Harbingers, Guardians, Worshippers, and Warriors. Depicting Angels in Late Medieval Catalan Drama

Abstract

[eng] In this study, we propose to examine the scenic representation of angels as beings who, according to the definition in Luke 24:39, are pure spirits, that is, without a material body of flesh and blood. The depiction of the bodiless by Catalan late medieval playwrights and by those responsible for the organisation of processions such as the late medieval Majorcan and Valencian processions of the Guardian Angel required the transfer of the mental image into a tangible form. With angels being present in late medieval Catalan drama, for example in the context of the birth of Christ, the Passion of Christ, the Assumption of Mary, and in the lives of the saints, we examine the attributes of the heavenly beings as they can be deduced from the stage directions, the dialogues, and the archival sources. We aim to explore how the audience perceived these spiritual beings both in the context of drama and procession and to which extent the images in motion, created by playwrights and organisers of processions, respond to the depiction of angels in Catalan devotional and homiletic literature.