The Black Madonna of Chartres

Lorraine Dopson

Chartres is perhaps the world’s best-known cathedral, a lofty edifice located an hour south of Paris and dedicated to Our Mother. It is one of the grandest of the beautiful cathedrals that arose in France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a time of great adoration for Mary the Mother. This was also the time of courtly love, a love dedicated to purity, beauty, and unrequited passion. But Chartres has a story that reaches far back before the time of Mary. It holds within its magnificent walls a history of the feminine principle of humanity. By this I refer to the tradition of devotion to the Mother that endured throughout Europe for at least 30,000 years. During the Paleolithic and the Neolithic periods, reverence for the Mother or Goddess embodied a vital bond with the world of matter, mater, mother; the natural world of birth, death, sex, ecstasy, and healing. The Black Madonna portrays some of the historical overlays that are part of this ancient site. The lower third depicts a Paleolithic culture, centered on mother, child, and nature. The people sit by a stream. A sacred stream or spring was often the place of worship for those close to the Great Mother. Long ago a stream flowed where the cathedral now lies. Chartres, like many European churches, was constructed above an ancient well once dedicated to the Goddess.

Seventh-century Christian missionaries encountered Druids at this location, which by then was a sacred oak grove. The Goddess tradition had been modified by Celtic practices and beliefs, though it endured like an underground stream, feeding the souls of people grappling with the dichotomies of the newer male sky god and the worship of Mother Earth.

The Goddess tradition endures underground at Chartres in a subterranean grotto with an ancient well. In that chamber is a statue of a Black Madonna. She sits at the front of an underground chapel. Regular services are still dedicated to her. Local people and visitors from abroad climb down an ancient stairway into the darkness, coming to light candles, worship, and pray.

No one knows why the Black Madonna phenomenon began; perhaps she reflects beliefs brought back from Rome and North Africa by the Crusaders. Dedication to Isis and Cybele remained strong in those places for centuries after the birth of Christ. Whatever the reason, the Black Madonna tradition flowered in Europe during the Middle Ages. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these statues were created. Cathedrals like Chartres were homes to both the Black Madonna and Mary.

No one knows why she is black. Some say it’s from smoke or age, though many of her statues are painted. I believe her blackness comes from something far deeper. Veneration for a feminine aspect of the divine seems to have emerged spontaneously in all cultures during the Paleolithic age. Artifacts from that time tell of a preoccupation with the female body, not simply as an object of sexuality but of life itself. The pagan cultures of Europe needed no outside prompting to worship the feminine. The Divine Mother in black skin stirred something deep within them. Her creation must have been a spontaneous, collective act of spiritual creativity that allowed worshippers to revere their new Christian Mother while staying close to their ancient source of meaning.

In the top right corner the Black Madonna watches over the people and the earth. Her face is powerful but kind. This painting celebrates the reemerging consciousness of the feminine aspect of God in our culture today.

Lorraine Dopson, a counselor, artist, and writer, lives in Bismarck, ND; she has long been interested in the evolution of consciousness and is the author of The Light at the End of the World.

From (being human) Summer 2009 published as Evolving News for Members & Friends