medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> Also Mariazell in Styria--certainly one of the major pilgrimage sites
> for Central Europe--how many of these have Benedictine
> connections--Mariazell does; doesn't Czestochowa also? What about the
> French sites?
When you begin looking for miraculous statues of the Virgin, the problem quickly
becomes staggering. I've lost count myself. They are, or were, everywhere through
Europe. Those in the west tend to be statues; those in the east, like Czestochowa,
tend to be icons. Italy has both. Of these, a good number are, or came to be,
black. A common pattern can be discerned at many sites associated with these
miraculous images. A local cult developed, which sometimes achieved such
success that a more regional pilgrimage developed. Usually, these were located at
small chapels which, as William Christian has shown, were slightly outside of a
village, rather than being located in the parish church. This put them outside of
ecclesiastical control and inscribed them in the landscape, under very close local
control. When such a shrine became very successful, however, it began to be
noticed by the bishop, and some attempt was made to locate it within the
eccesiastical structure of the church. Usually, a monastery was founded at the site,
which gradually came to control it. Many of these are Benedictine, but in Spain,
Franciscan convents are also common. I seem to recall some Augustinian
examples, as well. I don't think that any serious study of this phenomenon has been
made, however. And of course some cults, like that of Chartres, evolved at already
established sites; the Black Virgin mentioned at Chartres (Notre-Dame du Pilier), by
the way, only dates from the early 16th century. The older and more famous one,
Notre-Dame de Sous-Terre, was destroyed at the French Revolution.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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