Of the many artistic achievements realized during this rich cultural period, the most progressive and enduring expression was the literature of "Courtly Love" (L’Amour Courtois). It marked a significant change in the way Western civilization viewed the concept of love. Courtly Love and its literature have been considered “An essential stage in the emancipation of women.”361
This literature portrayed a glamorous, new romantic life, which often included secret and forbidden extramarital affairs. These affairs occurred particularly among nobles and aristocrats in the milieu of royal courts (hence, courtship, courtesy, and courtesan), with the male typically vying for the prized affections of the exalted lady mistress.
Patronage by the likes of the Count of Toulouse and Eleanor of Aquitaine reveals the importance of and support for this literature from the highest levels of power.
Courtly Love originated from the late-11th century region of southern France, called Languedoc. This literature emanated from a worldview referred to as Gai Saber, literally the “happy wisdom” or “happy science.” Gai Saber and Courtly Love effectively challenged and redefined some of the most traditional Christian ideals, including love, marriage, virtue, and fundamental concepts such as manhood and womanhood.
Historian Régine Pernoud proclaims: “Love was invented in the 12th century.”362 According to Uc de St. Circ, a 13th-century troubadour, Courtly Love for a man is to reach heaven through a woman. It transformed the view of women from that of property to lover and partner.
Noted novelist and scholar C.S. Lewis declared:
[Courtly Love] effected a change that has left no corner of our ethics, our imagination, or our daily life untouched. It erected impassable barriers between us and the classical past or the Oriental present. Compared with this revolution, the Renaissance is a mere ripple on the surface of literature.363
The profound social impact of Courtly Love is explained not just by the nature of its content, but by its availability to a much broader audience: it was the first poetry written in popular language. Previous literature was written in scholastic Latin and was typically accessible only to church-trained scholars. First appearing in Occitan, or “Langue d’Oc,” the language of the southern half of France during that time, this movement spurred the development of poetry in many other nascent vernacular languages, including Catalan, Germanic, English, and Italian.364 Literary historian Meg Bogin explains, “For the very first time, common folk actually had something to read!”365
The freedom, quality of expression, and values embodied by this literature would vanish with the end of this medieval period. Courtly Love would, however, come to influence Europe yet again, after its rediscovery in the 18th century, during which time it was instrumental in spawning the Romantic Movement.366
Some historians have tried to explain the unusually active role of women during the epoch as due to simple “labor scarcity.” Yet, if working opportunities were in short supply, why were there six-hour workdays, 90 or more holidays, and Blue Mondays? Why would people invest so much time in chiseling ornate sculptures in remote corners of gigantic cathedrals? More puzzling still, why would anybody build cathedrals with the capacity to house three or four times the entire town’s population, whose completion would never be seen by its originators during their own lifetimes?
The particular dedication of the cathedrals offers testimony that something more significant was afoot. Nearly all of the French cathedrals built during this time were dedicated not to Jesus, whose religion they were supposed to be about, but rather to Notre Dame (Our Lady). More peculiar still was the form in which Mary was widely represented—in the powerful archetypal image of the Black Madonna.
The Black Madonna
During this unique age, the Black Madonna manifested as the period’s most original and preeminent religious icon. The most venerated statues, important pilgrimages—including the famed Santiago de Compostela—and many religious centers all honored her. Well over 500 Romanesque statues of the Black Madonna have been identified as originating during the Central Middle Ages.367 In France alone, no less than 80 cathedrals, more than 250 churches, and 302 dedicated sanctuaries were built specifically to venerate her.
The Black Madonna was also a major theme in the poetry of Courtly Love. While Black Madonna icons certainly existed before Courtly Love verse, the explosive proliferation of statues around much of Europe coincided with the spreading of that literature. Courtly Love troubadours wrote about Notre Dame de la Nuit, and honored her as “the Madonna of Transformation,” and as the “Queen” of their spiritual quest.368
Scholar Petra von Cronenburg concludes: “The literature of Courtly Love, the mystical love for the Black Madonna…all had one common purpose: the internal experience of the Hieros Gamos (sacred marriage) with androgynous qualities, the integration of the masculine and feminine within, the merging of the human and the divine.”369
The relevance of the Black Madonna figure becomes clearer when we realize that she represented the power of the feminine in her own terms. This is in marked contrast with the later “white Madonna” with her blue and white gown, who was only an intercessor, an intermediary to the divine. In other words, the Black Madonna represented not only the Great Mother archetype, but archetypal balance as well. References that parallel this are found in the esoteric traditions.
Esotericism versus Exotericism
All major religions have had exoteric, as well as esoteric traditions.370 Exotericism refers to the official, publicly available teachings; esotericism pertains instead to “hidden” knowledge, customarily available only to initiates. The esoteric traditions include the Kabbalah in Judaism, Sufism in Islam, and Tantra in both Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism. In Christianity, the transmitters of such esoteric traditions included the Augustinian, Benedictine, Cistercian, and Templar orders. All of these Christian esoteric traditions had a different relationship with the feminine than that conveyed by the official exoteric message.
