Aucamville Project 14: Qu'es aquò?

Aucamville/Aucamvila, Tarn-et-Garonne.  Photo by Daurade

For the 0% of the French population that only speaks Occitan, the Tarn-et-Garonne has conveniently placed a new sign at the entrance to our village, just at the end of the Fondemenge cul-de-sac.  I see this sign at 1 o'clock (biplane tail gunner-wise) every time I leave the confines of our cozy little hamlet/a.k.a. nest of vipers.  This is a good thing for those non-existent Occitan monolinguals, it'd be hard to know you were in "Aucamvila" if you only had a sign for "Aucamville."  Una soleta lenga basta pas jamai!

Occitan is a Romance language spoken in southern France, some valleys in northeast Italy, Monaco, and the Val d'Aran in Spain.  In the Val d'Aran  it is an official language and the only place I have seen it used on street signs and stores in a widespread way.  The region where this language is spoken is unofficially called Occitania.

Many scholars don't see Occitan as one unified language, and others include Catalan in the same family; indeed, some dialects of Occitan are closer to Catalan than they are to other Occitan dialects.  In fact, until the end of the 19th century, Catalan was often considered an Occitan dialect.  Don't tell a Catalan that, though.  Anyway, this could have been a politically-driven interpretation pushed to dampen Catalonia's nationalist aspirations.

There is a kind of friendly rivalry among both peoples where Occitania meets Catalonia in the southwest of France, but there is more deeply a kind of solidarity between them as threatened minority languages, though Catalan has flourished in the last 50 years and seems here to stay.  Things get really interesting in the natural border between the two, the Pyrénées.  Every valley seems to have its own distinct dialect more or less influenced by Spanish, Catalan or French.  The people here will all have a smattering of French and Spanish and Catalan.  This is especially true of Andorra, where all three languages are spoken widely though Catalan remains the language with which Andorrans identify the most.  Andorrans, however, are a minority in their own land, and a proper tally of ts linguistic groups might reveal that Portuguese is also widely-spoken among the Principality's guest workers.  Occitan and Catalan quite naturally blend elements from both Spanish and French, and they blend with one another as well.  It wouldn't be surprising to see Portuguese enter the mix; thanks to the Troubadours, legends from northern Portugal also flourish in the southwest of France, especially in Gascony, and in Asturiano, a.k.a. "Bable" (Babel?), they pronounce "o's" like "u's" ("quesu" and "vasu" for "queso" and "vaso")  -- much like in Occitan.

Google Earth

The Catalans, who have fiercely protected their language since the depredations of Franco, have officially recognized a form of Occitan called Aranès in the Val d'Aran.  Here you'll see signs in Spanish and Catalan, as well as some French.  But you also see signs in Aranès.  In Toulouse, street signs are in French and Occitan, and neighboring municipalities often have a second sign at the edge of town with its name in Occitan:  Toulouse - Tolosa (pronounced Toulousa -- remember to "o" sound like a "u").  But these French examples are more a tip of the hat to history; it's not really a part of the quotidian linguistic reality:  the Town Hall is the "Mairie" not the "Ajuntament".  Even in the Val d'Aran, I'm not sure how widely it's spoken.  Dominic Smith concludes that Aranès probably has "the brightest future" for all the Occitan dialects, but that it seems to be losing ground to Castilian Spanish or other more "practical" languages.  Some schools in the southwest of France have offered Occitan as an elective beginning in middle school, and there are bilingual programs and even Occitan primary schools known as Calandretas (which though private, are free).  But elective and bilingual programs are being cut as belts tighten and parents increasingly favor focusing on languages such as English.  Toulouse has become less provincial and isolated, attracting foreigners such as myself and French people from other regions who are not as connected to the language as people with deep roots here.  Very few people speak it, especially outside the home, although a few phrases are commonly heard at the café.

From Wikipedia: "Occitania" with its major dialects

Occitan has at various times been known as Limousin, Languedocien, Gascon, and Provençal, but nowadays these appellations refer to dialects.  Other dialects include Auvernat, Gascon, which include Aranès and Béarnese; there is also an Alpine dialect.  The Toulousain dialect is called Moundi.  A clear-cut taxonomy of these dialects is difficult and there are differing classifications of them, just as there are disagreements over the wider question of their relationship to Catalan.

There are two principal written standards:  a classical norm and one created by Frédéric Mistral in the early 20th century.  The Mistral standard is based on Provençal and similar to French -- both of which have led to criticism from later Occitanists.  Mistral is largely unknown outside of -- and within -- France, but he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1904, for his poems in Occitan. 

Attempts to standardise the spoken language have been a 20th century phenomenon and to me, doesn't reflect the historical and even current reality of the language.  Some speakers reject this process altogether because they take pride in their way of speaking it, which may differ from even a neighboring village (or may have differed -- it would be hard to hear this in action).  The French are very attached to and strongly identify with their "terroir" -- a connection often more profound than they have to the Revolutionary-era departments.

Proposed flag for an idependent Occitania.

Some Occitanists are cultural flag-bearers, but for others there is a political element to their "Occitanism".  This tends to be very regionalist and while some call themselves nationalists, they bear little in common with the far right the word usually describes.  On the contrary, they tend to celebrate multiculturalism within their own borders and feel like a distinct cultural element of France's melting pot (France doesn't seem to have taken to the "salad bowl" theory -- Occitanists usually self-identify as French as readily as Occitan; in fact very few see themselves Occitan at all, but Languedocien, Gascon, or Provençal, etc.)  They tend to be strongly in favor of decentralization; conscious of the fact that Paris has suppressed their language and their culture, they favor local autonomy.  Standardization of the language is philosophically incompatible with this viewpoint.

Proposed flag for an independent Catalonia; the Estelada or "Lone Star" (1918)

In Catalonia, the people have struggled to maintain their separate identity from Madrid, and language is a critical part of that effort; that is why they have allowed the Val d'Aran to make Aranès their official language and to recognize its autonomous government, called the Conselh Generau (General Council).  It's status is actually unique in Catalonia; it's basically a comarca, or county, but with a few additional powers.  This is both a nod to its unique cultural identity and also its isolation; until not so many years ago the valley was cut off from the rest of the world during the winter months.  A tunnel finally connected it to the rest of Spain year-round.  I have already mentioned there is a measure of Catalan / Occitan solidarity based on cultural similarities and their shared struggle as minority languages, but there are deep political roots dating back to the Middle Ages.  Toulouse had far more dealings and affinity with Barcelona than Paris for centuries; it's only been a relatively short time that Toulouse or even the south has been part of France.

Occitan was once the language of a culture which, compared to the north, was arguably more artistically refined; a culture in which Jews, heretics and soothsayers were generally more tolerated; and where women had the right to inherit and manage property.  It was once the language of poetry and songs the troubadours spread it throughout Iberia, traveling the St. James Way.  Because the southerners did not adhere to the custom of primogeniture, where the eldest son inherited all the domains of the father, but a system in which property was divided among all the children, the Midi was a patchwork of tiny fiefs, dwarfed by the vast holdings of the King of France and his vassals.  The abundance of little holdings meant an abundance of small armies; to go to war wasn't  matter of calling up a couple of powerful vassals but trying to wrangle up and hold together far more plentiful forces with varying allegiances, rivalries, petty squabbles and power games.  More refined or not, they proved no match for the French. 

