Annamaria Prati
Dr. Julie Parsonnet
Epidemics
June 18, 2010
Marian Iconography and the Bubonic Plague: A Shift in Perspective
Imagine a nuclear disaster strikes. A third of everyone in your town, a third of all your friends, a
third of your family die, and for some unknown reason you live. You probably feel intense fear,
maybe a desire to cherish more dearly those who still remain in your life, and most likely anxious for
answers and a sense of hope that this terrible disaster will not happen again. Thankfully, such a
nuclear disaster has not happened, but a similar disaster with these characteristics happened
repeatedly between 1348 and 1700 in Europe – the Black Plague.1
I first read about the societal responses to the plague, specifically the effects on Marian
iconography, at the Musée National du Moyen Age in Paris. Initial research suggested numerous
examples of Marian iconography existed from the 14th century showing a change in the portrayals of
Mary to be more of an emotional mother figure. I later realized that the claims in the museum apply
more to Italy, and the same phenomenon happened much more faintly in France. Also, most of the
already few examples of Marian iconography in Paris were probably destroyed during France’s
tumultuous history, in particular the baroque “updating” of churches in the 17 th century, the French
Revolution in 1789, and Baron Haussmann’s beautification projects in the 19th century.
I believe that enough examples do remain to show the subtle changes during the plague era. Paris
experienced the plague in the same time frame as the rest of Western Europe, and, like the rest of
Western Europe, responded in various ways to the Black Plague. These responses included many
desperate searches for answers and protection, most of which were directed at the Catholic Church.
In providing these answers, the Catholic Church generated a new kind of iconography proclaiming
that God sent the plague in his wrath, and that people should invoke Saints and the Virgin Mary for
protection. Using Paris as a case study, this paper shows that the resulting upsurge in new images,
1. Françoise Hildesheimer, La terreur et la pitié: l’Ancien Régime à l’épreuve de la pest (Paris:
Publisud, 1990), 5.
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especially of the Virgin Mary, reflects society’s heightened emotions and increased importance of
familial values in reaction to the bubonic plague.
The Bubonic Plague and Its Social Effects
The “plague” has existed for centuries, even before the great epidemic in 1348. The first recorded
plague was in 180 CE, and occurred with relative frequency until the 700’s.2 It then disappeared for
six centuries in Western Europe until it returned with “une brutalité inouïe” in 1348, where the lack of
immunity partially caused the plague’s vast devastation.3 Specifically in Paris, the plague first
appeared in August 1348, and then again in 1363, 1374, 1382, 1387, 1399, and so on until the final
epidemic in 1652, though the last plague in France did not appear until 1720 in Marseilles.4 It is
important to note however, that there was an epidemic in several cities each year throughout this time,
and it was impossible to know when Paris would be next.5 During the first epidemic in Paris in 1348,
which lasted a year and half, up to 800 people would die each day, thrown unceremoniously in mass
graves in the Cimetière des Innocents in downtown Paris.6 Although estimates vary widely and
leeway for exaggeration must be given, and I could not find a firm estimate for Paris, most sources
claim that one third of the general French population died.
Such devastation had a profound effect on society. A poem from the time lists the top three worst
disasters as first the plague, followed by infertility, and lastly war.7 Many believed that God sent the
plague as a punishment to a sinful humanity, and although several other social problems accompanied
the plague, “the immediate psychological effect on men and women…constituted the most dramatic
2. David Turner, “The Politics of Despair: The Plague of 746-747 and Iconoclasm in the Byzantine
Empire,” The Annual of the British School at Athens (1990) http://www.jstor.org (accessed May 26, 2010): 422.
3. Jean-Noël Biraben, Les Hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens,
vol. 1 (Paris: Mouton & Co. and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1975), 48.
4. Biraben, Les Hommes et la peste, vol. 1, 55-74.
5. Ibid, 55-74.
6. Paul Perdrizet, La Vierge de Miséricorde: Étude d’un theme iconographique (Paris, Ancienne
Librairie Thorin et Fils, 1908), 138.
7. Ibid, 137.
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short term consequence.”8 These psychological effects included “mental disorder, emotional anguish,
hallucinations and moral decline are classic results of plague”.9 Moreover, the plague was not a
onetime occurrence – perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the plague lay in its periodical and
devastating reappearances.10 In short, society was very unstable during these first plague epidemics,
and in desperate need of comfort and guidance.
