Vézelay, with its astonishing triple portal, luminous interior, and exquisitely carved, inventive capitals is a monument that all historians of medieval art must address at some point in their careers, whether as students, teachers, or researchers. It is a challenging and difficult subject. In The Nave Sculpture of Vézelay, Kirk Ambrose offers a reconsideration of the 135 nave capitals, less studied than the portal sculpture in part because of the problems they pose. The capitals vividly represent subjects from the Old Testament, saints’ lives, and classical poetry, but many subjects cannot be firmly identified. Furthermore, for all the care in the capitals’ production, their installation resists attempts to identify a systematic arrangement. Ambrose, therefore, eschews traditional approaches to a “program,” a unifying concept, in favor of characterizing “monastic viewing”—the ways in which the images may have resonated for the monks who inhabited the church. His emphasis on the community rather than on pilgrims opens the discussion to the local and specific context of Vézelay itself. The study is selective, focusing on gesture, hagiography, and vegetal ornament.

In a brief introduction, Ambrose presents the problem of “inscrutable juxtapositions” in the installation of the capitals. In the past, the subjects of the capitals were identified by painted inscriptions, hence, probably not as inscrutable as they are now. One of the reasons that iconographic coherence is difficult to demonstrate is because the capitals seem to have been carved avant la pose and, in his opinion, installed without consideration of a specific sequence. Although previous attempts to identify unifying concepts for the images are rejected, the “central concern of this book” is to explore “how the nave capitals of Vézelay cohered for medieval viewers”; thus, the intent continues to be a search for meaning. Ambrose analyzes intersections between monastic practices and the images in the sculpture. For his method, he acknowledges studies of monastic art that have been generated since the important issue of Gesta XII (1973) dedicated to the medieval cloister. Among his primary sources are the mid-twelfth-century sermons by Julian of Vézelay and a breviary produced there ca. 1300, valuable since most of the library was destroyed in a fire.

Chapter 1 provides the historical background of the Basilica of Vézelay. Ambrose argues that the church built over the course of the twelfth century, with the nave ca. 1106–40, was conceived more for monastic use than for pilgrims, since it was the setting for the daily liturgy and processions on feast days. The breviary of 1300 follows closely the eleventh- and twelfth-century lectionaries from Cluny; therefore Vézelay clearly sought to emulate the mother house in its rituals. Despite housing relics of the Magdalen, the church does not include as many images of her as might be expected, nor were her relics easily accessible to pilgrims. Mary Magdalen’s absence from the nave sculpture and contemporary documents are one of the reasons that Ambrose prefers to emphasize monastic culture rather than the Magdalen’s cult.

Chapter 2, “Gestures as Bearers of Meaning,” is one of the book’s best sections. The dramatic gestures of figures on Burgundian sculptures of this period traditionally elicit comment, but of a generalized nature. Ambrose posits that the monastic community, even more than other contemporaries, would have been highly attuned to a language of gesture. This is because the Benedictine Rule proscribes speaking at various times of day, with the result that hand signals constitute an important means of communication. Several contemporary accounts document the vitality of gestural collocution in monasteries. The application of such gestures to the historiated capitals makes their content easily accessible even to members of the community who could not read. Innovative gestures in representations of Adam at the Fall serve as examples. At Vézelay and at Cluny, Adam touches his chest (pectus), interpreted as foreboding his sin (peccatum). Subtle variations of this gesture modulate its sense, including “comprehension,” “infirmity,” and “confession,” all of which are applicable to Adam. Ambrose’s rich discussion blends visual and textual analysis for Temptation scenes as well as other capitals and the central tympanum of the narthex.

Chapter 3, “Sacred Presence,” discusses the rationale for the selection of hagiographic capitals in the nave. Certain saints are obvious within a Benedictine context; others had cults within the region. Their representation in the nave constituted a local sacred geography. Chapter 4, “Ornaments of History,” discusses the foliate capitals and decorative moldings in the nave. Where some see no meaning, others see consistency of form between different houses as an expression of alliance. Ambrose agrees with those who understand medieval ornament as conveying completeness and utility, adding that variety was another important factor. A number of interpretive possibilities were open to the viewer via biblical and patristic texts, and the wealth of possibilities would have been welcome in a culture that valued discursive thinking. The application of vegetation to the historiated capitals associates them with the foliate decoration, shaping the experience of the viewer.

Chapter 5 treats “Hair Pulling and Decapitation: The Uses of Repetition.” An unusually large number of the nave capitals, approximately fifteen per cent, depict decapitation, hair pulling, or both. Hair pulling is frequently mentioned in the context of violence, both in secular and monastic literature, so perhaps the image was meant “as a kind of visual shorthand for violence.” Ambrose rejects suggestions that such images reflected contemporary circumstances such as the ongoing power struggle between the abbey and the town, because that “relegates to art the function of a rather passive mimesis.” Whether or not such mimesis is passive is debatable; this chapter is the least satisfying because no rationale is provided for these scenes. The decapitations, he notes, occur only in Old Testament scenes, although there is violence aplenty in others. The unconvincing possibility is posed that the decapitation capitals include anti-Semitic attitudes among their many implications. Kristin Sazama, on the other hand, maintains that these scenes affirm the monastery’s right to wield the sword of justice (“The Assertion of Monastic and Spiritual Authority in the Romanesque Sculpture of Sainte-Madeleine at Vézelay,” PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1995, 98, 185–97).

The main thrust of Ambrose’s theory is brought home in the closing to chapter 5. A limited repertory of gestures and actions in the figural sculptures results in numerous repetitions in these capital compositions. The repetitious poses can be seen as the stable design element that is then varied by costume, gender, etc. A monk who regularly passed through the nave would have the opportunity, education, and acculturation to find the common points in the capitals—gestures and actions—and by comparing them could create his own meaning. This is the key to Ambrose’s “monastic viewing”: the accumulated associations function like language, with meaningful phrases created by the individual, and significance that is malleable.

Although his stated purpose is to explore “historically specific ways this ensemble cohered for medieval viewers,” an aim accomplished up to a point, the book does not fulfill the grand promise to “change the way we think about the monastic church of Vézelay and its sculptures,” put forth in the text on the back cover. This is not to undervalue the author’s accomplishment, but, rather, to demur from the practice of overstating what has actually been done. This is a very fine study of certain aspects of the sculpture at Vézelay, but the methodology—to focus on the cenobitic context—is one that has become widespread among many who research monastic art. In a different vein, a few words on the illustrations are necessary, because many are illegible or excessively pixilated. One does not know what to think about the causes of this problem, given the difficulties of photography in situ, but even the cover photograph is out of focus. The text would also have benefited from closer editing. In contrast, the pages are nicely laid out and the paper is of high quality. The scholarly apparatus is evident in the book’s organization. An appendix listing the nave capitals and a bibliography for each one is valuable.

Ambrose provides a stimulating reading of the seemingly disordered capitals in the nave of Vézelay. His discourse is erudite, insightful, and makes good use of the visual and literary material available for the monument. Monastic Viewing identifies ways in which these twelfth-century capitals may have been seen by the monks. On the other hand, “monastic viewing” need not contradict the socio-historical interpretations of other scholars. In fact, a fuller reading would integrate both models; the author states that his is intended as a complement to previous studies. Ambrose’s contribution is an appreciation of how the capitals might have cohered for the community that constructed and used the nave.