1) Virgin Mary and the Child

1) Virgin Mary and the Child

There are also certain seals of the Teutonic Knights now extant from the first time, and it is interesting that those used by them feature the image of the enthroned or bust length Virgin and Child (Fig. 227). The Virgin Mary was the patroness of the Order and her image on seals is further testimony to the dramatic growth of her cult in the thirteenth century. The inscriptions on the two earliest wax seals are abbreviated differently, but they are essentially identical in context: “S. MAGRI. HOSPITAL SCE. MARIE TEUTONICORUM. IRLM”. In the central medallion on these seals we find a frontal seated Virgin and Child on a carpentered throne. Both figures are nimbed. The Child blesses and sits on Mary’s proper left side. The Virgin holds a staff topped by a fleur-de-lis as a king of attribute on the later example. See on this J. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, From the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre,1187-1291 (Cambridge, 2005), p. 361 and p. 363, Fig. 227 (seal).

2) Virgin Mary and the Child enthroned

Edited by C. Tyerman, The Crusades (Sterling Publishing, 2009), p. 164.

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