Manifestations of the holy as instruments of propaganda: The Cologne Dreikonigenschrein and the Aachen Karlsschrein and Marienschrein in late medieval ritual

My study seeks to broaden our awareness of the ceremonial use of the Cologne Dreikönigenschrein and the Aachen Karlsschrein and Marienschrein in late Medieval ritual. From the primary source material available in Aachen and Cologne, I have attempted to show how the relics and their shrines, as manifestations of holy cults, were brought into “communion” through the celebration of the liturgy, while their multifaceted imagery reflected the sacred histories that defined the inextricable union of the cults of the Virgin and Charlemagne in Aachen, and united them to the cult of kingship that was embraced by late medieval Germanic rulers.;As highly prized trophies, the relics and their elaborate containers were no less tools of political propaganda than they were instruments of divine intercession. Evocations of the Heavenly City of Jerusalem, these principal church-shaped shrines of the Rhineland were also platforms for the political agendas of late Medieval rulers who sought to embrace anew the ideologies of a Sacred Empire ruled by a “Holy” emperor. Their ecclesio-political agendas were encoded into the iconography and pictorial programs of the shrines that further reflected the intersection of the divine realm with thirteenth-century society—a metaphysical mystery believed to occur during liturgical performance. The messages manifested in the shrines tended to resonate beyond the immediate context of their ceremonial use declarations not only of the preeminence of late Germanic rulers in Christendom, but also of their eschatological role in insuring the position of their “Holy Roman Empire” within the matrix of the Celestial Kingdom.;I believe my methodological approach to this collection of reliquaries, as well as the various lines of inquiry I pursue, will begin to unravel some of the complexities of the Medieval function, perception, and conception of the architectural shrines and other closely related treasury objects commissioned to aide in the anagogical exercises characteristic of Medieval society.