Feasts and Remembrances in the Octave of Christmas

Follower of Simon Bening, The Angels Announce
the Birth of Jesus to the Shepherds
From a Book of Hours
Flemish,  c. 1500-1525
The Hague, Meermano Museum
MS RMMW 10 E 3, fol. 85v

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the major Church feasts bring with them a week of other celebrations.  This is known as an octave, from the Latin word for the number eight.  In times past many more feasts had octaves attached to them.  Most no longer do, while for most that remain the days of the octave are simply labeled "x day in the Octave of y" (for example, third day in the Octave of Easter).  

Christmas is, however, different.  It retains a daily differentiation for its octave, with each day of the octave having its own, very distinctive character.  

 

 

 

 

Thus, we see:

December 26 - Feast of Saint Stephen, the first martyr.

December 27 - Feast of Saint John the Evangelist.  For detailed information on the iconography of Saint John the Evangelist see:

      - When Knowledge of Iconography Is Lost (click here)
      - Images of John as Evangelist (click here)
      - The Figure With The Chalice (click here)
      - Martyrdom, Miracles and Death of John the Evangelist (click here)
      - Witnesses to the Crucifixion (click here)
      - The Last Supper (click here)

December 28 - Feast of the Holy Innocents (click here)

December 29 - Feast of Saint Thomas Becket (Currently an optional memorial) (click here)  In 2024 this feast is not celebrated because it falls on a Sunday and, therefore, is superseded by the Sunday, which this year is the feast of the Holy Family.

December 29 - Feast of the Holy Family, celebrated on the Sunday between Christmas and the Feast of Mary, Mother of God. (click here)

December 31 - Feast of Saint Sylvester, Pope (Currently an optional memorial)

January 1 -- Feast of Mary, Mother of God (click here)

While I have not yet produced an essay on the iconography of Saints Stephen or Sylvester, I have produced essays on the other days.  You can access these essays by clicking the links above as indicated.

Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas Octave!

© M. Duffy, 2024

On the Iconography of Christmas

 

Luisa Roldan (called La Roldana), Rest on the Flight into Egypt
Spanish, c. 1690
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

 

The Advent/Christmas Season has figured heavily in the history of Western Christian art from the early fourth century onward.  There is a tremendous amount of material available and over the years of this blog I have written a great deal about the iconography attached to the various days and weeks.  To make the material more accessible to readers I have gathered below most of these essays into a series of useful links for connecting to what I have already written on the various subjects (much as I have done for Holy Week and the Easter season).  

Although the specific readings these images reflect do not form part of the liturgy in every year, each year does touch on most of them.  

Please note that occasionally one or more of the essays mentioned may be unavailable at times.  This is because I am attempting to keep the essays updated with new images or images that have become available in more detailed versions, thanks to improving technology and expanded access to images.

So, here goes...

Last Week of Advent/Preparation for Christmas

The O Antiphons.  These are a series of antiphons (short verses that precede and follow the prayer of the Magnificat at Evening Prayer (Vespers) during the last week of Advent.  They offer meditations on the significance of the Child born on Christmas Day.

The O Antiphons (introduction)  click here

• O Wisdom, O Holy Word of God!  click here
• O Flower of Jesse's Stem!  click here 
• O Key of David! Come, break down the walls of death!  click here   
• O Radiant Dawn! O Sun of Justice!  click here  
• O King of All the Nations!  click here  
• O Emmanuel! Savior of all people, come and set us free! click here

Nativity (central group of figures) from the Metropolitan Museum Christmas Tree
Italian (Naples), Late 18th Century
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Annunciation

The apparition of the Archangel Gabriel to the young woman of Nazareth named Mary is the event that begins the events of the life of Jesus Christ.  Therefore, the Gospel readings for Mass on the last Sunday and last week of Advent, focus on it.  It has also been a principal topic for artists for many centuries, and is quite frequent on Christmas cards as well.  I have written extensively on the iconography of the Annunciation and my work can easily be accessed through the guide that I put together last year.

• Links to the Iconography of the Annunciation  click here

The Consolation of Saint Joseph 

An angel reveals to Joseph that Mary's pregnancy comes from God, not from a man.  Joseph acts on his dream and marries Mary, becoming the guardian of the Son of God.

