Ambiguity and the Representation of an Authority. A Heraldic Image of Laurentius Michaelis Suurpää, the Bishop of Turku?

Abstract

The starting point for this article, which is dedicated to Kaur Alttoa, my friend since the late 1980s, is a photo of the choir window of the Tyrvää Church (Fig. 3). On the window arch besides a modified chevron ornament, we can see two images in red ochre. On the left, there is a cross with a six-pointed star beneath it. On the right, we can see a head of a human being, probably – at least in my opinion – a man, with long, curly hair pushing out from under the rim of a headdress or something that resembles one. The imagery is about as simple as it can get. Tyrvää is one of the parishes of Satakunta in the medieval Diocese of Turku or present-day Finland (Fig. 2). It had been part of the parish of Sastamala since the first half of the 13th century, but was established as a partially independent chapelric or chapel congregation, around 1400. A wooden church was built on a small island on the same spot where the stone church that still exists was later built during the summers between 1506 and 1516.