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Ayers Bagley
University of Minnesota |
St. Anne Teaching the Virgin 14th-15th
centuries
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Grammar
Chartres Cathedral
St. Anne & the Virgin
Victoria & Albert Museum
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Introduction
Grammar and St. Anne, as telling images of teaching, dominated the pedagogical field of
the medieval imagination. They attained to recognition in the public eye; they found
welcome in settings open to view, accessible to the literate and illiterate alike.
Prudence, also esteemed in the role of teacher, spoke mainly to judgment; she was less a
tutor to the eye than to the ear. If visual presence in the fabric of churches is in any
way proportional to popularity, Prudence was far less popular than Grammar, who offered
demonstrable skill, or than the more motherly St. Anne. Prudence taught in manuscripts,
and manuscripts were seen almost exclusively by the literate. Even in manuscripts, when
Prudence performed a teaching role, she preferred a verbal existence to a pictorial
presence, ever eluding distinctive delineation. When Prudence does appear personified as
teacher, she might be mistaken for Grammar.
Grammar enjoyed seniority status as teacher. First of the liberal arts, Grammar was
described by Martianus Capella as elderly and as "she," the latter accident
befitting her linguistic femininity. Grammatica, it is true, was not always depicted as
feminine. Michael Evans has called attention to masculine imagery of the arts, including
Grammar, thereby revealing occasional collisions between variant usage and Grammar's
normal accidents. How the paradoxical masculine Grammatica relates to the oxymoronic
normal accident is a question beyond the scope of this discussion.
Grammar's ambition for a place in the sun was realized toward the middle of the twelfth
century, when, with her students, and in the company of her sister artes, she achieved
installation on an arch over a western portal of Chartres cathedral. There she could
demonstrate her classroom management skills to visitors. Before her installation at
Chartres, she had been known to students of certain manuscripts. As a discipline, ars
grammatica was, of course, "the first subject for every student at universities all
over Europe from the twelfth century onward." The Chartres position offered more; it
lifted her from scholarly obscurity to worldly notoriety, which continued to grow as she
and her sisters were given place at Notre Dame in Paris, at the cathedrals of Laon, Sens,
Auxerre, the Freiburg münster (am Breisgau), and elsewhere. |
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Visitors to Chartres were welcomed into the cathedral by the
artes, saints, even by the Madonna. Inside, as they reached the crossing, they might find
St. Anne and the Virgin beaming upon them, glowing through the glass of the great northern
window. It was as mother and child, however, not as teacher and learner, that this
monumental image would command attention.
St. Anne's rise to popularity as educator began nearly two centuries after the Chartres
figures were installed. On the point of timing, the Benedictine monks of St. Augustine's
Abbey, Ramsgate, would find ample documentation for estimating that St. Anne's cultus
"did not become general until the 14th century was well advanced." Less sure is
their assertion that "St. Anne is usually represented as teaching her little daughter
to read the Bible," the subject to which the remainder of this exposition is devoted. |
Victoria & Albert Museum Sculpture
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I
How alike, how different is the iconography of "St. Anne teaching the Virgin to
read"? Variety is evident even when a sampling is limited to works of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, which delimit the temporal scope of this inquiry. The imperious
St. Anne of Marsh Baldon (Oxfordshire), who extends a directive forefinger at a text,
contrasts strikingly with the solicitous, motherly St. Anne of Beckley (Oxfordshire), who
embraces daughter and text. Differing from the imperious and the solicitous types are the
dutiful St. Annes, found in many fifteenth-century manuscripts, who sit listening
patiently to the child reading aloud. Nor are these three types the only ones to be seen.
Another image suggests a prescient St. Anne, one who looks beyond the childhood of the
girl standing before her. This St. Anne is a seer of her daughter's destiny, one who
foretells, as though in preparation for the Annunciation yet to come.