The northern crusades against the south were essentially land grabs propagandized as fights against heresy (Catharism above all) and were bound up with the French version of manifest destiny, not to expand west beyond the horizon, but turn up all the corners of a map of Gaul so that they curled back and touched each other at the tips just above Paris.  This might help explain the modern-day Occitanist's sympathy for political devolution.  People have longer memories in Europe, but this centralizing tendency was an obsession during the Revolution.  Louis the XIV said "I am the state".  It was highly centralized, around his person.  This was true of the Medieval kings, but they were more itinerant, the court and thus the center of the Kingdom was wherever the king happened to be.  Louis XIV might have agreed, but by this time he had become almost synonymous with Versailles; the Revolution re-centered it on Paris, not a man, and they ran roughshod over regional variation to make this vision a reality:  the metric system replaced older and local systems, the new departments replaced traditional regions which had been named for the aristocrats who controlled them, or vice versa:  Armagnac, Foix, Corbières, etc.  The elderly and even some middle-aged folks will still tell tales of getting hit with a stick for speaking "patois".  There's a famous photo of a school, a roofed-over area, a wall painted with the words "Speak French, Be Clean" which is actually quite sad.  This is in Catalan France, but the same attitude was held in Occitan France as well.

Aiguatébia-Talaus school

The campaign has worked.  It is a dying language.  Native speakers are mostly elderly; three of my neighbors who spoke it are either dead or have succumbed to Alzheimer's.  There was an Occitanist wave of Basque or Breton-style nationalism in the 70's, and there are still some people of that generation who speak and teach Occitan -- many of them in the aforementioned threatened bilingual programs.  Some younger people, determined to preserve their heritage, are also learning Occitan and at least one bar in Toulouse encourages the use of Occitan within its walls.  Local radio and TV have programs in Occitan and local signage is often bilingual.  There is an Occitan community -- several Occitanist political parties and institutes of Occitan studies -- but they don't represent a living language of daily life.  It's not even the predominant language in the Val d'Aran and many French people -- its speakers among them -- don't consider it a "real" language at all.

Only 1.5 to 2 million people speak the language, but it can be found in some fairly far-flung places.  Forty Occitan-speaking, poverty-stricken families from Aveyron established Pigüé, Argentina in 1884.  Protestant Waldenses from Italy fleeing persecution established communities in the U.S., Uruguay, Argentina, and Germany.  One Occitan-speaking group left in 1893 and established what would be become Valdese, N.C.  Both groups brought their Occitan with them.  That means in the Americas, there are traces of both the Alpine and Languedocien dialects of Occitan.  The language is still spoken in Pigüé, but I'm not sure about Valdese.  Cathy Pons' thesis dissertation in 1990 might be an indication:  Language death among Waldensians of Valdese, North Carolina.   

It may well be that soon all we'll have of this language are some field recordings, street signs, and a few die-hards by which to remember what was once the leading cultural language in Europe.

Some phrases in Occitan (w/audio files) 

Coda:

Looking for more information on the leader of the Aveyron colonists, I came across something  interesting.  According to Les aveyronnais dans la Pampa: fondation, développement et vie de la colonies, Pigüé was a hotbed of occultism, Freemasonry and political radicalism starting in the 1890's -- just after the Aveyronaises arrived.  The book mentions the "virulent" protests of the Masonic Logia Emilio Zola against the installation of the Catholic Frères des Ecoles-Chrétiens  in 1905.  

This leads me to wonder what role, if any, Freemasonry has played in the Catalan and Occitan independence movements.  The Catalan independence flag is called the Estelada, or Lone Star, and was inspired by Cuba's flag.  We know that the Cuban flag was designed by a Freemason and incorporated Masonic symbolism, and that the Catalan movement looked carefully to the Cuban independence fight as a bellwether of their own chances if they chose to take on Madrid.  The Estelada has inspired other Spanish separatist movements to adopt the same lone star as a symbol, just as it was inspired by Cuba's flag, itself just one in a long-line of "lone star" flags used by independence movements led by Freemasons in the Caribbean, South and Central America, Florida, and above all, Texas. I know that all sounds rather wingnut, so please see Lone Star Republics for details.  I should also mention that there are a couple of "lone star" flags in Africa.  Need I say that in both theory and practice, Freemasons were all over these African movements as well?  Really, the number of flags is quite significant, so much so that it's increasingly hard for me to say that one flag was inspired by another, but it's more like one guiding ideology led the revolutionaries who waved them to put them on their flags.  So, piqued by that anecdote and that flag, I'm gonna dig around a bit and see if Freemasonry is involved, or not.

Tossa del Mar and La Virgen de Montserrat

Previously published on my old website.

La Virgen de Montserrat, La Moreneta, "The Little Black", is one of the most celebrated Black Virgins among the approximately 500 reported to exist worldwide. Patroness of Catalonia, she takes her place among those Black Virgins which in addition to generating fervent devotion, serve as national symbols, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and the Queen of Poland at Czestochowa.

La Moreneta is not restricted to a purely nationalist role. Secondary images—copies—can be found outside Catalonia at Lourdes and Santiago de Compostela, two of the most important pilgrimage destinations in the Catholic world.[1] When I first entered Tossa del Mar’s (Catalonia) parish church and ran directly into a Black Virgin I was stunned. Her presence was much less surprising when I realized I was facing a reproduction of La Moreneta rather than a primary image proper to Tossa. Nevertheless she was unexpected, for I had never run across a mention of her presence there. Even the ubiquitous Begg Gazeteer[2] lists copies of La Moreneta and other famous Virgins, but nothing about Tossa.

The parish church at Tossa is dedicated to Saint Vincent, a Hispano-Roman Christian martyred during the reign of Diocletian in 304 CE. The church has chapels dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, the Ascension of Mary and both the Virgen of Carmen and the Virgen of Lourdes. La Moreneta is found at the entrance, to the right. Opposite her and at the same height there is a statue of the Virgin of Fatima. That makes six separate shrines to the Virgin in this modestly-sized church, including some of the most revered apparitions in the Catholic world: Lourdes, Fatima and Montserrat.

A seventh image is found on an 18th century tapestry representing the legend of the invocation of the Mare de Déu del Socors (socors = aid, assistance, rescue). As the legend goes, a small boy called Xixanet was playing marbles one day and broke a jar of cooking oil his mother had given him to fill. “The Devil take you!” she cried in anger. And take him he did. A demon arrived to carry the clumsy lad away to the Pit. Horrified and repentant, the mother quickly called upon the Virgin, who arrived with her sceptre (known as “sa mitja cana”[3]) and drove the demon off and sent him back to whence he came. This act is remembered in a popular dance performed when this miracle is celebrated on July 2nd. July 2nd, in addition to being a feast day for several other saints, is also the original day of the Feast of the Visitation, the day the Virgin Mary went to visit Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist. This Virgin is honoured in Tossa in a small chapel near the parish church. It was erected in the 16th century by mariner Antonio Caixa after a promise made for favors received. She remains the Patroness of Tossa’s sailors and fishermen.

