King Bahrām Gūr Hunt Scene

There’s a representation of a hunt scene with a dark blue-green background on the silk cloth held in the Church of Saint-Calais. The scene is represented in medallions composed of stylized lotus blossoms surrounded by twisted filigree strands. Inside the medallions, on either side of a palm tree that occupies the central part, a huntsman mounted on a horse, who’s wearing Iranian dress and a Sassanid helmet, is aiming an arrow at an onager and a lion. Around the main scene are represented deer, birds, and dogs. The space between the medallions is decorated with diamonds composed of vegetal entrelacs that terminate in fleurons.

This scene represents an incident in the life of King Bahrām Gūr (420–438), who succeeded in killing an onager and a lion, which was attacking it, with a single arrow. This incident was first related by the Arab historian Tabarī (838–923), who tells us that Bahrām Gūr asked for the scene to be represented in one of his apartments. This type of hunting scene with a huntsman mounted on a horse was used to glorify imperial triumph in Byzantium.

A remarkable number of objects were produced in the imperial workshops of Constantinople. The silks from the Constantinopolitan workshops gained a reputation for their quality well beyond the empire’s frontiers, thanks to gifts sent by Byzantine emperors to other kings. Decorated with zoomorphic motifs, some silks even have inscriptions that provide important information about the patrons. Examples are the serge in the diocesan Museum of Cologne that mentions Basil II and Constantine VIII, the purple silk of Aix-la-Chapelle, found in Charlemagne’s tomb, which mentions the names of two imperial officials and the Zeuxippe workshop, near the Great Palace in Constantinople. Another example, although there’s no inscription, is the shroud of Saint-Germain d’Auxerre, which is decorated with large eagles, and the silk from the treasury of Bamberg Cathedral, which may represent Basil II as triumphant victor on a horse, as two female allegorical figures offer him a helmet and crown. Pagan decorative motifs from classical mythology are often found on silks and Byzantine metal and glass objects, fine examples of which are held in the Treasury of Saint Mark’s (Venice).

Ten textiles and five fragments representing the same theme as the silk cloth in the Church of Saint-Calais are held in various collections. Examples include the cloth from the Treasury of St Ambrose Church in Milan, which lined the gold altar by Volvinius; fragments of a textile held in the Saint Remi museum in Reims, which was used as a filling for Saint Remi’s cushion; and a fragment held in the Treasury of Sens Cathedral, which is associated with the relics of Saint Philibert.

The sumptuous silk cloth in the Church of Saint-Calais must have been used either during the transfer of the remains of Saint Calais to Francon II, bishop of Le Mans (816–832), or in 837, when the monks left the abbey of Anisole and took their most precious objects to Saint-Calais.