conservation and art history || reconstructing medieval pictorial narrative: louis joubert's...

Reconstructing Medieval Pictorial Narrative: Louis Joubert's Tapestry Restoration ProjectAuthor(s): Laura WeigertSource: Art Journal, Vol. 54, No. 2, Conservation and Art History (Summer, 1995), pp. 67-72Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777464 .

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Re constructing Medieval Pictorial Narrative Louis Joubert's Tapestry Restoration Project

Laura fleigrert

I did not know what the tapestries which ornamented the

chapel of Our Lady meant and asked in vain for an

explanation.-Louis Joubert'

estoring tapestries was part of a broad movement from the mid to the end of the nineteenth century that was intended to retrieve and to renew the heri-

tage of the French medieval past. Large-scale restorations of

churches, of which those led by Eugene Viollet-le-Duc are the most well known, codified medieval architecture and isolated these monuments from their surrounding commu- nities.2 Authoritative editions of medieval texts were published that effaced variations between individual manu-

scripts.3 In many cases projects reconstructed their objects of study by denying the diversity that existed in the time of their making and that occurred over the history of their use, and by imposing an organization and meaning that was often inconsistent with their significance and function in the Mid- dle Ages.

A central figure in the nineteenth-century restoration of medieval tapestries was Louis Joubert, canon of the cathedral of Angers and custodian of the objects in its treasury.4 Most famous for his work on the Angers Apocalypse, Joubert was responsible for numerous restorations of medieval reli-

gious tapestries during the second half of the nineteenth

century.5 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries these large- scale narrative cycles spanned the choirs and naves of churches during the celebration of feast days. By the time

Joubert received the tapestries, what had been continuous scrolls of fabric were separated into individual fragments. A

major part of his project, therefore, consisted of arranging and then joining these pieces together.

This article focuses on one example of Joubert's work, that is, his direction of the restoration in 1857-60 of the Life of Gervasius and Protasius from the cathedral of Le Mans.

Existing literature on the tapestry fails to mention this crucial event in its history.6 Drawing on two kinds of evidence-

Joubert's notes and the tapestry itself-I demonstrate that he

interpreted this work by imposing his particular preconceptions about pictorial narrative on the reordering of the panels of the tapestry. In this process Joubert excluded the possibility of alternate narratives, producing his own version of the woven vita. It is this version of the Life of Gervasius and Protasius that is currently displayed in the choir of Le Mans cathedral. In Joubert's time, however, his reconstruction of the Life of Gervasius and Protasius and his method of restoration were contested.

Without any formal training in textile production or conservation or a background in the history of medieval

tapestry, Joubert's technique of restoration was defined

through his working process. In 1849 he began a campaign to repair and clean the Angers Apocalypse, for which he received funds from the cathedral chapter and the Monu- ments Historiques. He set up a workshop in Angers; hired

Josephine Bazantay and Addle Logerais, both from Angers; and supplied them with scissors, needles, and thread.7 He noted in his records, "February 1, 1849, date of the day on which the restoration began."8

In 1856 Louis Albin, canon of Le Mans and custodian of its cathedral, contacted Joubert about another project concerning the Life of Gervasius and Protasius.9 Donated to the cathedral in 1509, the tapestry depicts major events from the lives of the twin saints: their baptism, a miracle they perform, their confrontation with Nero, their martyrdom, and the veneration of their relics, as well as the martyrdom of their

parents, Vital and Valery. This woven vita (measuring ap- proximately 5 feet high and 104 feet wide) was displayed in the choir on certain high feast days until the eighteenth century when the canons of Le Mans placed it in an apse chapel, dedicated to the Virgin.Io At an undocumented point in its history, the tapestry was divided into five large sec-

tions, each of which contained, in some cases, several

fragments. Joubert was already familiar with the tapestry from his

childhood in Le Mans. As the quotation with which I began

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PI

1<1 FIG. 1 Louis Joubert, notes on the Life of Gervasius and Protasius, O.P. cath. 9.8, Episcopal Archives, Angers.