Begg’s entry on La Moreneta is extensive and worth quoting in its’ entirety: 

The documentary evidence for the devotion to Our Lady of Montserrat dates from 932 when the count of Barcelona confirmed and renewed an endowment made to the shrine by his father in 888, soon after the BV was found among the rocks. The gift was confirmed again by in 982 by Lothair, King of France. According to the legend, the rocks of Montserrat, formerly smooth, became serrated at the Crucifixion, after which the statue, carved by St. Luke, was brought from Jerusalem to Barcelona by St. Peter. It was hidden on the Sierra de Montserrat to save it from the Moors, and was found by shepherds guided by a choir of angels, possible in the 8 C. (Moss and Cappannari state it is known to have been black since at least 718). When the Bishop of Manresa tried to move it to his cathedral it refused to budge.

The present statue is a 12 C.(?) majesty; 38 ins; seated with the child held centrally. Montserrat is the home of Catalan nationalism and scholarship, where the language has always been preserved thanks to the great monastery library of the Benedictines and the famous boys’ choir, the Escalona. The sardana is danced regularly in front of the Church. [As with the non-black Virgin of Tossa] The BV is concerned with fertility and marriage, “No es ben casat qui no dun la done a Montserrat” (He is not well wed who has not taken his wife to Montserrat). St. Ignatius of Loyola received his vocation there and hung up his sword. Wagner was inspired to write Parzival there (Montserrat as Grail Castle). Goethe and Schiller both attributed great importance to Montserrat, and the house where Beethoven died was an ancient fief of the abbey.

Former Temple of Venus

Right off the bat, one notices themes typical to other Black Virgins. Found by shepherds (or herdsmen), the statue was immovable thenceforth from the place where it was discovered. The special relationship with fertility and marriage is common (see Notre Dame de la Daurade). It’s also quite common to find important Marial shrines on the site of old pagan temples. The Grail connection is a bit more fanciful; it is surprisingly common folklore among les Noires, at least in Begg's work; but one must be careful to sift through the manure to make sure any Grail connections are not the more recent additions of goofballs. That said, the idea that the Grail is not a thing but an idea, some kind of secret knowledge, is intriguing when we consider that La Moreneta was supposedly hidden at this site to protect her from the Moors. There are a number of Black Virgins, such as those at Tarascon-sur-Ariege and at Thuir, associated with victories over the Moors. In the legend of St. Fris, who in many ways is a surrogate for the Virgin, a victory over the Moors results in the death of our hero, whose body was then hidden within a rock, only to spring forth with new life centuries later. In many details St. Fris’ legend there are echoes of Santiago de Compostela, patron saint of Spain known as Santiago Matamoros: “the Moor-Slayer.”

In another article Michael P. Duricy clarifies some details. At first the image was called La Jerosilimitana due to the belief that it had been carved in the early days of the church. In what Duricy calls a “well-attested” account the image came to Montserrat in 718 to save her from the Moors. She then disappeared until about 890, when shepherds reported to their priest that they had heard singing and seen lights in the mountains, a fact confirmed by both the priest and Bishop. La Moreneta was discovered in a cave and placed in a small church erected to house her.

Several sources consulted (Duricy, Morris) seem to favour the notion that La Moreneta is black due to prolonged exposure to candles and incense smoke. If Moss and Camppannari’s assertion that she was known to have been black since at least 718 is correct, a date which comes more than 150 years before her cult became well-established, this seems unlikely. The original statue, wherever it may be now, has long since disappeared. It would have easily predated the intense interest in Mary that developed in the 11th and 12th centuries. Perhaps, says, Duricy, what the shepherds found was a statue of Isis and Horus, often pictured as black and whose iconography was adopted by Christians for their representations of Virgin and Child.

The current effigy, however, dates from much later. Its blackness may result from the influence of the commentaries upon the Virgin by St. Bernard, or may come from some Grail-related esoteric symbolism. Perhaps it faithfully reproduces the color of the lost original. I reject the notion that it was the result of candles and smoke. My tentative proposal, a notion coming from recent encounters with other legends, is that there is some connection with the long struggle against the Moors; how exactly I’m not quite sure. I am reminded though, of the Al-Hajar-ul-Aswad, the “Black Stone” around which the Kaaba is built. This is the holiest shrine of Mecca, the focal point of Islam. The Black Stone is said to be black from having absorbed the sins of the faithful, who make the Hajj in hopes of kissing the stone and thus expiating their guilt. Its silver frame is a vaginal form, echoing the shape of the Moon around whose cycles the Muslim calendar is based.

But this speculation remains at this time something of a flight of fancy……what I would like to know is when she first became called “Moreneta” which as we stated at the beginning means “little dark one.” Perhaps we should amend that to mean the “little Moor.”

Works Consulted
:
Begg, Ean. The Cult of the Black Virgin.

Capella de la Mare de Déu del Socors. (tourist pamphlet in Catalan and Spanish)

“Cana” http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cana

Duricy, Michael P. Our Lady of Montserrat. http://www.udayton.edu/mary/meditations/olmont.html

Iglesia Parroquial San Vincente. (tourist pamphlet, Spanish)

See Also:

Morris, Paul N. Patronage and Piety: Montserrat and the royal House of Medieval Catalonia-Aragon.


Notes:

[1] In the Middle Ages, Compostela ranked with Rome and Jerusalem as a way to earn a plenary indulgence for all ones’ sins.

[2] Found in the of the interesting if not-entirely-reliable Gazeteer of  The Cult of the Black Virgin.

[3] According to Catalan Wikipedia, a “cana” is an old unit of measurement found throughout the old Catalan and Occitan world measuring more or less 1.6 meters depending upon the region. A "mitja cana" or half-cana would thus measure 80cm or about a foot-and-a-half long.

Nigra Sed Sum Formosa

You may have noticed in several posts of Christmas past we have remarked knowingly about the phenomenon of the Black Virgin or Black Madonna, without elaborating on just exactly what it is. Fact is, I (Daurade) wrote quite a few little "essays" on various Vierges Noires over the years, before LoS began.

An essay on my namesake Notre Dame de la Daurade gives a brief overview of what a Black Virgin is. Someday I'd like to revisit the subject in more detail but it's such a vast topic I've found it too daunting!

I'd thus like to give you a few links to these writings in order to not leave an important part of the puzzle unaddressed.

The following are only the Virgins I've visited, a small sampling of the 500 or so said to exist. Those mentioned without links I haven't gotten around to writing about yet....  