• Joseph, Do Not Be Afraid!  click here  

Circle of Antoine Le Moiturier, Nativity
French, c. 1450
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Birth of Jesus

The Nativity

Mary and Joseph are unable to find lodging in a crowded Bethlehem and find shelter in a stable (or cave) where Mary gives birth and places her child in the manger where the animals usually feed.  Angels announce the good news of his birth to the shepherds in the fields, who come and adore him. 

• Love's Pure Light -- Light From Darkness click here  
• The Animals at the Manger  click here

The Holy Family

Images of the three members of the Holy Family. 

• Jesus, Mary and Joseph! – The Holy Family  click here  

Altarpiece with Scenes of the Infancy of Christ
Northern French, Late 15th Century
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Aftermath

The Visit of the Wise Men

Wise men, led by a star, come from the East to visit the newborn child and offer him rich gifts.

• How the Image of the Wise Men Was Formed  click here

The Holy Innocents

King Herod the Great knows about the prophecy of a new king in Israel.  After hearing the story of the wise men he decides to ensure his throne by eliminating this new born king.  So, he orders the massacre of all infant boys under 2 years old.  

• The Holy Innocents – Nearly Forgotten Baby Martyrs  click here

The Flight into Egypt  

An angel warns Joseph about Herod's plans and orders him to take the child and his mother to Egypt to wait for Herod's death.  The Holy Family flees.

• The Flight into Egypt -- The Holy Refugees, The "Simple" Images (Part I of a Series)  click here
• The Flight Into Egypt -- The Variations (Part 2 of a Series)  click here
• The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Part I of 3  click here  
• The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Part II of 3  click here  
• The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Part III of 3  click here

Related Feasts  

The beginning of the new year brings with it two feasts that are reflections on the Christmas story rather than narrative depictions of the Gospels.  These are the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, on January 1 and the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus on January 3.

• Mary, Mother of God  click here
• The Holy Name of Jesus  click here

I wish you all a Blessed Christmas and a Healthy New Year!

Christmas Tree with 18th Century Presepio
Italian, 18th Century (tree modern)
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

For those of you who live in the New York area or who may be visiting, the glorious Christmas Tree with its 18th Century Italian Presepio figures (sometimes known as the Angel Tree) is again on view.  This year it can be visited until January 6, 2025.  As always, it is well worth the visit.  And this year you can combine a visit to it with the ongoing special exhibition of early Siennese painting Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350, which will be on view until January 26, 2025.

© M. Duffy, 2021, 2022 2023, 2024.

O Flower of Jesse's Stem!

Tree of Jesse

Cutting from an Antiphonary

German, c. 1115-1125

Cleveland, Museum of Art

Jesse sits at the bottom of this image, with two branches 

emerging from his chest. These branches coil around to 

envelope some of his descendants.  However, straight 

above his head is his most important lineage, that of David.

Directly above him is David himself, then above him is the

Virgin Mary. Above Mary is Jesus, in whom the branches 

of Jesse's lineage converge and flower.

The third of the "O Antiphons", for December 19th reads:  

"O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you. Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid."  

This title "Flower of Jesse's stem" derives from the lineage of Jesus.  He is a descendant of Jesse, father of King David, and the presumed subject of the prophecy of Isaiah (read on the Second Sunday of Advent in Year A), which reads:

"But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,

and from his roots a bud shall blossom.

The spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him:

a spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

A spirit of counsel and of strength,

a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD,

and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD.
Not by appearance shall he judge,
nor by hearsay shall he decide,
But he shall judge the poor with justice,
and decide fairly for the land’s afflicted.
He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
Justice shall be the band around his waist,
and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.
Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat;
The calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,

together their young shall lie down;

the lion shall eat hay like the ox.

The baby shall play by the viper’s den,

and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.

They shall not harm or destroy on all my holy mountain;

for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD,
as water covers the sea.

On that day,
The root of Jesse,

set up as a signal for the peoples—

Him the nations will seek out;

his dwelling shall be glorious.

