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Visual Preaching In The Early Middle Ages: The Healing Arts At The Carolingian Monastery Of St. John In Müstair, Switzerland, Jenny Ataoguz

Jenny Kirsten Ataoguz

Around the year 800, the church of the monastery of John the Baptist in Müstair, Switzerland, received an extensive painted decoration. The resulting cycle is characterized by unprecedented visibility and clarity, which may most easily be explained by the expectation of lay beholders alongside monastic, which in turn suggests that monastic vocation at Müstair included a pastoral component.

A local sacramentary and a local preaching handbook, both intended for monastic usage and both written at exactly the moment as the decoration of the church, were two tools that the monks at Müstair could have had at their disposal as they …