Interpreting and Misinterpreting the Appearances of Age in Two Painted Processional Banners

What is it about?

New Dating of Two Old Painted Processional Banners

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Why is it important?

The processional banners now in Bergen and Växjö belonged to rural churches at Lavik (western Norway) and Hemmesjö (southern Sweden) before they were transferred to newly formed museums in the nineteenth century. Since this time, historians have treasured them both for their age and rarity. The two-sided painted textile in Växjö is one of seven banners to survive in Sweden, while that in Bergen is the only medieval banner of its kind in Norway. The banner from Lavik has furthermore been preserved with a pole. Given the scarcity of medieval banners in Scandinavia, art historians, archaeologists and curators have devoted considerable efforts to contextualising them, their iconography and their uses during processions and feast days. Nevertheless, and for so many reasons, past publications miscommunicate the features of aged paintings on textile and underestimate the significance of their physical condition. This chapter considers how scholars have relied on appearance to date them since the 1820s, well before recently generated analytical data for the banners and the pole. These data offer a foundation for adjusting current opinions on their dates, which up to now have relied on appearances of surfaces, style and iconography alone. However, the further the investigations have progressed and the more evidence that the research group has amassed, the more puzzling their appearances have become. This work therefore offers a springboard for future radiocarbon dating of lead-containing colours.

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