The Vera Icon (Veronica) in the Verse Legend Veronica II: Medializing Salvation in the Late Middle Ages

This article discusses the converged media enterprise that inextricably links St. Veronica with the vera icon. In order to employ both saint and relic as vehicles to impart concepts of salvation, medieval legendary narratives develop various media strategies, which undergo further differentiation within the contexts of religious transformations and media conversions characteristic of the late Middle Ages. This is specifically relevant with regard to a popular Middle High German adaptation of the Veronica legend generally known as Veronica II. This text presents the comfortless void created by the absence of Christ in the immediate aftermath of his crucifixion, only to suggest a number of practices and procedures designed to alleviate and counteract the effects of this loss. Veronica II deploys the vera icon’s media-reflexive potential and displays a specific late medieval form of media competence, that is, an aptitude in combining and blending strategies of medializing salvation.