Many publications on the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God for Christians, have retraced the evolution of her figure across ages and continents. In various ways, they have given substance to the impression that her figure is a cultural construct, or rather a ‘multimedia’ cultural construct. This construct over time has responded to specific needs, be they spiritual, dogmatic, moral, societal, or even political. By the year 1100, in the East as in the West, the Virgin Mary was promoted and perceived as a commanding if multifaceted figure, encompassing the traits of a belligerent queen, a humble handmaid, and a nurturing mother; innumerable churches were dedicated in her name, her feasts widely observed, believers begged for her most powerful intercession, and rulers and polities appropriated her patronage for social and political reasons. However, despite the abundance of studies on Mary, many aspects of her figure remain unexplained. One of these, certainly, is the roots of the explosion of the cult of Mary in the high Middle Ages. When one digs deep in the previous period, between c. 600–900, the element which appears almost constant in Marian liturgy, prayer, preaching, and visual arts is their monastic origins. Indeed, among the most vocal instances of her promotion, either in texts or in visual and material culture, the majority are connected to monks or former monks living between the seventh and the ninth centuries in the Eastern Mediterranean, on the European Continent, and in the British Isles. Some of these were in direct contact, as witnessed either by specific historical records or by shared thoughts and wording about Mary. Notwithstanding a growing interest in early monasticism, eastern and western, the prominence of the Virgin Mary in this context before 1000 remains little explored. Similarly, there has been no systematic investigation of the contribution of early monasticism to her ‘cultural construction’. She does not feature in the so-called ‘monastic master narrative’, critiqued in a recent joint contribution by Claudia Rapp and Albrecht Diem opening a collective study on western monasticism. Rapp and Diem noted that “Monastic studies are in flux. Liberated from old paradigms, and using sources that had been overlooked or ignored, they might well be one of the most dynamic fields of medieval studies today;” however, they welcome the tendency attested since the 1990s to seek “firm ground in focused and detailed studies,” rather than attempting “syntheses” fitting the monastic master narrative. Therefore, this might be a suitable moment to appraise the role of early monasticism in the ‘construction’ of the Virgin Mary across the Mediterranean and beyond. As this is too vast and daunting a topic to be examined systematically in a concise contribution, here I shall only take a first step towards exploring how the transmission of ideas and attitudes towards Mary might have been facilitated by monastic networks. I will specifically consider the role of woven textiles representing her. After remarking the eminent presence of Mary in Greek and Latin texts of various genres authored by monks or former monks between the seventh and the tenth centuries, I will briefly look at how she appears in the textual and visual sources of early eastern monasticism. In considering possible ways of transmission of her focality in early monastic spirituality between the East and the West, I will switch the focus from texts to textiles, that is from word-weaving to thread-weaving. For this purpose, I will reconsider sources about Mary as weaver of textile icons and subject in textile icons. Stimulated by the recent reappearance on the antiques market of a woollen tapestry with the Theotokos from Coptic Egypt (sixth century), I shall also reconsider the significance of a Merovingian linen brocade depicting the Assumption into heaven of the Virgin Mary from the relic repository of the cathedral of Sens (Burgundy) (late sixth–eighth century).
“The figure of the Virgin Mary across the Mediterranean and beyond: Early monastic networks and the role of textiles”, in Cosmopolitan Byzantium. Cultural Encounters in the Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond
Francesca Dell'Acqua
2026
Abstract
Many publications on the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God for Christians, have retraced the evolution of her figure across ages and continents. In various ways, they have given substance to the impression that her figure is a cultural construct, or rather a ‘multimedia’ cultural construct. This construct over time has responded to specific needs, be they spiritual, dogmatic, moral, societal, or even political. By the year 1100, in the East as in the West, the Virgin Mary was promoted and perceived as a commanding if multifaceted figure, encompassing the traits of a belligerent queen, a humble handmaid, and a nurturing mother; innumerable churches were dedicated in her name, her feasts widely observed, believers begged for her most powerful intercession, and rulers and polities appropriated her patronage for social and political reasons. However, despite the abundance of studies on Mary, many aspects of her figure remain unexplained. One of these, certainly, is the roots of the explosion of the cult of Mary in the high Middle Ages. When one digs deep in the previous period, between c. 600–900, the element which appears almost constant in Marian liturgy, prayer, preaching, and visual arts is their monastic origins. Indeed, among the most vocal instances of her promotion, either in texts or in visual and material culture, the majority are connected to monks or former monks living between the seventh and the ninth centuries in the Eastern Mediterranean, on the European Continent, and in the British Isles. Some of these were in direct contact, as witnessed either by specific historical records or by shared thoughts and wording about Mary. Notwithstanding a growing interest in early monasticism, eastern and western, the prominence of the Virgin Mary in this context before 1000 remains little explored. Similarly, there has been no systematic investigation of the contribution of early monasticism to her ‘cultural construction’. She does not feature in the so-called ‘monastic master narrative’, critiqued in a recent joint contribution by Claudia Rapp and Albrecht Diem opening a collective study on western monasticism. Rapp and Diem noted that “Monastic studies are in flux. Liberated from old paradigms, and using sources that had been overlooked or ignored, they might well be one of the most dynamic fields of medieval studies today;” however, they welcome the tendency attested since the 1990s to seek “firm ground in focused and detailed studies,” rather than attempting “syntheses” fitting the monastic master narrative. Therefore, this might be a suitable moment to appraise the role of early monasticism in the ‘construction’ of the Virgin Mary across the Mediterranean and beyond. As this is too vast and daunting a topic to be examined systematically in a concise contribution, here I shall only take a first step towards exploring how the transmission of ideas and attitudes towards Mary might have been facilitated by monastic networks. I will specifically consider the role of woven textiles representing her. After remarking the eminent presence of Mary in Greek and Latin texts of various genres authored by monks or former monks between the seventh and the tenth centuries, I will briefly look at how she appears in the textual and visual sources of early eastern monasticism. In considering possible ways of transmission of her focality in early monastic spirituality between the East and the West, I will switch the focus from texts to textiles, that is from word-weaving to thread-weaving. For this purpose, I will reconsider sources about Mary as weaver of textile icons and subject in textile icons. Stimulated by the recent reappearance on the antiques market of a woollen tapestry with the Theotokos from Coptic Egypt (sixth century), I shall also reconsider the significance of a Merovingian linen brocade depicting the Assumption into heaven of the Virgin Mary from the relic repository of the cathedral of Sens (Burgundy) (late sixth–eighth century).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
