Patrick Comerford
As is so often at this stage in my life, I have sent out very few Christmas cards this year. Indeed, I have handed out very few cards either. In previous years, I always tried to send cards that had a real religious symbolism and designs. But I now feel a little guilty that I have not returned with the same verve or energy to sending out cards that I once had.
The small box of Oxfam cards I bought this year has not been fully used. It may be due to a number of moves in recent years, to the consequent loss of address books, and some reactions that are still delayed following a stroke almost four years ago. Or it may simply be down to bad planning and follow-through on my part.
By way of compensation, I am putting together a collection of images – stained-glass windows, icons, crib scenes and works of art – to post as online Christmas cards, posting one at noon each day on social media throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas. This follows the positive response to my daily ‘Advent Calendar’ postings throughout the month of December.
One image that caught my attention from similar postings in previous years is the Adoration of the Magi, a tondo or circular painting dating from ca 1440-1460 and ascribed to both Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi. It was recorded in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence in 1492, and is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.
In this work, I am particularly struck by a large peacock perches on the roof of the stable, looking over his shoulder, and forming the shape of a cross in the eaves behind him.
The peacock may have been given a prominent place in this work because Giovanni di Cosimo de Medici (1421-1463) had adopted a peacock as his heraldic symbol, along with the French motto Regarde-Moi (‘Watch me’).
This may help to explain how the peacock was popularised as a symbol in late mediaeval heraldry, as seen in the coats-of arms of the Comberford and Comerford families, as well as the Arbuthnot family and the Manners family who became the Dukes of Rutland.
The Comberford family may have first adopted the peacock and a ducal coronet as the crest in their coat of arms through a link with the Harcourt family and the two families’ shared connections with the Moat House on Lichfield Street in Tamworth. And, in turn, there may be a connection there that has links in some way with the Battle of Bosworth Field at the end of the Wars of the Roses, or provided a visual link with the swan that provided similar symbolism for the Stafford family, Dukes of Buckingham.
In time, peacocks came to decorate the crests in the coat-of-arms of both the Comerford and Comberford families: a peacock’s head in the case of two branches of the family, and a peacock in his pride in a third branch.
I have long been fascinated by peacocks. When I was living in Wexford in the mid-1970s, I went on a long walk in the sunshine one Sunday afternoon and came across a farm near Piercestown, 6 km south of Wexford town, with a large number of peafowl in the farmyard.
I turned into work at the Wexford People the next morning, enthusiastic about offering a feature on what appeared to be an exotic peacock colony. But everyone else seemed to know about it and was dismissive, and no-one shared my enthusiasm. The feature was never written – but then, it was in the days when newspapers were in black and white, and any photographs could never have done justice to the sight that delighted me that summer afternoon.
That fascination has continued. I have learned how to attract their attention and curiosity without disturbing them, and delighted in feeding them from my hand across Europe, from the gardens of the Royal Alcázar of Seville and vineyards near Perpignan in the south of France to the monastic gardens of Vlatadon on the slopes overlooking Thessaloniki in northern Greece.
In vineyards, peafowl – peacocks and peahens – walk around freely. Peafowl are forest birds that nest on the ground, but roost in trees. They are terrestrial feeders, and domesticated peafowl enjoy protein rich food, including larvae that infest granaries, different kinds of meat and fruit, as well as vegetables, including dark leafy greens, broccoli, carrots, beans, beets, and peas. This makes them appropriate birds to keep in an organic vineyard, acting as a natural protection for the vines.
They are curious birds too, always ready to respond to the presence of people. Despite their innate independence, they can appear to be both disdainful and socially curious at one and the same time.
With this natural curiosity, sociability and their feeding habits, it is easy to entice the peacocks and peahens with nuts and raisins and to have them eating from your hand, like cats seeking to make sense of the attention of visitors.
The English poet William Blake (1757-1827) wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793): ‘The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.’ But how did the peacock become such an interesting symbol in Christianity? Why is it that peacocks appear so often in Christian art as a symbol of the Resurrection and Eternal Life?
In ancient Persia and Babylon, the peacock was associated with Paradise and the Tree of Life and was seen as a guardian to royalty, and was often engraved upon royal thrones.
These birds were not known to Greeks before the conquests of Alexander the Great. Aristotle, who was Alexander’s tutor, refers to the peacock as ‘the Persian bird.’ In classical Greece, it was believed that the flesh of peafowl did not decay after death, and so the peacock became a symbol of immortality.
This symbolism was adopted in early Christianity, and many early Christian paintings and mosaics show the peacock. The peacock is still used in the Easter season, especially in the east. The ‘eyes’ in the peacock’s tail feathers symbolise the all-seeing God and – in some interpretations – the Church.
A peacock drinking from a vase is used as a symbol of a Christian believer drinking from the waters of eternal life. The peacock can also symbolise the cosmos if one interprets his tail with his many ‘eyes’ as the vault of heaven dotted by the sun, moon, and stars. The peacock is associated with immortality, and in iconography the peacock is often depicted next to the Tree of Life.
Some commentators have written that the reference in the Book of Revelation to four living creatures ‘full of eyes in front and behind’ before the throne is inspired by images of the tail of the peacock (see Revelation 4: 6). Other writers also say, ironically, that the peacock is a symbol of humility, since he has great beauty, yet hides it all behind himself.
The peacock has been a symbol of immortality from as early as the 3rd century CE on the walls of the catacombs of Rome. Later, peacocks appear in mediaeval paintings and manuscripts and in decorative motifs on churches and buildings, and even among the animals in the stable at Christ’s nativity.
The peacock in the Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lipp is large and peacock perches on the top of the stable, looking over his shoulder. What is he looking back at, or forward to?
For me, he seems to provide a thematic link between the wooden stable and the wood of the cross, between the incarnation and the resurrection, between Christmas and Easter. There is more to look forward to than Christmas. But, for now, may you have a Happy and a Blessed and a Holy Christmas.
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