Großes Zittauer Fastentuch

The Great Lenten Shroud of Zittau is one of the most important surviving Lenten cloths in Europe. A Lenten cloth (also known as a "hunger cloth") is a large, usually painted cloth that was hung in churches during Lent in the Middle Ages. It covered the altar so that visitors could not see it during this time. The idea behind this was to draw attention to the essentials and create a deliberately simpler, inward-looking time. At the same time, Lenten cloths fulfilled an important didactic function: many people could not read, so the cloths showed biblical scenes in pictures.