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Crozier (crosse); known as Crozier of Bishop Otto I

Crozier (crosse); known as Crozier of Bishop Otto I
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Subject
Religious.

Repository Institution
www.dommuseum-hildesheim.de

To purchase an image
www.dommuseum-hildesheim.de


Hildesheim, Dom-Museum

DS 69

Ivory;partly gilt silver and niello (15th-century fittings)

Height: 190mm (volute); 1680mm (incl. staff)

Lamb of God (Agnus Dei); dragon.
Inscription (on metal bands on top of the shaft above and below the knop and the ivory ring with Otto inscription): '+ COLLIGE SVSTENTA STIMV/+ LA VAGA MORBIDA LENTA + ATTRAHE PER PRIMVM ME/+ DIO REGE PVNGE PER IMVM + PASCE GREGE M NORMA DO/+ CE SERVA CORRIGE FORMA.' ('Assemble those who wander, support the sick, exhort those who are passive. Pull them [men] up with the upper part [of the crozier], give [them] direction with its centre and spur [them] on with its lower part. Give pasture to the herd, teach, protect, improve and shape [it] according to the rule'.
On an ivory ring below the knop: 'OTTO EP[ISCOPV]S I[N] HILDENS[EM]'.
Coat of arms of the Hildesheim bishopric on the crozier added in the 15th century.
Further down on the shaft, another 15th-century inscription: 'aue maria'.

Berlin 2010: Southern Italy, mid 13th century (crozier head); Hildesheim or Braunschweig (Brunswick), c. 1260 (inscription around the staff); Hildesheim, 1st half of the 15th century (silver fittings).


Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy.

Reverse
Carved on both sides.

Object Condition
Missing: cross accompanying the lamb of God.

Comments
The later niello inscriptions refer to the duties of the bishops of Hildesheim.

Provenance
This crozier belonged to Otto I, Bishop of Hildesheim from 1260-1279, and son of Otto das Kind, Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg.

Bibliography
V. H. Elbern and H. Reuther, 'Der Hildesheimer Domschatz', in Die Diözese Hildesheim in Vergagenheit und Gegenwart 36 (Hildesheim, 1969), p. 68, no. 69.
J. M. Fritz, Goldschmiedekunst der Gotik in Mitteleuropa (Munich, 1982), p. 255, no. 490.
H. J. Rieckenberg, C. Wulf, Die Inschriften der Stadt Hildesheim (Wiesbaden, 2003), pp. 303ff.
Schätze des Glaubens: Meisterwerke aus dem Dom-Museum Hildesheim und dem Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, ed. by L. Lambacher, exhibition catalogue, Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, 2010, no. 49.


Image

© Dom-Museum Hildesheim.

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