The Church of St Hilaire in Poitiers, aside from the recovered remains of its famous founder, Saint Hilaire, also holds the tomb of another Saint: the tomb of Sainte Abre, a daughter of Hilaire (who had been married before he became appointed as the first Bishop of Poitiers). Though Abre died at age 18, in the year 360 AD, she is said to have helped her father further spread Christianity in the area. She is largely known through an exchange of letters with her then-in-exile father which has been preserved. The 5th-6th century Tomb of Sainte Abre has a carving on it which holds an important place in art history. This “tete de Feuilles” is the earliest known representation in art of the so-called “Green Man,” a head out of which are sprouting leaves.
The Green Man is a legendary being mainly interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that occurs every spring. It may well have Celtic antecedents. This iconography would get progressively more important in medieval and Reformation Germany, tying together the sacredness of God with that of nature, natural rebirth of vegetation with the rebirth of men. Lucas Cranach depicted Martin Luther preaching from a pulpit with a similar “leafy head.” The Green Man is most commonly depicted in a sculpture, or other representation of a face which is made of, or completely surrounded by, leaves. The Green Man motif is found in many cultures from many ages around the world, and has many variations. Branches or vines may sprout from the mouth, nostrils, or other parts of the face, and these shoots may bear flowers or fruit. He is a recurring theme in literature, as noted in Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, and the image has made a resurgence in modern times.
Why in Poitiers, and why here at St Hilaire? No one knows. The Green Man iconography recurs once more in the city, in a capital at the Church of Sainte Radegonde, from some 500 years later than the tomb of Sainte Abre. To call it common would be an overstatement. It does recur in a handful of medieval churches in Saintonge, the region immediately south of the Poitou. And it may have been present in some of the other medieval churches of Poitiers which have been destroyed, or on other sarcophagus which have been lost. Maybe we should look to the name of those here before the Romans, who were to give their name to Gallo-Roman Limonum after the Empire: the Pictavie, or Picts, or “painted people.” Perhaps they would at times be painted green? Or, perhaps, the Wisigothic or Merovingian sculptor called upon to remake Sainte Abre’s tomb, a century or so after her passing, though that nature and man’s interdependence with nature important enough to warrant a place on the tomb of a saint.