Arcadia Discussion Zone

Les Saintes Puelles

Las year I was in Tautavel and notices a statue of “Les Saintes Puelles”.
I was stricken by the fact that they looked like two ladies on the painting van Jan van Eyck, the Mystic Lamb. This altar piece is probably best known because one of the panels (the Just Judges) was stolen from the cathedral in Gent in 1934. It is still missing.

Traditionally the two ladies on the painting are called Maria Magdalene and the Egyptian Maria. The latter is known because she was dressed in her own hair. Some later artists used this symbol for Maria Magdalene. But no-one is dressed in her own hair on the Jan van Eyck picture.

Well anyway… I saw the Saintes Puelles and the likeness with the half hidden ladies on one of the panels of the Mystic Lamb, and posted about this on two dutch forums:
(http://www.terugnaardebron.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4257&hl=puelles
and
http://www.rechtvaardigerechters.nl/forum/index.php?showtopic=215&st=0).

One of the posters said "the ladies" were connected to the RlC area. There is a connection with St Saturnin (or St Sernin, whose bones are in St. Hilaire) and the little town Mas des Saintes Puelles.
This year I went to the area again and took some photographs. I posted them and Raven told us that there was an article about it on the perillos site. http://www.societe-perillos.com/livre_puelles.html.

I would like to know if others also see this connection with the painting of van Eyck.
Any thoughts about what it could mean?

(sorry for the pictures you have to go to one of the above forums, I tried to copy them but my posting got alle mixed up)

Unfortunately, you can't see the linked pages without logging in to the forum, and I have no interest in being a member. The last link is also dead. Anyway, take a look at this. A cutout of the horseman from the print of the Rosicrucian college from "Mirror of the Wisdom of the Rosicrucians", 1618, and a cutout from the lower left panel of the van Eyck painting, which is the one that was stolen but a copy was made. Remember that the word "mirror" is in the title of the book. The significant similarities here being the stuck out elbow and the position of the horse, especially his head and open mouth.

Also look at this, I don't know how old this tarot card is but it looks pretty old and it is obviously very similar to the central figure in the van Eyck painting. Most sites say that's supposed to be Jesus, but it sure looks like the Pope tarot card to me.

Wauw interesting!


Sorry about those not working links. I hosted the pictures in a wrong way and now I hope it will work better.

I see what you mean about the similarity.

I don't think that's St. Mary of Egypt next to Magdalene. I think it's her sister Martha. Mary of Egypt is usually depicted with white hair. There are images linked on this page http://comeandseeicons.com/m/saintsm.htm just use the "find" function of your browser with the word "egypt" to get to them. I guess that could be just about anybody with Magdalene in the statue but since she looks so similar I would think it's her sister. If they were trying to depict someone other than her sister they would probably make some distinction between their appearances to avoid that misinterpretation. I guess the van Eyck painting does show Mary of Egypt, according to the experts. I don't know why he would depict her looking the same as Magdalene though.

Okay, thanks for your input, you all.
But I'm certain the picture is NOT of Mary Magdalene.
The two saints are sisters all right...



Suggestion to me???

Zenaida and Philonella?

I like the suggestion but why on a panel with hermits? We've got to look for sisters who are (related to) hermits. Maria Magdalene was a hermit for some time, but this is not known about her sister Martha.

Hi,

Those ladies are joined at the hip aren't they?

No, I meant the statue not the painting. We know the painting shows Magdalen and Egyptiaca. Actually, we also know the left woman in the statue is Magdalen, from the jar, but we don't know who the right woman is, unless there's a label on it somewhere. I was just trying to figure out what two saints could be sisters, as you said, and those were the only two.

Here's an interesting thing I found about Maria Egyptiaca;

"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." http://www.comecarpentier.com/myth.htm

So maybe all those "black Madonnas" in France aren't Magdalen after all, but Egyptiaca.

So who are they then? Is it supposed to be the two women who buried St. Saturnin? If so, why is one holding a jar? I know it doesn't look much like Magdalen's usual jar, but what's it supposed to be? Puelle isn't even a real French word, at least not in any dictionary on the net.