suggests, his initial attempt to understand the tapestry was

frustrating. Joubert continued, "In 1804 I could not have

known that these tapestries depicted the story of saints

Gervasias and Protasius... [and that they] would be restored

after almost half a century had passed, by a priest from Le

Mans, honorary canon of the cathedral of Angers."" In this

letter to the bishop of Le Mans, Joubert indicated that his

restoration campaign related to his early desire to make

sense of the scroll of fabric.12

According to Joubert's notes on the restoration, the first

step toward understanding the narrative of the tapestry was to

divide it into individual episodes, each corresponding with a

titulus, woven into the bottom along the length of the tapestry. He then organized these episodes into a series of squares, numbered from one to eighteen (fig. 1). This organizational

system separated the horizontal strips of fabric into discrete

units, arranged in a linear sequence. Already evident in the division of the tapestry was

Joubert's particular preconceptions of a narrative text. First, in his model each story is composed of distinct chapters that are isolated from the others. In medieval hagiographical texts, however, this is not usually the case. Although hagio-

graphical compilations provide separate headings for indi-

vidual saints' lives, there are often no demarcations within the individual lives. Joubert's method of division relied en-

tirely on the written tituli to identify his units, reducing each

square to a single event described in one textual inscription. In fact, the tapestry resists this kind of division; several of these squares include multiple events and many of the tituli extend into two or more squares.

FIG. 2 Life of Gervasius and Protasius (detail corresponding to nos. 14 and 15 in Appendix), 1509, tapestry. Saint-Julien, Le Mans.

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FIG. 3 Life of Gervasius and Protasius (detail corresponding to nos. 12 and 13 in Appendix), 1509, tapestry. Saint-Julien, Le Mans.

A second narrative assumption that guided Joubert's initial examination of the Life of Gervasius and Protasius was

that the story must unfold in a chronological order, beginning at the first square and ending at the last. The numerical

ordering of the individual squares imposed a strict chrono-

logical development on the events depicted in the tapestry. This reading rejects an order based on symbolic or typological relationships between episodes not directly next to each other and precludes the possibility of a reversal of chronology in the visual presentation of events.'13

The next stage in the restoration project was to rear-

range the numbered squares that he had abstracted from the

tapestry (see Appendix). He decided to cut in two places. First, he proposed separating the first square, which de-

picted the torture of a saint and whose incomplete titulus made more precise identification impossible, from the second square and then reattaching it to square fifteen (fig. 2). 14

Second, he proposed moving square nine, the saints' meeting with the provost of Milan, which was placed after Gervasius and Protasius's first confrontation with Nero, to just before the

torture of the saint (fig. 3).

Although Joubert did not explain his rationale for reor-

dering the tapestry, a letter updating the bishop of Angers on the progress of the restoration of the Apocalypse tapestry might explain his approach to reworking the Life ofGervasius and Protasius:

I numbered each panel before touching them in order to [be able to] replace the sacred subjects in the same order, as long as that order does not injure at any point the rules of the art or of

chronology . . . as it is obvious that the true order has been

inverted, I wish to adopt another. I am authorized to do so by the text of the Apocalypse itself.5is

The guiding model for retrieving the "true," or original, order of his tapestries was a chronology that in turn corresponded with the organization of one specific text. Although Joubert was able to cite a text that justified his ordering of the

segments of the Apocalypse tapestry, this was not the case for the Life ofGervasius and Protasius. All the events depicted in the tapestry are not included in any single text source. The

tapestry combines numerous manuscript vitae of the twin saints to produce a unique version of their lives.16 He could have relied on the account in Jacques de Voragine's Golden

Legend to identify and order some of the events, but not all. The saints' interaction with Nero and imprisonment, which is not included in The Golden Legend, spans six of the eighteen episodes in the woven version. It was therefore impossible for

Joubert to compare the tapestry with this one written version of the saints' lives.

How then did Joubert recover the "true" version of the

Life of Gervasius and Protasius? According to the notes, his

reordering of the tapestry was designed to organize individual episodes in accordance with The Golden Legend and to fill in lacunae in the tituli. To justify his first change Joubert identified the saint tortured in the first panel as Gervasius.

Following the story in The Golden Legend, this panel could no

longer precede Vital's death, which was at the beginning of the narrative, but had to be placed before the martyrdom of Protasius and the burial of the two saints.17 Joubert's second

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FIG. 4 Life of Gervasius and Protasius (detail of juncture between nos. 13 and 14 in Appendix), 1509, tapestry. Saint-Julien, Le Mans.

