Medieval tomb imagery was traditionally concerned with the expression of hope for salvation. The calm faces and ideal beauty of most thirteenth- and fourteenth-century European tomb figures clearly expressed confidence in God’s mercy and in salvation: “Deus cui proprium misereri semper et parcere.” Canopies like those used above the heads of saints on cathedral portals were often placed above the heads of tomb effigies. The canopy, a symbolic arcade through which angels sometimes floated, was considered to be the open door to the world beyond, and thus served to place the transfigured dead on the threshold of eternity.
In the last years of the fourteenth-century, a new and strikingly different type of sepulchral monument, the transi tomb, appeared in several places in Northern Europe. On these tombs the traditional idealized portrayal of the deceased was replaced by a gruesome depiction of the physical ravages of death. Early examples showed the corpse of the deceased in a variety of ways: as a figure completely swathed in a shroud, as an emaciated corpse with protruding intestines, as a shriveled body with skin drawn taut across its bony frame, and as a decaying corpse covered by snakes and frogs.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries these early types spread throughout much of Northern Europe and new types were created. The emaciated transi was dominant in England, while in Germany and Austria, the corpse figure covered by frogs and snakes became prevalent. Enshrouded figures were used in northern France, Burgundy, England, and the Lowlands. Many French transis were shown riddled with worms. In addition, a new type developed in sixteenth-century France which portrayed the deceased as a handsome nude seen only a few hours after death, a striking contrast to the pitiful naked corpses of the earlier century.
Transi figures were used on tombs in a variety of ways. On some tombs transis were carved at the bottom of large bas-reliefs of religious scenes such as the Crucifixion or Resurrection of Christ. On several German examples of this type small transi figures were placed at the bottom of elaborate coats of arms. In another variety, a life-sized transi comprised the sole motif, either engraved on the tombstone or carved in high relief on top of it. A third type of tomb contrasted a life-sized transi, or representacion de la mort, with a second life-sized effigy of the deceased, the representacion au vif. In England and at Brou both effigies were recumbent, with the living figure placed directly over the dead one. Ordinarily in France only the lower effigy, the transi, was recumbent, while the upper figure, the priant, was shown kneeling. Another variation contrasted the transi, representing the body, with a small praying figure representing the soul.
The historical significance of the transi tombs and the various meanings they were intended to convey have not as yet been satisfactorily explained. Many early writers naively explained the transi as a literal portrayal of the body of the deceased as it looked sometime after death. Such interpretations, together with the imaginative stories that were apparently concocted ex post facto to explain the peculiarities of the transi images, can be dismissed without serious consideration.
The view held by many modern critics is that the transi tombs were intended as memento mori for the living. Admittedly there are obvious physical resemblances between the corpse figures portrayed on the transi tombs and those used in popular representations such as the Dance of Death and the Triumph of Death. In addition, certain similarities exist between the inscriptions carved on the transi tombs and those used in connection with moralistic stories like the Legend of the Three Quick and the Three Dead. Both used, for example, the phrase “I was like you, and you will be like me.” The memento mori image or inscription, however, had one essential purpose, and that was to remind the beholder of death and to urge him to behave morally. Such was not the traditional purpose of tombs, and it must be remembered that the transi was first and foremost part of a tomb.
The essential purpose of a medieval tomb was the expression of hope for the salvation of the deceased, a purpose which was of concern to the dead, not the living. If one accepts the position that the transi tombs were intended as memento mori, then it must be assumed that the men who commissioned the tombs suddenly shifted their orientation from the traditional concern with the salvation of their own souls to the edification of the living. Such a reorientation is particularly unlikely in a period when expressions of concern for salvation often reached exaggerated proportions. Although the builders of the transi tombs adopted certain motifs from contemporary memento mori thinking, the majority of these tombs retained the traditional function of medieval sepulcharal monuments. The summary dismissal by so many modern writers of transi tombs as mere memento mori for the living is both inadequate and superficial.
Transi tombs were, in fact, the result of a number of complex interrelated factors. These included traditional moralistic writings, the influence of the Black Death, contemporary memento mori imagery, contemporary funerary customs, the climate of anxiety generated by the conflict between the traditional ascetic demands of the church and the emergence of nationalism and the accumulation of great wealth, the attempt to humiliate the body in order to gain salvation, the desperate desire for prayers for the soul, the interest in alchemical symbolism, the contemporary representation of dead bodies, such as that of Adam, in connection with resurrection symbolism, and the influence of Neo-Platonic symbolic thought.
