The Star

Does anyone have any ideas about the fact that the star woman is on one knee? In a Christian deck would we would expect her to be more reverently on both knees? Perhaps it has an astrological association. Or is it just more physiologically accurate to suit the task at hand? The card seems to be a counterweight to the Temperance card where the water is retained and the angel wears heavy robes. Both are on land beside water. A river or a lake? To me the image has vague echoes of Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Jesus, except that she seems to be washing her own feet, suggesting self-purification maybe. The position of the jar in her left hand is in front of her crotch and has sexual associations. I just finished reading a frankly terrible book by Robert Swiryn which attempts to link the 13th century Cathars with the imagery of the TdM, and he points out that Mary Magdalene was a supremely important figure in their philosophy.

I believe Mary Magdalene was of particular importance to certain Christian sects because she represents sinners like ourselves who are seeking to achieve greater spiritually purity, but also because she is given the task of announcing the Resurrection. This would fit the mood of the card, the appearance of the Morning Star above her head, and the card's postion in the deck after the Devil and the Tower. Not that I expect the card to have some exact correspondence to Mary Magdalene, but I wonder if this isn't one of the concepts that would come vaguely to mind for a Christian audience of the Middle Ages when they saw the image.

Hall's Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art tells us that in medieval and Renaissance art Mary Magdalene's "one invariable attribute is her jar or vase of ointment used to wash Jesus' feet...Her hair is untied and flowing...She often is shown naked or partially unclothed, her head bowed in repentance...Sometimes she wears a crown of thorns" - the star overhead? In the 11th century Provencal "Golden Legend" MM, along with Martha and Lazarus, are reported to have made a pilgrimage to Provence, landing in Marseilles(!), where she "lived and a hermit and baptised many". After the Resurrection in the Gospel of John, MM mistakes Christ for a gardener, which may account for the odd implement in the right hand of the figure in the centre of the World card in some decks. In art of the period Christ is often shown holding a hoe or spade.

The woman is replenishing the earth with waters from the heavens. She's a symbolic go-between. The bent knee represents her act of bending down and bringing the waters from heaven to earth.

There are a lot theories about who specifically she might represent, Venus or Isis for example. Some of them make sense, but to me she's just a generic allegory representing the idea of replenishment.

Christian TdM

I'm sure you're right. I don't mean to suggest that there is an exclusive correlation, Star = Mary Magdalene, but I'm guessing that the culture of that time was so obsessively Christian that they would expect biblical imagery in a design for a deck of cards. The Bible was their common language. The Strength card (Force) would call to mind Samson and the lion of the Old Testament even though the figure on the card is female. In the same way the Star would remind them of various vaguely philosophical and religious concepts. The more I look at the deck the more I see Christian imagery tying the deck together. The four suit symbols for example. Cups= eucharist; Wands=the chi-rho symbol for Christ's name; Swords=the circular labyrinths on the floors of cathedrals; Coins= the circular host, the body of Christ. The recent discussion thread "Wands" throws a few of these ideas around. I'm not Christian myself, so I would love someone with a deep knowledge of the Bible to flick through the TdM and note what ideas pop out them from the deck's imagery. Much of the content seems to be cheekily anti-Catholic, which we would expect in a deck used in taverns for gambling.

Paul Huson has documented in his book Mystical Origins of the Tarot that a lot of the trumps have their roots in Christianity. The Star could be the star of Bethlehem, pointing the magi to Christ's birth. Some tarot trumps even show astrologers gazing at a giant star. Or it could be the "morning star," a metaphor for Christ in the New Testament. Revelation 1:16 and 2:1 mention Christ as have having "seven stars in his right hand." In the Star trump there are seven stars grouped around the larger central star. In the New Testament (John 4:14), Jesus is quoted as saying, "...but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again." So there seems to be a lot of good reasons why the Star could have Christian origins.

Huson says he had trouble finding a clear predecessor for the Star iconography. He does show one image in his book that's quite interesting in it's relationship to the Star.

"The only clue I can find to the source of this puzzling image lies in a reference in the sixteenth-century book of allegorical images called Iconologia, compiled by Cesare Ripa, a Perugian student of medieval and Renaissance icoography. Here we find an illustration entitled Crepuscolo della Mattina (Twilight of the Morning)..."

Twilight of the Morning

Thank you for directing me to Huson's "Mystical Origins", and for the link to the Star image. I read his "Devil's Picturebook" a few years ago when I was more interested in the modern decks and found it a bit dry. But now I have fallen in love with the TdM I think I'm ready to go back and reread him. I had hoped to achieve greater clarity and understanding by looking at the Christian symbolism in the deck, but the more historical research gets done on the tarot, the more the mystery seems to deepen. Why these particular images? And why have they remained essentially unchanged for so long? Or is that not strange at all? The design of chess pieces hasn't changed either. Or the rules of NFL football. Perhaps it's in the nature of gaming to evolve towards a state of fixity/finality/perfection.