Holy Land Lily Crucifix of the Canonesses of Ekkergem. No U.S. copies.
[Miraculous Crucifix of Ekkergem] / [Nuns]. Abregé de l’Histoire du Crucifix qui repose dans le Cloître de Deynse sur Ackergem. Priere a Jesus-Christ crucifié. S.l. [Ghent?]: s.n., s.a. [18th century]. 8vo [15.0 x 9.0 cm], 4 pp., with full-page engraving and a woodcut initial. Folds with closed separation, narrow margins, edge wear, stains, toning.
Very rare (no U.S. copies) 18th-century French-language pamphlet describing and illustrating the now-lost Crucifix of Ackergem (Ekkergem), a miraculous image imported from Jerusalem, kept in a cloister of the Canonesses Regular (Klooster van Deynze), and partially plucked of its vegetal hair by the souvenir-seeking faithful.
It is useful here to quote the relevant text of the pamphlet (in translation): “Abridged History of the Crucifix which rests in the Cloister of Deynse on Ackergem: At the start of the 14th century, near the city of Jerusalem, a beautiful fleur-de-lis was seen to grow, which, because of its beauty, was cut with its stem, and within the stem was found the True Image of the Crucifix, which was brought in 1460 by two pilgrims to the Cloister of the Canonesses Regular in the city of Deynse: But that Cloister having been destroyed by iconoclasts in 1515, it was then moved to the cloister that the said nuns founded at Ackergem in Ghent, where it is venerated by the people, who confess to having received much admirable help and consolation from Almighty God.
“This cross is the length of an ordinary hand, and in the Crucified, all the limbs are perfectly formed. The right arm is slightly raised. The mouth is open. It has been noted that the hair and beard grew until the year 1626, and on the left side, the hair is much thinner, plucked out by those who, out of devotion, have removed some hairs, and this is why it is no longer entrusted to any unknown person. The body is nailed with three nails, without a crown of thorns on the head, except that the remaining stem visible on the head could be taken as the crown. On the left cheek, there is a mark representing the blow that Jesus Christ received in the house of Anne from a wicked servant. On the right side is represented the wound that Jesus Christ received from a soldier’s lance, and there is also a cloth that begins at the loins and hangs down to the knees.”
In his 1639 Terrae Sanctae Elucidatio, Francesco Quaresmio discussed and illustrated the Ekkergem Crucifix alongside two other miraculous plant-based crucifixes said to have originated in the Holy Land (those of Valladolid & Maastricht). Lea Debernardi has recently examined these passages. She notes, “To a modern eye, the engraving of the Ghent crucifix published by Quaresmio, as well as the appearance of the image still preserved in Valladolid, show beyond doubt that these are objects made from authentic portions of plants, but whose shape has been artificially enhanced in order to increase their resemblance to representations of the crucified Christ. This way of counterfeiting natural images appears to have been practised to some degree in Europe at the time in which the two crucifixes came to light. Quaresmio dates the finding of the Ghent image to the first decades of the sixteenth century, although other sources suggest that it had been venerated in Belgium since 1460” (L. Debernardi, “Finding Christ in Roots and Seeds: Crucifixes Produced by Nature in Quaresmio’s Terrae Sanctae Elucidatio,” Mediterranean Historical Review, vol. 38, no. 2 [2023], p. 259).
In our pamphlet, the engraving of the Ekkergem Crucifix shows a Christ, who, while bedraggled, is rather less plant-like than in the image published by Quaresmio, but the vegetal origins of the Crucifix are reinforced on our image by the addition of the Bible verses, “Ego flos campi & lilium convallium” (Song of Solomon 2:1; “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys”) and “Ego Sum Radix Et genus David” (Apoc. 22:16; “I am the root and the offspring of David”).
Also included in our pamphlet is a first-person “Prayer to the Crucified Jesus Christ,” which dwells on His wounds.
OCLC and KVK locate copies of this pamphlet the University of Ghent and in the Thijs Collection at the University of Antwerp (which also has a Dutch language version of the item: “Kort verhael. Van het Crucifix rustende in ‘t Clooster van Deynse op Ackergem,” printed by Michiel de Goesin [1709 – 1761], with the imprint “Tot Gendt, by; Michiel Goesin, recht over den Raedt, in ‘t groen Cruys”).
*L. Debernardi, “Finding Christ in roots and seeds: Crucifixes produced by nature in Quaresmio’s Terrae Sanctae Elucidatio,” Mediterranean Historical Review, vol. 38, no. 2 (2023), pp. 251-271.