Transi tombs were built from the late fourteenth century through the seventeenth by a variety of people living in very different historical circumstances. The transi was not a static image; rather, it reflected some of the dynamic changes that took place in religious, social, and intellectual life during this period. The study of the transi tomb is the study of a particular iconographic type chosen for different reasons and invested with different meanings by the men who used it.
When transi tombs first appeared in the late Middle Ages, Europe was acutely aware of death as a result of the continued ravages of the Black Plague. The general familiarity with the physical facts of death brought about by the plague was of some importance in the genesis of transi tombs. Of much greater significance, however, was the pervading sense of anxiety of the period, to which the plague was but one contributing factor. This was a time of emotional extremes and of contradiction. Hair shirts were worn beneath gorgeous brocades and cut velvets. Lavish feasts and debaucheries were followed by excesses of piety. Bitterly fought struggles for power and wealth were followed by conspicuous acts of charity and the creation of innumerable charitable foundations. Men vacillated between displays of intense personal pride and abasement.
One of the most important causes of this anxiety was the cleavage between the growing worldly interests of the late Middle Ages and the traditional demands of religion. With the burgeoning prosperity of the period the desire on the part of layman and cleric alike for economic gain, display, and power became stronger. However, this love of wealth and power conflicted with accepted moralistic teachings of the church. A conflict had long existed within the church itself between the ideal of the ascetic life, with its denial of worldly wealth and power, and the necessity of managing the immense wealth and power the church itself possessed. During the later Middle Ages, as the wealth of the church increased and its spiritual prestige lessened as a result of the Great Schism, this conflict sharpened. Many church administrators became more involved with the accumulation of wealth and with contemporary power struggles than with the development of spiritual values. A fifteenth-century German chronicler observed: “Alas, how many bishops abandon the cross for the sword! The bishops seek only temporal power: thus a religious spirit has become an exceptional phenomenon on our episcopal seats.”
On the other hand, many intensely religious men preached and wrote against such secular interests within the church, demanding a return to earlier ideals of renunciation of power and wealth. A further element of conflict arose from the fact that high ecclesiastical offices were often political appointments gained in the employ of national sovereigns rather than in the service of religion.
In Germany the problems were even more pronounced where the worldly and often selfish interests of the German bishops were frequently the subject of bitter recrimination from the reformers.
These were the men who commissioned the first transi tombs, proud and powerful, but also religious. The transi was one attempt to alleviate some of the anxiety felt by these men as a result of the conflict between their own pride and the traditional religious demand for humility. It was this conflict that motivated the choice of the horrifying motif of the transi for many fifteenth-century funerary monuments.
During the sixteenth century the intense anxiety about the fate of one’s soul, so common in the fifteenth century, was gradually alleviated. This fact is apparent from the sharp decline after 1530 in the number of pious legacies which had been considered to be of value in saving the soul of the donor. By 1550 the number of such legacies had become negligible. This phenomenon was apparent not only in the Protestant countries, but all over Europe. The decline in legacies is but one indicator of the many vital changes that took place in European thought during the sixteenth century. Of particular importance for the transi tombs was the gradual spread northward from Italy of the new learning, the new artistic styles, and the concept of the glorification of individuals. The adoption of these ideas by the French was greatly accelerated as a result of the Franco-Italian wars of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The new ideas not only modified attitudes toward life during the sixteenth century, but, as Panofsky has shown, they also radically affected attitudes toward death and the commemoration of the dead: “It was precisely in its attitude toward the dead that the new epoch most vigorously asserted its ‘modernity’.” Panofsky went on to characterize this change as a “rejection of Christian concern for the future in favor of pagan glorification of the past.” In other words, during the sixteenth century the traditional Christian sepulchral expression of hope for the salvation of the soul was gradually supplemented or replaced on funerary monuments by the commemoration of the past deeds and worldly glory of the deceased.
Despite the change in attitude expressed by so many sixteenth- century tombs, transi images retained their popularity. As a matter of fact transis were placed on the tombs of the powerful French monarchs Louis XII, Francis I, and Henry II, tombs which reflected the new Renaissance emphasis on the praise of the deceased’s worldly glory, as well as the political ambitions of the French monarchy. In view of the new context of the transis Claude Du Courtail’s interpretation of these transis as symbols of “absolute despair in which all is finished, the deceased no longer hopes, no longer thinks,” is clearly invalid. A careful examination of the entire statement of the tombs of the French monarchs indicates that the meaning of the transi, which had been closely related to feelings of anxiety in the fifteenth century, gradually changed during the sixteenth to express the greater security of the period. The form of the transi remained while its context changed, and the changed context in turn influenced the meaning of the transi. The religious function of the transi in this new context must be considered in relation both to the traditional function of a Christian tomb which was the expression of hope for salvation and the new Renaissance idea of the tomb as a worldly commemoration. Only out of this juxtaposition did the new meaning emerge.
