

chen Bildthema in Deutschland und den Niederlanden (Bonn,

1986), 15–16 and 24–27.

20 21 A H A B 2007.2 20 21

The popularity of the Holy Kinship was directly connected with the social changes within the city bourgeois and the emergence of the position of woman and family. St Anne as the foremother became the metaphor of the ideal family, which became increasingly attractive to middle class citizens. In the mid-sixteenth century, the cult of the Holy Kinship declined and was gradually replaced by a new image of the Holy Family with Joseph, Mary, and the Christ-child.11 However, the iconographic type of the Anna Selbdritt con-tinued its existence.

The cult of St Anne reached medieval Livonia relatively early. Most pro-bably, by the fourteenth century the emerging cult of St Anne had become clos-ely connected with the veneration of her virgin daughter. The first expression of the cult of St Anne in medieval Livonia is the genealogy of Jesus and Virgin Ma-ry, found in the last page of a codex kept at the Tallinn City Archives (Fig. 1).12 The codex is dated to the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth century and

1. Geneaology of Jesus

and the Virgin Mary.

Photo: Tallinn City

Archives. TLA Cm 4, 71v.

11 Brandenbarg, St Anne, 124. 12 TLA [Tallinn City Archives] 230-1-Cm4-71v. Innocentius III. Ritus

celebrandi officium missae. Tractatus de sacramentis. Versus.

20 21 20 21 Merike Kurisoo S a n c t a A n n a o r a p r o n o b i s . I m a g e s a n d V e n e r a t i o n . . .

belonged to the Tallinn Dominican Monastery.13 On the schematic picture the genealogical family tree with three branches which descended from St Anne is depicted. On the branches the family members of Holy Kinship are marked with the names or portraits on heart-shaped medallions and leaves.

Already in the mid-fourteenth century, one finds St Anne’s Day (July 26) in documents from Riga and Tallinn, but in the Church calendar of the Riga Archbishopric her feast day is not yet mentioned.14 In European Church cal-endars, St Anne appears predominantly at the end of the fifteenth century15; Riga’s calendarium, on the other hand, originates from 1426. In Riga’s missal from the beginning of the sixteenth century, however, one finds a formula for the Mass for St Anne’s feast day. Pope Innocent VI associated one of the Riga Cathedral’s indulgences16 with St Anne’s feast day in 1360 and the vicariate of St Anne’s altar in the Riga Cathedral had already been mentioned in 1364.17 There is very little information about church calendars in medieval Tallinn. The only sources are notes of the totum duplex feasts in the Martyrologium of Belinud de Padua (1509) from the library of the Dominican monastery of Tallinn.18 There were three feast days connected with St Anne, which were marked with the status of totum duplex – St. Anne feast day (July 26), Nativity of the Virgin (September 8) and Conception of the Virgin (December 8).19

The spread of the cult of St. Anne to Livonia may have been due to a number of reasons. The veneration of the Virgin Mary’s mother could have been propagated by the Teutonic Order. Marian feast days with connections to St Anne had high prominence in the Order’s calendar: the Nativity of the Virgin (September 8) had the status of totum duplex and the Conception of the Virgin (December 8) became a feast day in the first half of the fourteenth century.20 St Anne’s feast day (July 26) was marked in the Order’s calendar in the fourteenth century and during the office of Werner von Ornseln, the Grand Master of Teutonic Knights, in 1324–1330, the day attained the status of semiduplex.21 It must be remembered that the cult of St Anne’s began to be-come widely circulated across Europe by the mid-fourteenth century and she became one of the most popular saints in Hanseatic towns.22 At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, towns in Northern

13 The codex was held in the library of the Dominican monastery,

but belonged most likely to the Padise Cistercian Monastery.

W. Schmidt, Die Zisterzienser im Baltikum und in Finnland. Suo-

men kirkkohistoriallisen seura vuosikirja XXIX-XXX 1939–1940

(Helsinki, 1941), 125, 127.14 Bruiningk, Messe, 39–40.15 Dörfler-Dierken Die Verehrung, 67–68.16 Bruiningk, Messe, 40.17 Livländische Güterurkunden [hereafter, LGU], vol. 1, Aus den

Jahren 1207 bis 1500, ed. H. Bruiningk and N. Busch (Riga,

1908), no. 95.

