Transi tombs
Type:
Sculptures,
Tombs
Date:
1394
Location or Findspot (Modern-Day Country):
France,
Switzerland
Medium:
Stone
Dimensions:
Harcigny transi, L 184 cm
Description:
Transi tombs emerged in western Europe in the 1380s and remained popular until the seventeenth century. The name derives from the Latin verb transire, literally to go across, meaning to pass away. Previous funerary sculpture showed idealized figures, with the deceased lying peacefully as if in the prime of life. In transi tombs, by contrast, the dead person was shown as a corpse, with his or her body decaying. This may be related to ideas of Purgatory, with the body undergoing physical changes as the soul went through spiritual transformation, or to anxieties that followed the Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century. The living who saw these tombs were vividly reminded of their own impending death.
One of the earliest transi tombs is that of a French doctor, Guillaume de Harcigny, who died in 1393 at age 93. He traveled widely in the eastern Mediterranean to learn medical techniques, and he had performed surgery on the French king Charles IV, temporarily curing him of insanity. Harcigny died in Laon after commissioning his skeletal effigy. It was carved in the round—a novelty—and then placed over his tomb. The inscription on the tomb says, in Latin, "To God and nature I give back in simple form what was composite by the grace of God." The reference to "simple form" echoes terminology used in medieval alchemy: simple substances remain uncorrupted for eternity.
A coeval transi is more gruesome. It depicts the nobleman François de la Sarra (d. 1368), who was buried in an elaborate tomb in the funerary chapel he had founded in his village church at La Sarraz, Switzerland. The dead man is watched by female family members and guarded by life-size knights. The monument was probably erected by his grandsons in the 1390s. Carved fully in the round, the face has four frogs on its eyes and mouth and another four on his genitals; the limbs are covered by biting worms or snakes. Frogs and snakes are typical on German transi but unknown in France and rare in England. Their presence here is not simply an illustration of how maggots feed on corpses, or a reference to Ecclesiasticus 10:13 ("For when a man shall die, he shall inherit serpents, and beasts, and worms"). Rather, snakes and frogs were symbols of sin and the devil, and they often appear in German folklore. They signify the corrupt nature of humanity, and purging them meant cleansing the body of sin (Rev. 16:13). This might explain why the frogs are on the dead man's eyes, mouth, and genitalia, all portals for sin. Thomas Aquinas said that worms signify the pangs of conscience, and that repentance balances sin. The scallop shells carved on the chest and pillow of the dead man had a long association with immortality, so despite the gruesomeness of the image, there was hope for future salvation.
The Harcigny tomb, formerly in the cemetery of Le Cordeliers, is now in the Musée d'art et d'archéologie in Laon; the la Sarra tomb is in the castle at La Sarraz.
One of the earliest transi tombs is that of a French doctor, Guillaume de Harcigny, who died in 1393 at age 93. He traveled widely in the eastern Mediterranean to learn medical techniques, and he had performed surgery on the French king Charles IV, temporarily curing him of insanity. Harcigny died in Laon after commissioning his skeletal effigy. It was carved in the round—a novelty—and then placed over his tomb. The inscription on the tomb says, in Latin, "To God and nature I give back in simple form what was composite by the grace of God." The reference to "simple form" echoes terminology used in medieval alchemy: simple substances remain uncorrupted for eternity.
A coeval transi is more gruesome. It depicts the nobleman François de la Sarra (d. 1368), who was buried in an elaborate tomb in the funerary chapel he had founded in his village church at La Sarraz, Switzerland. The dead man is watched by female family members and guarded by life-size knights. The monument was probably erected by his grandsons in the 1390s. Carved fully in the round, the face has four frogs on its eyes and mouth and another four on his genitals; the limbs are covered by biting worms or snakes. Frogs and snakes are typical on German transi but unknown in France and rare in England. Their presence here is not simply an illustration of how maggots feed on corpses, or a reference to Ecclesiasticus 10:13 ("For when a man shall die, he shall inherit serpents, and beasts, and worms"). Rather, snakes and frogs were symbols of sin and the devil, and they often appear in German folklore. They signify the corrupt nature of humanity, and purging them meant cleansing the body of sin (Rev. 16:13). This might explain why the frogs are on the dead man's eyes, mouth, and genitalia, all portals for sin. Thomas Aquinas said that worms signify the pangs of conscience, and that repentance balances sin. The scallop shells carved on the chest and pillow of the dead man had a long association with immortality, so despite the gruesomeness of the image, there was hope for future salvation.
The Harcigny tomb, formerly in the cemetery of Le Cordeliers, is now in the Musée d'art et d'archéologie in Laon; the la Sarra tomb is in the castle at La Sarraz.
Relevant Textbook Chapter(s):
10
Image Credits:
Wikimedia Commons; Nicholas Herman
