The Beheading of John the Baptist
The final panel depicts the beheading of John the Baptist by king Herod. Part of the area that John traveled and preached the coming of the apocalypse was the Kingdom of Herod. King Herod disapproved of John’s preaching, but was afraid of potential public disapproval that imprisoning him would have created. However, when John publicly disproved of Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife, because his brother was still alive, Herod used this as an excuse to imprison John. Herod’s true intentions were to execute John the Baptist, but he was wary of John’s large group of followers. However, Herod’s fiancée told her daughter to dance for Herod’s court. Herod was so impressed by his soon to be step daughters dancing that he granted her one wish. The girl, as instructed by her mother, asked for the head of John the Baptist. King Herod granted her wish and had John the Baptist executed[1]. The original panel focuses on the actual beheading of John the Baptist, but I wanted to shift the focus to the trickery of Herod’s step daughter and the importance of martyrdom. In my reconstruction, I wanted to highlight the juxtaposition of Herod’s golden throne with the halos of John and Jesus in the two previous panels. This comparison between a false king, like Herod, and the son of God and his followers, would show medieval Christians the importance being firm in their faith regardless of the threat of death[2].