18 TLA 230-1-21-12. T. Kala, “The Church Calendar and Yearly Cycle

in the Life of Medieval Reval,” in Quotidianum Estonicum. As-

pects of daily life in medieval Estonia, ed. J. Kivimäe and J. Kreem

(Krems, 1996): 110. 19 Kala, Church Calendar, 109. 20 B. Jähnig, “Festkalender und Heiligenverehrung beim Deut-

schen Orden in Preussen,” in Die Spiritualität der Ritterorden

im Mittelalter. Ordines militares. Colloquia Torunensia historica

7 (1993): 181.21 Bruiningk, Messe, 40.22 M. Zender, “Heiligenverehrung im Hanseraum,” Hansische

Geschichtsblätter 92 (1974): 10.

22 23 A H A B 2007.2 22 23

Germany already possessed chapels and altars dedicated to St Anne.23 Thus, the extension of St Anne’s cult to Livonia could have been fostered by the tight relationship between the Teutonic Order and Hanseatic towns.

Although St Anne was a popular patron saint with churches and chapels in medieval Europe there is no information of medieval churches consecrated to St Anne in the territory of Livonia.24 Medieval sources mention only the Chapel of St Anne located at the fringes of New-Pärnu near the Teutonic castle.25 Bringing all this to light, one can only assume that the cult of St Anne’s in Livonia developed in the fourteenth – fifteenth century, when most of the churches had been founded and consequently named after their guardian saints. However, the possibility that in some cases the original patron saints may have been changed to other more contemporary saints cannot be ex-cluded. On the other hand, it is difficult to make generalizations as the patron saints of the churches in Livonia were rarely mentioned in medieval sources.

There were also two convents consecrated to St Anne in medieval Livonia: St Anne’s nunnery of Augustinians situates in Limbaži in today’s Latvia26 and the Dominican friary of St Anne was established in Narva at the beginning of the sixteenth century.27 From the Late Middle Ages there are more records regarding initiatives to build cloisters dedicated to St Anne. Just prior to the Reformation, the city community of Tallin planned to establish a St Anne’s nunnery.28 The cloister was allotted a plot, the location of which is unfortunately unknown.29 Hence, the plan to build a nunnery in Tallinn con-secrated to St Anne was not realized.

One of the manifestations of late medieval piety and the saints’ cult was the religious society or confraternities of laymen that, as a rule, had patron saints. The confraternities of St Anne that sprang up in the towns of fifteenth-century Europe (especially on the territories of Germany and Netherlands of

23 Antje Grewolls, Die Kapellen der norddeutschen Kirchen im Mit-

telalter (Kiel, 1999), 173, 181, 333. St Anne’s Chapel in the

Lübeck Cathedral was established in the 1320s-30s; St Anne’s

Chapel of the Church of Our Lady in Lübeck was founded in

the 1350s-60s; St Anne’s Chapel of Stralsund St Nicholas’

Church is mentioned in 1307. One of the earliest depictions

of St Anne in Northern Europe is the stucco figure of Anna

Selbdritt from St Nicholas’ Church in Stralsund dating from the

end of the 13th century.24 Marienlexikon, 165: in Rheinland and Westfalia, there were

about 70 churches and chapels consecrated to St Anne, in

Sweden 18, in Silesia, Poland, and France about 50.25 H. Laakmann, “Das mittelalterliche Kirchenwesen Neu-Per-

naus,” in Sitzungsberichte der Gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft

1922 (Dorpat, 1923), 141. We are aware of the churches named

after St Anne from the post-Reformation period, but they

cannot be related to the cult of St Anne.

26 L. Arbusow, Livlands Geistlichkeit vom Ende des 12. bis ins 16.

Jahrhundert (Mitau, 1904), 257. Limbaži nunnery of Augustin-

ians was consecrated approximately in 1500, LGU 1, 613. Some

sources mention Cistercian nunnery in Limbaži, which was

dedicated to St Anne. 27 G. Walther-Wittenheim, Die Dominikaner in Livland im Mittela-

lter. Die Natio Livoniae (Rome, 1938), 15, 125, 139. Arbusow,

Livlands, 295.28 Donations have been made towards the establishment of the

nunnery, Revaler Regesten [hereafter, RR], vol. 3, Testamente

Revaler Bürger und Einwohner aus den Jahren 1369 bis 1851,

ed. R. Seeberg-Elverfeldt (Göttingen, 1975). nos. 119 and 122. 29 T. Kala, “Tallinna raad ja katoliku kirik reformatsiooni algaastail”

(Town council of Tallinn and the Catholic Church at the begin-

ning of the Reformation era), in Muinasaja loojangust omariiklu-

se läveni (From the sundown of the ancient times to the begi-

nning of the nationhood), ed. A. Andresen (Tartu, 2001), 162.