Puelle is a Latin word for a young girl.
As to the jar, in my opinion....you need to read up about the Cathar's deathbed sacrement, The Consolamentum.

Well I continued my research and those who can read dutch can have a look on my website http://www.oogvanhorus.nl/02_Lam%20Gods/01_geopend/09_kluizenaars.htm

I found out that Sernin or Saturnin is a companion of Saint Antoine from Egypt. On van Eycks painting it is easy to identify Antoine because he has a blue Tau on his coat. He is the hermet in the middle.

One of Sernins symbols is a sickle. To the left of Antoine one can see Saturnin with the sickle. So, if one can identify Sernin it is very likely the two women (puelles = virgins) are on the panel too.

The person on the other site of Antoine is likely Saint Paul of Thebe, I don’t have proof of that yet, as you can see the symbols for the saints are not very clear. Saint Paul was usually dressed in leaves (or naked) and one of his symbols is a raven. Actually one of the Belgium Researchers pointed out David Teniers depicted Saint Paul en Saint Antoine together.





A detailed picture of the panel by Van Eyck: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Ghent_Altarpiece_E_-_Hermits.jpg

Thanks, Sheila, for the translation of puelle. In regard to the jar being associated with the consolamentum, how was it involved.

"The ceremony was striking in its simplicity. It required no material elements such as water or anointing oil, and seems to have preserved a ceremony of the very earliest Christian Church." http://www.cathar.info/12011001_consolamentum.htm

I don't see a T but I can accept that the one with the crutch is St. Anthony, because that's one of his symbols, as is the aspergill in his other hand. You can't really tell what that is in the left man's hand. It could be the handle of a walking stick.

So why do you think one of the women is holding a jar anyway? It's still something of a mystery. By all appearances, it's Magdalen's jar like in this 1435 painting by Weyden Rogierc. Incidentally, guess who that is in the background with the crutch and the aspergill?

Hmmm........I was just thinking...

The two Patron Saints of Gravediggers are ....Saint Anthony & Saint Barbara.

Coincidence?......I think not!

They are two young women of Toulouse who, according to legend, retrieved the body of the martyred St. Sernin and gave his a Christian burial. They were beaten and driven from the city, coming to live in a small settlement that is now known as Mas-Saintes-Puelles.

You folks really need to be looking at St. Peter Nolasco and the Mercedarians. I've said it before but all I got was flak over it.

TCP

Highly unlikely, given that the overlap of their individual lifespans was only seven years. St. Anthony of Egypt is said to have been born in 251 CE while St. Sernin was martyred in 257 CE.

TCP

Given that St. Mary of Egypt was an ex-prostitute well past her prime at the time of her conversion, I don't think anyone would characterize her as a virgin.

Maybe all those black madonnas are really an indigenous, pre-Christian goddess whose name also happened to be Mari, depicted as black because the term for a pagan woman was Moura...as in Mouras Encantadas, or Enchanted "Moors", female spirits of Celtiberian legend who guarded hidden treasures in caves and ruined castles...

TCP

Mithraism...Two Christian women (puellae remembered as "les Puelles") piously gathered up the remains and buried them in a "deep ditch", that they might not be profaned by the pagans

How is that related to Mithraism? Wouldn't Christian women have considered Mithraism to be a pagan religion? Or are you saying St. Sernin was killed by practitioners of Mithraism?

TCP

Since there was a bull involved and a "Deep Ditch"...probably...

The bull, it is said, finished at the place since named Matabiau (that is, matar ("the killing") and biau or bœuf ("bull"). An inversion of this martyrdom, the tauroctony, the "killing of the bull," is precisely the central rite of Mithraism, the most important icon in the mithraeum, a depiction of Mithras in the act of killing a bull. The tauroctony was either painted or depicted in a sculptural relief, sometimes on the altar. Two Christian women (puellae remembered as "les Puelles") piously gathered up the remains and buried them in a "deep ditch", that they might not be profaned by the pagans. It is not beyond possibility, in this part of Gaul, where even today the greatest bell among many in Toulouse is honored with the name "Le Grand Taur," that the deep ditch was in fact a mithraeum.