Notre Dame de la Daurade, Toulouse, Haute Garonne 

Notre Dame du Palais, Toulouse, Haute Garonne  

Notre Dame du Taur, Toulouse, Haute Garonne  

Notre-Dame du Pouech, Oust, Ariège  

Notre Dame des Ermites, Montaut, Ariège  

Other Vierges Noires of the Pyrénées, Aspet and St. Béat, Haute Garonne

Notre Dame de Tudet, Gaudonville/Tudet, Gers

Notre Dame de Cahuzac, Gimont, Gers

Mare de Déu del Socors, Tossa del Mar, Girona (Catalonia) 

Notre Dame de Sabart, Tarascon, Ariège 

Notre Dame de Rocamadour, Rocamadour, Lot 

Notre Dame de Boisville, Verdun-sur-Garonne, Tarn-et-Garonne (destroyed)

Notre Dame de Bonne Délivrance, Neuilly-sur-Seine

Notre Dame de Paix de Picpus, Paris

La Vierge de Chaillot, Paris

Nuestra Señora de Torreciudad,  Secastilla, Huesca (Spain)

Notre Dame de Marceille, Limoux, Aude

Mare de Déu de Meritxell, Andorra

Notre Dame de Loubens-Lauragais, Loubens-Lauragais, Haute Garonne

Notre Dame de Sescas, Bourisp, Hautes-Pyrénées

The Throne of Wisdom, Aragnouet, Hautes-Pyrénées 

Our Lady Of Dublin, Dublin 

Schwaerz Noutmuttergootes, Luxembourg City

Good online articles:

"From Majesty to Mystery: Change in the Meanings of Black Madonnas from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries." by Monique Scheer.

This article has the benefit of featuring many examples in German-speaking localities.  This article has become very influential for me.  As a result of reading this I've begun to think less of the origin and reasons for Black Madonna than of the development of perceiving their blackness and the importance attached to it.

"The Black Madonna of East Thirteenth Street." by Joseph Sciorra.

From the universal to the particular.  A look at the dwinding devotion to a reproduction of a Black Madonna among Sicilian immigrants and their descendants in New York and New Jersey.  A good overview of the principal theories about the origins of the Madonna followed by a description about how a particular cult is disappearing along with the Italian-American community that it was part of.  This ain't Puzo's New York.

This I didn't know: 

Italy has one of the highest concentrations of Black Madonnas in all of Europe, and they are known by their gradations of skin color: nera (black), scura (dark), or bruna (tawny).

In support of Scheer:

According to a popular legend, a polychromed cedar statue was brought to Sicily from the Middle East sometime in the eighth or ninth century to save it from destruction during the Iconoclastic Wars. Yet the statue is similar in style to the Romanesque "throne of wisdom" figure, with the seated infant Jesus enthroned on his mother’s lap, created in Europe during the twelfth century.

 Yet: 

...it is not until 1751 that someone in Tindari distinctly mentions the statue’s color and also associates it with race.

Some Books:

Begg, Ean.  The Cult of the Black Virgin.  1997.

Cassagnes-Brouquet, Sophie.  Vierges Noires.  2000.

Saillens, Emile.  Nos Vierges Noires.  1945/2007.

Les Saintes Puelles

Lately, I have been working on a longish inventory of representations of women, both secular and religious, in the south of France and especially Toulouse. Originally meant to be a series of brief sketches, it has become something a bit more. What follows was originally just a smidgeon of the whole but has since taken on a life of its own. So, I've decided to break it off into a separate post. It touches on some profound issues which revolve around the conflation of saints and other syncretic processes, but I haven't quite gotten to exploring this as fully as I'd like. For now, I'm working with particularities and intend to work my way towards a more general approach.

It's certainly not intented to be my final word; this is more of an initial survey.

This post deals with the martyrdom of the Patron Saint of Toulouse and more specifically, the two women who gathered up his remains after the deed was done.

Let's go.

Saint Saturninus of Toulouse is variously known as Saturnin, Sernin, Cernin, Sanzornín, Sadurní, etc. according to what language you speak. His cult is centered in the south of France and the North of Spain, from Catalonia over to Asturias and even into northern Portugal. Although not the most wildly popular or well-known figure, several places in Spain and France bear his name and he is connected with the evangelists of the early Christianization of the area.

The legends around his life are taken from the Acts of Saturninus, which have been lost to time. Briefly, they state that Sernin (I use the local appellation) was the son of a king and the grandson of another on his mother's side. He was said to have been one of the 72 disciples of Christ (Luke 10:1-24) and present at the Last Supper. Furthermore, he was ordained by no less than Saint Peter himself.

This legend is historically impossible as it is most likely he was one one of the seven bishops Pope Saint Fabian (236-250 CE) sent out to Christianize Gaul. His lifetime was certainly well after the events portrayed in the Acts.

It is said that Sernin had to frequently pass before the pagan altars of the Toulouse to and from the Christian church. It so happened that oracles located there fell silent as he passed. This understandably pissed off the pagan priests, who blamed him and his sermons characterizing their gods as devils. They seized him, brought him to their altars and gave him an ultimatum: "sacrifice to our gods, or else." He apparently said something like "Why should I, when my very presence makes them mute?" Then came the "or else". He was tied to a bull and dragged until he died. Or, as one version has it they

"bound him to the feet of a bull and drew him unto the highest place of the capitol and cast him down the degrees and steps to the ground, so that his head was all to-broken and the brain sprang out, and so he accomplished his martyrdom."

What seems to be a minor detail is that two pious young Christian women known as "les Puelles" (from the Latin puellae, "young girl"), then buried his body. Not much is know about the Puelles, but they have, like innumerable other minor figures in the vast history of Christendom, inspired a small cult in their own right.

Later legend relates that Sernin had met the Puelles in Spain and that they were daughters of the King of Huesca. (Interesting in that Sernin too was the son of a king). Legend also relates these pious women gathered up the remains and buried them in a "deep ditch." For this they were punished. They were stripped, whipped and driven out of town. They found refuge in a place called Ricaud (in the Aude département); or maybe not. "Ricaud" or "Recaud" merely means a "safe-haven." In any event, the place is now called Mas-Saintes Puelles in their honor. In the town, one can find a monument to the women and in the church, a painting depicts the women being driven out of town, their torsos naked and their backs whipped.

I'd like to examine the Puelles story in more detail in connection with other legends from the South of France. First, though, I'd like to say a few words about the bull. The bull is still an important symbol in Toulouse, which until not so long ago continued the tradition of bullfighting. There is a Rue du Taur, where Sernin was apparently dragged to his death, a station Matabiau (Kill Bull), and the big bell in a Toulouse carillion is called the Bull, etc.

Some have speculated that the bull imagery somehow refers to Mithraism. The Occitan cross, symbol of Toulouse and of Occitania in general (where all of our events take place), is configured so that there are twelve points which some speculate refer to the signs of the zodiac, and a lot of Mithraic symbolism was based on the zodiac. This site notes that a bas-relief at St. Sernin Basilica in Toulouse depicts the Puelles with a lion and a lamb and goes on to a very detailed explanation of the astrological symbolism in the church. It may be Sernin was battling Mithraists. Other sources mention that the oracle who Sernin offended was in fact that of Jupiter.