FIG. 5 Life of Gervasius and Protasius (detail of juncture between nos. 12 and 13 in Appendix), 1509, tapestry. Saint-Julien, Le Mans.

proposed change united two sections of a titulus. The saints'

meeting with Nolin contained the fragment of a titulus that

completed the titulus on what became the preceding panel.'8 The final stage in Joubert's restoration process was to

erase all signs of his intervention. In a letter to the bishop of Le Mans, he praised the women who restored the Apocalypse. He claimed that their work was of such high quality that even a trained eye could not detect the changes and additions without examining the back of the tapestry.19 He confirmed the success of the restoration of the Life of Gervasius and

Protasius, noting that the tapestry had been returned to Le Mans in "perfect condition."20

Joubert's reading of the Life of Gervasius and Protasius materialized in the fabric of the tapestry. The extent to which the tapestry was actually cut and resewn cannot be gauged without a detailed systematic technical analysis of its back.

Although such a study is essential to understanding the extent to which the tapestry was "restored," it would require removal of its backing, a project not of immediate concern to

the cathedral chapter nor to the commission of historical

monuments in Le Mans.21 Nevertheless, a close examination

of the front of the tapestry provides evidence of this restora-

tion and of the state of the tapestry prior to his intervention.

The junctures at which the two sections described in

Joubert's notes were detached and resewn can be seen from

the front of the tapestry. First, the piece depicting the torture

of a saint was moved and placed before Protasius's decapita- tion. On the right-hand side, this juncture is not apparent; on

the left, however, Joubert did not attach the two sections,

leaving the break visible (fig. 4). Second, according to his

notes, the two saints' meeting with Nolin, provost of Milan, was moved to a position before the saint's torture and after the

angel's visit to Gervasius and Protasius. This juncture can

also be seen from the front of the tapestry (fig. 5). On the left-

hand side of the panel, a vertical line extends from the top, down the right side of the column, through the titulus to the

bottom of the tapestry. Joining these panels introduced formal and logical

inconsistencies into the tapestry. The woven narrative is

structured by a series of pictorial devices (columns, trees, or

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architectural structures) that signal transitions from one episode to the next. In no instance are two such pictorial devices

positioned next to each other. In Joubert's arrangement, how-

ever, the column on the right-hand side of the saint's meeting with Nolin is followed by another column (containing a well) on the left-hand side of the saint's torture (fig. 4). And the movement of the scene depicting Gervasius and Protasius

meeting with Nolin contradicts an internal logic of the narrative. The scene that precedes Nolin deciding to put the saints in prison depicts the saints already in prison, and the scenes after it show their martyrdom.

Despite these inconsistencies, the restoration created a continuous sequence of events from what was once a group of

fragments. The tapestry does not contain any obvious narrative gaps, and the divisions maintained between individual sections do not disrupt transitions from one episode to the next. The Life of Gervasius and Protasius could once again span the choir above the canon's stalls. But Joubert's notes document that this apparently complete object was the prod- uct of his particular interpretation of the woven text. In the restoration process he excluded other possible readings of the

tapestry that also might have made sense.

Joubert's notes provide the only evidence for the organization of the tapestry prior to his intervention. In the previous version the martyrdom of Gervasius "begins" the story of the lives of the saints. The martyrdom of Christian saints is not

only the most important event in their lives, it is also considered a spiritual birth. In a saintly biography then, the death of the saint could be considered a beginning. The placement of this scene at the start of the tapestry would have emphasized its relative significance and underscored its spiritual meaning. At the earliest traceable stage in its history, events in the woven vita of Gervasius and Protasius were seen in this order.

Xavier Barbier de Montault's three-part article in the Bulletin Monumental of 1899 proposed a third ordering of events. The author was aware of Joubert's reconstruction of the series, having seen the tapestry in Angers and then later when it was returned to Le Mans.22 In the article, however, he describes his alternate order as if it were the actual state of the tapestry.

Like Joubert, Barbier de Montault ordered the events in the vita of Gervasius and Protasius according to his particular conception of the story. In a similar fashion to Joubert's

diagram, his photographic reproductions divided the tapestry into a series of individual units. Rather than beginning with the death of the saints' parents and the donation of their

property to the poor, Barbier de Montault introduced his version of the story with the saints' baptisms. He then placed the death of their parents, the beginning of Joubert's narra-

tive, after Nero sends the saints to prison. The story con-

cluded, as in Joubert's telling, with the saints' martyrdoms, elevation, and veneration.

