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Charles Alphonse Dufresnoy, St. Margaret of Antioch
French, 1656
Evreux, Musée d'Art Histoire et Archéologie
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There are several women honored as saints or blesseds by the
Catholic Church who are named Margaret. For
example, there are St. Margaret of Scotland, St. Margaret of Cortona, St.
Margaret Mary Alacoque, Blessed Margaret Pole and St. Margaret Clitherow. But all of them (and I myself) draw their
names from a woman who may or may not have lived. This is St. Margaret of Antioch, who is remembered by the Church on July
20. She is little remembered today, but
was a major saint in the Middle Ages through the Baroque.
This first St. Margaret was reputedly born in Syria, in the
area around Antioch. Antioch is a city
with a long, long Christian tradition.
Indeed, it is in Antioch that the followers of the new way in Judaism
were first called “Christians”. It is
the city that saw saints Peter and Paul preach and is the city of one of the
best known of the very early Christian martyrs, St. Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius was bishop of Antioch (the third ever, the first being St. Peter) in the latter decades of the first
century and his letters tell us much about the beliefs and disciplines of the
early Church. The letters we have were written while he was in transit, under guard, from Antioch to Rome, where he died, as he had expressly hoped, torn to pieces by the big cats of the new Flavian Amphitheatre (which we know as the Colosseum).
1 With this background, it is not surprising
that a young woman named Margaret, who was a Christian, may have been born near the city,
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Guercino, St. Margaret of Antioch
Italian, c. 1630
Rome, S. Pietro in Vincoli |
Margaret is, in fact, a name with deep roots in the Middle
East, for it is derived from the Persian word for “pearl”. In many languages there is a close
association between the words for pearl and daisy.2 In French, for example, daisies are known as
“marguerites”. And women with the name
Margaret have sometimes been gifted with the nickname “Daisy” in addition to
the more common Margie, Maggie and Meg. So,
Margaret, probably in the sense of pearl, would not be an unusual name to find
in a Syrian woman.
Chances are that there may have been an early Christian
woman martyr in Syria or southern Anatolia named Margaret during one of the
persecutions that beset the Church in the Roman Empire. However, as with many of the early saints her
story became embellished over time with stories of horrendous cruelties and
fairytale elements. In Margaret’s case
these elements came to completely overshadow her human story.
According to the legend, Margaret was born on Antioch near
the end of the third century, the daughter of a priest of one of the pagan
cults, presumably for one of the gods or goddesses of the Roman pantheon. Since her mother died when she
was a baby, she was given to a wet nurse to raise. The woman happened to be both a wool worker and a Christian and
introduced Margaret to both.
On her coming of age, she was requested in marriage by a high ranking Roman official. She refused him and refused to renounce her faith as well. For this she was tortured (in some pretty horrific ways) and thrown into prison. In prison she was attacked by Satan in two forms. First, as a handsome young man who attempted to persuade her to surrender to the pleasures of the flesh. Having failed at that, he decided to try terror, assumed the form of a dragon and swallowed her whole.
Nothing daunted, Margaret either cut her way out of the
dragon with a cross she had been holding when swallowed, or was miraculously
released by the spontaneous explosion of the dragon when she made the sign of the
cross from within his stomach. For this reason, she is most
frequently shown holding a cross and with a dead or dying dragon at her
feet.3
However, this reprieve was only
temporary. She was eventually beheaded
during the persecution of Diocletian (303-305).
4
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Richard de Montbaston, Martyrdom of Margaret of Antioch
from Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine
French (Paris), 1348
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Français 241, fol.159v |
Margaret was an extremely popular saint during the medieval period and remained so into the Renaissance and Baroque periods. She is the patron saint of a number of things and events, including pregnant women and childbirth.
In art we see different aspects of her life. Sometimes she is shown as a shepherdess or
wool worker, a reference to the supposed occupation of her foster mother.
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Jean Fouquet, St. Margaret of Antioch Spinning Wool
from Hours of Etienne Chevalier
French (Tours), ca. 1450-1460
Paris, Musée du Louvre
MS MI 1093
 | Mahiet and Collaborators, St. Margaret of Antioch as a Shepherdess
from Speculum historiale by Vincentius Bellovacensis
French (Paris), c.1335_
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Arsenal 5080, fol. 288
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Francisco de Zurbaran, St. Margaret of Antioch
as a Shepherdess
Spanish, 1630-1634
London, National Gallery |
At other times it is the scene of her eventual martyrdom
that we are shown.
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Master of the Roman de Fauvel, Martyrdom of St. Margaret
from Vies de Saints
French (Paris), 1300-1325
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Français 183, fol. 86v
This miniature shows both her escape from the dragon and her martyrdom. |
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Lodovico Carracci, Martyrdom of St. Margaret
Italian, 1616
Mantua, San Maurizio, Cappella di Santa Margherita |
At times she is seen
in her place in heaven as a martyr saint. Here the dragon may appear as one of her attributes but always as a subdued, barely hinted at presence. What is more important is the cross or martyr's palm that she holds. She also is frequently shown holding a book.
