Palladium (protective image)

In English, since around 1600, the word "palladium" has been used figuratively to mean anything believed to provide protection or safety,[1] and in particular in Christian contexts a sacred relic or icon believed to have a protective role in military contexts for a whole city, people or nation. Such beliefs first become prominent in the Eastern Churches in the period after the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, and later spread to the Western church. Palladia were processed around the walls of besieged cities and sometimes carried into battle.^[2] In this more offensive role they may also be referred to as "vexilla" (singular vexillum, Latin for "battle standard").

Classical antiquity

Troy and Rome

The original Palladion was part of the

According to a later set of myths it was then taken to Rome, where an actual image, unlikely to have been actually of Trojan origin, was kept in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum for centuries, and regarded as one of the pignora imperii, sacred tokens or pledges of Roman rule (imperium). The Roman story is related in Virgil's Aeneid and other works.^{[citation needed]}

Athens

The goddess Athena was worshipped on the

The centerpiece of the grand feast of the

Around the end of the 6th century the first references to Christian palladia start to appear.

In Ireland, these functioned as the battle standards of clans rather than protecting a city.^{[citation needed]} They were sometimes carried into battle in their reliquaries or cumdach,^{[citation needed]} hanging by a chain around the neck of a member of the clan. In the Western church, such beliefs have declined even in Catholic countries since the Reformation, and have disappeared in Protestant beliefs.

The Byzantine palladia, which first appear in the late 6th century, cannot be said to have had a very successful track record, as apart from Constantinople most major cities in Egypt, Syria and later Anatolia fell to Muslim attacks.^[5] Just before the start of the

• The
  Image of Camuliana was an icon of Christ which was the earliest important palladium of Constantinople after it reached the city in 574, but seems to have been destroyed in the Byzantine Iconoclasm.^[7]
• The
  Madonna and Child image — was the traditional protectress of Byzantine Constantinople. At times of siege it was paraded along the city walls.^[8] At the final fall of the city (1453) it failed to deter the Turks
  , was pillaged, and disappeared forever.
• The
  O'Donnell Clan, carried round the neck in its cumdach.^[9]
• Tatar
  armies in 1451 and 1480.
• Novgorod, and especially credited with saving the city in the Battle of the Novgorodians with the Suzdalians
  in 1169, which was probably soon after it was painted.
• The
  Virgin Mary, paraded round the city of Prato
  near Florence in 1402 when a Milanese army threatened, and perhaps on other occasions.
• Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon, considered the protectress of Russia and lost in 1904, though copies were used to bolster the morale of troops in both World Wars.
• Palladium of the Czechs - Czech legend holds that St. Ludmila, on her conversion to Christianity by St. Methodius, had her pagan statues melted down and reformed into a consecrated image of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. She prayed in front of it often, and was doing so when she was murdered by agents of Dragomir, mother of St. Wenceslas. Wenceslas inherited the image and had it carried above his troops when at war. He wore it on his chest when he was murdered by his brother, and it was taken from his body and hidden by his servant. Years later it was found buried in a field by a ploughman, and was brought to the church authorities. It was named “Palladium” and has since been kept as a symbol of Czech Christianity and patriotism.
• The Salus Populi Romani, an icon of Late Antique provenance, is credited with having protected the city of Rome on numerous occasions, and was recently invoked by Pope Francis during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Pope visited the icon in its location in the Borghese chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore in March 2020, during which he also visited another famous image invoked by the Roman people, the Santissimo Crocifisso, kept in its oratory near San Marcello al Corso.^[10]
• The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been hailed at times as a protecting image, not just for the people of Mexico where the apparitions related to the image are purported to have taken place in 1531, but also in the United States and other areas of the world where people of Mexican descent have settled. Pope John Paul II entrusted her protection to the unborn in 1999.^[11]

In other cultures

• The
  Heshibi
  of ancient China.
• The Imperial Regalia of Japan.
• The
  Buddha
  ).
• The Phra Bang of Laos.
• In Sri Lanka the Relic of the tooth of the Buddha is often described as a palladium in the rather different sense that control of it represented the legitimacy of the king.
• The Golden Maitreya Buddha in the
  Wat Preah Keo
  of the Kingdom of Cambodia.
• In the Khmer Empire, specific lingams associated with monarchs appear to have had a palladium-like role in the devaraja royal cult, although the subject remains controversial among scholars.^[12]
• Among many other figurative uses, in the
  evangelical journal in the United States, appearing between 1832 and 1862, and connected to the Christian Connection and Restoration Movements.^[13]
• Palladia in modern
  folk myth include the Ravens of the Tower of London, probably 19th century in origin, though dubious 17th-century origins have been claimed. These are somewhat typical of folk myth in being one-sided in their effect, in that their removal is said to presage disaster, but their continued presence is not usually held to have significant benefit. The isolated population of Barbary macaques in Gibraltar
  , whose continued presence is said to ensure British control, are a similar case.
• The Luck of Edenhall is an exceptionally fine and pristine example of 14th century luxury Islamic glass, made in Syria or Egypt, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It was in the possession of the Musgrave family of Edenhall, Cumberland, from an unknown but early date, and is recorded in 1791 as having "by tradition" a reputation as a palladium for its owners:^[14]

If this cup should break or fall
Farewell the Luck of Edenhall!