Barbier de Montault did not provide any justification for

his narrative choices. A footnote suggests that this order corrected what he considered to be logical inconsistencies in

Joubert's order of events.23 And baptism, defined in a medieval context as rebirth, could justify his choice of beginning for the narrative. It is impossible to ascertain whether he followed a preexisting textual source or relied on the symbolic implications of baptism for his interpretation of the

story. In either case his article provides an alternate reading to the woven vita by Joubert. Barbier de Montaulh's order was

adopted for the most recent exhibition of the Life of Gervasius and Protasius.24

Whether or not Joubert's reconstruction is the most

probable reading of the tapestry, once he had established his order for the events and carried out the changes on the

tapestry, the other possible combinations were no longer accessible to its audience. At the time Joubert's definition of restoration was highly contested, and as we have seen, his

ordering of the events was challenged.25 Nevertheless, Jou- bert's reconstruction of the Life of Gervasius and Protasius became the authoritative version of the woven vita.

Joubert's technique of restoration, carried out by a

group of lay women from Angers, erased all signs of the earlier ordering of the tapestry and excluded other readings of the story. Medieval narrative texts and images do not neces-

sarily begin with the earliest historical event nor end with the latest.26 Furthermore, the liturgical ceremonies, in conjunc- tion with which this tapestry was seen until the eighteenth century, emphasized the symbolic and typological relation-

ship between events over their placement on a fixed chrono-

logical grid. Within this logic, the alternate interpretations of Joubert's version of the Life of Gervasius and Protasius also make sense.

Joubert's contribution to our current perception of this

tapestry and the products of the other restorations for which he was responsible must be taken into account before any discussion of the narrative structure of these woven stories can take place. In more general terms, such a critical study demonstrates how restoration, a historically defined interpre- tive process, has reshaped art history's objects of study.-

Appendix Louis Joubert's organization of the Life of Gervasius and Protasius SECTION A

1. Death of Vital 2. Death of Valery 3. Gervasius and Protasius donate their possessions to poor

SECTION B

4. Baptism of Gervasius and Protasius 5. Miracle performed by the saints 6. Saints build chapel 7. Nero's soldiers arrest saints 8. First meeting with Nero

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SECTION C

9. Lightning strikes Nero 10. Nero tempts Gervasius and Protasius with fame and

fortune 11. Gervasius and Protasius sent to prison 12. Angel visits the saints in prison 13. Gervasius and Protasius sent to Nolin, provost of Milan

SECTION D

14. Martyr of Gervasius 15. Martyr of Protasius; burial of the saints

SECTION E

16. Paul appears to Ambrose in a dream (stolen during restoration of 1857-58)

17. Elevation of relics of Gervasius and Protasius 18. Donor portrait

Notes I wish to thank Antoine Ruais, Conservateur des Antiquites et Objets d'Art de Maine et Loire, for his generous help at the Episcopal Archives in Angers. 1. Louis Joubert to the Bishop of Le Mans, Jean-Jacques Nanquette, July 8, 1858, OP. cath. 9.8, Episcopal Archives, Angers. 2. For a clear statement of Viollet-le-Duc's position, see his article "Restauration," in Dictionnaire raissond de l'architecture franiaise (Paris: A. Morel, 1866), 8:14-15, 22-24. Studies that relativize his definition and provide a range of the restoration

projects during this period are Paul L6on, La Vie des mronumentsfranrais, destruction, restauration (Paris: A. and J. Picard, 1951), 371-410; and Bruno Foucart, "Viollet-le-

Duc et las Restauration," in Les Lieux de ,w?moire, ed. Pierre Nora (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), 2:620-45. 3. On the implications of and alternatives to nineteenth-century editing of medieval texts, see Lee Patterson, Negotiating the Past: The Historical Understanding of Medieval Literature (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 77-93; Bernard Cerquiglini, Eloge de la variante, histoire critique de la philologie (Paris: Editions du