The Church Responds
Despite the devastation of the first epidemic in 1348 it took the second epidemic of 1363 to more
dramatically change French society’s view of life and death and take action towards providing such
comfort and guidance.
After this second epidemic, there was a “boom” of construction and
commissions for art to remember the dead and to protect against the now more likely future plagues.11
The most popular types of work to come from this boom were chapels, followed by hospitals and
monasteries, paintings, and finally sculpture.12 The so-called “cures” for the plague were ineffective,
so “le médecin et le chirurgien s’effaçent devant le prêtre”, making the Church the most trusted
source of information and sparking an upsurge in religious art at the end of the Middle Ages. 13 Even
then, the Catholic Church in France did not truly address the plague until the 1440’s which is when
we first have records of organized processions to implore the end of the plague; to compare, Italy had
been holding such processions since 1348, and Spain since the 1370’s.14
The only possible
explanation is that Italy and Spain were at peace during the beginning of the plague years, while
8. Turner, 419.
9. Ibid, 425
10. Louise Marshall, “Manipulating the Sacred: Image and Plague in Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance
Quarterly 47, no. 3 (1994), http://www.jstor.org (accessed May 11, 2010): 486.
11. Samuel K. Cohn Jr. and Pierre-Antoine Fabre, “Piété et commande d’oeuvres d’art après la Peste
noire,” Annales, Histoire, Sciences Sociales 51, no. 3 (1996), http://www.jstor.org (accessed May 26, 2010):
553-554.
12. Cohn and Fabre, “Piété et commande d’oeuvres d’art,” 552.
13. Hildesheimer, La terreur et la pitié, 57.
14. Jean-Noël Biraben, Les Hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et
méditerranéens, vol. 2 (Paris: Mouton & Co. and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1976), 67-68.
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France was embroiled in the Hundred Years’ War until it faded away in 1453. Since the “epidemics
were perceived as divine punishment for sinful humanity…the votive [for these new commissions and
processions] was intended to protect the community.”15
Most of the writings from this time about the plague were written in French, not the more
academic Latin, suggesting that the intended audience was the common populace.16 By extension,
powerful images showing devotion to the Virgin Mary could be interpreted by an even lower illiterate
class. Since the illiterate compromised the majority of the population, the more images the Church
created, the more powerful their message. These messages regarding the plague were compelling
rhetorically, since they often connected devotional inaction with immediate death from plague. These
altars represent “mutual obligations” between the deity and the worshipper.17 By building an altar to
the Madonna, the Church created a way to escape the plague. However, not worshipping the deity
might incur their wrath, causing them to revoke their protection and sentencing a certain death by
plague.
Although over the centuries many saints evolved to be the patron saints of the plague, such as
Saint Sebastian and Saint Roch, and locals would often implore their town’s patron saint for
protection, the Virgin Mary was the most often invoked. In Western Europe, St. Sebastian, St. Roch,
and the Virgin Mary comprise of 69% of the invocations against the plague, and this percentage is
higher when not including Italy, where people mostly appealed to local saints. 18 In Church tradition,
Mary, as the mother of Jesus, the presider of the Last Judgment, has the power to intervene out of
great compassion and persuade her son to pardon sinners. She was invoked earlier in the plagues
during the 6th century in Rome, a timely appearance given that the Church had officially sanctioned
15. Christine M. Boeckl, “Giorgio Vasari’s ‘San Rocco Altarpiece’: Tradition and Innovation in Plague
Iconography,” Artibus et Historiae 22, no. 4 (2001), http://www.jstor.org (accessed May 11, 2010): 29.
16. Colin Jones, “Plague and Its Metaphors in Early Modern France,” Representations, no. 53 (1996),
http://www.jstor.org (accessed May 26, 2010): 107.
17. Marshall, “Manipulating the Sacred,” 488.
18. Biraben, Les Hommes et la peste, vol. 2, 77.
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the Cult of the Virgin Mary a century earlier specifically for her worship.19,20 Her cult resurged in the
12th century and was especially powerful in France and Italy, instigating the construction of many
famous churches such as Notre Dame de Paris.21 There were other things that might have warranted
her protection, such as a great famine in the early 1300’s or the Hundred Years’ War which began in
1340. Thus, when on August 16th, 1348, the Chronique de Tournai reported a vision of the Virgin
crying out of compassion for the suffering of humanity, she was a logical person to direct plague
related prayers.22 In brief, Perdrizet, an expert on early Marian iconography in France, stated “Je
crois en effet que l’obsession de la peste explique beaucoup de nouveautés qui surgissent, a partir du
milieu du XIVe siècle, dans la dévotion et dans l’iconographie [de la Vierge].”23 The historical
precedence of invoking her aid helps explain this “obsession.”
