Crook of a Bishop's Staff
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In the Middle Ages, kings expressed their position in a certain strata of society through their crowns, knights through their armament, and clergy through their habits or vestments.
The holder of ecclesiastical and secular offices used, moreover, objects or signs illustrating their rightful election and appointment. Thus, along with his liturgical vestments as a part of his clothing, the bishop had his bishop’s ring, a seal, a pectoral cross, and a bishop’s staff, that is, a crosier, as signs of his authority. Following the death of a bishop, his seal was broken; his ring and crosier, however, were frequently placed as burial goods in his coffin.
Among the insignia, the bishop’s crosier possesses special significance. It normally consists of a crook made of silver or bronze attached at one end of a long wooden shaft, about 5 ft/1.5 m long. An entire series of such crooks, representing, moreover, the various eras of art history, is on view in the Cathedral Treasury.
Bishops’ crosiers are derived from the long scepters of ancient emperors, but also from the shepherd’s staff; the staff also has the function of a judge’s rod as a symbol of their spiritual and secular jurisdiction.
In 1851, the Cathedral canon Johann Nikolaus von Wilmowsky found the crook of a crosier in the grave of Archbishop Henry of Finstingen (1260 to 1286). It is made of bronze and is ornamented with enamel as well as gold leaf. The crook (11 in/ 28 cm long) is made of Limoges enamel. In the 12th and 13th centuries, numerous works decorated with this blue enamel were produced in this southwestern French city for all of Europe.
Atop the staff sheath, which is ornamented with Romanesque tendrils, sits an open work knop or pommel composed of winding monsters with long tails and flowery tendrils. Above it is a crowned winged figure holding a book. Small drops of enamel imitate precious gemstones.
The figure probably served to ward off evil. Above the crown, the repeatedly winding crook, ornamented with crockets and tendrils and stabilized by connecting bars and the wings. The winding crook ends in the head of a dragon with its tongue sticking out; the entire crook can be interpreted as the body or tail of a dragon.
Author: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schmid