22 23 22 23 Merike Kurisoo S a n c t a A n n a o r a p r o n o b i s . I m a g e s a n d V e n e r a t i o n . . .

today) differed greatly in their nature. Although they were mostly confined to religious societies, St Anne’s guardianship also extended to the guilds of mer-chants, seamen, miners, and other associations.30 Among the towns of medi-eval Livonia, there were St Anne confraternities in both Riga31 and Tallinn. There were probably two St Anne’s confraternities in Late Medieval Tallinn: one in Toompea and the other in the city centre.32 Both were most probably religious confraternities of laymen. Deriving from the donations recorded in the testaments of Tallinn, one could presume that respected citizens with high social standing belonged to these confraternities.33

Only scant information is available on the altars of medieval Livonian churches. The best overviews of altars come from the larger towns such as Riga and Tallinn. Apart from St Anne’s Altar in Riga Cathedral, recorded in 1364, there is also some data from other churches in Riga: St Anne’s Altar and its vicariate are mentioned in St Peter’s Church in 1425 and in St James’ Church in 1463.34 Besides the altars of St Anne in the major churches of Riga, the altars and vicariates of St Anne are mentioned in other churches of today’s Latvia. The vicariate of St Anne’s Altar in Limbaži is mentioned in 1446.35 Moreover, there is information concerning the vicariates of St Anne’s Altars in the parish churches of Bauske, Lielstraupe, and Dižkrizberģ.36 In all the major churches of Tallinn, there was an altar dedicated to St Anne.37 Moreover, in St Nicholas’ Church and the Church of the Holy Ghost, there were two St Anne’s altars and two in St Olaf’s Church – one in the Chapel of the Virgin Mary and the other in front of the Holy Sacrament.38 St Anne’s Altar in the Tartu Cathedral is re-ferred to in 1437.39 The vicariate of St Anne’s altar was established in the Cis-tercian cloister-church in Kärkna in 1484.40 St. Anne was mentioned as amongst the 17 patron saints to which the Padise Cistercian monastery church was dedicated in 1448.41 Most probably the church was consecrated to the Virgin Mary and the list of saints can be interpreted as the list of altars. A partial overview of the inventory of Western Estonian parish churches comes from the visitation protocols of the Bishop Johann Orgas from the beginning of the sixteenth century. There were at least two St Anne’s Altars in the Bisho-pric of Saare-Lääne: one in the Haapsalu Cathedral42 and the other in Märja-maa Church.43 St Anne’s Altar was also in St Nicholas’ Church of Pärnu.44 As the

30 A. Dörfler-Dierken, Vorreformatorische Bruderschaften der hl.

Anna (Heidelberg, 1992), 32–36.31 Bruiningk, Messe, 359–360: the confraternity of St Anne in Riga

was mentioned in 1526.32 L. Tiik, Tallinna gildidest ja nende kinnistuist (Über die Talliner

Gilden und ihre Immobilien), Tartu Riikliku Ülikooli toimetised

70 (Tartu, 1958), 9, 11 and RR, no. 33.33 Liv-, Esth- und Curländisches Urkundenbuch nebst Regesten

[hereafter, LUB], vol. 2.1, no. 845; LUB 2.2, no. 709; RR, no. 118.34 LUB 7, no. 372. Bruiningk, Messe, 359.35 LGU 1, no 322.

36 LGU 2, nos 370 and 637. Heine, Hagiologisches ,425.37 Kala, “Tallinna,” 156–160.38 RR, no. 88.39 LGU 1, no. 288.40 LGU 1, no. 55941 LUB 1/X, no. 511.42 C. Russwurm, Das Schloss zu Hapsal (Reval, 1877), 9.43 E. Blumfeldt, “Saare-Lääne piiskopkonna visitatsiooniprotoko-

lle aastaist 1519-1522” (Visitation protocols from the Bishopric

of Saare-Lääne from 1519–1522), Ajalooline ajakiri 2 (1933): 118.44 Laakmann, Neu-Pernaus, 131.

24 25 A H A B 2007.2 24 25

information about the altars and their titles in medieval Livonia is fragmentary, it is hard to make any generalization about the popularity of St Anne as the patron saint of altars.