Seuil, 1989), 73-79: Howard Bloch, "New Philology and Old French," Speculum 65,

no. 1 (1990): 38-58; and Suzanne Fleischmann, "Philology, Linguistics, and the Discourse of the Medieval Text," Speculum 65, no. 1 (1990): 19-37. 4. Information concerning Joubert is scarce. Born in 1799 in Le Mans, he was ordained a priest in 1821 and became honorary canon of Angers and custodian of its cathedral in 1846. He died in Beaulieu sur Layon in 1873. Joubert's obituary appeared in La Semaine dufiddle dAngers, September 30, 1873. 5. In addition to the Apocalypse series, about which I am currently preparing a study, Joubert restored the other tapestries of the cathedral of Angers including three saints' lives series (Saints Maurille, Maurice, and Saturnin). To finance these restoration

projects, Joubert bought and sold tapestries. He was responsible for the restoration of two other tapestries from the cathedral of Le Mans, the Life of Julien and a series of

portraits of the apostles and church fathers. 6. See Jules Joseph Guiffrey, Histoire g n0rale de la tapisserie (Paris: Socidt4 ano-

nyme de publications pdriodiques, 1880), 1:39-40; Xavier Barbier de Montault, "Les

tapisseries des saints Gervais et Protais la cathtdrale du Mans," Bulletin Monumen- tal (1899): 209-17, 240-48, 311-52; and Heinrich G6bel, Wandteppiche (Leipzig: Klinkhardt und Bierman, 1928), 2:300-301.

7. Joubert also employed a Mine Nau starting in 1854. See Antoine Ruais, "Les

Tapisseries du tresor de la cath6drale d'Angers au XIXe sicle," in Monwires de

rAcaddmie des Sciences: Belles-lettres et Arts dAngers (Angers, 1977-78), 121. Al-

though the receipts of payment to Bazantay, Logerais, and Naui are preserved at the

Episcopal Archives, no information is available on the background or careers of these women. The same three were involved in the restoration of the Life of Gervasius and Protasius. 8. Joubert, February 1, 1849, OP. cath. 9.1, Episcopal Archives. 9. Albin published two short studies on the tapestry: La Semaine dufidle: Revue du culte et des bonnes oeuvres, June 17, 1865, 478-80; and "Notes sur les tapisseries de Saint Gervais et Protais, martyrs, A la cathedrale du Mans," Bulletin Monumental

(1871): 650-51. 10. Between September 15, 1857, and January 4, 1858, while the tapestry was briefly in storage in Le Mans, the section depicting Paul's appearance to Ambrose in a dream was stolen. It was never recovered (Albin to Joubert, February 23, 1858, OP. cath.

9.8, Episcopal Archives. 11. Joubert to the Bishop of Le Mans, July 8, 1858, OP. cath. 9.8, Episcopal Archives.

12. Joubert's characterization of the Life ofGervasius andProtasius before his restoration as "incomprehensible" is similar to his description of the Angers Apocalypse as "without order." See Louis Joubert, Rapport sur les tapisseries de la cathedrale de Saint-Maurice, M6moires de la socidt6 nationale d'agriculture, sciences, et arts

d'Angers, 2d ser., vol. 2 (Angers, 1851), 106. Joubert's project was to make sense of and to order these tapestries. 13. A classic example of such reversal is Edward the Confessor's burial, which

precedes his death in the Bayeux tapestry. 14. The titulus reads, "Comn . . . et le fait batre descorgees tout. . . entes. 15. "J'en ai numerotd les diverses parties avant d'y toucher; car c'est qu'il me serait facile de replacer dans le meme ordre les St. sujets quelles repr6sentent, si cet ordre toutefois ne blessait en quelques endroits soit les r?gles de l'art, soit mmie de la chronologie. . . or comme il est &vident que l'ordre v6ritable a ktd interverti, je desir en adopter un autre. J'y suis autoris6 par le texte m4me de l'Apocalypse." Joubert to

Bishop of Angers, OP. cath. 9.1, Episcopal Archives. 16. In addition to The Golden Legend (Jacques de Voragine, Legenda Aurea, ed. T. Graesse [Osnabriick: Otto Zeller, 1969], 354), some of the events depicted in the

tapestry can be found in a Le Mans compilation of saints' lives ("Passio sanctorum martirum Gervasii et Prothasii et parentum eorum Vitalis et Valerie et

