The abbey of Einsiedeln in the Swiss canton of Schwyz grew from the hermitage of St. Meinrad, who was killed there in the ninth century, and Benedictine monks have kept the place ever since. Inside the great baroque abbey church stands the Chapel of Grace, a small dark chapel housing a late-Gothic carved image of the Virgin and Child. Einsiedeln became a principal station on the pilgrim roads of Europe, including the routes toward Compostela, and the monastic community still sings the Salve Regina before the image each evening.

Einsiedeln shows Marian devotion in its monastic form: not an occasional feast but the daily Salve sung at the end of the day, prayer to the Mother of God woven into the rhythm of the Divine Office. The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy holds up exactly this ordering, in which popular Marian devotion draws its life from the liturgy and returns to it, rather than running alongside it.

Switzerland (Einsiedeln, Schwyz)

A late-Gothic standing Virgin holding the Child, blackened over centuries by lamp and candle smoke and kept black when restored. Both figures are vested in embroidered robes that the monks change according to the liturgical season, so the image appears in the colour of the day.

• Black Madonna of Einsiedeln
• Unsere Liebe Frau von Einsiedeln

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