| Abstrakt: |
Abstract: The study is an attempt at a reconstruction of the course of the Easter celebrations in the church of the Benedictine monastery of St George at Prague Castle from the period around 1200, to when the earliest preserved record is dated, until the 15th century. The first part of the celebration was the Quem queritis dialogue; in the next act the meeting of Mary Magdalene with Christ was played out and in the third part the amassed believers were ceremonially shown the linen from the empty Sepulchre. From the 14th century, the meeting of Mary with the Spice Merchant was included before these three scenes. Where and how these scenes were played is not entirely apparent from the rubrics of the preserved liturgical manuscripts. The showing of the linen probably took place on the stairs to the eastern chancel and according to one of the records from the 14th century at the ‘iron tomb’, which might have been the tomb of Duke Boleslav II, buried in front of the staircase. The first two scenes thus almost certainly took place in the area of the eastern chancel, where the main altar was, initially transformed each year into a temporary Holy Sepulchre. A permanent stone Sepulchre, which was established there between 1344 and 1345, presented an entirely open architecture - which differed from the generally widespread closed coffin-like forms - apparently bearing the relics of St Ludmila in the tomb of green porphyry. From the 14th century, the ritual of Depositio crucis, in which a cross was placed in the Sepulchre, also began to be performed. |