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Ross on Wye Window |
Components of the imagery. Some
inferences concerning Anne's teaching and Mary's lesson depend upon the interrelations of
five iconographic elements, to wit: Mary's (estimated) age and gestures, Anne's gestures,
the positions of Anne and Mary, the text that occupies their attention. Other inferences
depend on attention to iconographic context, and still others, to broader considerations,
such as textual traditions and cultural symbolism. Wendy Scase and Pamela Sheingorn,
respectively, have taken inquiry deep into the latter areas. For purposes of the present
discussion, however, it may be enough to concentrate on the elements of age, gesture,
position, and text, relating them in a few instances to companion themes. |
York |
Mary's Age. Artists entertained a
notable age-range for the Virgin as they imagined her lesson. She might be represented as
a very young child in arms, although rarely, it would seem. Imagery of Mary in Anne's arms
is richly precedented, as the Chartres' glass shows, but it is exceptional in
representations of Mary's lesson. When at her lesson, Mary is much more often represented
as a young child or in middle childhood. Sometimes she is portrayed closer to the teens,
and in one instance she is shown budding into puberty. Estimates of age must be based
mainly on the relative scale of Anne and Mary. Yet scale is not a perfect indicator:
perspective, style, symbolism, artist ineptitude may contribute to misapprehension.
Hankering after a simple, totally reliable index is chastened, for example, when the
slightly pubescent Virgin from Ste. Colombe-les-Vienne (15th c) gracefully declines
conformity with the projected norm. She comes up short in stature, so to speak, when
stature is compared to bust line. Still, the Ste. Colombe-les-Vienne example appears to be
exceptional among the types surveyed. |
Oaksey Window Detail |
Mary's gestures. Mary's gestures are
variable within a limited range. She may simply hold an open text (frequent), or actively
point into it with a finger or hand (frequent) or point with a fescue (frequent). If a
fescue is included, it is the younger Mary who would most likely use it. Artists usually
focus Mary's attention directly on the text, but in some cases she looks toward St. Anne,
perhaps indicating that Anne is speaking.
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Anne's postures and gestures. Anne's postures and
gestures are more variable than Mary's. Anne may sit or stand. She may hold the lesson
text, or she may both hold it and point into it, or she may point with one hand and
support or embrace Mary with her other hand or arm. She may gesture with one or both
hands. She may look into the text, or at Mary, or she may look away, possibly at the
viewer, possibly into the distance, as though in contemplation. |
Haddon Hall Window |
Positions of Anne and Mary. The positions of
teaching and learning attributed to Anne and Mary consist of four main patterns: standing,
sitting, apart, or close. St. Anne might stand behind Mary or they may stand facing one
another. Mary in her childhood always stands at her lesson. Whether Anne is standing or
seated, a clear majority of images (over 57% of the sampling) represent mother and
daughter physically close. Body contact is extensive. Anne may embrace or shelter Mary, as
a protectress. When Anne is seated and Mary stands beside her, Mary usually leans against
Anne's lap. Among less popular conventions, a small proportion (11%) represent Anne and
Mary in limited physical contact. Less than a third of the images (22 out of 70) represent
Anne and Mary apart. Of these, most are concentrated in fifteenth-century illuminations
which depict Anne and Mary indirectly in physical contact, holding their book in common
(rarely a scroll) rather than holding to one another. |
Marsh Baldon Window |
The text. Christian iconography
commonly represents saints with a book. It is not a discriminating attribute. The book
held by most saints would be the New Testament or both Old and New. What text would Anne
and Mary hold? It might be a Psalter or a book of Hours. It occupies a prominent place in
the lesson iconography; it may rest on a lectern, but it is usually held by Mary or by
Anne or by both. When Anne is seated, the book usually rests on her lap or knees. Few
extant representations of the book inscribe anything legible on its pages. Most show blank
pages; a few show dots or scribbles.
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Blore Ray Window |
II
Anne's teaching and Mary's lessons. An unusually clear indication of
Mary's lesson content appears in manuscript 94 in the collection of St. John's College
(Oxford), wherein the illuminator depicts Mary as an infant in arms holding a horn book.
