Since nothing is related of her origin and she shares the geometric pattern of the robes of the much more famous Black Madonna of Le-Puy…

According to the website of the diocese of Clermont Ferrand, the village Arconsat began as a monastery founded by St Martin around the year 350 A.D.

The first Black Madonna in Aurillac was a Romanesque statue in the little chapel of Aurinques. She was said to have been brought back from the Crusades by one of the local feudal lords…

Although Our Lady of the Oak is not actually called a Black Madonna, I include her in this index for two reasons…

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.

Evidence suggests that the Duchesse Matilda of Burgundy (died in 1162), a friend and patron of St. Bernard of Clairveaux, brought this wonder working statue from the Auvergne and gave it to the church in Beaune…

For millennia Chartres was the main pilgrimage site in France. With its ancient Pre-Christian roots, its Druidic Black Madonna, its relic of the Veil of the Virgin…

She was painted black in 1892 when the parish priest decided that a black Madonna would attract more pilgrims to his church. Some of his parishioners complained that their Virgin had been made into a…

Although neither town, nor church, nor statue are beautiful, this plain, formerly Black Madonna became one of the most influential ones in Europe…

Our Lady of the Good Death received her pitch-black coat of paint around 1830, but since she is an ancient Madonna she must have been quite dark already before that…

Many pilgrims came to the church in the Middle Ages to view the statue. Ean Begg mentions an ancient sacred well in the crypt and writes: "The present Virgin, an Oriental Vierge de Tendresse…

The original Black Madonna of Cusset was found in the 10th century next to a spring of the local Benedictine nunnery that had been founded in 882…

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!

Here is another whitened Madonna that must have been black once, since according to Ean Begg and many websites that seem to rely largely on his book she was once called Maureneta…

This Black Madonna is difficult to visit because her church is locked unless mass is being celebrated…

Douvres-la-Délivrande is a small town of little more than 5000 inhabitants named for its Black Madonna…

This Black Madonna's sacred water reputedly heals depression, languor, and apathy. It certainly lifted the spirits of our little group immediately…

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.

This ‘Black Madonna’, as the locals still insist on calling her, was restored to her original colors in 2001. At that time, it turned out that she had been painted over five times…

This Madonna may be worth a visit if you are on the way to the famous 10th century Abbey of Saint Michel de Cuxa, which sports its own “Black Madonna”…