Emerentia is the name given for a grandmother of Mary, mother of Jesus, in some European traditions and art from the late 15th century.Michael Alan Anderson Symbols of Saints: Theology, ritual, and kinship in music for John the Baptist and St. Anne (1175–1520) (University of Chicago) 2008, p. 332: "In some late fifteenth-century vitae, Anne was given a mother named Emerentia, as well as a sister named Esmeria." (noting Brigid Cohen, 2008). She is not to be confused with Saint Emerentiana, a Roman martyr of the 3rd century who features briefly in Alban Butler's The lives of the fathers, martyrs, and other principal saints 1812, volume 1.
Sources There is no reference to the grandmother of Mary, by name or otherwise, in the canonical New Testament or the Protoevangelium of James, which is the earliest source naming Saint Joachim and Saint Anne as the parents of Mary.
Stories about Anne form part of Jacobus de Voragine's , but her mother is not mentioned. An early source mentioning Emerentia, is Josse Bade's (Jodocius Badius Ascensius, 1461–1535) 1502 translation of Petrus Dorlandus' work contained in the larger compilation (published in Paris), which tells the story:
Another source is Johann Eck, who related in a sermon that Anne's parents were named Stollanus and Emerentia.Frederick G. Holweck 1907. Catholic Encyclopedia article: St Anne "The renowned Father John of Eck of Ingolstadt, in a sermon on St. Anne (published at Paris in 1579), pretends to know even the names of the parents St. Anne. He calls them Stollanus and Emerentia. He says that St. Anne was born after Stollanus and Emerentia had been childless for twenty years"
In art Emerentia appears in a number of depictions of the Holy Kinship, the pictorial and sometimes sculpturalVirginia Nixon, 2004. Mary's Mother: Saint Anne in late medieval Europe p.152: "Occasionally Anne's parents, Emerentia and Stollanus, are also present.; Virgin and Child, with St Anne and Emerentia, Circa 1515–30, Metropolitan Museum of Art depiction of the ancestors and descendants of St Anne by many artists around the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century in Northern Europe.The Marian Library, International Marian Research Institute: What is the Holy Kindred? ; Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Ministère de l'éducation nationale et de la culture/Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Antwerp, Belgium) 2002: "At the end of the middle ages, there was also regard for her mother, Emerentia, and a tradition concerning the[...] Halfway along the stem sits a young Mary, and at the very top sits the infant Jesus with a small cross in his hand." Where Emerentia is featured in these groupings, which were often altarpieces, they are known as "Emerentia Selbviert".Virginia Nixon: "Mary's Mother, St Anne in Late Medieval Europe, Pennsylvania State University Press," p152. These rare examples of a matrilineal genealogy of Jesus have been found interesting by modern academics in the field of gender studies,Pamela R. Frese and John M. Coggleshall; Transcending Boundaries, Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Gender, 1991, Bergin and Garvey. and in feminist critiques of English literature, for example, Vanita argues that the feminine 'trinity' of Mary, her mother Anne and her grandmother Emerentia is reflected in two of Shakespeare's plays.Vanita, Ruth: Mariological memory in the Winter's Tale and Henry VIII (plays by William Shakespeare) SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 March 22nd, 2000 "the medieval devotees of Mary did not worship her in isolation but in the context of a female lineage. The matrilineal holy kinship of Jesus consisted of his mother, grandmother Anne (whose cult was extremely popular in England), and great grandmother Emerentia, with the three often being depicted as a female trinity. Since Jesus' only human parent was a woman, his lineage was necessarily matrilineal."
In 18th century and modern literature In The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary From the Visions of Anna Catherine Emmerich (1852), Emerentia is known as "Emorun,"Carol Haenni: The Holy Women Around Jesus (Association for Research and Enlightenment Press), 2006. which translates as "noble woman".Michael Brown, Spirit Daily, "Mystic described 'ancestors' of Blessed Mary and signs preceding her holy birth" http://www.spiritdaily.net/emmerichmarylife1.htm Emmerich describes in her visions how Emerentia lived as one of the Essenes, a particularly devout wing of the Jewish faith that believed it was destined to produce the Messiah, near Mount Carmel, and relates the story of how a prophet, entering the Cave of Elijah, saw the following growing from Emerentia's heart:
References
External links Saint Emerentia at the Christian Iconography web site