The Changing Portrayal of Mary
Devotion to the Virgin Mary was a long established practice, but the Black Death still had an
important impact on Marian iconography. Marian iconography changed little between the ending of
the plague in the 700’s and the beginning of the 1300’s, suggesting that something had to have
changed in devotion to the Virgin Mary. Perdrizet characterizes the changes between the two
centuries as the Mary from the 1200’s is “serein, doux, [et] souriant,” while the Mary of the 1300’s
instead has “la douleur et la mort” as focal points for piety.24 From the examples in Paris that I have
seen, I would characterize them slightly differently: In the 1200’s, Mary was generally portrayed as
stolid, a figure within her own right and lacking interaction with the figures around her, while art from
the 1350’s on is generally more emotional where Mary clearly has relationships to those around her,
19. Ibid., 77.
20. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Cult of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages,” Heilbrunn
Timeline of Art History, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/virg/hd_virg.htm (accessed May 11, 2010).
21. Ibid.
22. Biraben, Les Hommes et la peste, vol. 2, 77.
23. Perdrizet, La Vierge de Miséricorde, 139.
24. Ibid, 139.
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though not necessarily always in pain. The plague and the new omnipresence of death heightened the
individual’s sense of mortality, and by extension the individual’s view of humanity.
An example of this change can be seen in the portrayal of Mary as an intervening power. The
most obvious purpose of the Marian plague iconography was to protect the community devoted to her,
since she had the power to quell God’s wrath against humanity. This aspect of her protecting powers
predates the plague, as can be seen in the Central Portal on the West Façade of Notre Dame Cathedral
in Paris (Figure 1). Finished in the 1220’s, the image shows the Last Judgment, where Jesus is in the
center while angels look on, and Mary is to his right and John the Baptist is to his left. Below, the
dead arise and await their sentence. Although Mary’s presence is theoretically to intervene on their
behalf, she is kneeling to the side and seems more obedient than ready to defend humanity (Figure 2),
and the focus of the portal itself is instead focused on the power of God and the vast number of
sinners.25
Almost two centuries later, a different image depicting the Last Judgment had become
more popular – the Mother of Mercy. The Mother of Mercy, or “Vierge de Miséricorde” in French,
is “a tall figure of the Virgin standing and holding her great mantle with outstretched arms so that it
covers small figures of the faithful flanking her on either side.”26 Although this new image predated
the plague, it increased in popularity throughout Western Europe and is considered the most
traditional image of the Virgin against the plague.27 However, as far as I know there are no existing
examples of this image from Paris, but there is an interesting example from Prussia from 1400 (Figure
3) at the Musée National du Moyen Age. On the outside, the mother holds baby Jesus, and when she
is opened it becomes a triptych, with the Holy Trinity in the middle and people seeking protection
under her mantle. Her mantle is “a symbol of the Virgin’s power, as protectress from the maladies of
this life, especially plague, and as intercessor for human salvation in the next.”28 The image of the
Mother of Mercy directly shows how she would protect her faithful by physically protecting them.
25. Ibid., 142.
26. Susan Solway, “A Numismatic Source of the Madonna of Mercy” The Art Bulletin, 67, no. 3
(1985), http://www.jstor.org (accessed May 11, 2010): 359.
27. Ibid, 359.
28. Ibid, 359.
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She has this power because she is the mother of Jesus, shown both by her holding the baby on the
outside and the Holy Trinity placed where her womb would be. Historiographically, the presence of
the Virgin Mary on Notre Dame from before the plague, and then the presence of a Mother of Mercy
from a country near France from the plague years, suggests that images of the traditional Plague
Madonna must have existed in France and maybe have not survived.