(This iconography may be unique.) No lesson is in progress; it has either passed or is in
prospect. Mary's age level and her hornbook testify that she is at the very first stage of
learning to read. (Historically, horn book content consisted of letters, sometimes
syllables as well; it might also include the Pater Noster.) |
Beckley Window |
Three other examples suggest an interest in basic literacy,
although none is entirely persuasive that literacy is the focal interest, let alone the
paramount interest. Two of the examples are in stained glass, one in a manuscript. Both of
the examples in glass are imperfect: Mary's head is missing from the glass in the
Queenhill church; misguided restoration imposed a male head on St. Anne in the glass of
the church at Mulbarton. The Queenhill example is more convincing as a rehearsal of the
alphabet, given that Mary points with a fescue at individual letters, while Anne simply
helps hold the book with her left hand and presumably supports Mary with her right. Mary's
estimated head height suggests a stature about the level of Anne's chest, surely below her
shoulder. Shoulder level would suggest an age too advanced for alphabet learning.
The
Mulbarton example is more difficult to interpret, less because of the male head on Anne's
body than because of the incongruous proportions of Anne and Mary; Anne is too short, Mary
too tall. The text shows individual letters, which impressed G. M. Rushforth as alphabet,
but some of the letters conjoin in ways that do not correspond to horn book syllables. |
Mulbarton Window |
Most of the imagery reviewed represents Mary in her years of
early childhood (c 38%) or middle childhood (c 38%). Some of the imagery attributes a
fescue to Mary, which suggests reading letter by letter or word by word. Such ingredients
in the imagery support the idea that Mary is in the early stages of learning to read. She
may be reading aloud. If Anne is also pointing to text, the imagery may at once represent
two phases of a lesson, reading performance and instruction (or correction). |
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Norbury Window Detail
Winchester College Chapel Window
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III
Anne teaching. Visual evidence of Anne in the act of teaching occurs when artists
depict her pointing a finger at a text or as gesturing with one or both hands. When only
Anne points into a text, it is often not clear whether she is pointing to a letter, a
word, or a whole passage. Hence, the significance of the pointing is indeterminate. Visual
representation of Anne announcing an idea or explaining a text, as opposed to indicating a
single letter, is less doubtful when she points with one hand and gestures with the other
or gestures with both.
An advanced lesson appears to be in progress in a well known
panel painting of St. Anne teaching Mary, housed in the Cluny Museum (Paris). Anne points
to a legible text that introduces complex ideas: "Audi filia et vide et inclinaurem
tuam quia concupuit rex speciem tuam" ("Harken, O daughter and see, and incline
thine ear, for a king shall desire thy beauty") Such content would be
incomprehensible to a young child and otherwise inappropriate to her age. Nor is Mary
depicted here as a young child. Her height attains at least to Anne's shoulder, a stature
suggesting pre- or early teens, signaling readiness for the lesson at hand.
An advanced lesson is also indicated in an illuminated fifteenth-century manuscript in
the Pierpont Morgan collection (M 198). Here Anne points outside the porch where she sits
teaching a Mary whose childlike stature does not accord with the character of the lesson.
Atop a hill in the misty distance three crosses are vaguely discernible. This intimation
of Golgotha is exceptional in the iconography of Mary's lesson. It goes beyond
anticipating the Annunciation, moving attention, as it does, to the darkest hours of the
Christian drama. No other work in the present sampling duplicates it. |
Upper Hardres Window Detail |
IV
St. Anne and Grammar. Images of Anne seated, book on lap, embracing the Virgin
with one arm, are particularly reminiscent of gentle Grammars. Réau proposed the
relationship, but limited his references to late examples. Partly for this reason, Scase
dismissed the suggestion. Yet, the suggestion is not without credibility. At least one
thirteenth-century model of a gentle Grammar exists in France, sculpted on a window frame
on the western façade of the Cathedral of Laon (c 1230), drawing by Pegard for
Viollet-le-Duc. 50 Thirteenth-century models exist in Italy, e.g., Siena, Cathedral pulpit
base, sculpted by Nicola Pisano, 1266-68; Giovanni Pisano's Fontana Maggiore (c 1278) in
Perugia. Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Grammar in Siena's Palazzo Publico dates from 1338-39.
