Spatiotemporal Inscription of Christs Last Will in the Short Charter of Christ - Essay Example

Spatiotemporal Inscription of Christ’s Last Will in the “Short Charter of Christ” A semiotic analysis of the “Short Charter of Christ” (Testamentum domini) will necessarily reveal that the charter-image is essentially a visual illustration of the theme of the poem or text of the charter. The charter-image upholds Jesus’ Last Will about the “Redemption of Humanity” through a whole network of interactive cues, symbols and signs which ultimately facilitate the readers’ perception of the text. The charter has been written as a lyric in which the speaker introduces himself as “Jesus of Nazareth” and declares his pardon to humanity. The “Short Charter of Christ” employs a number of imageries which centrally focus on the development of the grand-imagery of crucified Christ. This imagery of the crucified body of Christ further conveys a holistic abstraction of Christ’s physical sufferings in exchange for the salvation of humanity. On the contrary, the image of the charter visualizes this grand metaphor through the triadic relationship among “signs”, “interpreters” and “ideas” which those signs are intended to convey to the audiences or readers. The scribe of this image has effectively employed a number of signs of physical sufferings such as five wounds, the nails, the “scourges of his attackers”, stains of blood, bones and skulls, etc. to conjure up Christ’s sufferings and to convey his pains to the readers. Through these symbols, he has attempted to visualize spatiotemporal settings of Jesus’ crucifixion in the mage, while the poem uses various imageries develop the traditional Christian concepts of humankind’s salvation and liberation through Christ’s suffering on the Holy Cross. Indeed, during the medieval period, it was a literary tradition of referring to Christ’s Last Will in Manuscripts. But some of the charters of Christ had been produced in the form of legal documents. In these charters, the scribes would make sincere effort to convey a sense of legality of the documents to the readers. Therefore, the scribes had to apply a number of techniques in this regard. These techniques include literary-visual binary techniques of presentation of the theme. While presenting the theme of the documents they would attempt to instill the spatiotemporal dimension of their subject matter. Necessarily, they had to assume the persona of Christ in their manuscripts. While Christ’s persona was worked out through linguistic strategy of using the first person perspective in the presentation of the literary content, images were used to illustrate and visualize Christ’s figure. These pictorial presentations of Christ would more or less commonly uphold him in the posture of delivering sermon to his disciples. In this regard, it can be said that the pictorial presentation of Christ’s persona in the “Short Charter of Christ” is somewhat different from this tradition. Instead, the scribe of the “Short Charter” has adapted and elaborated the image of crucified Christ to visualize the theme of the poem. The “Short Charter of Christ”, had been written as a legal document in which Christ grants humankind the liberation and redemption from sins. This charter has a root in the medieval practice of writing religious documents in parchments. More specifically, this is the imitation of Christ’s Last Will and Testament. In order to work out the spatiotemporal dimension of Christ’s physical sufferings, the scribe has endeavored to convey the sense of Christ’s physical sufferings through the images of the cross, crucified Christ and other elements needed in the process of crucifixion. These symbols and images of crucified Christ nailed on the cross are sufficient enough to work out the realities which Christ himself faced. But in order to validate the legal dimension of the texts, those medieval script-writers would manipulate the imagery of Christ’s skin extended to serve as a parchment on which Christ’s Last Will are supposed to be inscribed. The metaphor of Christ’s skin as a parchment for writing down the Last Will serves a two-fold purpose. First, the flayed skin could conjure up the horror of suffering and therefore, to visualize the intensity of Christ’s for humankind. In return, the skin metaphor could facilitate the intensity of the viewers’ love and devotion to Christ. Secondly, the skin metaphor could convey as a sense of the legal validity of the documents. Obviously, the implication of the skin metaphor was that since the Last has been written on Christ’s own skin, it is irrevocable. The “Short Charter of Christ” is based on a symbiotic relationship between the poem’s content and the pictorial symbols (of the imageries used of the poem) in the image. The original manuscript of the Short Charter of Christ was essentially produced to serve as a legal document which could grant freedom, right and liberty to any individuals or community in medieval England. In order to maintain the decorum of a legal document, the text of the Short Charter imitates various Latin literary conventions and legal formulae. The poem starts with an imperative sentence, “Wyteh wele all that ben here” (line 1). In the next line, Christ, as the speaker of the charter, addresses the future readers: “And after schall be leve and dere” (line 2). This opening conveys a sense that Chris is delivering sermons to the interpretants or the readers of the Charter. Though this opening, the scribe has attempted to conjure up Christ as a grave authority to declare the charter of mankind’s redemption. Furthermore, the scribe has used the first person perspective to invoke Christ’s authority: “That I, Jhesus of Nazareth,/ For lufe of man have soferd deth” (line 3-4). These two lines attest Jesus’ love for humankind. In the image of the charter, this first-person Christly persona, “I, Jhesus of Nazareth” has been conjured through several techniques. In the first place, “Jesus of Nazareth” has been depicted through the abstraction of a humanly figure, nailed on a cross in the background. In fact, the abstraction of a crucified human-figure becomes a strong symbol of Jesus through its association with the background-image of the cross and the four nails. In the text, the speaker claims that he is the “Jhesus of Nazareth”. In support of his claim, he tells his sufferings on the cross: “For lufe of man have soferd deth/Upon a crosse with wondys five/Whyle I was man of lyve” (line 2-5). Both in the text and the image, the five wounds serve as the testimonies of Christ’s sufferings for the liberation of humankind. Especially, in the image the wounds play an additional role of testifying any association between a person and Christianity. Those wound and the cross together testify that the human-figure is Jesus himself. It is because in Christology, the Cross is a dominant symbol of Christ’s death and physical sufferings. The text uses a lot of abstract expressions, of Christ, which are almost impossible to depict in the static context of the image. For example, the following lines of the poem tells about Christ’s bequeathing of the Last Will: “I have gyven and made a grante/ To all that askys repentante:/ Hevenes blysse withouten endyng,….Als long as I ame ther kyng….” (line 8-10). In order to overcome this difficulty, the scribe of the “Short Charter” has employed some semiotic strategy. For example, instead of depicting Jesus hanging downward from the two arms of the cross, he portrays Christ as if he is holding the charter with his two hands though they are nailed. The image that Jesus holds the written charter with his nailed hands has a two-fold purpose. First, it keeps the veracity of Crucifixion intact. Secondly, it helps the scribe to verbalize the static hand-drawn figure of Jesus. The image, “Crucified Jesus holds the charter of freedom”, means that he himself is delivering his Last Will to the beholders. Thus, the body itself becomes the grand metaphor of the charter which has been sealed by the symbols of sufferings such as the wounds, the stains of blood, etc. In both the text and the image, the scribe has invested a sincere effort to convey a number of themes including the central theme of Christ’s declaration of humankind’s salvation and freedom. The subsidiary themes are that Christ’s declaration is to be perceived as a legal document and that the document of his Last Will has sealed by the imageries and signs of sufferings. Obviously, in the image, the symbols such as Jesus’ crucified the scourges, the wounds, the cross, the parchment, etc- all together contribute to the development of the central theme, the Last Will, in the poem. Indeed, the poem’s and the text’s success in Christ’s Last Will as a legal document lies the scribe’s skill in depicting the spatiotemporal dimensions of Jesus’ crucifixion. References Shuffelton, George. (2008). “The Short Charter of Christ”, A Compilation of Popular Middle English Verse. Retrieved Dec 04, 2013 from http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/shuffelton-codex-ashmole-61-short-charter-of-christ Read More