The Knights Templar and The Black Madonna

The Virgin of Zabaleta, a member of the Seven Spanish Black Virgins
Brought to Spain by The Knights Templar

 For those of you who have been following my writings, videos and podcast, one aspect of my approach to The Black Madonna that I feel sets my research apart is the focus on how many of them arrived on the European continent.

Illuminated Manuscript 13th Century Knight Templar

 This goes back to my original research, way back in 2005, where I learned through the University of Dayton Marion Library Black Madonna page, that many of the European Black Madonnas were brought to the continent in the hands of The Knights Templar and returning crusaders. The site has evolved much since back then, it was amazing in 2005, but now, it is an incredible resource. I highly recommend it for anyone seeking sound scholarship on The Virgin Mary, specifically from a Catholic Perspective. 

          Here is the link:

https://udayton.edu/marianlibrary/index.php

In any case, this thread fascinated me, and has guided quite a quest on my own, researching every aspect of the Knights Templar and why they would bring these types of images to the European continent in the 12^th and 13^th centuries.

 

Our Lady of Rocamadour, France

The era of the Templars was a transformative one in terms of Western Civilization in general, as well as Christianity specifically. Europe in many ways had recovered from the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and had organized itself around both the Nation States as well as Institutional Christianity. As with all cultural transformations as well as initiatives, there are positives and negatives. Christianity was never intended to be an institution in the broadest sense. It was not even meant to be a church or religion. Christianity was meant as a movement to bring together humanity and the cosmos, since Humanity had distanced itself from Divinity and the Universe. There are many reasons for this, again some of them ultimately positive; the development of freedom in humanity, and not so positive, we may kill ourselves in the process. 

The Templars in the beginning were a product of the backlash against both the institutional church as well as the nation state. In the era following the Millennium, Christian Europe had been utterly disappointed when Christ did not come back in the flesh to get rid of all the nasty people and situations of life. The year 999, many communities did not plant crops because they thought the world was coming to an end and why bother. In the century afterwards, there was a general disdain and shock at the corrupt nature of both the church and the state. Both institutions seemed to be quite at odds with the basic tenets of Christianity. In reaction to this, many religious orders were founded to try to recapture the original fervor and purity of the early Christians. The spiritual longing for this fervor, and basic misunderstanding of the Christ impulse, was to think that Christ was in objects, such as relics, or in certain places, such as Jerusalem and the Holy Land. 

It was thought that if one could possess or be in the presence of a relic, or go to the Holy Land, then Divinity could be encountered, and all bad things about human existence: suffering, illness, death and injustice would simply vanish, or the seeker would be assured a direct ticket to heaven. 

The Templars were a product of their times, but in many ways, they actually understood the cosmic nature of Christ. Their philosophy was that both Popes and Kings were a product of the Fall of Man, and if civilization could get to the original purpose of Christianity, neither the Church or Monarchies would be necessary. 

The Templars recognized that in order to be truly Christian, one must have freedom to choose to follow this way. Obviously, this seems counter to what we understand in terms of the crusades, but remember these were the ideals of the Templars, that were not always followed, especially in their later years.

So why were the Templars interested in Black Madonnas and why did they put them along shrines and churches on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela? 

The Templars wanted to create a culture that could contain the Christ. But how to do this while honoring freedom? Their impulse was to invite civilizations into knowledge of Christ through beauty, through the arts. This is why they were such generous patrons of the arts, and were involved in one of the greatest building initiatives in all of human history. Most of the grand cathedrals in Europe were built by Templar patronage.

As Rudolf Steiner stated “Art is a creation of organs through which the gods speak to humanity” 

What are the cathedrals, shrines and specifically The Black Madonnas saying to us? Tune into The Black Madonna Speaks on Wednesday, May 25 for an in-depth look at The Templars and The Black Madonna, to get insights on why this phenomena occurred and how it still is influencing us to this day.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-black-madonna-speaks/id1622348404

Available through Anchor Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Blessings on your Journey!