GIVEN THE LEVEL of religious hostility, wartime damage, benign neglect, and malicious libel that palmesels have suffered over the centuries, it is perhaps surprising that so many have survived. An inventory published in 2006 lists 105 surviving full-size palmesels in Germany, sixteen in Switzerland, twelve in Austria, seven in France, and one or two each in Belgium, England, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, and the Czech Republic. It also notes a few miniature palmesels, several Christ figures or donkeys that have survived without their other half, and three complete palmesels owned by museums in the United States. Many of the full-size palmesels were rescued from rarely used chapels, charnel houses, attics, barns, and other out-of-sight storage to which they had been confined by changing tastes and ecclesiastical suppression. Others were acquired at state auctions or bought from private owners, antique dealers, or historical societies. Several museums have lovingly restored their acquisitions. Those still owned by churches have been given greater visibility or, in some cases, placed back in service. A few newly made palmesels have been added, such that there are now more than a dozen active palmesels scattered across Europe. We have already noted an Austrian example in Puch bei Hallein. In this chapter, I introduce others from Austria, Germany, Poland, Alsace, Belgium, and even outside Europe, in Bolivia and possibly Paraguay.

I begin with a personal account. In March 2015, I took part in two very different Palm Sunday processions, each involving a palmesel, in the adjacent Austrian communities of Hall in Tirol and Thaur, a few miles east of Innsbruck. Hall's palmesel, housed in the Parish Church of Saint Nicholas, dates to 1430, when it was endowed by the Confraternity of Our Lady. It starred in the town's annual Palm Sunday procession until 1826, when it succumbed to the aftermath of the Catholic Enlightenment and was retired from use. The tradition was reinstated by the parish priest in 1968. Thaur's palmesel belongs to the Parish Church of the Assumption of Mary; it was made in 1772, and has remained in use ever since.

On the afternoon before Palm Sunday, I visited both palmesels in their home churches. Hall's parish church is Gothic in structure, Baroque in decoration, and imposing in scale.