In addition to the data on St Anne’s altars both in urban and rural chur-ches, there are a few references to pictures decorating St Anne’s altars or those depicting St Anne and her family members. St Anne´s altar in Tallinn’s St Nicho-las Church was dedicated to St. Anne, the Virgin Mary and their family. An al-tarpiece on this altar was named in 1476.45 The picture of Mary situated in front of the same altar is mentioned in 1521.46 In the list of inventory of the Tallinn Dominican Friary of St Catherine, three pictures adorned with expensive pre-cious stones are mentioned: apart from the saints who are central to Do-minicans – St Catherine of Alexandria and St Dominic – there was also a picture

45 TLA 230-1-Bk2 I fol. 37r-38v 46 RR, no. 122.

2. Altarpiece of the Church

of the Holy Ghost.

St Olaf and St Anne

with Virgin and Child.

Photo: S. Stepaško, 2003

24 25 24 25 Merike Kurisoo S a n c t a A n n a o r a p r o n o b i s . I m a g e s a n d V e n e r a t i o n . . .

of St Anne.47 The Harju-Jaani Church in Northern Estonia had a small altarpiece with a sculpture of Anna Selbdritt in its corpus as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century.48 In Estonia, several altar retables, sculptures, and pic-tures as well as a few exemplars of church silver dedicated to St Anne and her family have survived to this day. Unfortunately, in some of the cases we do not know their original location, information which could allow us to relate them to certain churches or clients. However, the existing material is revealing when considered against the backdrop of St Anne’s cult in medieval Livonia.

St Anne is represented on the two most lavish altar retables of the Late Medieval Tallinn – on the high altar of the Church of the Holy Ghost, made in Bernt Notke’s workshop in 1483; and on the high altar of St Nicholas’ Church, made in the workshop of Herman Rode in 1481. Although the scope of the present article sets a limit on the thorough iconographic treatment of these two retables, the themes related to St Anne will be examined. The retable of the Church of the Holy Ghost was completed upon the order of Tallinn City Council in Bernt Notke’s workshop in 1483.49 St Elizabeth of Thuringia and the Man of Sorrow are painted on the outer wings of the double-winged retable; on the inner sides, the scenes of the Passion of Christ and St Elizabeth’s life are depicted. The central scene of the open altarpiece shows the miracle of the Pentecost. Four saints are represented on the inner wings: on the left St Victor and St Elizabeth of Thuringia, on the right St Olaf and St Anne to-gether with the Virgin Mary and the Christ-child (Fig. 2). St Anne is shown as a matron; she reads a book held in her left hand and the Christ-child sits in her right hand. Her daughter Mary is shown as a young girl standing at St Anne’s left side. The Virgin Mary and the Christ-child share a little basket with flowers. This motif seems to be typical of Bernt Notke’s workshop: there is a similar scene in the Århus altarpiece from Notke’s workshop. The flower basket refers to the garden of Paradise and this motif has its roots in late medieval devotional writings.50 The fact that St Anne is shown reading a book alludes to the themes of meditation and private devotion.

The double-winged altarpiece of St Nicholas’s Church was ordered from the workshop of Hermen Rode in Lübeck and was completed in 1481 (Fig. 3). When the altarpiece is opened to its festive position, two rows of horizontally arranged sculptures are visible: the scene of the Coronation of the Virgin who is situated in the middle of the upper row, flanked by apostles while the saints are positioned in the lower row, in the middle of which the sculptural group of Anna Selbdrit, is portrayed. The group of the Virgin Mary together with her

47 Walther-Wittenheim, Dominikaner, 44.48 The Estonian Historical Archives, 1210-2-2-13.49 On the retable of the Church of the Holy Ghost, see: W. Paatz,

Bernt Notke und sein Kreis (Berlin, 1939). E. Moltke, Bernt Notkes

altertavle i Arhus Domkirke og Tallinntavlen (Copenhagen,

1990). K. Petermann, Bernt Notke: Arbeitsweise und Werkstat-

torganisation im späten Mittelalter (Berlin, 2000).

50 S. Kaspersen, “Højalter, liturgi og andagt. Betragtninger over

Bernt Notkes alteskab i Århus Domkirke” (The high altar, lit-

urgy, and devotion. About Bernt Notkes altarpiece in Arhus

Cathedral), Hikuin 26 (1999): 112–114.