Another example of Mary’s power to intervene can be seen in portraying the scene of the death of
Jesus. An example from the 12th century of the death of Jesus can be seen in a wall carving in the
Parisian church St. Julien de Pauvre (Figure 4). It is a traditional image of Christ on the cross with
Mary standing to his right, crossing her arms. Both Mary and Jesus are individual figures in their own
right and do not interact; Mary does not even look up at Jesus, bus simply straight ahead. At the end
of the 14th century, a different image of the same story has arisen: the Pieta, where Mary cradles
Jesus’ body in her arms and mourns her loss. Although not from Paris, an example of a Pieta from
Salzburg can be seen in the Musée National du Moyen Age in Paris from 1390 (Figure 5), and a
baroque Pieta from Paris, ostensibly not possible had it not been for the invention in plague
iconography, is now the altar in Notre Dame de Paris (Figure 6). In both of these Pietas, especially
the one from Figure 5, Mary’s apparent anguish and pain over the death of her son is reinforced as she
holds Jesus and looks at him. This introduction of the Pieta was “less focused on a vengeful deity”,
and instead considered “suffering as the redeeming factor.”29 Moreover, the scene’s association with
death would have had strong resonations with the people of the time, while the ability to mourn death
and seeing Mary feel pain appropriated the feelings of the general populace at the time. Such
associations would not have been possible from the image in Figure 4, suggesting that the plague
created an importance for familial relationships.
As the plague tore families apart, the image of the Holy Family became increasingly important as
another image praising familial relationships. The general story of the Holy Family predates the
plague. Indeed, a pre-plague image of the Holy Family can be seen in a Nativity scene on the North
29. Boeckl, “Giorgio Vasari’s ‘San Rocco Altarpiece’,” 36.
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Transept of Notre Dame Cathedral from 1250, notable as a survivor of the French Revolution when
most of the façade had been destroyed (Figure 7).30 In this scene, Mary lies on a bed looking out,
Joseph stands to the side, and baby Jesus is in a crib under the bed with an ox and a donkey. The
animals have the most interaction in the depiction, while again, all three figures are independent of
each other and show no signs of their relationship. The transept in general focuses on Mary and
Jesus, leaving Joseph out of all but two of the depictions. In contrast, a tapestry depicting the life of
the Virgin in three images made in Bayeux in 1499 in the Musée National du Moyen Age shows a
very different set of images, most notably the final image where it is just a pregnant Mary with Joseph
(Figure 8). This image is remarkable because instead of showing Mary in a Nativity scene or another
image that would focus on her and Jesus, this tapestry focuses on her human relationship with Joseph.
They are still the Holy Family because of Mary’s pregnancy, but society could better relate to this
“ordinary” family. For this reason, “the ‘Holy Family’ as a unit was invoked in times of bubonic
plague until the 18th century”, a theme that, although not out rightly plague imagery, can be scene in
numerous churches throughout the city.31
Although the whole Holy Family unit was less ignored in post plague religious imagery, Mary as
the Madonna was still by far the most popular image. Admittedly, pre-plague Marian iconography
was moving in the more humanistic direction before the plague, so it is possible that any changes to
the image were just part of this trajectory and had less to do with the plague. Nevertheless, because
the portrayal of Mary shifted from the holy figure to the more human mother during this time, and in
light of the developments in other portrayals of the Virgin Mary, I believe that the plague sped up the
course of development. An example of this image before the plague is the statue of the Madonna and
child on the West Front of Notre Dame Cathedral, carved in the 1220’s (Figure 9). She seems to hold
baby Jesus on her hip, but her gaze is directed down towards the people in the square below. Her
30. Notre-Dame de Paris, “Notre-Dame de Paris,” http://www.notredamedeparis.fr (accessed May 11,
2010).
31. Boeckl, “Giorgio Vasari’s ‘San Rocco Altarpiece’,” 35.
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other hand holds a scepter and she wears a crown, signifying that although she is the mother of Jesus,
she is also Queen of the Sky, or Regina Caeli, her most holy and powerful persona.
There are numerous examples of the Madonna and child in the latter half of the 14th century, with
subtle but noticeable changes that convert the Madonna from her holy Regina Caeli status to a more
humanistic mother with a baby. A statue of the Madonna and Child in the Musée National du Moyen
Age (Figure 10) and the statue of Madonna and Child on the altar in Notre Dame Cathedral (Figure
11) both are originally from Paris, from the mid 14th century, and after the first plague epidemic. In
comparison to the Madonna and Child from Figure 9, these Madonna are still regal with their crown,
but both have turned their gaze towards their child, emphasizing their maternity over Regina Caeli.
The plague’s horrifying child mortality rate made children very dear to their parents, and this
increased appreciation of children is reflected in Mary’s new cherishing of her baby. The paradigm of
a universal mother, while common today, at the time were considered plague imagery.32 The image
of a mother to guide and care for her children would have provided that sense of comfort that people
sought in the plague aftermath.