Sarcophagus of St. Sernin; St. Hilaire Abbey

The cult of the Puelles in France seems to be located principally around the Aude. The Abbey of Saint Hilaire (Aude) holds the sarcopahgous of Saint Sernin, a white marble masterpiece depicting the arrest, martyrdom and burial of Saint Sernin. In addition to depicting the Puelles, Saints Papulus and Honestus are depicted. Papulus was beheaded in Toulouse, while Honestus was martyred in Pampluna; variants of the same legend have conflicting accounts of whether or not Sernin or Papulous (Papoul) converted and baptized Saint Fermin, patron of Pamplona. The martyrdom of Sernin is sometimes transferred onto Fermin. That is say that while some accounts have Fermin beheaded in Amiens, others have him being dragged to his death behind a bull.

Interesting that many of the cities associated with these three saints--Honestus was born in Nîmes and martyred at Pampluna, for example, also have very strong bullfighting traditions. Some have speculated that bullfighting is an echo of the central rites of Mithraism. In any event, the reversal of a man killing a bull, may indicate that Sernin was killed by Mithraists. Many scholars have noted the two sects share many features in common: virgin births, baptisms, last suppers, the 25th of December, blood symbolism, etc. Others have speculated that the deep-ditch into which Sernin remains were place may have been a Mithraeum (although why this would be so is a mystery if in fact his quarrel was with Mithraists). Whatever similarities the two sects share, there is a chicken or egg situation here. Some believe the Christians borrowed elements from Mithraism to broaden its appeal; Justin Martyr, writing in the 2nd century, claimed the Mithraists were perverting Christianity.

Was there some kind of syncretism going on between the two, reflected in Toulouse in the imagery we have described? We may never know the answers to this question but the parallels and associations are striking indeed. I would like to here mention, with the intention of elaborating at a later date, that the link of bulls with Christian imagery in the south of France is not limited to San Sernin. The phenomenon of the Black Madonnas, most highly concentrated in Auvergne and the Pyrenées, is also connected with the animal. Indeed, there is now a church on the Rue du Taur called Notre Dame du Taur, and the statue itself may or may not be a bona fide Black Virgin. I have never seen it identified as such, despite is markedly dusky hue, but it is certainly very close in style to other examples. (For more about Black Virgins please see Notre Dame de la Daurade and Notre Dame du Taur).

One of Sernin's disciples was Saint Fermin. According to tradition, the place where Saint Fermin was baptized by Sernin was at the Pocico de San Cernin, the "Small Well of San Cernin" across from a temple dedicated to the latter and built upon a pagan temple. There is evidence that Fermin had a cult in Anglo-Saxon England. A monastery bearing his name was also said to have a sacred well. "Unofficial" pilgrimages to this place were halted in 1298. Three towns in England (North Crawley, Thurlby and Thorney) have churches bearing his name.

The Saintes Puelles; Tautavel

Again, I'm in the early stages of this project, but the recurrence of sacred wells bears interest for this story because they too are associated with the phenomenon of the Black Virgins.

Another veneration of the Puelles, after Mas-Saintes-Puelles and St. Hilaire, occurs in Tautavel (Pyrénées-Orientales, a stone's throw from Aude), where there is a chapel dedicated to them. This chapel dates from the era when many chapels were erected to various Black Virgins and, like many of these, is located outside of town in an isolated spot.

In this chapel one can find a strange sculpture, about which there is an interesting discussion here. Visitors have noticed striking similarities to a painting on the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck, called "the Holy Hermits", where two figures are said to be Mary Magdalene and the Egyptian Maria (Maria Aegyptica).

Maria's legend is that she ran away as a child to Alexandria and lived the life of a sexual profligate, buying her way to Jerusalem with sexual favors. Once there, she tried to enter the Church of the Holy Sephulchre but was prevented from doing so by an unseen hand; she promised to reform her ways andafterwards was able to enter the church. She then went off to live as a hermit in the desert.

One description of the altarpiece:

Mary Magdalen and Mary of Egypt;

 Ghent Altarpiece

Upon the nearer of the two panels to the left are the Holy Hermits HEREMITE SANCTI the foremost is Saint Paul, with at his left, leaning on a staff, Saint Anthony, and close to him another, bald-headed and bare-footed, these two telling their beads ; on their right, seven more ascetics, mostly dark- complexioned, with beards and tangled hair, are followed from behind some rocks by Saint Mary Magdalene, bearing her pot of ointment, and Saint Mary of Egypt.

These two Mary's were often conflated into one figure, as some legends state without scriptural basis that Magdalene fled into the desert after the Ascension of Christ and lived as a penitent. In the 11th century this desert was relocated to Provence. Given the prominence of their association, penitents who had been harlots, it is interesting that the legend of the Puelles has grown up with similar iconography at least in this case, such as the pot of ointment for anointing the dead. Mary of Egypt usually holds three loaves of bread and this one holds a book. Which is, in fact, another symbol commonly used for Magdalene. You can even find images of Magdalene with a small pot or jar, resting on a book. Our statue of the Puelles at Tautavel depicts one carrying the jar and the other, a book.

There is more than one conflation going on here. Mary Magdalene is never in fact described in the Bible as either a harlot or a whore, but the association of Mary of Egypt shows that by the Medieval period this was a widespread belief. One reason for this is that Mary Magdalene, in the Latin church, is considered to be the same person as Mary of Bethany, described as a "sinner." But this identification is not at all clear, and there is confusion here, as with other Marys, as to exactly how many Marys there were:

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) states, "The Greek Fathers, as a whole, distinguish the three persons: the "sinner" of Luke 7:36-50; the sister of Martha and Lazarus, Luke 10:38-42 and John 11; and Mary Magdalen. On the other hand most of the Latins hold that these three were one and the same. Protestant critics, however, believe there were two, if not three, distinct persons."

Odd that in both Van Eyck's painting and the Tautavel sculpture, the women seem to rise out of the same dress, like a pair of Siamese twins, or two manifestations of one principle, perhaps?

Robert Graves speculates in The White Goddess (1948) that Mary of Egypt can be identified with "Mary Gipsy", a virgin with a blue robe and a pearl necklace. Otherwise known as Marina, Marian or "Maria Stellis". She is supposedly a remote descendant of Aphrodite, the love goddess from the sea.

The Myrrhbearers

This is exactly what I thought when I considered the legends associated with Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer; a town which, for those already familiar with it, cannot but spring to mind given the context of our discussion. It helps that the famous feast days described below were taking place at the very moment I was beginning this post. This town is named after the three Marys, that is to say the women who first saw the empty tomb after the crucifixion. These three Marys are often depicted with the same kind of Jar as we see in the van Eyck painting and the curious sculpture of the Puelles.

On May 24 the Roma (Gypsies, so named because they were commonly though to descent from Egyptians) population of France descend upon Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in order to venerate their patron saint, Saint Sarah, like Mary of Egypt, a dark-skinned Egyptian. According to legend, Saint Sarah and the three Marys either set sail or were cast adrift from Alexandria (further shades of Maria Aegyptica) before arriving at the place now bearing their name.

