Here you see the image of Mary holding her infant son . . . The first of its kind in Western Europe, it appears in the_Book of Kells_, the most famous manuscript of Medieval Ireland, and it dates to about 800 CE. The centuries that proceeded its composition were chaotic ones indeed, with warlords in Britain building and breaking alliances while trying to amass power faster than you can buy out a grocer’s toilet paper supply.
In this time, an ambitious ruler named Edwin temporarily took center stage (582-632/3). Although his life was spent in repeated conflicts (he died in one of them), his legend became famous for being a strong king who promoted peace . . . And now we can come back to the Mary story. The British writer Bede had this to say about Edwin’s reign: “It is told that at the time there was so much peace in Britannia, that whenever King Edwin’s power extended, as is said proverbially right up to today, even if a woman with a recently born child wanted to walk across the whole island, from sea to sea, she could do so without anyone harming her.”. I think this line speaks to an interesting way to assess the power of a political state over its subjects. It makes the central goal of rulers to create a land that protects the most vulnerable people — in this case, measured by a woman and her baby, travelling without harm.
Source(s): Line from Bede quotes in Wikipedia. Image from wiki commons, _The Book of Kells_, for. 7v .
