Tree of Jesse

The Tree of Jesse originates in a passage in the biblical Book of Isaiah which describes metaphorically the descent of the Messiah and is accepted by Christians as referring to Jesus.

Virga is a "green twig", "rod" or "broom", as well as a convenient near-pun with Virgo or Virgin, which undoubtedly influenced the development of the image.

"[1] In the medieval period, when heredity was all-important, much greater emphasis than today was placed on the actual royal descent of Jesus, especially by royalty and the nobility, including those who had joined the clergy.

Generally only a few of the most well-known individuals, like Kings David and Solomon, are represented on Jesse Trees, rather than an attempt to display the entire lineage.

There exist also other forms of representation of the Genealogy of Jesus which do not employ the Jesse Tree, the most famous being that painted in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo.

See for example, Sermon 24 of St Leo the Great: "In which rod, no doubt the blessed Virgin Mary is predicted, who sprung from the stock of Jesse and David and fecundated by the Holy Ghost, brought forth a new flower of human flesh, becoming a virgin-mother".

The earliest known representation of the Jesse Tree can be firmly dated to 1086 and is in the Vyšehrad Codex, the Coronation Gospels of Vratislav II, the first king of Bohemia, which was previously a dukedom.

Hayes Williams points out that the iconography employed is very different from that usually found in such images, which she argues relates to an assertion of the rightful kingship of the royal patron.

In the first decades of the 12th century, the early Cistercian illuminators of Cîteaux Abbey played an important part in the development of the image of the Tree of Jesse, which was used to counter renewed tendencies to deny the humanity of Mary, which culminated in Catharism.

The Jesse Tree illustration comes at the start of Isaiah and differs greatly from the earlier one, having much more the form that is familiar from both manuscript and stained glass versions.

At the centre, tall and highly stylised in the same manner as 12th-century columnar statues, stands a full-length Blessed Virgin Mary from whose head spring tendrils which enclose a bust of her Son, Jesus.

When not historiated, the initial had for about two hundred years been most often made up of, or filled with, spiraling plant tendrils, often with animals or men caught up in them, so the development to the tree was a relatively easy step.

[4] Romanesque depictions usually show Jesse asleep on open ground or on a simple couch - all that can be told from the Bible about his circumstances is that he had sheep, which David herded.

[16] A small and much fragmented panel from a Jesse Tree window, at York Minster is thought to be the oldest surviving stained glass in England, dating from perhaps as early as 1150.

Having survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the depredations of the Puritans and the ravages of time, it was dismantled and removed, with many other original windows during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and replaced by a copy.

Wells Cathedral has a rare example of an intact 14th-century Jesse Tree window which survived the iconoclasm of the 17th-century and the losses of World War II.

The kings are dressed in short doublets which are compared with similar figures in the manuscript of 1640 representing the victories of Edward IV which is in the British Library at Harley MS 7353.

[19] Saint-Étienne church, Beauvais, France A magnificent Renaissance three-light window by Engrand Le Prince (1522–1524), with the royal ancestors richly dressed in fashionable garments, rising from large flower-pods.

In the tracery, the central section has the form of a Sacred Heart and contains the Virgin and Christ Child rising from a lily and surrounded by radiant light.

The three light window is dedicated to the Honourable J J Carnagie born 8 July 1807 died 18 January 1892, placed in the church by Henry Allen Rolls (brother of the co-founder of Rolls-Royce Limited) in 1892.

The window is by Sir Ninian Comper and contains figures of Old Testament prophets, and fathers of the Church, representing some of the areas of his study, surrounding Christ in Majesty and the Virgin and Child.

A huge and spectacular window in 1-inch-thick (25 mm) glass, set in concrete, and made by James Powell & Sons and John Baker in 1960, it was demolished in October 2004.

The window by Sir Ninian Comper shows the descent of Jesus, through Mary, from King David, the youngest son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite.

[26] In the letters to the incumbent and the churchwardens Skeat writes:[27] "The window scheme of my design is intended to symbolise the descent of Our Lord from Abraham and the patriarchs as detailed in the opening chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel.

The large flat wooden ceiling in the Church of St Michael, Hildesheim of c. 1200 has the space to include a complex iconographic scheme based around the tree, which encompasses Adam and Eve, the Prophets and the Four Evangelists.

The nave ceiling of Ely Cathedral was painted with a scheme rather similar to Hildesheim by the gentleman artist Henry Styleman Le Strange, who began in 1858.

Another masterpiece of Romanesque stone-carving, the cloister of the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, has a Tree on a flat panel carved in relief.

Another popular way of showing the ancestry of Christ was to have a row or gallery of statues of the Kings of Judah (part of the ancestral line from Jesse) on the facade, as at Notre Dame de Paris, but these too go beyond the image of the Tree.

St Cuthbert's Church formerly held a sculpted Tree of Jesse forming the reredos in its south transept, its components arranged around the east window.

The Priory Church of St Mary, Abergavenny, formerly held a 15th-century composition, described by Thomas Churchyard in 1587 as "a most famous worke in maner of a genealogie of Kings, called the roote of Jesse".