At first blush, the other panel in the diptych-like title looks problem-free. No troubleshooting would appear to be called for. When used as a possessive, the medieval French Nostre Dame morphed into the modern de Notre Dame. Yet this other phrase too requires at least a little examination. Notre Dame designates the Virgin in her capacity as “Our Lady.” Even more often, it serves as shorthand for a religious foundation dedicated to her, with the cathedral of Paris being by far the best known. The more relevant matter is what led to the formulation Notre Dame in the first place. Despite its familiarity, it should not be taken for granted. French is unusual in calling Mary what it does, in having as many dedications of places, buildings, and institutions to her as it does, and in vaunting a cathedral named after her that has become emblematic of both Gothic architecture overall and particularly the city of Paris. Let us take a gander at all these aspects of the one seemingly simple phrase.
The designation of the Virgin as “Our Lady,” from the Latin domina nostra, has hardly been universal in the Romance languages. Calling her Saint Mary was, and perhaps still is, more common (see Fig. 2.1). To take one well-known nautical example, Christopher Columbus’s largest ship was not christened Nuestra Señora, Spanish for
Our Lady. On the contrary, it was the Santa Maria—Saint Mary if translated into English. In French, usage has differed markedly—and the divergence from most other languages began early. Notre Dame may well have become current already in the eleventh century. To all appearances, the phraseology took strong hold first at Chartres in the second half of the twelfth century. From there, it seeped by linguistic drip-drip into other forms of Romance speech, such as Occitan and Catalan, at the expense of the formulations for “Saint Mary” in these tongues.
Fig. 2.1 Edward Maran, The “Santa Maria,” 1492, 1892. Painting, reproduced on color print from original The Santa Maria, Niña and Pinta (Evening of October 11, 1492).
No one knows what bright soul coined the locution Notre Dame. (Nobody filed for exclusive rights to it.) The turn of phrase may have arisen among the laity rather than among ecclesiastics, as a means of marking the Virgin apart from other saints, including virgins, to accord her special credit for her uniqueness. By not being labeled “saint” she is elevated, not to the point of heading a matriarchy, but still head and shoulders above all others. The discrimination makes perfect sense, since she occupies a degree below that of Jesus Christ but above ordinary saints. At the same time, Mary was the most popular, in the fullest sense of the word, of holy women.
Yet Notre Dame differs interestingly from, for instance, the Italian Madonna, which could be equated to “my lady” or “milady.” We may not stop to puzzle over why we say “your Majesty” as opposed to “my Lord,” but the possessive adjectives have been driven by specific forces. The plural in the French first-person possessive for “Our Lady” brought home that she belonged to everyone. The form “Our” may well reflect liturgical practices, in which the members of a church collectively invoke the Mother
of God. The noun Dame had the simultaneous effect of coordinating the Virgin with feudalism. In French, Jesus Christ is Notre Seigneur, or “Our Lord.” By being called
“Our Lady,” Mary is recognized in rank for being what she was, that is, the most powerful female in Christianity. In medieval society, women were ringed around by constraints, but the Mother of God knew no limitations: she had to shatter no stained-glass ceiling. Making her into a lady had the self-contradictory, but understandable effects of simultaneously ennobling, familiarizing, and humanizing her. As obligatory within the feudal system, the Virgin would indemnify her devotee as a lady would shield a vassal against all threats and arm-twisting.
The upswing in the wording Notre Dame took place within a much larger swing, namely, the cult of Mary. This veneration began to proliferate in the eleventh century, and in the twelfth century reached in both lay and clerical piety a pinnacle from which it would not be dislodged for the rest of the Middle Ages. The high point turned out to be a mesa-like plateau. Devotion to the Virgin must be reckoned among the most instrumental forces in spiritual life and creative achievement from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries. There is no hyperbolizing the number of sculptures, paintings, stained-glass windows, and other artworks created in honor of Mary, and no overstating the volume of hymns and stories composed on her behalf. This literary flowering coincided with the efflorescence of courtly love literature, in which the lady occupied an exalted place. The two developments would have supported each other, and would have initiated many-sided interplay.
The Mother of God as elevated through mass devotion was manifold. At first the Virgin won favor through her relation to Christ. She enabled the Word to become flesh when she accepted her role in the Incarnation, as the human mother from whom the Son of God took his humanity. In her own humanness, she was later the grieving Mary. In this guise, she would become formalized as the Mater Dolorosa, or
“Sorrowful Mother.” Even more particularly, her griefs would be numbered seven. In this connection, we should not overlook the parallels between the maternal Virgin as she keens over the deposed Christ, and the Mary who assuages the jongleur after he collapses before the Madonna. Eventually, the Mother of God won a clean sweep through her Assumption into heaven, which positioned her first for coronation and then for being seated on the right side of Jesus as the Virgin and Child in majesty.
On a civic plane, Mary constituted a favored last-line defense for municipalities, in the first instance Constantinople. She earned this reputation after the siege of the Byzantine capital by Persians and Avars in 626. A progression becomes clear: she acquired status as the invincible defender and invulnerable protector of, first, the city, then the whole Eastern Roman Empire, and ultimately all Christendom. Despite having a power quotient that bordered on omnipotence, the Mother of God was not preempted from transitioning to being a merciful mediator. In her maternal
capacity, she acted as a vigilant lookout for the best interests of humanity. As the Virgin of Mercy, she went from merely being Mother Confessor to playing an active role in motivating her son to absolve repentant sinners. Beyond the Marys in all these capacities burgeoned a multiplicity of other Virgins, including Madonnas that triggered local affection and devotion while generating miracles. In popular devotion, such images served as the focal points for personal and affective language that invoked the Mother of God as intercessor. In exchange for the worship, the Virgin traveled to and fro between heaven and earth with a facility disallowed to Jesus himself. She was especially approachable, and uniquely capable of working miracles. All these Marys traveled with a long train of miracle stories, sermons, popular literature, art works, and shrines.
In modern French, Notre Dame has come to denote without distinction the Virgin Mary herself and a cathedral, since almost all such foundations in France are dedicated to her. After the bombing of Reims in World War I, an author spouted about the synecdoche with patriotic wholeheartedness:
When we speak indifferently of “the Cathedral” or of “Notre-Dame” we do not confound the Palace with the Queen; we affirm that the Palace is the Queen’s, and that she is at home there; we mean to say that the Cathedral is her domain, her sanctuary, that one cannot separate the one from the other, that to touch the Cathedral is to touch Our Lady, and to violate the Cathedral is to violate Our Lady.
What rendered Mary exceptional, and why was she worshiped so warm-bloodedly by so many? The special saving grace of Christianity was that the religion made monotheism approachable by incorporating a man within its divinity. For all that, in time the godhead became regarded as aloof and forbidding to the rank and file. At the top of the social hierarchy, emperors and kings were God’s anointed. In that capacity, they had a privileged relation to Jesus. In Christian iconography of the East, we find Christ Pantokrator. In Greek, the epithet means “almighty.” In the corresponding imagery of the West, we encounter Christ in Majesty, enthroned as ruler of the world.
In contrast to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the Mother of God seemed within reach to everyone, no matter how humble. The reforms of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 suggest that by then she was sought after more than ever to intercede with her offspring. One explanation was that the Church was not equipped to deliver the level of pastoral care demanded for the swelling numbers of needy Christians. Filling the gap, the Blessed Virgin could be counted upon to sway Jesus through her maternal influence. The underlying guideline was the common reality of life that a solicitous son can be prevailed upon to do anything for his mother. Thus, Mary assumed an unexcelled place within personal piety from which she shows no signs of being budged even today.