(Isaiah 11:1-10)

 

This image, of Jesse as the root and Jesus as the flower (sometimes also translated as rod), resulted in one of the best known of medieval images, the Tree of Jesse.  This is not to be confused with the modern "Jesse tree" which is a sometimes charming Advent decoration, a kind of Advent calendar, especially in use in homes with children.  Instead, this is a serious didactic image, making visual the human ancestry of Jesus.

Although I have found some excellent images of the Tree of Jesse in twentieth-century church decorations, the majority of these images were done between the twelfth and the seventeenth centuries.  

Anton Mormann, Madonna and Child in a Jesse Tree Mandorla
German, 1928
Ölde, Catholic Parish Church of Saint John the Baptist

In most of the Jesse Tree images, we see Jesse, asleep, either lying down or sitting up.  Out of his body (generally, but not always from his mid-section, the location of his "loins") grows a tree or a vine, which branches as it grows.  The branches are occupied by his descendents, often shown in chronological order.  Most of the images choose to illustrate only a few of the descendents, although David is usually prominent.  Very rarely all the generations named in the beginning of Matthew's Gospel are shown.
 

Medieval Stained Glass

Among the best known of the medieval Jesse trees are two famous stained glass windows, dated to the middle decades of the 12th century, at the abbey of St. Denis outside Paris and at Chartres cathedral in Ile-de-France.  These two immensely important churches were the hatching grounds for the Gothic style in architecture and embellishment that would dominate most of Europe for the following 300 years.  Their influence was widespread. 
 

Jesse Tree, Stained Glass
French, c. 1140-1144
St. Denis, Abbey of St. Denis

Jesse Tree, Stained Glass
French, c. 1150-1170
Chartres, Cathedral

Tree of Jesse Window
English, c. 1170-1180
Canterbury, Cathedral

Jesse Tree, Stained Glass
German (Swabian), c. 1280-1300
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Therefore, it is not surprising that the image of the tree of Jesse would appear in other forms of art during the remainder of the Gothic period.  It appears in particular in manuscripts painted all over Europe during these centuries.

Manuscript Illumination

Tree of Jesse
From the Siegburg Lectionary
German, c. 1125-1150
London, British Library
MS Harley 2889, fol. 4r

Tree of Jesse

From the Lambeth Bible

English, c. 1140-1150

London, Lambeth Palace

Tree of Jesse
Single Leaf from a Psalter
English (Canterbury), c. 1155-1160
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS M 724, fol. 1v

Master of Simon de Saint Albans and Workshop, Tree of Jesse
From a Bible
French (Champagne), c. 1170-1180
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 16746, fol. 7v

Tree of Jesse
From a Gospel Book
French (Champagne), c. 1185-1195
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 11534, fol. 207v

Tree of Jesse
From a Bible
French (Troyes), c. 1190-1200
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 8823, fol. 9v

Often the image of the branching vine or tree makes ingenious use of the shape of the page and takes advantage of the letter L, which is the initial letter of the opening of the Gospel of Matthew in the Latin Vulgate, "Liber generationis".  Jesse is shown lying in sleep as the horizontal bar of the letter, while his descendents occupy the vertical bar.


At other times it spreads out and occupies the entire space of the page, often with many branches.  

Master of the Ingeborg Psalter, Tree of Jesse
From the Ingeborg Psalter
French, c. 1195
Chantilly, Musée Condé
MS 94695, fol. 14v

*The Tree of Jesse
From the Munich Golden Psalter
English (Oxford), c. 1201
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
MS Clm 835, fol. 121r

Master of Blanche of Castille, Jesse Tree
From the Psalter of St. Louis and Blance of Castille
French (Paris), c. 1225
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Arsenal 1186, fol. 15v

Jesse Tree
From the Windmill Psalter
English (London), c. 1280-1299
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS M 102, fol.1v

Queen Mary Master, Tree of Jesse
From the Queen Mary Psalter
English (London), c. 1310-1320
London, British Library
MS Royal 2 B VII, fol. 67v

*Jesse Tree
From an Incomplete Bible
English (Anglo-Norman), c. 1366-1370
Paris, Bibliotheque nattionale de France
MS Francais 1, fol. 329r

Jesse Tree
From a Book of Hours
French (Rouen). c. 1475-1500
The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek
MS 133 D 17, fol. 24r

 
   

 

and south to Spain, where the lower section of the central pillar of the famed Portico de la Gloria at the great shrine of Santiago de Compostela is decorated with a Jesse tree:

Santiago de Compostela, Portico de la Gloria
Spanish, 12th century
Santiago de Compostela, Cathedral

and to Italy, where the influence of the still existing classical style, plus the ethereal style of the nearby Byzantine Empire, resulted in such beautiful works as the Bible of Pope Clement VII.

