"Wicked and absurd" : a surprising paragone in Bernard of Angers's miracles of Sainte Foy

Bernard of Angers' Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis, written about 1025 ce, contains a well-known account of images, including the golden statue of St Foy now in Conques. In his attempt to sanction the existence and use of such images, Bernard made two unusual claims. First, only one iconographic subject, the crucified Christ, should be depicted in three-dimensional sculpture; the saints should only be represented in two dimensions. Second, Bernard grouped wall painting with writing and opposed those flat, two-dimensional media to sculpture. Both of these claims appear to be unique in medieval writing about images. This essay places them in their textual and historical contexts. Bernard's unusual claims about images are sui generis, but were influenced by a variety of factors: Christian theology, especially of the Eucharist; earlier traditions (especially Carolingian) of writing about images; and the recent introduction to Europe of silent, visual reading.