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St. Margaret of Antioch
Spanish (Burgos), c.1275-1325
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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St. Margaret of Antioch
Catalan (Lleida), 1330-1340
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection
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St. Margaret of Antioch
from Cologne Missal
German (Cologne), 1150
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 12055, fol. 164v
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Rogier van der Weyden, Saints Margaret and Apollonia
Flemish, 1445-1450
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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Jacques de Besançon, The Court of Heaven
from Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine
French (Paris), 1480-1490
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Français 244, fol.156
In this image Margaret takes her place among the front ranks of the
female martyrs. She stands in the first
row, wearing a dark blue dress and brownish cloak and carrying a cross over her
right shoulder.
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Annibale Carracci, St. Margaret of Antioch
Italian, 1597-1599
Rome, S. Caterina della Rosa
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Peter Candid, St. Margaret of Antioch
Flemish, ca. 1600
Private Colletion |
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Jan Brueghel I, St. Margaret of Antioch
Flemish, 1600-1625
Private Collection |
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Ernest Hebert, St. Margaret of Antioch
French, c. 1877
Paris, Musée national Ernest Hebert |
But, primarily she is seen in relation to her victory over
the devil/dragon. These images come from all
the time periods.
Sometimes the dragon is a truly fierce monster, but quite frequently he
is seen almost as a pet. Sometimes, Margaret is seen to be popping out of the dragon. At other times she has already been completely liberated. At still others she is standing victoriously atop the beast.
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St. Margaret Emerging from the dragon
from Livre d'images de Madame Marie
Belgian (Hainaut), 1285-1290
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 100 |
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St. Margaret Emerging from the dragon
from Sermons of Maurice de Sully
Italian (Milan or Genoa), 1320-1330
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Français 187, fol. 41 |
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Workshop of Agnolo Gaddi, St. Margaret of Antioch
Italian, c.1390
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
In this image Margaret is being ejected by the dragon by mouth rather than bursting through his belly.
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Master of Marguerite d'Orléans, St. Margaret of Antioch
from Heures de Marguerite d'Orléans
French (Rennes), c. 1430
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 1156 B, fol. 176
I suggest that you click on this image to enlarge it so you won't miss the detail of Margaret as a shepherdess in the right side of the margin and the two rather charming little dragons in the bottom margin who are looking up approvingly at the devil's discomfiture.
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St. Margaret of Antioch
French (Toulouse), c. 1475
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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Jean Bourdichon, St. Margaret of Antioch
from Grandes heures d'Anne de Bretagne
French (Tours), 1503-1508
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 9474, 205v |
The dragons in these two images above seem almost domesticated, almost pet-like. Obviously, this was one little bit of fantasy that painters and sculptors (and even potters) could relate to, a kind of comic relief in their usual work of preparing images of the martyr saints that were often far from comic.
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Workshop of Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, St. Margaret of Antioch
Majolica dish
Italian, 1527
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lehman Collection |
However, Raphael (known through several copies by his students, such as Giulio Romano) and Titian suggest that there may have been a struggle to escape from the dragon.
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Giulio Romano (after Raphael), St. Margaret of Antioch
Italian, c. 1518
Paris, Musée du Louvre |
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Titian, St. Margaret of Antioch
Italian, 1565
Madrid, Museo del Prado |
At the end of the seventeenth century, an artist working in the circle of Giacomo Ceruti imagined the vanquished demon as partially returned to human form, a much more unsettling image for we see Satan resuming his appearance as a fallen angel.
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Studio of Giacomo Ceruti, St. Margaret of Antioch
Itaian, c. 1601-1623
Private Collection |
Even given the comic relief aspect, there is a deeper reference here, one with a Biblical foundation. For, it refers to what had been foretold in the book of Genesis, when God rebuked the "snake" who tempted Eve to sin
"Then the LORD God said to the snake: Because you have done this, cursed are you among all the animals, tame or wild; On your belly you shall crawl, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel." (Genesis 3:14-15)
The dragon that devoured Margaret is the same snake that tempted Eve, both are personifications of Satan, the Devil, the Enemy who is both an enemy to God and to humanity. Margaret is here seen as a reflection of the Virgin Mary, the quintessential "woman" of Genesis and of Revelation and the Second Eve, who, with the offspring of both her body (Jesus) and her faith (Margaret, the saints, and by extension, all Christians) will strike at his head. 5
© M. Duffy, 2016
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- For St. Ignatius of Antioch see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07644a.htm, which includes links to his letters. O'Connor, John Bonaventure. "St. Ignatius of Antioch." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 20 Jul. 2016
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret
- The story of the dragon was too much of a strain
on the credulity of Jacobus de Voragine, who was quite happy with a great many
other fantastic stories. In his The
Golden Legend, written in he says “This
swallowing and breaking of the belly of the dragon is said that it is
apocryphal.” From The GOLDEN LEGEND or LIVES of the
SAINTS, Compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, 1275 First
Edition Published 1470, ENGLISHED by WILLIAM CAXTON, First Edition 1483, VOLUME
FOUR. From the Temple Classics Edited by
F.S. ELLIS First issue of this Edition, 1900 Reprinted 1922, 1931<
http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlegend/GoldenLegend-Volume4.asp>
- MacRory, Joseph. "St. Margaret." The
Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 20 Jul.
2016 .
- For more on the connections between the snake, the Virgin Mary and both Genesis and Revelations, see the articles "Annunciation – The World Created Anew" and "The Immaculate Conception"