Ursicini... fol., 112v MS 217, MWdiatheque Louis Aragon, Le Mans), and the "Inventio et Passio Auct. Pseudo-Ambrosio," in J. Bollandus and G. Henschenius, Acta Sanctorum . . . editio novissima, ed. J. Carnandet et al. (Paris: Palm6, 1863- ), 3:821-22, s.v. Juin. 17. "Si le no 1 bis peut et doit s'appliquer au martyr de St Gervais plut6t qu'a celui de St Vital, ce no 1 bis se mettra avant le no 14." Joubert, undated notes, O.P.

cath. 9.8,

Episcopal Archives. (If the number 1 bis can and should refer to the martyr of Saint Gervasius rather than to that of Saint Vital, then number 1 bis would be placed before number 14.) 18. The syllables "ant quilz" completed the meaning of the titulus that reads: "Comment Dieu evoia ung ange reconforter les d' sais en les enhort (ant) (quilz) feusset fermes en la foy et q neron seroit par eulx confondu." (How God sent an angel to comfort the said saints, urging them to stay firm in their faith and that Nero would be overcome by them.) 19. "les restaurations sont ex6cuties avec uine perfection telle, que l'oeil le plus exerc6 ne peut distinguer les parties neuves des parties anciennes" (the restorations are carried out with such perfection that the most practiced eve cannot distinguish between the new and the old parts); Joubert to the Bishop of Le Mans, July 8, 1858, OP. cath 9.8, Episcopal Archives. 20. That his restoration was documented is more likely due to the diligence of Anger's episcopal archivists than to Joubert's concern to record the process. 21. Unfortunately, no photographs were taken of the back of the tapestry at the time of the two restorations this century by the Maison Aubrv. In 1966 and 1984 the backing of parts of the tapestry was removed, and these sections were cleaned. 22. Barbier de Montault, "Les tapisseries," 211. 23. "Au Mans, je constate cette interversion: Neron foudroy6, refus d'abjurer la foi,

prison, visite de l'ange. Le texte mame du 10e panneau, qui d(clare que Neron sera confondu, oblige A faire venir A la suite et non avant, le chatiment de persdcuteur." (Iin Le Mans, I note this inversion: Nero struck by lightning, refusal to renounce the

faith, the angel's visit. The text of the tenth panel itself, which announces that Nero will be

overcome, makes it necessary to place the punishment of the persecutor after and not

before.) Ibid., 254, n. 1. 24. Les Trdsors des Eglises de France, exh. cat., 2d ed. (Paris: Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques, 1965), cat. no. 240. 25. In 1852 Prosper MWrim6e, inspector general of the Monuments Historiques, stated that if Joubert's project to "remplacer les parties de ces tapisseries qui seraient

ddtruites, d'en refaire des bordures, et de compl6ter des sujets," (replace the

destroyed sections of the tapestries, to redo the edges,

and to fill in gaps in the subject matter) is permitted, 'il ferait perdre A ces restes precieux toit

l'intertt qu ils ont encore" (it would result in these precious fragments losing all the interest that they still have). He also said that -contrairement au svstme de Mr l'abbi Joubert,

)Mtrimbe) serait d'avis de n'admettre qu'une

seule reparation qui corsisterait i doubler de forte toile les tapisseries. . ... Tute autre reparation ne Ipolrrait-etre'

qu'extrt~mement dangereuse" (in opposition to the system of Father Jouhert, hii• adIvice

would be to permit a single repair consisting in backing the tapestries with a heavv

cloth. . . . All other intervention could only be extremely dangerous): see report bv

Mdrimbe, May 14,

1852, Angers file, Archives du Ministare

(le la Culture, Musde de

la Tapisserie, Paris. Althouth Mdrimee's opposition resulted in a reduction of govern-

ment funding for the project, it was not until 1887 that the Monuments Historiques could actually intervene in the church's property. Joubert (ontirned his restorations. 26. The version of the Lifr of Gervqsius and Protasius in the letter of the I)seud(o-

Ambrose, for instance, begins with Paul's appearance to Ambrose and the latter's

discovery of the bodies of the twin saints. See J. Bollandus and G. Hlenschenius, Auta

Sanctorum, 3:821-22, s.v. Juin.

L AU RA WE IG E RT received her Ph.D. from Northwestern

University in June with a dissertation on the narrative structure and liturgical use of late medieval choir tapestries.

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