Franz Johann Joseph Bock

Franz Johann Joseph Bock (1823–1899) was a German theologian, archaeologist, and art historian.

Bock was born in the town of Burtscheid on March 5, 1823. He was the son of Franz Joseph Bock Burtscheider (baptized February 22, 1796), who was a lifeguard. His mother, Agnes Dotru, died when Bock was a young child. He was the only child of this marriage and was raised at first by his grandmother and later by his father. His father had a simple education and didn't earn much, however still was able to send him to the seminary of and later to study theology at the University of Bonn (1846–49). In 1850 he became a chaplain at the Krefeld parish church of St. Dionysius and was there until April 1853.

Bock founded in 1852 the first large exhibition of ancient masterpieces of Christian art. In that year he curated a national exhibition on 100 medieval vestments and precious gold items from the Rhenish church treasures when they were first presented to the public. He established a factory of silk production with special designs based on models from Middle Ages patterns. These silks then were used in church items and church related vestments. Bock took a two-year art history tour study period between 1855 and 1857 to collect from different countries throughout Europe ideas and materials. Much of this information eventually ended up in his two volume writing Geschichte der liturgischen Gewänder des Mittelalters. He published many other works relative to Christian art and antiquities. In 1872 he published an important work on the church treasures in Maastricht, the Netherlands, along with Michaël Willemsen, guardian of the Treasury of the Basilica of Saint Servatius. Bock spent a further eight years in preparing his principal work Die Kleinodien des heiligen Römischen Reichs deutscher Nation nebst den Kroninsignien Böhmens, Ungarns und der Lombardei.

Bock was one of the founders of the archdiocesan art museum Kolumba (a.k.a. "Diözesanmuseum") at Cologne. In 1853 he made many art and textile purchases for the museum when he traveled around France. He became the founder of a new branch of classical studies when he introduced his work The History of the liturgical vestments of the Middle Ages (1859–71), which was the first scientific study of the origin and development of ecclesiastical robes with regard to fabric, color, design, editing and ritual significance. When Bock had the opportunity to sell textile fragments to various interested parties (i.e. museums) he would just cut it off from some precious medieval textile he found. His radical treatment of original medieval material earned him the nickname "Scissor Bock." For example, when Bock found the Cloth of St Gereon at the old Saint Gereon church he just cut it into four fragments and sold them to museums in Berlin, Lyon and London around 1863 to 1875. These cloth fragments are considered to be of the oldest Western tapestry still in existence.

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