Bible of Clement VII
Italian (Bologna), ca. 1267
Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France
MS Latin 22, fol. 346



Bible of Clement VII, Jesse Tree
detail view

Bible
Northern French, 1229
New York, Morgan Library
MS M 163, fol. 326r

Nearly all the images include Mary independently, in the level just below that of Jesus or she is shown holding the Infant Jesus. However, there are some variations.

Images from the 14th century on begin to focus on Mary herself.  She is shown at the center of the composition as the true, direct offshoot of Jesse himself.

Jesse Tree
From Bible historiale of Gerard des Moulins
French (St. Omer), c 14th Cemtury
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 152, fol. 467v

Jesse Tree
From the Heures de Louis de Savoie
France (Savoy), c. 1445-1460
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 9473, fol. 102

Master of Cornelis Croesinck, Jesse Tree
From the Croesinck Hours
Dutch, c. 1489-1499
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 1078, fol. 112v

Jesse Tree
From a Psalter
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1500
Paris, Irish Cultural Center
MS E.1, fol . 42 

Jesse Tree
From a Psalter
German (Augsburg), c. 1230-1255
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 280, fol. 2r

This image is unusual in that, instead of ancestors of Christ sitting on the boughs of the Tree, it is incidents from the New Testament depicting the Annunciation, Nativity, Presentation and Baptism of Jesus that appear.

In the years bracketing 1500, at the very end of the Middle Ages are images that directly link the Tree of Jesse with the Annunciation, as for example, this image attributed to the Master of the Older Prayer Book of Maximilian I.

Master of the Old Prayer Book of Maximilian I,  The Annunciation surrounded by a Jesse Tree
From the Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal
Flemish, 1495-1515
New York, Morgan Library
MS M 52, fol. 388v

Finally, one image combines many themes.  In similar fashion to the Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal, it combines the image of the Annunciation with the Tree of Jesse.  But, it also includes an image of Adam and Eve, also ancestors of Jesus, as they are of all humans, just above the figures of Gabriel and Mary.  Not only are they part of the ancestry of Jesus, they are also the means through which sin and death entered the world.  It is their Fall that was healed by Christ, beginning at the Annunciation. 

Hours of the Virgin
French (Rouen), c. 1495-1505
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 174, fol. 21r

The image of the Jesse Tree continued into the Renaissance period, although it waned in popularity.  This may be due to the impact of the Reformation on European art.  Such images, giving visual form to abstract ideas, were frowned on by the Protestant reformers.  many such images, which had served for centuries as a means of instructing the common people about some of the tenets of the Christian faith, were seen by them as idolatrous images, not visual aids to understanding.  many such images were destroyed all over Europe where Protestantism became established.   Some of this thinking eventually transferred to  Catholic authorities, especially with the efforts to implement the decrees of the reforming Council of Trent, which also swept away some older ways of approaching the faith, without destroying the works already in existence.  Consequently, the concept of the Jesse Tree seems to have faded away, to be revived in the modern era.

A rather wonderful, small, late Jesse Tree image, possibly by the painter Girolamo Genga, lives at the National Gallery in London.  In it, each of the ancestors of Christ is depicted as a fully developed individual personality.

*Possibly Girolamo Genga, Tree of Jesse
Italian, c. 1535
London, National Gallery

Like most of the images in this essay it is a work of miniature painting on parchment.  However, it is not certain whether it was originally part of a book or if it was an independent miniature painting.  Whichever way it was planned, it is truly a small wonder, feeling as monumental as an image from the Sistine Chapel ceiling.  

© M. Duffy, 2011.  New material added 2024.

* Indicates new image