26 27 A H A B 2007.2 26 27

mother St Anne and the Christ-child is thus one of the two central scenes of the opened corpus of the altar. The Virgin Mary and St Anne are seated on a bench and the Christ-child is shown standing on Mary’s lap. St Anne is repre-sented not as dominating Mary but as equal to her in her relationship to the Christ-child. The group of St Anne with the Virgin and the Christ child used to be interpreted as an earthly Trinity. On the inner wings of the retable’s pre-della, members of the Holy Kinship are painted. Interestingly enough, this representation does not depict the standard maternal family line, only the paternal line of the Holy Kinship. The family lines of St Anne’s sisters are por-trayed in four family pictures that end with the young John the Baptist and Servatius, the Bishop of Maastricht, respectively.

According to testaments from the beginning of the sixteenth century, St Anne’s Masses were conducted every Tuesday by the high altar of St Nicho-las’ Church. To this purpose, several citizens of Tallinn made generous dona-tions.51 However, it is questionable whether the high altar was opened on every occasion, since there is no mention of it in the sources. On the other hand, reference is made to the picture of St Anne, which was kept in the sac-risty but set up during St Anne’s Mass.52 The use of the high altar retable of St Nicholas’ Church in the liturgy and the iconography of the saints depicted demands separate meticulous treatment. The central scene of the corpus, Anna Selbdritt, raises the question of upon which feast days connected with

3. Altarpiece

of St Nicholas Church.

Photo: S. Stepaško, 2002.

Art Museum of Estonia

51 RR, nos. 86 and 118. 52 RR, no. 118.

26 27 26 27 Merike Kurisoo S a n c t a A n n a o r a p r o n o b i s . I m a g e s a n d V e n e r a t i o n . . .

St Anne was the retable fully opened: on St. Anne’s Day (July 26), the Nativity of the Virgin, (September 8) or the Conception of the Virgin (December 8).

St Anne and the Holy Kinship can also be seen on other works of art that have survived until today. In the Niguliste Museum, a branch of the Art Museum of Estonia, a retable dedicated to the family of St Anne is exhibited (Fig. 4). This Holy Kinship Altarpiece was crafted in Brussels around the year 1500. Unfortunately, the original location of this retable is unknown, but evidently it comes from one of the Tallinn churches. The congregation of Jüri (St George near Tallinn) Church bought the altarpiece from the Tallinn town council in 1652 and during the renovation the altarpiece was furnished with a novel ico-nography of apostles. Initially, the members of the Holy Kinship, with St Anne together with the Virgin Mary and the Christ-child at its centre, dominated the corpus of this retable. The central piece was surrounded by the three husbands of St Anne and her daughters with their husbands and children. The size of the corpus allows us to estimate that other members of the Holy Kinship were

4. Holy Kinship Altarpiece.

Photo: S. Stepaško, 2004.

Art Museum of Estonia

28 29 A H A B 2007.2 28 29

also depicted. Only three original figures from this altarpiece have survived: St Anne, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Salome with James the Great. Although the paintings on the retable’s wings are fragmentary – the inner sides are completely overpainted – they refer to a rather unusual iconography if one considers the local context. On the frames of the lower wings fragments of Latin text have been preserved. On the four panels we see the scenes from the lives of St Anne and her mother Emerentia. The central character of the first panel is a sleeping woman from whose body a large thistle flower blooms; inside the thistle’s blossom stands the little Christ-child. The scene is being witnessed by three praying Carmelite monks. The first picture gives us the key to the iconography: it is based upon the so-called biographies of St Anne that were immensely popular at the turn of the fifteenth century. Most renowned of these Anna vitae53 were those written by Jan van Denemarken and the Carthu-sian Petrus Dorlandus. The Carmelites were the most enthusiastic cultivators of St Anne’s cult in late Medieval Europe. Moreover, they used to associate the legends of St Anne’s life with the foundation of the Carmelite Order.54 The first picture of the Tallinn’s retable displays the revelation witnessed by St Anne’s mother Emerentia on Mount Carmel. This vision foretold that she would be-come the foremother of Christ. The second panel shows the scene from the birth of St Anne. Despite the fragmentary nature of the paintings on the third and the fourth panel, their iconography is recognisable: here we see the mar-riage of St Anne and Joachim and St Anne and Joachim distributing alms to the poor. Most probably the basis of the pictorial programme was Jan van Denemarken’s Die historie, die ghetiden ende die exempelen van der heyligher vrouwen sint Annen, 1486.55