The cup has a custom-made 15th-century European leather case and the name is first recorded in a Musgrave will of 1677. A number of other Northern gentry families had a variety of objects called "Lucks", and "Luck of Troy" was an old English term for the Trojan and Roman prototype;^[15][16] the first recorded use of "luck" in this sense is a reference to the Luck of Edenhall.^[17]

• Some writers have suggested that the historic London Stone was once regarded as London's palladium.^[18] Notably, a pseudonymous contributor to the journal Notes and Queries in 1862 quoted a supposedly ancient proverb to the effect that "So long as the Stone of Brutus is safe, so long shall London flourish".^[19] This verse, if it were genuine, would link the Stone to Brutus of Troy, legendary founder of London, as well as confirming its role as a palladium. However, the writer can be identified as Richard Williams Morgan, an eccentric Welsh clergyman who in an earlier book had claimed that the legendary Brutus was a historical figure; London Stone, he wrote, had been the plinth on which the original Trojan Palladium had stood, and was brought to Britain by Brutus and set up as the altar stone of the Temple of Diana in his new capital city of Trinovantum or "New Troy" (London).^[20]

This story, and the verse about the "Stone of Brutus", can be found nowhere any earlier than in Morgan's writings. No one before Morgan had called London Stone "The Stone of Brutus", and although the spurious verse is still frequently quoted, there is no evidence that London's safety has ever traditionally been linked to that of London Stone.^[21]

See also

• Tutelary deity

Citations

1. OED
   , "Palladium, 2", first recorded use 1600
2. ^ Kitzinger, 109-112
3. ^ Kitzinger, 103-110
4. ^ Kitzinger, 103-104
5. ^ Mango, 3
6. ^ Mango, 2-3
7. ^ Beckwith, 88
8. ^ Beckwith, 88-89
9. ISBN 978-1-4617-3662-2
   .
10. ^ CNA. "Pope Francis makes walking prayer pilgrimage for coronavirus pandemic". Catholic News Agency. Retrieved 2022-04-05.
11. ^ Agency, Catholic News. "Why is Our Lady of Guadalupe patroness of the unborn?". Catholic Telegraph. Retrieved 2022-04-05.
12. ISBN 1576077705, 9781576077702, google books
13. ISBN 0802838987
    , 9780802838988
14. ^ Quote, and verses, article by Rev. William Mounsey of Bottesford in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1791
15. ^ "The Luck of Edenhall in the Victoria and Albert Museum". Victoria and Albert Museum. 2012-05-08. Retrieved 2012-05-08.;"The Luck of Edenhall (Eden Hall)". Pitt.edu. 2010-07-14. Retrieved 2011-02-09.
16. ^ Beard, 84-97 describes the "Luck of Muncaster" and other examples, mostly cups; his next chapter is on the Luck of Edenhall.
17. OED
    , "Luck"
18. ^ Clark, John. "London Stone" (PDF). Vintry and Dowgate Wards Club. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 March 2012. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
19. ^ Mor Merrion (1862). "Stonehenge". Notes and Queries. 3rd series. 1: 3.
20. ^ Morgan, Richard Williams (1857). The British Kymry or Britons of Cambria. Ruthin: Isaac Clarke. pp. 26–32.
21. ^ Clark 2010, pp. 45–52. sfn error: no target: CITEREFClark2010 (help)

Cited works

• Beard, Charles R., Luck And Talismans: A Chapter of Popular Superstition, 2004 reprint, Kessinger Publishing,
  ISBN 1417976489, 9781417976485, google books
• Beckwith, John, Early Christian and Byzantine Art, Penguin History of Art (now Yale), 2nd edn. 1979,
  ISBN 0140560335
• Kitzinger, Ernst, "The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 8, (1954), pp. 83–150, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, JSTOR
• ISBN 0704402262
• Price, S. R. F., and Emily Kearns (eds.) The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion. s.v. "Palladium". Oxford University Press.

External links

• Diomedes with the Palladium