Although it is true that medieval Grammars taught boys, artistic skill would be little
taxed in changing the sex of a child figure, substituting the little Virgin for the
anonymous little boy. |
Auxerre Cathedral
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V
The centrality of the book in much of the Anne and Mary imagery has attracted scholarly
attention, leading to a suggestion that literacy was an intended theme. It is a reasonable
interpretation of some of the imagery. Literacy or potential literacy does indeed seem to
be a central theme in St. John's ms 94, although a coordinate theme might be the Virgin's
precocity, given her babe-in-arms age status. Still the phrasing may mislead
interpretation. Focal interest in the book is weak evidence of an exaltation of literacy
per se. Imagery of St. Anne teaching Mary conjoins more readily other functions, viz.,
vivifying Christian narratives (e.g., prelude to the Annunciation, revelation),
standard-setting (i.e., exemplifying periodic, single-minded dedication to religious text,
as in books of hours), parental modeling (e.g., the good mother rearing her daughter in
religion and morals), pointing to religious calling (e.g., mothers preparing daughters for
convent life; nuns, i.e., spiritual mothers, teaching oblates, novitiates, or seculars),
perhaps celebrating the role of teaching girls in the convent. |
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Cobham Window
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Imagery of St. Anne as teacher came within the imaginative borders of monastic life. The
Abbey of Stanley (Wiltshire), for example, featured it on the Abbey's official seal. The
historical record shows that mothers, daughters, sisters-i.e., biological kin-sometimes
resided in the same convent. It follows that biological mothers or spiritual mothers might
teach their daughters or spiritual daughters in convent settings, whether in classes or
private tutorials.
Looking into a fifteenth-century book of hours (ms 330, f.85, Pierpont Morgan Library), we
find a type of St. Anne iconography which approaches the classroom topos. Anne and her
three daughters occupy space formally defined by architecture, palatial surroundings
marked by ecclesiastical features, spiritual in tone, but institutionally non-specific.
The Virgin's two sisters sit low at the side of the room, open books on their laps. St.
Anne's grand chair is a seat of authority or wisdom. Holding an open book on her lap, Anne
clasps Mary's steepled hands. A little school might be in session. The iconographic
ingredients can be read as representing a special kind of classroom. In this imagery of
St. Anne and the Virgin, the roles of mother and "classroom" teacher harmonize,
providing, perhaps, an expression welcome to would-be "spiritual" mothers
teaching their daughters.
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VI
To summarize very briefly, a survey of more than seventy works
conventionally labeled as "St Anne teaching the Virgin to Read" reveals an
iconography far more diverse than the label might suggest. Not a uniform convention,
several types appear in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Virgin
may be depicted as though newly emerged from infancy or as verging on teenage, although
middle to late childhood appears to be the norm. "Teaching" has been visualized
in images ranging from gentle, motherly coaching in the alphabet, to specifically pointed
instruction, to gestured explanation requiring both hands, to discovery or revelation.
Anne sometimes occupies a chair, perhaps a seat of wisdom or authority, as might be
occupied by a learned teacher. The Virgin's lessons likewise range from alphabet to
complex texts. The fescue often in her hand suggests elementary learning, i.e., alphabet
or single words. If Anne as loving teacher owes a debt to any antecedent convention, the
gentle grammars known to Laon, Siena, Perugia, and elsewhere would be likely candidates,
not the tough grammar of Chartres or her descendants. With regard to function, the imagery
further humanized the Christian story, modeled parental care to literacy-presumably in
religion and morals, modeled devotions, perhaps celebrated spiritual parenthood, such as
might be represented in the parental home or in the convent. Clearly, it appealed to
several important interests.
You may also browse through
additional images without the text accompaniment here.
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Ayers Bagley. University of
Minnesota. A Typology of St. Anne Teaching the Virgin, 14th-15th centuries.
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