The Origin Story of a Distinctive Memento Mori Vestment Design From the 1600's

The Kremsmünster Chasuble is an early seventeenth century vestment from the Benedictine Abbey of Kremsmünster in Austria. It is well known in online circles, passing from place to place, no doubt because of its distinctive, one might even say bold display of memento mori -- a full fledged skeleton, representing death, leaning on a scythe with symbols of worldly and ecclesiastical power and pursuits at its feet, all surrounded by a border that includes skull and crossbones, hour glasses (tempus fugit) and more scythes. It is a striking and unique vestment to say the least.

The Kremsmünster Chasuble, circa 1630

While the design is indeed unique, it is not the sole instance of the use of this design historically speaking;  there is another, another very similar and only slightly different iteration of it that I would draw your attention to. 

This particular chasuble is dated by Kulturraum Tirol to 1623, a date we can be certain of as the vestment bears a dedicatory inscription noting this date as well as the donor.

The Stams-Von Freiberg Chasuble

We are fortunate in this instance to also have been furnished with a look at the front of the chasuble.

Detail from the front of the chasuble

(And for those wondering, the maniple and stole include a skull and cross bones on them.) 

From a design perspective, the primary differences between the two vestments can be found in the two areas: (1) the worldly apparel that appears at the feet of the figures of Death and (2) the images found in the respective border designs of each (which also have different galloons). 

While the base of the Kremsmünster chasuble includes symbols of both ecclesiastical and worldly power (e.g. mitres, tiaras, croziers, crowns, armour and instruments -- the former of which make sense for a chasuble that was situated within a Benedictine Abbey), the Stams-Von Freiberg Chasuble contains imagery instead of military standards and armour all bearing the heraldic arms of the house of the donor, the Marquardus de Freiberg. In that regard, one wonders if this chasuble might not have been used in a private family chapel. 

Base and border of the Stams-Von Freiberg Chasuble

Base and border of the Kremsmünster Chasuble,

The respective borders for each chasuble likewise share both similarities as well as differences. While the Kremsmünster Chasuble incorporates skull and crossbones in its border design, the Stams-Von Freiberg Chasuble does not. Both do however use the same cluster of crossed instruments and implements at the very bottom of the chasuble and both also have the hourglass.  Further, we see baskets of fruit and other imagery replacing Kremsmünster's more ecclesiastically oriented border designs. 

The core of the chasuble itself is, of course, its distinctive skeleton, a design which is surely taken from an engraving found in Andreas Vesalius' 1543 study of human anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica:

Engraving from Andreas Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica, 1543

Of course, the implement the human skeleton leans on in Vesalius' illustration has been exchanged in our chasubles for a scythe, but one can clearly see how the skeleton on each chasuble corresponds closely to this engraving, which evidently must have been used as the original design inspiration. 

If that is the origin of the core design, that yet leaves us with the question of the geographic origins of these works. Obviously these similarities cannot be coincidental and what seems to be the most likely and reasonable explanation here is that this design must have been one that came out of one and the same workshop, produced and or repurposed for at least two of its clients, customizing the design for each -- in one case producing a design for the Marquardus de Freiberg with his family's heraldry and military attachments, while in the other instance producing one for the abbot and/or Abbey of Kremsmünster.  

As to where that workshop might have been situated, Kulturraum Tirol notes that their "research on comparable pieces in Lower Austrian monasteries has revealed that such funerary chasubles often originated in Augsburg" (Bavaria), which at that time was indeed an important centre for the production of ecclesiastical vestments and furnishings.

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