The divergence of meaning associated with the transi figure is best illustrated by the two groups of tombs: those made for a group of high-ranking ecclesiastics during the fifteenth century, and those made for the French monarchs in the course of the sixteenth century. […] The meanings given to the transi by these two groups were however not the only ones symbolized by the form; they merely formed the two poles. Other variations of meaning will be carefully considered such as the German predilection for placing snakes and frogs on the corpse, alchemical symbolism as related to the transi figure, and various resurrection symbols used with the transi.
[…] The various elements involved in the tombs can be considered the pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. Certain pieces—particular historical facts and concrete monuments—are in our possession; unfortunately others are missing. More facts are known about certain tombs than others; similarly more is known of the lives of certain individuals who commissioned transi tombs than is known about others. I hope that by concentrating on those tombs about which the most can be discovered, it will be possible to assemble enough pieces of the historical puzzle of the transi to understand both its function and its meaning to men of the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.
Fairly rigid criteria have been adopted in an attempt to separate the particular iconographic type of the transi from similar forms, but such strict limitations are necessary in order to define more sharply the problems presented by that type. I consider the transi to be a representation of the deceased as a corpse, shown either nude or wrapped in a shroud. It is thus different from the traditional type of funerary effigy depicting the deceased with eyes open, hands in an attitude of prayer, dressed in his official garments. This definition also distinguishes the transi from a type of sepulchral image especially popular in fourteenth-century Italy, that, although depicting the deceased as dead, showed him dressed in his regular garments. If eyes closed in death were adopted as a determining criterion rather than the shroud or the nudity of a corpse, then an entire group of often doubtful monuments would have to be included, for it is not always possible to determine whether a figure was represented as dead or merely as asleep. The transi must also be distinguished from the popular skeleton or corpse figures which represented an abstract personification of Death used, for example, in the Dance of Death or the Triumph of Death. The transi represented a specific dead individual and not Death itself.
In the literature dealing with the sculpture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there is little uniformity in the terminology used to designate these corpse-like funerary figures. Older English writers used a variety of terms to describe them: cadaver, emaciated corpse, skeleton, and so forth. More recent English authors favored the term “gisant” to designate these figures, although the most recent English publications employ the term “transi.” The latter term is to be preferred in the interests of clarity, for “gisant” is a French term meaning any recumbent sepulchral figure, whether intended to represent a living or a dead individual. Although a few French writers use this general term when speaking of the corpse figures others use the more specific “transi” when referring to them.
The noun “transi” apparently derives from the Latin verb transire: trans: “across”; ire: “to go.” From the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries the word transir was used in France in the sense of “to die” or “to pass away,” with the noun transi or transiz referring to the deceased. The term “transi" was used in a sixteenth-century contract for the tomb of Philibert of Chalons. Conrad Meit was instructed to make a figure of the prince, recumbent and rigid as “Ja portraiture d’un transsy et mort d’environ huit jours…” The specific term “transi” is a precise designation for these figures and should, I believe, be adopted generally by English writers in preference to the more general term “gisant” which I will limit here to describe recumbent figures of the deceased dressed in regular or sacerdotal garments and represented as being alive, whether awake or asleep.
In the tombs discussed thus far, the transi represented a symbol of contrition and humility, a device for extracting prayers for the soul of the deceased, or a memento mori to urge the living to good behavior. In the case of Frangois de la Sarra, the transi was very closely associated with a traditional resurrection symbol, the scallop shell. Other transi figures were also closely involved with resurrection symbolism. In these cases the transi, representing the specific individual in the tomb, was substituted for other corpse figures traditionally associated with the resurrection, or was combined with traditional symbols of resurrection within the total statement of the tomb. Before the appearance of transi figures, the image of a corpse as a symbol of resurrection was presented in four separate associations: as part of the language of alchemical symbolism; to represent the grave of Adam; to illustrate various verses from the Book of Job; and in association with the resurrection of Christ.
