Holy Puppets: The Double Nature of the Medieval Bust Reliquary

Abstract

AThe essence of puppet performance is its balance between animacy and inanimacy,the artificial and the natural. This article proposes the framework of puppetry as a means of understanding the transcendent potential of a group of medieval reliquary busts from Cologne. In both appearance and manipulation, these sculpted busts blurred the boundaries between life and death, much like puppets. I argue that the dual mimesis of these busts, both visual and kinetic, enhanced their theological purpose as vessels for the bones of saints, and points to a medieval interest in the productive paradoxes of representation. Through their puppet-like hybridity, these sculptures bridged the distance between humans and the divine for medieval viewers. The article concludes by proposing a parallel between the temporary lives of puppets and the hybrid nature of artificial intelligence, suggesting that medieval conceptions of mimesis can provide a means of thinking through twenty-first century technology.