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Blurred Racial Images
Black
Images During the Middle Ages |
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SIGILLUM SECRETUM
In the middle of the
14th century, one of the most profound examples of the
symbol of the blackamoor can be seen in the use of this
image to represent Christ. It is clear from the
documentation we have for the city of Lauingen in
Germany, for example, that at about this time, the
city's seal with the head of Christ wearing a crown of
thorns is transformed to the head of a blackamoor
wearing a golden crown. That the latter insignia
is meant to represent the former is quite obvious from
the accompanying inscriptions. One of the earlier ones
read: "Sigillum civium de Lougingin" (seal of
the city of Lauingen), while a later version clearly
explains itself as the "Sigillum secretum civitatis
palatinae Lavgingen (secret seal of the palatinate city
of Lauingen)."
A German heraldic scholar writing before World War II offered
two other reasons for a similar coats of arms. He pointed out
that Ethiop (sun burnt) the black was a sun sign and therefore a
symbol of divinity that could alternately be used for the Son of
God or the Son of Man. He also pointed out that from what we
know of the cult of the Black Madonna, the blazon of the
blackamoor queen was a reference to Mary, the Queen of Heaven or
her prefiguration as the Queen of Sheba and that the male
versions of these insignia were therefore references to her Son. The discovery of this
particular seal was especially surprising to me since I
had
The Arms of King Balthazar No more graphic a demonstration of the African figure as a symbol of the sun is to be found than in the arms ascribed to King Balthazar. Initially this had posed a problem for me since the ethnic background of this Wise Man, to my mind, was simply not enough of a reason for this heraldic device. It was not until coming upon an early text describing his coat of arms as that of the sun that I at last realized what the blackamoor on Balthazar's livery signified.
Since King Melchior bore a field of stars and King Kaspar, the moon, it is fairly obvious that as an allusion, no doubt, to the celestial phenomenon which had guided them to Bethlehem, the original arms of the Magi had been the sun, the moon and the stars. I do not think it would be unreasonable to suppose that for whatever theological line of reasoning, the heraldic insignia of both Balthazar and the city of Lauingen had been changed at the same point in history.ing Melchior bore a field of stars and King Kaspar, the moon, it is fairly obvious that as an allusion, no doubt, to the celestial phenomenon which had guided them to Bethlehem, the original arms of the Magi had been the sun, the moon and the stars. I do not think it would be unreasonable to suppose that for whatever theological line of reasoning, the heraldic insignia of both Balthazar and the city of Lauingen had been changed at the same point in history.
Blackness as an Allusion to God Perhaps even more remarkable, especially from our perspective today, is evidence which would suggest that in the language of heraldry, the blackamoor could be an allusion to God Himself. The most obvious of these examples are to be found in the arms of the city of Coburg, the Kob family of Nuremberg and the Pucci of Florence. Since these three names are derived from that of Jacob (Coburg=Jacoburg, Kob=Jakob, Pucci=Jacopucci), the clue is to be found in the Book of Genesis. Very much along the lines of the old Hebrew injunction against uttering the Holy Name, it was the second century theologian, Dionysius the Aereopagite, who first alluded to God as, "The Divine Darkness". In the passage relating the changing of his name to that of Israel, Jacob discovers that the dark spirit he has wrestled with all night long is none other than God in the impenetrable image of His infinite Self. The fact that the name, James, is nothing other than a variant of Jacob, might well provide us with the significance for the arms of Sardinia I described earlier since it is to the Aragonese king, James 1, that their use can first be traced.
Blackness as Wisdom One of the most dramatic and, certainly, most graphic uses of blackness as wisdom can be seen in the portrayal of the Good Thief from a number of 15th century Flemish masterpieces depicting the Crucifixion. For the ability to recognize his Saviour's spiritual supremacy beneath the harsh reality of the Cross, St. Dismas is not only painted as an African, he is painted blindfolded as well. The blindfold on certain blackamoor coat of arms, therefore, is not a mistakenly placed headband or torse, the standard headpiece of this specific symbol when a crown is not called for. This blazon is, instead, an exhortation or, more precisely, a divine demand that we not only respond to the weakest and most helpless of our neighbours as we would Our Lord but, like St. Dismas, that we do so even while in the death throes of our own personal crucifixions. Interestingly enough, a number of early theologians writing on this subject, have attributed to the Black Wise Man's colour the same kind of reasoning from which St. Dismas would derive his doubly dark imagery; his ability to recognize the Messiah in a lowly manger. Researched and Written by Mario de Valdes y Cocom an historian of the African diaspora. Some of these articles in the series are form the the spartacus educational web site. They first appeared and are currently present on the PBS Web site. For more articles see the PBS Web site.
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taken for granted that it was either another
reference to Prester John or, even more likely, to
Balthazar, the black Wise man of the Epiphany who has,
iconographically, almost always been treated as a
king. Because his gift of myrrh prophesied not
only Our Lord's death but, most importantly, His
Resurrection and the proof, therefore, of His divinity,
the awe Balthazar's blackness inspired must have had a
powerful impression on the science of heraldry. A coat
of Arms that is apparently derived from the same
theological source as that of the city of Lavingen
belongs to the Cruse or Cross family of France. Since
cockle shells are so liturgically associated with the
sacrement of baptism, their number here probably
signifies the three nails of the Crucifixion while the
women, in all likelyhood, are representations of Mary
and the Queen of Sheba. 