Works of art depicting St Anne have also survived from rural churches. One of the earliest is a small altarpiece probably of Northern German origin from the second half of the fifteenth century, the corpus of which contains the sculptural group of Anna Selbdritt (Fig. 5). St Anne is represented seated on a bench, the Virgin Mary, who is shown as a girl wearing a little crown, sits on her left knee. Originally, the Christ-child either sat or stood on Anne’s right knee, but his figure has unfortunately been lost. From old photographs and descriptions we know that the Virgin Mary held a little pear in her right hand.56 This is not a very common attribute in the Anna Selbtritt groups; usually we

53 For a comprehensive treatment see: T. Brandenbarg, Heilig

Familieleven. Verspreiding en waardering van de Sint-Anna in de

stedelijke cultuur in de Nederlanden en het begin van de moderne

tijd (15de/16de eeuw) (Holy Familylife. Spreading and appre-

ciation the cult of St Anne in the Netherlandish urban culture

in the beginning of the modern age (15th–16th century)) (Ni-

jmegen, 1990).54 Dörfler-Dierken. Die Verehrung, 146-150.

55 About the altarpiece: M. Koppel, ”Tallinna Püha hõimkonna

altariretaabel. Algsest pildiprogrammist Madalmaade hilis-

keskaegsete Püha Anna legendide taustal” (The Tallinn Holy

Kinship Altarpiece: Initial pictorial programme in light of the

late medieval legends of St. Anne), Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi

3 [15] (2006), 37–69.56 W. Neumann, “Der ehemalige St. Annenaltar der Kirche Püh-

halep auf der Insel Dagö,” in Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft

und Altertumskunde der Ostseeprovinzen Russlands 1913 (Riga,

1914), 236.

28 29 28 29 Merike Kurisoo S a n c t a A n n a o r a p r o n o b i s . I m a g e s a n d V e n e r a t i o n . . .

can see either Anne or Mary holding an apple or a bunch of grapes. In this context, the pear can symbolize both hope and motherly love, but it is pos-sible that it represents the fruit of paradise much as an apple generally does and by the same token it points to Incarnation and the Passion of Christ.57 On the corpus, the remains from a longer text which reads “Sancta Anna ora pro nobis” has been preserved on St Anne’s nimbus. On the lower part of the corpus, there is another fragment of a text which has been reserved to an inscription: “Jhesus Anna Maria.” Today, the retable belongs to the collection of the Art Museum of Estonia; previously it was located in Pühalepa Church in Hiiumaa. Whether the latter had been the altarpiece’s original location is difficult to determine. The altars of Pühalepa Church were listed in the visitation protocols from the beginning of the sixteenth century, however there is no mention of St Anne’s Altar among them.58 Therefore, it is likely that the retable was brought to Pühalepa Church during later centuries.

57 J. Sander, Niederländische Gemälde im Städel 1400-1550 (Mainz

am Rhein, 2002), 209.

58 Blumfeldt, Saare-Lääne, 118.

5. St Anne Altarpiece

from Pühalepa Church.

Photo: S. Stepaško, 2002.

Art Museum of Estonia

30 31 A H A B 2007.2 30 31

A tiny wooden sculpture of St Anne toget-her with the Virgin Mary is kept in Kaarma Chur-ch in Saaremaa (Fig. 6). St Anne holds Mary in her left hand, the figure of the Christ Child is lost. This piece is dated to the end of the fifteenth century and attributed to the local workshop. Taking into consideration its location, it is supposed that the sculpture could have been located in the niche on the first floor of the church tower.59

There is another picture depicting St An-ne’s family in Kaarma Church: a pair of wings of the altar retable featuring the Holy Kinship (Fig. 7-8). Apart from the core of the family – St. Anne, the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child – we see also St Anne’s two daughters with their children, St. Anne’s three husbands, the husbands of the sisters’ of the Virgin Mary and St Joseph. The picture is dated to the beginning of the six-teenth century and attributed to Master Jacob von Utrecht from Lübeck.60 The retable with the pair of wings is thought to have belonged to two different altarpieces; the wings were combined in the mid-sixteenth century. It is also believed that these altar wings originate from the Haap-

salu Cathedral. However, there is no evidence to support this claim, and one cannot rule out the possibility that the work was part of some retable in Kaarma Church.

