The image of the Virgin Mary seated on the ground in Nativity scenes had existed for many years in Byzantine art. However, it was the development of more naturalistic and emotive images in the 13th and 14th centuries, under the influence of the mendicant friars, which led to this motif being used more in western art. The Virgin Mary's humility in submissively accepting God's will is highlighted by her acceptance of the lowly surroundings in which she has given birth. As the Meditationes Vitae Christi emphasised:
You were able to observe...a profound humility in this Nativity, which did not disdain the stable or the beasts or the hay and the other ignoble things. This virtue lies in their every action, and the Lord and His Mother observed it faultlessly and commend it to us. Let us try with all possible zeal to embrace it, for without humility there is no salvation. [Meditations on the life of Christ, trans. by I.Ragusa, Princeton, 1961, p.35]
This motif of the Virgin Mary in Nativity scenes was probably one of the main sources of the non-narrative image known as the Madonna of Humility, developed in the early 14th century, in which the Virgin is shown seated on the ground with the Christ Child.