Again, it seems that just as Magdalen and Mary of Egypt are sometimes taken as one figure, there is a link between Mary of Egypt and Sarah; indeed, some recent writers have it that Saint Sarah was in fact Mary Magdalen's daughter. Older legends place her at the empty tomb. Not all the legends accord with another.

Incidentally, Sarah's crypt in the Church of St Michael at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer contains an old altar that may be the remnants of a Mithraic altar and a sacred spring:

Once a sacred site of the Celtic threefold water goddess, the holy spring was known as Oppidum Priscum Ra. Superseded by a Roman temple dedicated to Mithras in the 4th century BC, the site was later taken over by the Christians.

Mary Salome and Mary Jacob

The crypt has all the trappings of a fervent cult typical of potent saints: notes, trinkets, photos, abandoned crutches, etc. The church has altars to only two of the Marys: Mary Salome and Mary Jacob; these were the only people from the "landing party' who remained in the village, eventually becoming venerated. Every year in the annual pilgrimage of Gypsies, the statue of Saint Sara is brought down to the ocean to reenact her arrival. The next day the statues of the two Marys are likewise brought to the sea. They seem, like the Puelles and the other two Mary's in the van Eyck painting, to be joined together; one carries the pot of oil.

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer has been a sacred spot since prehistory; archeological evidence reveals this veneration focused on a sacred spring.

What is clear is that the iconography of Magdalen and the two Marys is also found in the sculpture of the Puelles: jars of oil for anointing and a book. I would like to investigate this further and see if the theory that the Puelles are merely a local copy of the two Marys who rested at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is plausible. Or if it reflects that of Mary Magdalene and Mary Aegyptica. For the Puelles and Magdalene, their stories also tell us they were women who had a special role in caring for the body of a martyred holy figure. They played the same role and the connection in this regards goes far in explaining why they intersect with other legends of early Christian women.

A poster on the thread linked to above also excerpts a passage from the oddly-named Come Carpenter, which is worth re-quoting here:

For the Hermetic arcanes, Egypt has remained the threshold of the occidental realms of death and resurrection, the kingdom where the worship of the departed reigns supreme, the "land of western exile", the Khemi: the black earth where the seed of life is buried before rebirth and where the soul sinks into the afterlife. The land of the Nile is called Misr in semitic languages, a word which may well bear a relation to the latin word miseria. The world Saviour, according to various hermetic and gnostic traditions in the Middle East that reappear in certain alchemical texts, is the son of Maria Aegyptiaca, the black virgin or black stone that fell from heaven.

I have no idea where Mr. Carpenter gets his information, but it is interesting that he calls Maria Aegyptiaca the Black Virgin; other traditions hold that it is Mary Magdalene; still others say the Black Virgin is Sarah!

In the course of my research I experienced a strange coincidence. While I know that there is some foundation to the notions of sacred topography, I'm highly skeptical of many attempts to impose this upon the Languedoc. I believe it's Henry Lincoln who breaks out a ruler and compass and begins drawing lines between various "significant" places until he comes up with a suggestive form which then proves that the Cathars or Templars or Merovingians or what have you founded towns and erected castles in order to conform to a sacred geometry.

That said, when I put a thumbtack on the three places where there seem to be significant references to the Puelles, I first marked Mas-Saintes-Puelles and Tautavel, then pegged the Saint Hilaire Abbey. This was in order to get an idea of the distances involved in order to plan a day trip. I was amused to see that they are almost perfectly aligned and almost equidistant. I ascribe no intention to this; it was merely unexpected, and amusing.

Google Earth Image of Puelles-related sites

I came across another potential veneration of the Puelles in Barcelona. One of the oldest churches in Barcelona is all that remains of a nunnery known as the Sant Pere de les Puel·les. The "puelles" in the name refers to the nuns themselves. These nuns has the reputation of being beautiful young women of noble families and, as this site recounts "was the setting for some of medieval Barcelona's most tragic stories of impossible love."

"Legend has it that the puellae, when threatened with rape and murder by the invading Moors under Al-Mansur in 986, disfigured themselves by slicing off their own ears and noses in an (apparently futile) attempt to save themselves."

Another version has it that the facial disfigurement was a more general phenomenon; that the woman did this in order to avoid being forced into loveless arranged marriages. Whatever the case, it evokes another theme of my larger survey: the suffering young woman.

What is even more curious is that this convent was built on the site of an even older church dedicated to San Sadurní, or as they say in Occitan, San Sernin. The convent dates from 945 and was founded by one count Suñer in order to honor his wife, Riquilda de Tolosa.

So you have a monastery dedicated the "puelles" on the site of a church dedicated to a Saint Sernin by a count whose wife hailed from Toulouse, (the Spanish city Tolosa was not founded until 1256). This would seem to indicate that in fact we are dealing with the puelles from the martyrdom of San Sernin.

But all is not so clear. Apparently, the church is dedicated to a Saint Saturninus martyred in Zaragoza, Spain in 303 A.D.) This Saturninus was one of 18 companions of Saint Engratia who were beheaded for being Christians. Apparently, there were four men with this name among the 18. A rather common name in the area, evidently, thus making it less surprising that this church in Barcelona shares the name of that in Toulouse. Still, although what I've dug up so far makes no mention of a connection with the Toulouse legend, it's a lead I'd like to follow.

The French connection is more prominent in many regards than the Spanish. The church that

"originally stood here, [was] located just outside the old Roman walls of the city, as early as 801 A.D. according to some preserved inscriptions. It was expanded under the patronage of the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Pious (known as Lluís El Piadós in Catalonia), King of France from 814-840, who was the son of the Emperor Charlemagne. At that time Catalonia was, in a sense, a part of France, as the Counts of Barcelona were vassals of the King of the Franks, who ruled the city in the King's name. It was only later that the Counts of Barcelona asserted their independence, beginning in 985, and began to build their own empire and royal dynastic traditions without deference to the Frankish throne."

In Lérida, not too far from Barcelona, there is a place calles "Les Puelles" but I haven't found out the provenance of the name. Might be tough going. Only 21 people live there! There is also a town in the area called Sant Sadurní d'Anoia. This doesn't necessarily imply that this is our Sernin and Puelles; it may be coincidence stemming from the Catalan family name of Puelles.

In Asturias, on the other hand, there is also a place called Puelles and nearby is San Saturnino.

Here one can find a church of San Bartolomé de Puelles which was remodelled at some point "se usaron elementos de la capilla de San Saturnino (Sanzornín), que parece que era un monumento de gran interés y belleza, a juzgar por lo que de él se conserva." I will be there in August, as it turns out, and will definitely be paying this place a visit.

Catalan Wikipedia lists several places bearing the name Sadurní and one Sant Serni. This latter is definitely named after our man, but the others may come from the martyrs of Zaragoza.

North of the Pyrenees, many towns in France bear his name; but only one for the Puelles.

In conclusion....