Another form of the Madonna and child takes this further by showing the Madonna breastfeeding
baby Jesus. The earliest example that I found from France is a small statue in the Musée National du
Moyen Age from the 1450’s (Figure 12), showing a young woman without a trace of the Regina Caeli
nursing her young child. This idea evolved by the end of the 14th century, as seen in two statues from
the Musée National du Moyen Age (Figure 13 and Figure 14). Both images show the Madonna again
with the maturity, flowing robes, and crown of the Regina Caeli, but still nursing her child. The
image of a mother nursing her child is the epitome of the maternal connection between mother and
child, yet Mary is still powerful enough as the Regina Caeli to intervene and protect those who are
devoted to her. The image became a blend of the nourishing mother in a loving family and the
powerful protector and guide of a holy queen.
32. Perdrizet, La Vierge de Miséricorde, 142.
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Short Time, Long Impact
The era for plague images in France was very short. France was relatively slow to react
iconographic-wise, and by the 16th century the production of imagery faded away as people resigned
themselves to periodical epidemics.33 This decline of iconography parallels the diminishing power of
the Catholic Church and the Reformation, which may partially explain this pattern, though I do not
know the specifics of the role of the plague in forming the Marian imagery of the Counter
Reformation in the 17th century. Thus, the time period under examination in this paper is about 150
years.
Despite the scarcity of images, the presence of the few left and the presence of iconography from
countries surrounding France during the plague years (and survived until today) suggests that there
was an upsurge in Marian iconography exhibiting protector qualities and greater importance of
familial values. The images generated by the plague in the 14th century had an impact on the images
for centuries to come, even if they were not directly plague images per se. For example, specific
famous images like the Pieta would not have been possible without the evolution of plague
iconography, making the altar at the Church of Notre Dame or Michelangelo’s famous statue possible.
Marian iconography may have lasted a short time in France, but had a lasting impact on religious art.
33. Boeckl, “Giorgio Vasari’s ‘San Rocco Altarpiece’,” 37.
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Works Cited
Biraben, Jean-Noël. Les Hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens.
Vol. 1 Paris: Mouton & Co. and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1975.
Biraben, Jean-Noël.Les Hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens.
Vol. 2 Paris: Mouton & Co. and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1976.
Boeckl, Christine M.“Giorgio Vasari’s ‘San Rocco Altarpiece’: Tradition and Innovation in Plague
Iconography.” Artibus et Historiae 22, no. 4 (2001). http://www.jstor.org (accessed May 11,
2010).
Cohn Jr., Samuel K, and Pierre-Antoine Fabre. “Piété et commande d’oeuvres d’art après la Peste
noire.” Annales, Histoire, Sciences Sociales 51, no. 3 (1996). http://www.jstor.org (accessed
May 26, 2010).
Hildesheimer, Françoise. La terreur et la pitié: l’Ancien Régime à l’épreuve de la pest. Paris:
Publisud, 1990.
Jones, Colin. “Plague and Its Metaphors in Early Modern France.” Representations, no. 53 (1996).
http://www.jstor.org (accessed May 26, 2010).
Marshall, Louise. “Manipulating the Sacred: Image and Plague in Renaissance Italy.” Renaissance
Quarterly 47, no. 3 (1994). http://www.jstor.org (accessed May 11, 2010).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “The Cult of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages.” Heilbrunn
Timeline of Art History. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/virg/hd_virg.htm (accessed May
11, 2010).
Notre-Dame de Paris. “Notre-Dame de Paris.” http://www.notredamedeparis.fr (accessed May 11,
2010).
Perdrizet, Paul. La Vierge de Miséricorde: Étude d’un theme iconographique. Paris: Ancienne
Librairie Thorin et Fils, 1908.
Solway, Susan. “A Numismatic Source of the Madonna of Mercy.” The Art Bulletin, 67, no. 3 (1985).
http://www.jstor.org (accessed May 11, 2010).
Turner, David. “The Politics of Despair: The Plague of 746-747 and Iconoclasm in the Byzantine
Empire.” The Annual of the British School at Athens, (1990). http://www.jstor.org (accessed
May 26, 2010).
I would also like to acknowledge these destinations where I found examples from my paper (images
are my own photographs):
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, Paris, France
Eglise St. Julien de Pauvre, Paris, France
Musée National du Moyen Age (Cluny Museum), Paris, France