Emerentia

Emerentia is the name given for a grandmother of St. Mary, mother of Jesus, in some European traditions and art from the late 15th century.

Emerentia, St. Anne, and St. Mary, the maternal ancestors of Jesus, form a sort of female trinity in medieval iconogrphy.

"[T]he medieval devotees of Mary did not worship her in isolation but in the context of a female lineage. The matrilineal holy kinship of Jesus consisted of his mother, grandmother Anne (whose cult was extremely popular in England), and great grandmother Emerentia, with the three often being depicted as a female trinity. Since Jesus' only human parent was a woman, his lineage was necessarily matrilineal." "Emerentia" at Wikipedia.org, citing Ruth Vanita, "Mariological memory in the Winter's Tale and Henry VIII" (plays by William Shakespeare), Studies in English Literature, 1500 - 1900, March 22nd, 2000

Sources

• Wikipedia, Emerentia, visited Dec. 19, 2012