He was killed with his legion for defying the king’s order to hunt down Christians in the area. St. Maurice was martyred in the Cathedral of the German city of Magdeburg for his valor and faith, and his name is inscribed on the sculpture.
According to art way, he was born in Thebes, Egypt, in 250 CE and raised there before becoming a Roman General in the Theban legion.
St. Maurice is depicted as a Black man in battle gear, flanked by his spear in his right hand.
According to Black Central Europeans, cultural anthropologists argue that this symbolism of St. Maurice’s identity challenges western stereotypes that frequently play against the Black race.
According to oral tradition, the sculpture was designed in 1902 by Cleofee Casanova.
According to the Cathedral website, the statue of St. Maurice was positioned at the entrance of the Basilica before being relegated to the storehouse in 1946.
It resurfaced in 1975 after being restored and its history retold.
According to historical records, St. Maurice was a Roman General who led a Theban legion in the late third century CE. They were stationed in Egypt Roman, where Christianity was popular but not the official religion of the empire.
St. Maurice was ordered to carry out the persecution of local Christians against this backdrop. His mortal remains were returned to Agaunum, present-day Switzerland, where his exploits were commemorated.
Given St. Maurice’s widespread popularity, many German states adopted the sculpture’s underlying philosophy and placed the statue at various vantage points. Emperor Otto I, for example, made St. Maurice the patron saint of the empire and protector of Magdeburg.
In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Hohenstaufen dynasty used St. Maurice symbolism to promote its ideologies.
The dynasty sought to unite the people of Germany and Southern Italy under a single authority.
In doing so, the emperor attempted to capitalize on the appeal St. Maurice had on the Christian community at the time.
It is unclear whether the church, led by Archbishop Albert II, pushed for the erecting of the statue or King Frederick’s proclamation, but historians say the presence of the statue had a significant impact on the Christian community under Hohenstaufen rule.
The use of the St. Maurice statue consolidated the dynasty’s authority in a Catholic society where symbolism has a lot of meaning.
The use of a black saint allowed Fredrick II to reach out to both conservative Catholics and those who were not religiously inclined.
It became a propaganda tool for many kings who used the populist appeal of black saints to promote a homogeneous society and Christianity.
Until the slave trade infiltrated Europe and its allied colonies, depictions of St. Maurice as a unifying figure had some religious clout.