Abstract

Two church banners made from a garment of late-fourteenth-century Italian lampas display two late-twelfth-century purple veils embroidered with gold. Bishop Konrad of Krosigk, having acquired a treasure of relics, textiles, and liturgical objects during the Fourth Crusade, donated these to his cathedral. The article focuses on how the two veils, which originally had veiled the chalice and the paten in the Byzantine mass, were reused and reframed. There is evidence that at first they were displayed upon or close to the altar, representing the cathedral’s new wealth by their costly appearance and Greek inscriptions evoking the splendor of Byzantine textile production. When sewn on church banners in the fifteenth century, they assumed the role of an advertisement for the Byzantine treasure, an attempt to reaffirm the marginalized cathedral’s prestige.