Alchemical Symbolism
Many alchemical philosophers were concerned less with the transmutation of gold than with the concept of eternal life, the regeneration of man, and his union with the divine. The famous scientist, philosopher, and alchemist Raymond Lully (1235-1315), referred in his writings to “the transmutation of the stone and of the spirit.” Many writers on alchemy believed that the prime goal of alchemical research was the spiritual regeneration of man. In the Margarita Pretiosa, written in the 13308, Petrus Bonus of Ferrara discussed the relation of the philosopher's stone to the soul and the resurrection of the body:
The same process was couched in the allegorical religious terminology of the “Old Adam” and Christ, the “second Adam.” As a result of Adam’s sin, man’s body became impure: “After his fall he was driven into the corruptible elementated world, and nourished by corruptible elementated elements, which infected his past nature and generated disease and death.” Adam’s flesh had to putrefy in order that Christ, the second Adam, might emerge incorruptible:
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, for since by man came death into the world, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For the first Adam and his sons rose from mortal elements, therefore that which had been composed had necessarily to decompose; but the second Adam, who is called the philosophical man, arose from pure elements and therefore passed over into eternity. For what consists of simple and pure substance remains incorruptible in eternity.
Alchemical writers stressed that fact that the death and decomposition of the body (the alchemical ingredients) was a necessary prelude to resurrection. The body must “die, rot by putrefaction, and then it will regenerate in glory.” This necessary death variously called the “negrido,” the “black state of matter,” or the “old Adam,” was usually symbolized by a human corpse. In this black or dead state the processes of dissolution, calcination and separation were carried on. After this putrefaction came the “white state,” out of which emerged the final product of the alchemical process, the philosopher’s stone or “lapis.” The lapis was sometimes symbolized by a figure of the resurrected Christ: “the one that dies not and that brings the dead to life.” On the spiritual plane the image of Christ symbolized the union of the soul and mind with the divine. Many of the alchemists used these symbols in the two distinct senses noted above: referring specifically to the alchemical process itself and to spiritual concepts.
Such a double meaning was clearly applied by the Parisian alchemist Nicholas Flamel (d. 1418) to the symbols that appeared on his transi tomb. The tombstone, which Flamel himself prepared before his death, was decorated with two bas-reliefs and several inscriptions. In his will Flamel mentioned that he had prepared his tombstone and was keeping it at his house until it was needed. Guilhermy gives the history of the tombstone, including its use as a butcher’s chopping block. The upper register is carved with a bust-length figure of Christ holding the globe in one hand and making the sign of the benediction with the other. On either side of his head are depictions of the flaming sun and the full moon. He is flanked by St. Peter holding a key and book and St. Paul holding a sword and book. A long inscription listing Flamel’s numerous bequests given in return for prayers separates the upper register from the lower. In the lower register a nude transi of Flamel is depicted lying on a shroud.
Certain iconographic peculiarities of this tombstone can only be explained in light of alchemical illustrations. The double meaning—both religious and alchemical—of the symbols on the tombstone can clearly be seen from Flamel’s own writing.” The figures on Flamel’s tombstone are similar to those used on a funerary arch which he had erected for his dead wife in the popular Parisian Cemetery of the Innocents in 1399. Although this arch is no longer extant, drawings were made of certain of the figures, and Flamel himself gave an extremely detailed description of the figures and what they were intended to symbolize. The careful examination of the symbols of this arch together with Flamel’s explanation of those symbols provides the key to the meaning of his own tombstone.
In the center of the arch was a representation of Jesus holding the globe accompanied by angels. On either side saints Peter and Paul presented kneeling figures of Flamel and his wife who held banderoles containing inscriptions. Along with these figures, which were a part of traditional Christian iconography, there were others which were not within the usual repertoire, including three small figures dressed in white, a black corpse (the alchemical “negrido”), and three furnaces. The three furnaces had been added, according to Flamel, “to show that I had thus done it three times [i.e., successfully transmuted mercury into gold] I caused to be depicted under the same arch three furnaces, like to those which serve for the operations of this work.
