The Use of Devotional Objects in Catalan Homes during the Late Middle Ages

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study domestic devotion in Catalonia in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, based on the information provided by numerous post-mortem inventories and texts written by coetaneous spiritual authors such as Ramon Llull, Francesc Eiximenis and Saint Vincent Ferrer. Among the objects recorded in the inventories, pieces of furniture and devotional objects laypeople and clergymen used in their pious practices as “material” aid for personal prayer stood out. They were in keeping with the strong visual culture that pervaded the Late Middle Ages. There were retables, oratories and images of religious themes. However, the inventories also listed lesser known but equally recurring objects such as paternosters and Agni Dei. Painted cloths depicting religious scenes that decorated the homes of numerous wealthy Catalan-Aragonese families at that time were also present. Spiritual books such as books of hours and psalters, biblical texts, Legenda Aurea, etc., were mentioned as well. They were part of the incipient libraries of the laity in the Late Middle Ages.

Keywords

• domestic devotion
• private devotion
• material devotion
• medieval art
• altarpieces
• retables
• oratories
• reliquaries
• paternosters
• agnus dei
• catalonia