Introduction

In 1432, Joos Vijd and his wife Elisabeth installed a new altarpiece for their family chapel in the parish church, Saint John the Baptist, in the Burgundian city of Ghent. The painted altarpiece was commissioned by Vijd and executed by Hubert van Eyck and, on his passing in 1426, completed by his brother, Jan. The piece, an evocative and resplendent setting in the new Flemish style, depicted a scene bursting with eschatological symbolism: a throng of faithful worshippers in a lush garden pressing in to catch a glimpse of the divine Lamb of God. In a clearing in the center of the garden, angels kneel before the deity. To the right, a multitude of holy fathers—popes, bishops, and hermits; in the distances, sanctified virgins gaze at the slain victor. And on the bottom-right panel of the open altarpiece, mounted soldiers in armor approach the Lamb slowly, many crowned with garland and bearing the standards of Christendom. The frame of the panel tells the viewer who this company is. These men are the milites Christi, the knights of Christ on pilgrimage to the Heavenly Jerusalem. These knights likely represented the divinely sanctioned coercive power of the state, since they are flanked in the left-most panel by a group of political rulers, the iusti iudices. Yet they also typify the high honor claimed by martyrs of the faith, those who were slain like Christ and for Christ’s sake. Three standard-bearers lead the ceremony. Saints Martin, George, and Sebastian were all ancient Christian heroes. George was revered for his military prowess and ultimate martyrdom; Sebastian for his miraculous courage to face death at the hands of the state twice; and Martin for laying down his Roman arms to die to self, becoming a hermit and later a bishop. 1 Van Eyck’s milites Christi exemplify the paradoxical connection between martyrdom, dying for Christ, and crusade, killing for Christ, that became a given in late medieval society.