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The late medieval religious world was fascinated by the abject suffering humanity of Christ and, as noted many years ago by Émile Mâle, his passion became the “great preoccupation of souls.”1 This manifested itself in ever more graphic depictions of Christ’s wounded, bloody, and broken body in devotional works, artistic representations, and popular prayers. Over time, this interest evolved into a plethora of devotional cults: the Five Wounds of Christ; the arma Christi (the various instruments which caused them or were associated with the larger story of Christ’s passion); cults associated with Christ’s holy blood, as specifically celebrated in a number of important shrines across Europe; and devotions that centred on the precise number of Christ’s wounds and their respective sizes.2 This was, indeed, a devotional world in which Christ’s blood was ubiquitous. A facile reading of the Middle Ages might posit a discernible shift of emphasis from a victorious and kingly crucified Christ in the early medieval period to the victim-figure and image of pity of the later Middle Ages; yet, as Celia Chazelle has argued, contemplation of Christ’s suffering was much valued in its own right during this earlier period, which was not devoid of its share of depictions of Christ’s wounds and blood loss.3 Neither was the suffering Christ-figure of the later Middle Ages allowed to eclipse the motif of Christus triumphans entirely. Rather, the paradox of the victor-victim

13 “Scarce anyone survives a heart wound”: The Wounded Christ in Irish Bardic Religious Poetry