‘Blood Wonder’ engraving on silk: “This touched the Holy Cloth of Walldürn.”

[Walldürn Blood Wonder] / [Touch Relic]. Angerühret am B. Corporal zü Walthürn. Lauff Sünder lauff zu diesser quell… S.l.: s.n, s.a. [second half of 18th century]. [13.0 x 8.3 cm], [1] f. engraving on red silk. Narrow margins, otherwise well preserved
 
 
Unrecorded 18th-century engraving—here printed on red silk—depicting one of the more bizarre miraculous images of the Middle Ages: the ‘Blood Wonder’ (Blutwunder) of Walldürn. The text above the image states that the print was touched directly to the Miraculous Altar Cloth of Walldürn (“Angerühret am B. Corporal zü Walthürn”).
 
The Walldürn miracle occurred in 1330, when the priest Heinrich Otto accidentally overturned a chalice of consecrated wine. The wine/blood stained the linen corporal (altar cloth) with the image of the crucified Christ and 11 heads of Christ crowned with thorns. Astounded, Heinrich Otto hid the cloth away for fifty years, revealing it only on his deathbed. 
 
A robust pilgrimage to Walldürn—located in the modern Neckar-Odenwald district of Baden-Württemberg—began in the first decade of the 15th century and reached its peak following the completion of the pilgrimage church (Wallfahrtsbasilika St. Georg) in 1728. Today the miraculous cloth has faded so severely that it appears to be entirely blank, and so pilgrims can visualize the relic only by having faith in the chain of copied images (like this one) that supposedly descend from the original. 
 
The German verses at the foot of the image may be translated “Run, sinner, run to this spring / Where grace and salvation flow / Run swiftly like a stag / Here your soul finds solace.”
 
This silk print is an example of a ‘touch’ relic (also called a ‘contact’ relic), i.e., a substance that came in contact with saint’s primary relic (e.g., a body part or personal item) or a miraculous item (as here) or was taken from a holy place.
 
 
This print is not located by OCLC, KVK, Omnia, or the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek.
 
* Wolfgang Brückner, Die Verehrung des Heiligen Blutes in Walldürn; M. Domarus, Walldürner Wallfahrt in sechs Jahrhunderten.