In the esoteric text of Gnostic origin, the Gospel According to the Hebrews, for instance, Jesus explicitly called the Holy Spirit his Mother. Various mystical Christian traditions, including those of Jakob Boehme, Meister Eckhart, Hildegard von Bingen, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich, and the Portuguese cult of the Holy Ghost, all make reference to the Motherhood of God.371 The Hebrew tradition talks about the feminine Shekinah, the “Indwelling of God.” In Hinduism there are many manifestations of the divine in feminine form. In the Sufi traditions she is called Laïla (the night) and is honored as the highest goal of the mystical quest.372
Author Jacques Bonvin notes: “Only the Black Madonna was able to crystallize all the beliefs of Pagan traditions within the Christian faith, without falsifying any of these beliefs. In this, the Black Madonna is unique.”373
Among the most prominent figures in Christendom to promote esoteric Christian teachings was Saint Bernard (see insert).
Saint Bernard, Lover of the Black Madonna
Bernard of Clairvaux was a leading personality of the 12th century. He was born in Fontaines, near Dijon, France, where the chapel had a Black Madonna. According to a 14th century legend, Bernard, while still a young boy, was initiated into his vocation by “three drops of the milk of the Black Madonna.” In esoteric tradition, “three drops of virgin milk” refer to the mysterious materia prima, the “raw material” of the alchemists.
St. Bernard is credited with transforming the troubled Cistercian order—then reduced to a handful of monks in a single monastery at Citeaux, France—into “a vast multinational enterprise of civilization.”374 This involved hundreds of monasteries from Russia to the Iberian Peninsula, every one of which was dedicated to “Our Lady.”
The Cistercian order became deeply involved in esoteric research, with specialized scribes translating Hebraic and Islamic alchemical texts, which Rome would certainly not have considered as “Catholic.”375 St. Bernard himself wrote an astounding 200 sermons on Solomon’s “Song of Songs,” the very p
oem that Jewish Kabbalists considered one of their most important texts. It begins, “I am black, but I am beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.”376
St. Bernard also encouraged the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain, which is replete with Cistercian and Templar sites.377 This pilgrimage was known as the path of the Black Madonnas, as it connected the majority of the Black Madonna sanctuaries.
The founding charter for the famed Order of the Templars was authored by St. Bernard as well. This charter, and all other official Templar documents, placed the name of Our Lady ahead of the name of Christ, in stark contrast with contemporary Christian practice.
St. Bernard was not the only influential personality to have used the Black Madonna as his life’s inspiration. St. Ignatius of Loyola, for example, gave his sword to the Black Madonna of Montserrat when he founded the Jesuit order. Joan of Arc prayed to the Black Madonna, and her mother prayed to the Black Madonna at Le Puy for her imprisoned daughter. Goethe used the Black Madonna as the model for his “eternal feminine” in Faust.378
Political tension and occasional violence are not uncommon between the exoteric and esoteric traditions within a particular religion. Such conflicts develop in part because esoteric knowledge tends to extend beyond the confines of the traditional customs and doctrine of its own faith, embracing instead the broader body of aligned teachings from other religions. The medieval boom of the Black Madonna and the upsurge of rich, esoteric Christian traditions in Europe, coincided with the interrelated blossoming of the Sufi traditions of Islam,379 the Kabbalah of Judaism,380 and a burgeoning interest in the practice of alchemy.
Alchemy and the “Blackness” of the Madonna
What is the esoteric message of the Black Madonna and, in particular, her intentionally black color?
At the most literal level, the Black Madonna symbolizes Mother Earth, and, like the Earth, she is dark in color. The child she holds in her arms represents humanity—every one of us. She refers back, therefore, directly to the age-old worship of the Great Mother and to her nurturing relationship to humanity.
At the more subtle level, the pitch-black color of the Black Madonna connects with alchemy. A linguistic clue of that connection is revealed in the etymology of the word “alchemy” itself, which derives from two Arabic words: Al, the general Arab particle; and Khemit, the “Black Earth,” the traditional name for Egypt, the place where the alchemical art was reputed to have originated. The strikingly abnormal color of the Black Madonna specified that She was not just representing Mother Earth, but the black Earth of alchemy itself.381
Alchemy has become confused with its literal symbolism of transmuting the vilest metal (lead) into the noblest one (gold). As is made clear in the warnings of alchemists of all ages, however, this is primarily a “philosophic” or symbolic transmutation, a metaphor for a fundamental personal transformation. True initiates of alchemy had only contempt for those who would mistakenly interpret alchemical textbooks literally as some sort of technology to get rich materially. The true essence of alchemy as a guide for personal evolution was encoded metaphorically. The riches that were sought after were not worldly goods or gold, but rather the wealth of spiritual knowledge and wisdom.
The reason for disguising its transformative nature so elaborately was to protect the alchemist from being labeled a heretic or worse, branded a sorcerer, an offense punishable by death at the stake. The metallic transmutation was merely a ruse, a symbolic guise, a coded language. It was used by practitioners, some of whom were well-known Benedictine monks, to protect that knowledge from being misused by non-initiates.382 Such deception allowed true alchemists to continue their research and extensive writings about that sulfurous topic, without inviting attention and disapproval from the Church.