A wooden sculpture of St Anne together with Mary belongs to the col-lection of the Riga Museum of History and Navigation. The Christ Child, ini-tially situated on St Anne’s right hand, is missing.61 The original location of the sculpture, dated to the end of the fifteenth century, remains unknown.

To this day, there are certain works of art believed to represent St Anne. In the collection of Niguliste Museum one can find a figure of a female saint without attributes, dated to the turn of the fifteenth century. The female figure, clad as a married woman or a nun, is thought to be St Anne62; however, the sculpture could also represent St Birgitta of Sweden who was also depicted in a similar way. Another wooden sculpture of a female saint believed to be of St Anne originates from Ruhnu Island and is dated to the first half of the

6. St Anne with

the Virgin and Child

from Kaarma Church.

Photo: T. Parmakson

59 K. Markus, T.-M. Kreem, and A. Mänd, Kaarma kirik (Kaarma

Church) (Tallinn, 2003), 125.60 Ibid., 143–149. The work of art consists of exterior paintings

on the double-winged altar’s inner wings. In paintings of the

immobile outer wings, John the Baptist and the Man of Sor-

rows are portrayed.

61 I. Galnovska, A. Mitris, and I. Gradovskis, Rigas vēstures un

kugniecības musejs / Museum of the History of Riga and Naviga-

tion (Rostock, 1992), no. 61.62 Raam, Gooti, 85.

30 31 30 31 Krista Kodres H o w t o W r i t e A r t H i s t o r y : t h e E s t o n i a n E x p e r i e n c e

7. Altarpiece of Kaarma Church.

Holy Kindred.

Photo: Jaanus Heinla, 2001

8. Altarpiece of Kaarma Church.

Holy Kindred.

Photo: Jaanus Heinla, 2001

32 33 A H A B 2007.2 32 33

fourteenth century. Today, it belongs to the Riga History Museum.63 As both aforementioned sculptures are missing saintly attributes, their final identity remains open for interpretation.

The motif of Anna Selbdritt is found also on the church silver. The Insti-tute of History in Tallinn has, as a repository, a miniature object resembling a medallion that has images of St Anne, the Virgin Mary, and the Christ Child (Fig. 9).64 Its precise function is uncertain (it could have been pacificale). Unfortunately, the location of its provenance is unspecified and the approxi-mate dating sets the medallion to the turn of the fifteenth century. On the foot of a chalice from Suure-Jaani Church dated to the beginning of the six-teenth century, two figural compositions are depicted. Besides the Calvary group, another motif shows St Anne sitting within a floral wreath together with the Virgin Mary, who holds the sceptre, and the Christ Child (Fig. 10).65

9. Medallion with St Anne,

Virgin and Christ-Child.

Photo: M. Kerisoo, 2005.

Institute of History.

63 Referred to as Madonna in the earlier literature: S. Karling,

Medeltida träskulptur i Estland (Medieval Wooden Sculpture in

Estonia) (Göteborg, 1946), 22–23. The attribution of St Anne

has been put forward by: E. Grosmane, “Hochmittelalterliche

Plastik im Ostseeraum und ihre Stilverbindungen. Zur Frage

nach der Rolle der Hanse bei der Verbreitung der mittelalter-

liche Plastik im baltischen Raum,” in Die Stadt im europäischen

Nordosten: Kulturbeziehungen von der Ausbreitung des Lübi-

schen Rechts bis zur Aufklärung, ed. R. Schweitzer and W. Bast-

man-Bühner (Helsinki and Lübeck, 2001), 529.

64 The collection of the Institute of History. K. Kirme, Eesti hõbe.

800 aastat hõbe- ja kullasepakunsti Eestis. (Estnisches Silber.

800 Jahre Silber- und Goldschmiedekunst in Estland) (Tallinn,

2000), 32.65 A. Mänd, “Eesti ja Läti keskaegsed armulauakarikad” (Medieval

chalices of Estonia and Latvia), Kunstiteaduslikke uurimusi 10

(2000): 33–36.

32 33 32 33 Merike Kurisoo S a n c t a A n n a o r a p r o n o b i s . I m a g e s a n d V e n e r a t i o n . . .