Below were a series of small scenes from right to left:
In his testament Flamel told of his practice of alchemy: During his work as a scribe there fell into his hands in the year 1357 a mysterious book containing cryptic pictures and writings of Abraham the Jew. He studied the figures in the book and showed them to scholars. One, Anselm, a practitioner of physic and a student of alchemy, explained the figures to him, Hamel recalls how he tried in vain for twenty years to understand the symbols and work the formula, “In the end, having lost all hope of ever understanding those symbols or figures, I made a vow to God to demand their interpretation of some Jewish priest belonging to some synagogue in Spain. Taking up the pilgrim’s staff, he went to Leon where he found a converted Jew, a physician named Cahches, who deciphered the figures for him. When he returned to Paris he had the figures painted “upon the door of the chapel of James of the Boucherie, close by the one side of my house, where we are both painted [he and his wife] kneeling and giving thanks to God. For through the grace of God it was that I attained the perfect knowledge of all I desired.” In the church of St. Jacques-la Boucherie on the left side of the Marivaux door was a figure of Flamel kneeling at the feet of St. James, with a gothic “N” inscribed on the pedestal. The figure of Pernelle was represented on the opposite side, kneeling at the feet of St. John, with the pedestal bearing a gothic “P.”
Flamel wrote that the figures painted on the arch could be interpreted in two ways, not only as a hieroglyphic presentation of the alchemical process, but also as “the mysteries of our future and undoubted resurrection. .. and the coming of good Jesus.” He went on to give the alchemical symbolism for the various figures, paying great attention to the ideas of corruption and resurrection:
Matter is dissolved, is corrupted, groweth blacke and conceiveth to engender, for all corruption is generation, and therefore ought blacknesse to be much desired... He that seeth not this blacknesse at the beginning of his operations, during the days of the stone, what other colour soever he see, he shall altogether fayle in the Maisterie. . .. Not putritie, he doeth not corrupt, nor ingender, and by consequence, the stone cannot take vegetative life to increase and multiply... And this dissolution is called Death, Destruction... because the natures change their forme, and from hence are proceeded so many allegories of dead men, tombs and sepulchres. ... Others have called it putrefaction, corruption.... The water beginneth to thicken and coagulate, somewhate more, growing very black, like unto pitch, and finally comes the ‘body’ and ‘earth.’ This earth stinkes and gives a smell like the odeur of graves filled with rottennesse and with bodies as yet charged with their natural moysture...
[…]The figure of St. Paul was considered an alchemical symbol:
Why is St. Paul on the right hand of God, in the place where the custom is to paint St. Peter? To understand the alchemical meaning one must first know that ‘first agent’ which is the key to opening the gates of all sciences. . . . St. Paul is an allegorical figure, his sword is to do something to the man who kneels at his feet—his banderole says ‘Blot out all the evil which I have done’ […]
The three small white figures symbolized not only the traditional body, soul, and spirit, but also the alchemical sun, moon, and mercury:
The three folk rising again, clothed in sparkling white represent the Body, Soul, and Spirit... . The sun and moon and Mercurye are raised again in this operation, are made elements of air, and whitened. ...We called the blacknesse Death… we may call the whitenesse Life; which commeth not, but with and by a Resurrection... They are all white, so the blacknesse, that is death, is vanquished, and they… are from henceforward incorruptible.
The figure of the resurrected Christ represented the finished work, the lapis:
Now see our King coming, crowned and raised again, which hath overcome Death, the darknesses and moistures; behold him in the forme wherein our Saviour shall come, who shall eternally unite into him all pure and cleane souls, and will drive away all impurity and uncleannesse, as being unworthy to be united to his divine body.
Even St. Peter and his key served as alchemical symbols:
Peter with the key in his right hand and his left hand to Pernelle represents the stone . . . which demandeth two things, Multiplication and a more rich Accoutrement. Saint Peter holding a key having powers to open and to shut, to bind and to loose; thus must multiply the budding and increasing natures.
Traditionally the symbols of the flaming sun and the moon, which Flamel identified as alchemical symbols, did not accompany the figure of Christ with the globe, but they did appear with him on Flamel’s tombstone. A similar sun and moon appear in conjunction with a crowned king holding a globe on an alchemical illustration in Leyden, an illustration which also contains other symbols found on Flamel’s tombstone: two figures holding keys and the nude corpse. In the manuscript these symbols referred to the alchemical process. Flamel explained the similar figures on the arch of the Innocents, Paris, as symbolizing both the alchemical process and the resurrection of man. Flamel’s own tombstone clearly carried the double meaning he ascribed to the symbols on the arch, and the alchemical aspects of this symbolism gave a new significance to the transi image. The transi figure on the bottom of Flamel’s tombstone refers to the alchemical “negrido” which must become corrupt and putrefy before it can be purified and resurrected. With Flamel’s tombstone the symbolism of the transi image went beyond a mere humbling of the self and became a necessary step in the process of resurrection: the body must decay before it can become immortal and incorruptible.
University of California Berkeley Press, 1973