Well, there is no conclusion yet. What I've done above is make some observations and connections and raised more questions than answers. Without some more traditional and serious research, I risk blathering. So, quite arbitrarily, I'm stopping here in hopes of returning to this topic in better detail as soon as I have some.

In the meantime, I welcome any thoughts or comments or rebuttals of the semi-theories I've presented above.

Finally, it would be remiss not to mention this book by Mary Ange Tibot: Les Saintes Puelles Ou la destinée de Saturne (The Saint Puelles or the Destiny of Saturn). I haven't read it yet, but it appears to be an examination of the diffusion of the cult of Sernin and especially the Puelles. Tibot examines the astrological significance of Puelles symbolism, but until I've read it that's all I can say for now. II

♀: Matter and Spirit, or Venus' hand mirror....

Lloret de Mar is mostly known as a kind of Cancun of the Costa Brava. A town of 40,000 whose population swells in summer with hordes of drunken 18-to-30 year olds from France, the UK, Germany, etc. Filled with hotels, bars and discothèques, cheap eats and various other diversions.

But in 1966 the town celebrated its millennium, 1000 years of existence. (Estimated, I imagine. At least a little arbitrary). You can thus find some interesting ruins and historical accounts tell of fending off attacks by pirates, the intrigues of petty nobles, the machinations of an all-too-worldly Church. Standard European fare, really.

But the town has always been oriented towards the sea and it is from there that it draws its life, now and as before. Like many of these booming coastal towns, marred by ugly hotels and vomit-stained sidewalks, they were until relatively recently....fishing villages. In a brochure which describes the millennial celebrations, tourism was already mentioned as a new economic sector for the town, but fifty years is a relatively small swath of time out of a thousand, so the history of fishing and sailing is deeply ingrained in its culture, despite the dominance of tourism.

Perhaps that is why the sculpture known as the Dona Marinera (in Catalan) or Mujer Marinera (Castellano) has become a symbol of this city since it was dedicated by notable visitors, including naval officers, in 1966.

The sculpture is ostensibly to honor the wives and women of the men of the sea, hence it is commonly translated as the “Fisherman’s Wife”. This would appear to be an error; if it were accurate the Castellan name would have to be “Mujer de Pescadora” or at the very least “Mujer de Marinera”. Some translators have got it right and call it the “Female Sailor”. Technically accurate but I prefer the “Lady Sailor” going back to the Catalan (Dona) which is both accurate and more evocative of a kind of nobility which I have an inkling she deserves.

The dress of the woman, as you can see, does evoke more of a peasant than a noblewoman, as do her bare feet. Her nobility does not come being a well-heeled woman of the ruling class.

Up to now, I haven’t been able to find why she might be called the Venus of Lloret, except perhaps because of her erotic allure. Something in her kindly smile, her ample and oddly angular breasts, her bare arms and legs. There is a certain appeal in her forms. Then again, you may remember we got the same feelings about Clémence Isaure way back when, so maybe there’s a Pygmalion thing going on with us!

But seriously, the erotic is not the strongest pull. It’s more the smile, the openness, the winsome gaze. She looks out over the sea, waiting for her man to return. Classic sailor’s tale. Sailor comes home to his woman he left on shore and we can imagine that after the tender embrace and the hearty meal, there is an even heartier roll in the hay. Buggery with the cabin boy can only take you so far.

Again, we jest. But this idea of Venus brings me back to famous Botticelli painting of Venus, arriving both demure and brazen, born aloft in a shell by gentle frothy waves. The shell, symbol of St. Jacques, upon whose trail pilgrims followed to expiate their sins, affixing the shell to their staves, is and has always been a symbol of the soul’s journey across time.

It may also mean, riffing along here, that the woman, erotic desire and love, born from the primordial oceans, looks back out over it, into the depths to which we all eventually return. The blood rushes in the ears, pounding like surf, as the couple climax together and foamy sea-froth is jettisoned into the womb, a net releasing the captive swimmers, going, going, gone.

Which reminds us that medieval anatomists held that blood ran through the body, not pumped by the heart, but rising and falling like the tides. As we now know and as these fishermen also knew, the tides are affected by the moon. Which of course, has always been represented by a woman. Not Venus, but then again, maybe it was. The most widespread goddess worship before the gradual incrustation of Christianity were Isis and the Magna Mater, both of whom are generally recognized to have assumed various forms and in whom other goddesses were conflated. Far be it from us to put words in the mouth of the long since dead, but it very well could be that what some may see as “mere” polytheism may in fact be akin to certain strands of Hindu thought which see all the gods and goddesses as manifestation of one godhead. Just a thought.

It is also interesting that there is a legend associated with the statue, which is that if you touch her while gazing out over the sea, your wishes will come true. Wish-fulfillment is a widespread folk belief, and it is often associated with bodies of water. The wishing well is a most obvious example. It might also be useful to remember the Chapel to St. Jean-Baptiste, where the sick went to throw coins into water in order to heal their ailments. The ocean, much vaster, could easily take care of a more diverse array of problems.

It is worth concluding with a brief look at some of the dedicatory remarks made back in 1966, where it would seem this "woman sailor" represented for the male speakers not just a fisherman’s wife, but Woman as a whole, even the Virgin Mary....

An article about the inauguration clearly presents an idealized Woman, an ideal intertwined with Lloret's rich maritime history, the “laurel victorioso conquistado con sus gestas en el mar." The monument is at once homage to the town's history, its famous ships, its Women: a “conversion of reality into symbols”.

The poet Valeriano Simón is quoted: “La mujer como simbolo, se agranda cuando lo es del marinero, es una espera cotidiana del hombre, sea hermano, padre o esposo.” That is to say: “The woman as symbol is enlarged when she is a sailor’s, waiting daily for a man, be it a brother, father or husband.”

As a symbol, it seems that for Simón she gains her meaning in the eyes of these men when waiting for other men! One wonders if they bothered to ask any real women how they felt about this. Photos at the scene show naval officers, local dignitaries, a government minister, a priest. Not a fisherman’s wife among them.

As a symbol Woman is also compared, even equated, with the ocean. Jaun Ramón Jiménez: “El mar ancho y undoso, que está siempre cerca de si mismo y a la vez solo y alejado, abierto en mil heridas, olas qui van y vienen....Así está ella, la Mujer Marinera, mirando al mar como mira una mujer dentro de su propio corazón.”

“The wide and undulant sea, which is always in touch with itself and at once alone and away, a thousand opened wounds, waves that come and go....She is thus, the Lady Sailor, looking at the sea like a woman into her own heart.”

One Señor Clúa evoked the “challenging and fecund” epoch of Lloret’s history, the conquest of the New World, here symbolized by a woman: “proud, hard-working, and always with her family.” She is “body and soul in the home, with the children and the old, to manage the house and be the light for all.” This last phrase is strangely evocative of religious imagery and indeed, he goes on to refer to “Nuestra Mujer Marinera”, or “Our Lady Sailor who will be at once mother, daughter, fiancée, wife of those that were and those we are now....” He goes on to link her again to the town’s prosperity with its link to the colonial Americas and now, tourism.

