The Black Madonna of Boulogne-sur-mer miraculously appeared alone in a boat in 633 A.D. in France’s most important fishing harbor since Roman times. She has been stolen, mutilated, dragged through the mud, and burnt at the stake by the enemies of France and Catholicism, but she was always brought back to life by the devotion of her children.

The brown Lady of Good Hope was painted black in the 1500’s likely in order to gain power and prestige and draw more visitors to the city. It worked! She promptly responded with the sort of miracles Black Madonnas are famous for: chasing off foreign armies and such. Sadly in 1963 she was stripped of her dark paint and Black Madonna title. No more miracles have been recorded since then. Serves them right!

Black Madonna near Evrecy, Normandy on the pilgrimage route from Caen to Mont Saint Michel, erected in 1871 by Madame de Bonnefons, lady of the nearby castle Champs Goubert, in thanksgiving that the village and castle were spared in the Prussian (German) invasion the year before.

With its Black Madonna, labyrinth, and its legend of an ancient Black Madonna under the earth Guingamp, Brittany competed for centuries with Chartres, 400 km to the East. To this day it honors its Lady of Good Help with festivities known as ‘the Pardon of Our Lady’. Unlike in Chartres, there is no whitening the Black Madonna or covering the labyrinth with chairs or slacking off of devotion here!

Miracle working Our Lady of Laghet near Nice and Monte-Carlo in a retreat center run by Catholic nuns. The dark copy in the crypt reminiscent of the original Black Madonna

Notre Dame de la Roche in Mayres near Clermont Ferrand, whom Dr. Cleveland calls Our Lady of the Side-Eye. 14th century statue commemorating the vision of a 12 C monk. Is she rolling her eyes at White patriarchs or what? Anybody have a better picture please?

This is one of the strangest Black Madonnas. She wears a kind of turban, except that it is open on the top, revealing the Virgin's black hair….

I believe the “Black Virgin of Menton” is a copy of the Black Madonna of Montserrat, her famous sister venerated 700 km to the South. For the centuries, the faithful wouldn’t hesitate to walk that far in search for a miraculous healing. Once they were granted their wish, they would give public thanks with an ex-voto, a painting commemorating the miracle. That’s what we are looking at here.

The Romanesque Black Madonna of Myans became famous when she stopped a giant avalanche of rocks at the door step of her church, where a group of Franciscan monks had taken refuge after getting kicked out of their abbey.

Tradition recounts that the site of Our Dear Lady's 'chapel of grace' was already holy ground before the area was Christianized…

This "Gnadenbild" (image of grace) originally stood in the Neustädter Marienkirche (Mary Church), which was run by a 'chapter of 12 canons', i.e. a community of priests…

The story of the Black Mother of God of Benrath begins with Count Philip Wilhelm (1653 - 1690) and his second wife Elisabeth Amalia Magdalene…

This statue illustrates two points. One, it shows that Northern Europeans saw something African and exotic in their Black Madonnas, for this Lady's crown is not a European crown…

'Heiligenbrunn' means 'sacred well' and so the center of this sanctuary is a sacred well that predates its connection with the Black Madonna…

This copy of the Black Madonna of Loreto was first installed in a copy of the Holy House of Mary, but it drew so many pilgrims that soon a bigger church had to be built for her.

Although this is a very young Black Madonna she stands on old holy ground, along the Jodokusweg (Jodok path)…

The cathedral of Magdeburg is a very important building in Church history. It was founded originally as a Benedictine abbey in 937 by Otto the Great…

Some time around the 17th century there was a nobleman by name of Kuno von Falkenstein, who was in love with the beautiful maiden of the castle Neuerburg…

The story of Neukirchen-at-the-Holy-Blood begins with a sacred host (the consecrated bread become body of Christ) found around the year 1400…

It is rare that a copy of a famous Black Madonna makes it into my index. This one did for two reasons. One, she is from my homeland. Two, her story illustrates in great detail how a famous Black Madonna “begets her daughters”, if you will…