Sacral Performance & Extended Royal Bodies in the Ottonian Empire: The Case of Henry II & Kunigunde (1002-1024)

The dissertation examines how artistic materials—their form, aesthetics, symbolism—transmit concepts of divinity and power across media and iconographies. I investigate preciousness in royal portraiture to reveal how ritual functioned as an engine for transformation and the basis of power in medieval society. Three objects featuring portraits and commissioned by Ottonian King Henry II and Queen Kunigunde (r. 1002-1024) are the focus of the study. They donated these objects to cathedrals—two manuscripts to Bamberg in 1012 and an antependium to Basel in 1019. The project argues that their portraits integrated references to the aesthetics and cultural semiotics of treasury objects to make legible the rulers' transformation during their coronation as king and queen in 1002 and then Holy Roman Emperor and Empress in 1014. This study details how these rulers adapted visual practices used to represent Christ and his heavenly court to fashion themselves as living holy matter. Analyzed from the perspective of the bishops of Bamberg and Basel, the dissertation examines how the power and ideology of an empire is disseminated and reinforced locally. The power of Henry II and Kunigunde was constituted in portraiture by adapting the transmutative, sacral symbolism of preciousness into their own iconography.