“Our Lady” cannot but evoke the Virgin, and indeed the minister, Nieto Antúnez, went on to call the statue "Un monumento que vendrá a recordar ese otro espiritual que representa para los marineros españoles la Virgen del Carmen, primera mujer marinera de Lloret de Mar y primera mujer marinera de España."

“A monument that will become a reminder for Spanish sailors of that other spiritual figure--the Virgen del Carmen--first lady sailor of Lloret de Mar and first lady sailor of Spain.”


Here Antúnez is referring to Our Lady of Mount Carmel as Stella Maris, or Star of the Sea:

According to tradition, devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel has its origin in a vision experienced by the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 18, 44). From the top of Mount Carmel, Elijah saw a white cloud rise from the sea. This cloud subsequently became a symbol of Mary and is one of the sources of the title “Star of the Sea”. There is a long history of devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel among Spanish seafarers. An 18th century Spanish Admiral observed

Stars guide seafarers at sea and Our Lady guides us in our lives

On 19 April 1901, Maria Cristina, Queen Regent of Spain, officially proclaimed Our Lady of Mount Carmel as patron of Spanish seafarers.

Not only is she evoked due to her role as protectress and guide, but her feast day, the 16th of July, came only two weeks after the dedication of this statue on the 1st.

Mount Carmel was recognized as a holy place since the far reaches of antiquity, perhaps even by the Egyptians, and was the site where Elijah competed with Phoenician priests to see whose god was the baddest of them all, something about calling on god to start a fire on a stone. Phoenician Baal-worshippers: 0 Elijah: 1 .

Yahweh set the stones ablaze, even after Elijah has doused it with water.

In any event, the Virgin comes in due to a vision one Simon Stock had there. Our Lady Carmen is seen by the Carmelites as “a perfect model of the interior life of prayer and contemplation to which Carmelites aspire, a model of virtue, as well as the person who was closest in life to Jesus Christ.” The idealized woman, once again.

This link to Mount Carmel is reinforced by the fact that the sculpture sits on a high promontory overlooking the sea. The elements become one. As Elijah brought fire from water and fire added to water creates steam (remember that white cloud), here the earth and sea become one. Fecund Mother Earth and Mother Ocean.

For LoS purposes, we should also point out that the Stella Maris Monastery is home to a monument to Napoleon’s soldiers. This is a small pyramid, flanked by two trees!

As a Mother Goddess, Stella Maris is also a Christian continuation of the title originally applied to Isis. It also brings us back to Aphrodite, Roman Venus, born from the sea.

The story goes like this. After Cronos castrated Ouranos and tossed his 'nads into the sea, they floated about for a while and from a white foam grew Aphrodite. (You will recall that the Erinyes, or Furies, grew from the blood). This myth of the fully mature Venus Rising from the Sea (Venus Anadyomene) brings to mind the idea of the fully-grown Athena, popping out from the head of Zeus. In the case of Aphrodite, perhaps it removes any lingering ickiness one might have in regarding her as the ultimate desirable woman. As wiki says: “Aphrodite had no childhood: in every image and each reference she is born adult, nubile, and infinitely desirable.”


Depictions of Venus Anadyomene also have her doing things with her arms: wringing her hair, strategically placed for modesty or splayed out in erotic invitation. I have thought long about the Venus of Lloret. Her arms are like the Pisces fish or a yin and yang. One is held up as if shielding the eyes, scanning the horizon, a covering, protective gesture; the other seeming to beckon a distant viewer. They both shield and invite. Modest yet alluring.

Her clothing, if it can be called that, hides nipples and public hair but only serves to accentuate her full-bodied forms: the upturned ample breasts, the thick legs, the generous belly. But this covering is indistinguishable from her body, not even a dim dividing line like that of the horizon where sea and sky meet.

Oddly, Aphrodite was often unfaithful to her husband, which isn’t necessarily out of keeping for the idea of a sailor’s wife. Perhaps not the ideal woman by a phallocentric point of view, but perhaps some of the anxieties of sailors away at sea are thus expressed. Perhaps this is also expressed in both her chastity and sexiness.

Venus--or Aphrodite--was one of those goddesses that had counterparts in several ancient cultures; Venus was essentially Romanized Aphrodite, who in turn seemed to correspond with much earlier goddesses: Inanna, Astarte, Turan. Herodotus ascribes her origins to Phoenicia. The Greeks did not seem to have any qualms about recognizing her Eastern origins and it would seems that the principles she represents belong to the earliest religious practices.

During Greece’s classical period, Aphrodite was seen as having two principal aspects, sometimes even as two separate goddesses: Aphrodite Ourania, born from the sea-foam and Aphrodite Pandemos, of the “common people”. For the Neo-Platonists Aphrodite Ourania figures as a celestial goddess and represents higher forms of love. As Pandemos she represents mere physical love. In any event it would seem that despite needing two differentiate between kinds of love, between physical and spiritual attraction, the force of attraction was more or less embodied in one divine feminine principle.

There are many myths associated with her, but let’s take for example the story of Pygmalion, evoked before, prior to learning of its connection to Aphrodite. Pygmalion was a sculpture who never found a woman to love. Inspired by a dream of Aphrodite, he set out to make a woman in her image. He fell in love with the statue, which Aphrodite brought to life as a rewrd for his falttering endeavours.

In another version of the tale, women in Pyg’s village got angry that he would not marry one of them, so they prayed to Aphrodite and asked her to help; she went to the man and asked him to pick a wife. Not wanting to be married, he begged for time in order to make a statue of Aphrodite before he chose. He dithered about with models, playing for time “to find the right pose” so to speak, but found that when he began the model, he wanted to finish; he was falling in love.

When he finished, Aphrodite appeared and said, ok, pick a bride. He chose the statue and asked to become one. Instead, Aphrodite brought the statue to life so that his wish could be fulfilled.

The statue is an object upon which men can throw idealized version of what a woman should be. This woman, his creation, is ultimately controlled by him and is literally born from him, like Eve from Adam’s rib, or Aphrodite herself from Ouranos’ floating nuts.

“The image of Venus Anadyomene is one of the very few images that survived in Western Europe in its classical appearance, from Antiquity into the High Middle Ages...."This extraordinary conservatism may perhaps be explained by the fact that the culture of the last pagan centuries remained alive longer in Provence than elsewhere."”

This conservatism may be due to the Troubadours’ pursuit of the idealized woman, like Clémence Isaure born from images of the Virgin Mary. An ideal unobtainable woman, here secularized in order to eroticize her without complex.


Here in this simple statue, a minor work from a minor sculptor, Ernest Maragall i Noble, we propose that all these strains of thought are present: Isis and the Virgin as Stella Maris, Aphrodite, the Ideal Woman of the Troubadours, such as Clémence Isaure and Belle Paule....and again, point out that this as all these other versions are creations of and projections of male ideals and fantasies, both spiritual and erotic.

Like Aphrodite, born from a man fully grown, without the aid of a woman.