Alchemy was, in fact, one of the main traditional Western esoteric paths for personal spiritual evolution. Sir Isaac Newton attached more importance and wrote more pages about his research on alchemy than on physics and optics combined. Another of alchemy’s many notable practitioners was Carl Jung.383
Alchemy is a path towards spiritual evolution, through which one’s consciousness transforms into metaphysical gold, shining brightly like an inner sun. The mysterious materia prima—the so-called lead that gets transformed into gold—is none other than the alchemist himself or herself. Jung referred to this process as “individuation,” which comes as a result of the integration of the animus (the masculine aspect, which is conscious in men and unconscious in women) with the anima (the feminine aspect, which is unconscious in men and conscious in women).
The very first step in the alchemical process is known as the nigredo, literally the “work in black,” described by Jung as the death of the ego, the “dark night of the soul,” or the “garment of darkness.”384 Medieval and renaissance scholars also referred to this process as melancholy (literally, “black humors”). “Saturnine melancholy” was the difficult, unpleasant, but indispensable initial step required in order to attain true inspiration and wholeness (see insert).385
Alchemy as a Symbolic Individuation Code386
Three key elements are involved in the alchemical process: sulfur, the yang or masculine principle, associated symbolically with the sun, and fire; mercury, the yin or feminine principle, associated with the moon, silver, and water; and salt, the symbol of the material body.
Alchemy aims at creating the legendary “Philosopher’s Stone,” (the integrated self, or Jung’s individuated human). This integration is realized by a mystical marriage of both the masculine and the feminine dimension of the alchemist him or herself. As the alchemical handbook, Aurofontina Chymica, states, “This blackness doth manifest a Conjunction of the Male and Female.”387
In his book Mammon and the Black Goddess, Robert Graves writes: “The Black Goddess is so far hardly more than a word of hope…She promises a new pacific bond between man and woman…She will lead man back to that sure instinct of love which he long ago forfeited by intellectual pride.”388
MEDIEVAL ARCHETYPAL REPRESSION
A move toward ever-stronger authoritarian rule was established from the first half of the 13th century onwards. Local autonomy was replaced by the centralization of power. This power shift preceded an economic succession of events.
In 1265, a monopoly of yang royal coinage was instituted. The gradual elimination of local yin currencies followed. The resulting monetary contraction was aggravated further by the debasement of royal coinage by King Philip IV, around 1295. A powerful economic collapse then followed around 1300.
The downturn led to widespread epidemics and famines that continued to weaken the population for several generations, and culminated in the outbreak of the deadly plague in 1347. The depression and misery would persist for more than a century, until about 1470.
The power shift and economic events, though unquestionably destabilizing in their own right, should nevertheless be understood as part of a more comprehensive breakdown that took hold. The archetypal values that had been honored during the previous three centuries were systematically reversed. The parting shot came by way of a brutal campaign unleashed by the increasingly powerful papal authority in Rome.
The target of this papal campaign was the unorthodox Christians of southern France, collectively referred to as the Albigensians (derived from Albigi, the ancient name of the southern French province of Languedoc, where the sects were centered, and the region from which the literature of Courtly Love originated). The Albigensian Crusade led to the first Inquisition by the Church (see insert).
The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade
Conventional recounting tells of a specific Christian sect, the Cathars, whose heretical practices, notably including gender equality, provoked Rome’s reaction during the 13th century. Recent findings suggest a more complex account.
The Cathars were but one of many popular sects of the time, which included the Vaudois, Béguins, Bogomils, and others. Particular teachings aside, these various sects harbor
ed common concerns regarding the mounting authoritarianism and materialism of Rome.
Until this period, the Pope was considered the Bishop of Rome; the first among bishops, but ultimately only one of many important voices in the Christian community.389 Over the course of the 12th to 14th centuries, however, papal authority became enforced more and more in the context of new doctrinal issues, such as clerical celibacy, the idea of purgatory, fixing the number of sacraments, and other details of liturgy.390 This growing centralization of power within the Church, combined with the increasingly lavish lifestyles of the upper clergy, provided the ferment against Roman ascendancy.
Some of the Christian dissidents of the period came to be referred to as Cathars. This term was first used in 1163 by the German monk, Eckbert of Schönau, as a derogatory play on two words: the Greek katharos (the pure), and the more popular catier (“sorcerers who adore cats,” from the Latin catus, “cat”).391 So-called Cathar sect members instead referred to themselves as les bonhommes (the good people).
In 1209, Pope Innocent III ordered the Albigensian Crusade to counteract the rejection of Rome’s authority. An agreement with the ruler of northern France, King Louis IX (later sanctified as Saint Louis), recognized the King’s authority over the lands previously held by southern Languedoc nobility.392 In turn, the King supported papal religous control.393 This alliance between the Pope and King brought an end to the once brilliant Languedoc civilization.
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