All works of art found in Estonia and Latvia, which depict St Anne and the Holy Kinship, originate from the late middle Ages or from the second half of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. The heyday of St Anne’s cult coincides with the turn of the fifteenth cen-tury and, in addition to the motif of Anna Selb-dritt, the Holy Kinship of Christ’s maternal line, which was a widely circulated theme. The surviv-ing pictures of St Anne in Livonia originate most-ly from North German or local workshops. The group of Anna Selbtritt is depicted on two high altar retables in Tallinn and they were both com-missioned from important artists; Bernt Notke’s and Hermen Rode’s, workshops in Lübeck at the end of the fifteenth century. The only work com-missioned from the Netherlands is the Holy Kinship altarpiece from a Brussels workshop.

The continuous adoration of St Anne dur-ing the post-Reformation centuries appears to be an intriguing theme. Although the Reforma-tion began to take hold in Livonian towns in the

1520s, the consequent religious conversion was a long process. Partly this was due to the complicated political situation in Livonia in the sixteenth century. The Bishoprics of Tallinn and Saare-Lääne were officially terminated in 1561 and the territories were placed under Danish and Swedish jurisdiction. In Southern Estonia, which was under Polish authority from 1582, and also in Tartu, people could exercise their freedom of worship even though the Jesu-its had begun to vigorously perform the Catholic Reform. The Southern Esto-nian territories were attained by Sweden in 1625, Saaremaa in 1645. In the larger part of the Estonian territory, Protestantism was embraced slowly and the Catholic tradition remained strong until the end of the seventeenth cen-tury. The instruments of the Catholic faith were, according to the visitation protocols from the sixteenth-seventeenth century, observed within the whole territory of today’s Estonia.66 Records from the seventeenth century testify to several chapels and hills, where people would convene. Such places were venerated. In addition to St Laurence and St Anthony, the great number of locations and customs related to St Anne catches one’s eye. Sources mention sacrifices and tributes brought to St Anne’s chapels and hills during St Anne’s Day.67 There is ample data on the St Anne’s chapels of Viljandi and Tartu

10. Detail of Chalice

in Suure-Jaani Church.

Photo: Archives of the

National Heritage Board.

66 A. Westrén-Doll, “ ‘Abgütterey’ zu Ausgang der schwedischen

und Beginn der russischen Zeit,” in Sitzungsberichte der Gele-

hrten Estnischen Gesellschaft 1925 (Tartu, 1926), 9-15. R. Win-

kler, Der estländische Landkirchenvisitator David Dubberch und

seine Zeit (1584–1603). Ein Beitrag zur estländischen Kirchenge-

schichte (Reval, 1909), 15.67 Westrén-Doll,“ ‘Abgütterey’,” 9–15.

34 35 A H A B 2007.2 34 35

County in South Estonia, which numbered around ten.68 In the case of St Anne’s cult one could refer here to the continuity of old Catholic traditions, but there are questions concerning the date of the chapels’ establishment. Even though the great number of chapels in medieval Livonia is mentioned already in the fifteenth century and records from the seventeenth century further point to the persistence of the old tradition, it does not rule out the chapels’ foundation even later, during the Counter-Reformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.69 It is feasible that St Anne’s cult was deliberately cultivated in South Estonia and North Latvia during that period. At that time, the cult of St. Anne was being re-vitalized in Europe70 and waned only in the eighteenth century together with a general decline in the cult of saints.

The veneration of St Anne in Livonia reflects one of the facets of the medieval cult of the saints. Although the cult of St. Anne reached the Livo-nian territory rather early, it did not differ much from the rest of Europe. A separate and inadequately researched topic is the saint’s cult in post-Reforma-tion Livonia. The material associated with St Anne alone shows clearly that Catholic saints were worshipped here as late as the end of the seventeenth century. As to the altar retables and other works of art depicting the Virgin Mary’s mother St Anne and the Holy Kinship, most of them are still located in churches. In the case of medieval art, we can observe a similar tendency else-where in Lutheran countries of Northern Europe. The fate and the use of the medieval Catholic Church inventory and the veneration of saints during the post-Reformation in Livonia is a separate study, which has not been scrupu-lously studied thus far.

68 Heise, Hagiologisches, 423-425.69 H. Valk, “Estonian Popular Religion c. 1250–1700: Sources,

Research and Problems,” in Estland, Lettland und westliches

Christentum. Estnisch-Deutsche Beiträge zur Baltischen Kirchen-

geschichte, ed. Siret Rutiku, Reinhard Saats (Kiel, 1998), 95.70 Kleinschmidt, Heilige Anna, 431.