Our Lady of Liesse : the development of a Hospitaller cult in Malta

Abstract

'Laetizia', this is what stands out in this description of a particular Hospitaller cult, taken from its description in the liturgical calendar of the Order. Such a word is not strange to the Marian tradition, for indeed 'Causa nostra laetitia' - Cause of our Joy - sounds familiar to anyone who has prayed the Litany of our Lady of Loreto. It is through this mariological affirmation, that a statue of the well-diffused typology of black Madonnas, tied to a particular place in the north of France, in this case Liesse, close to Laon, hinges on a wider tradition through which such a cult can be explained. In itself a local cult, tied to a particular place, it achieves great diffusion because it is taken over by the Order of Saint John, and thus spreads to wherever its French members were present. [Excerpt]