The Golden Scabs of Saint Job

The Golden Scabs of Saint Job – EXPLORING THE SAINT JOB MEDIEVAL BADGES FROM WEZEMAAL (BE)

This series of three blog posts explores the pilgrim badges of Saint Job from Wezemaal, Belgium. This series considers these badges as a form of adaptation, informed by biblical, legendary, and literary accounts of Job that were popular in the medieval imagination. The overarching question that inspires these blog posts is: Why was Job the only Old Testament figure to be venerated by pilgrims as a saint? 

My name is Hannah Gardiner – I am a master’s student in literary studies, a research assistant for the SSHRC Insight Grant on medieval badges, and the writer/researcher of this Job blog series. 

Part One – The Medieval Figure of Job

The Book of Job is part of Hebrew Scripture and the Christian Old Testament. It is an example of wisdom literature, which explores questions of suffering, justice, and the relationship between God and humankind. 

In scripture, Job is a righteous, godly man who lives a materially and socially affluent life until God permits the Satan (meaning, ‘the adversary’) to take everything away from him. Job’s children, servants, and livestock die, and he is afflicted with a skin disease: “[Satan] struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes” (Job 2.7-8).

In his suffering, Job is subjected to the questioning of friends seeking to discover what offense Job has committed to deserve this punishment from God. Job defends his innocence and remains faithful to God, though he regrets his own life. After much affliction, Job asks God to explain his suffering to him, and God replies by questioning Job over the course of four chapters, beginning with the lines: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” (Job 38.4).  At the end of the story, God restores Job’s life and fortunes two-fold.  

Our investigation of Saint Job begins at Sint-Martinuskerk (Church of Saint Martin) in the village of Wezemaal, which is located in the northern half of Belgium. It once housed a medieval, miracle-working wooden statue of Saint Job that bore the Flemish inscription Godt gaf Godt namp [God giveth, God taketh away] and that attracted medieval pilgrims. Several Saint Job pilgrim badges from this site also remain, and along with them an interesting question: what sets Job apart such that he became the only Old Testament figure to be venerated by pilgrims as a saint with a large trace in medieval badge history?

Historian Bart Minnen has shown that the earliest known badges from Wezemaal depict the wonder-working statue of Job in the Church of Saint Martin. Most surviving Saint Job pilgrim badges, however, feature a different image. Most show Job sitting on a dunghill surrounded by a musician or musicians. 

Pewter badge, Job covered in boils and sitting on the dunghill offering musicians around him a coin with inscription S. JOB TOT WE[SEMALE] GOD GAF GOD NAM, eyes, Wezemaal, Belgium, 1450-1499, found in Nieuwlande, the Netherlands, 72 x 43 mm. The Van Beuningen Family Collection, inv. 0951 (Kunera 00235). Photograph courtesy of The Van Beuningen Family Collection.

Modern viewers curious about this scene will find no references to musicians in the Old Testament Book of Job. (The apocryphal text, the Testament of Job, an elaboration on the Book of Job, is likely the original source for the idea of musicians. In it, Job’s daughters were the musicians who at the end of his life understand the heavenly music of the angels descending for Job’s soul.) However, Job and musicians were a familiar scene in the late Middle Ages in a wide variety of contexts, from medieval paintings and Books of Hours to plays.  The late fifteenth-century altarpiece shown below serves as an example. Three musicians playing wind instruments appear twice: in the lower right-hand corner they serenade the naked saint; centred in the middle background, they appear with a woman clothed in blue. In the lower-right hand corner, Job can be seen using his left hand to touch his skin, while his right hand offers something to the musician. 

The Master of the Legend of Saint Catherine, Triptych of the Life of Job, around 1485/1490. Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, Germany, inv. WRM 0412. Photograph by Wolfgang F. Meier. Photograph courtesy of Rheinisches Bildarchiv Cologne, d029744, permalink.

Literature of the Middles Ages also included musicians in its adaptations of Job’s the story. The late-fifteenth century English poem, “The Life of Holy Job,” weaves together biblical and literary accounts:

This sore syk man syttng on this foule Dongehill
There came mynstrelles before him, playing meryly
Money had he non to reward aftyr his will
But gave them the brode [spread out] Scabbes of his sore body 
Whiche turned vunto pure golde, as sayth the story. 

This passage clarifies what is happening is the painting: Job has only one gift to offer the musicians in return for their serenade: the scabs from the sores on his body. These, however, miraculously turn to gold. In the middle of the altarpiece, the musicians hold out their hands to Job’s wife, the woman in blue, to show what they’ve been given. The background illustrates the restoration of Job’s life: the livestock flocking back into the gates and the chest of gold seated in the middle of the room full of people. No longer is Job afflicted by the grotesque demons that tortured him as he remained pious, as seen in the front left-hand corner of the altarpiece.

This altarpiece, while extraordinary, is certainly not the only one in the Middle Ages illustrating this scene from the well-known medieval legend of Job. Most of the Job badges from Wezemaal also picture this scene; some badges even resemble the golden scabs of Job’s body. What clues might this scene offer into understanding Job’s sainthood? We will continue answering this question in the coming blog posts with knowledge of the medieval literary imagination of the figure of Job in mind.

Works Cited

Balentine, Samuel E. Have You Considered My Servant Job?: Understanding the Biblical Archetype of Patience (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2015).

Harkins, Franklin and Aaron Canty. “Introduction,” in A Companion to Job in the Middle Ages, eds. Franklin Harkins and Aaron Canty (Brill Academic Publishers, 2016), pp. 1–10. 

Hendrikse, Henk. “Een pelgrimsinsigne van Sint-Job uit Scherpenisse,” n.d., https://www.zeeuwseankers.nl/verhaal/een-pelgrimsinsigne-van-sint-job-uit-scherpenisse

Meyer, Kathi. “St. Job as Patron Saint of Music,” The Art Bulletin, no. 36:1 (1954): pp. 21–31. 

Minnen, Bart. “‘Den heyligen Sant al in Brabant.’ The Church of St Martin in Wezemaal and the devotion to St Job 1000-2000 – Retrospective. The fluctuations of a devotion” [English summary of: Den Heyligen Sant Al in Brabant: De Sint-Martinuskerk van Wezemaal en de cultus van Sint Job 1000-2000 (Averbode, 2011).]

Written by Hannah Gardiner. Edited by Dr. Ann Marie Rasmussen.