Although now one of the best-known medieval morality tales, Le Jongleur de Notre Dame, or The Juggler of Our Lady, only became popular when the French author Anatole France adapted it into short story in 1890.
It goes like this: Barnaby, an acrobat, lives in medieval France. He makes his bread by balancing a plate on his nose and juggling copper balls in seemingly impossible arcs and wheels. He is a simple soul, caring not for wine or women, and devoted to the blessed Virgin Mary. He offers this prayer to her whenever he enters a church: “Madam, take care of my life until it please God that I die, and when I am dead, let me have the joys of Paradise.”
One day, Barnaby meets a monk who convinces him to join a monastery and live a “never-ending hymn to the Lord.” But when he enters the monastery, Barnaby finds that he cannot match the pious efforts of his more learned brothers.
So he sneaks into the chapel and performs the tricks and athletic feats that made him famous in the French countryside. His brothers discover him in the middle of his act and they cry out, thinking he is committing a grave sacrilege.
But then a miracle occurs. The Virgin Mary herself descends from heaven and wipes the sweat off Barnaby’s brow. The prior prostrates himself against the chapel’s cold flagstone, reciting Christ’s own words, “Blessed are the simple, for they will see God.” The rest of the monks echo him with an “Amen!” and kiss the holy ground.
Since its publication, France’s story has been rewritten in many media: operas, short stories, radio plays, and films. Now through Feb. 28, Juggling the Middle Ages, an extensive exhibition at the Dumbarton Oaks Museum and Gardens in Washington, D.C., traces the history of juggling in Christian art and exploring its significance from medieval Europe, through France’s popularization, and into its lasting impact on art in the 20th century.
The juggler first appeared in sacred art in “Our Lady’s Tumbler,” a French, 12th-century sermon illustration in verse by an anonymous Cistercian. An adaptation of the story from the Old Testament where King David danced before the Ark of the Covenant, “Our Lady’s Tumbler” bears many similarities to France’s 19th-century update. But here, the unnamed acrobat strips down to his underwear before beginning his show.
Only one medieval illustration of the story’s concluding miracle exists: a leaflet from an illuminated manuscript with an angel descending to wipe the face of the contorted acrobat, as the statues of Mary and the baby Jesus wave in approval. Dumbarton Oaks has the original illuminated manuscript on display.
Depictions of acrobats juggling for Mary were more common in Gothic architecture, and the exhibition boasts one such carving, from Lyon Cathedral. Along with musicians, stonemasons, and other craftsmen, jugglers often appeared as embellishments in churches under statues of Mary and Jesus.
At the time that he wrote The Juggler of Our Lady, France was already an accomplished author, noted for his political radicalism and anti-Catholicism (the Church put several of his novels in the “Index of Forbidden Books”). But The Juggler was different. France composed it shortly after his mother died in 1886, followed by his father in 1890 — both were fiercely religious people to their deaths. Although not a work of personal faith, France knew that The Juggler would appeal to people who did believe — and for that reason, he released it in May, the month Catholics traditionally dedicate to Mary.
The story was a runaway success, and it retained influence throughout much of the 20th century, spawning a series of adaptations.
The best modern retelling is Tomie dePaola’s The Clown of God, published in 1978, which recasts the juggler as an Italian acrobat. In dePaola’s version, the clown performs as a beaten old man inside a cathedral on Christmas Eve in a show so beautiful that he gives his life entirely for his art — and dies at the foot of the Christ child. Dumbarton Oaks highlights dePaola’s work in particular, displaying several of his watercolors painted for the book.
But the influence reaches far beyond its many adaptations. The American poet Wallace Stevens wrote of it wistfully in a 1908 letter to his fiancee. The science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein listed it as an inspiration and his favorite short story of all time. And National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. regarded the story as a model for his own faith.
Buckley recalled France’s story in Nearer, My God, his 1997 autobiography of faith, and said that the only way he can understand his life and work — however frustrating it may sometimes be — is as a prayer, like the juggler’s, offered in the hope of Mary’s intercession.
“I leave it at this,” he wrote, “that if I could juggle, I’d do so for Our Lady.”
Nic Rowan is a media analyst at the Washington Free Beacon.
