A goddess and a wheel
The Wheel of Fortune is one of the most recognizable images of the Middle Ages. A large wheel turns, usually with a figure of Fortune at its center or at the handle, and people ride it up and down. Those at the top are crowned and confident; those at the bottom are thrown down or crushed. The image expressed a simple, memorable idea: good luck and high rank are unstable, and anyone can fall.
Fortune herself came from Roman religion and literature, where she was a goddess of chance and luck. The medieval symbol took this figure and gave her a wheel, a device that was well suited to show change, since what rises must eventually come down.
Boethius and the idea’s main source
The most important source was The Consolation of Philosophy, written by Boethius in the early sixth century while he was imprisoned and awaiting execution after falling from a high position in the court of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric. In the book, Lady Philosophy comforts him by arguing that he should not be surprised by his fall, because it is the very nature of Fortune to change. She is shown as someone who turns her wheel and cannot be blamed for doing what she always does. True happiness, Philosophy argues, does not depend on wealth, power or fame, which can be lost, but on the mind and on God.
The Consolation became one of the most widely read books of the period. It was copied, translated into several languages and commented on for centuries, so its picture of Fortune was known to many educated readers. Its relationship to ideas of divine providence was a major theme: the book suggests that what looks like random luck is part of a larger order that humans cannot fully see.
How the image was used
Writers used Fortune’s wheel in several ways. A well-known Latin poem collection of the thirteenth century, the Carmina Burana, includes songs addressed to Fortune, complaining of her changeableness. The best-known of these is the one beginning “O Fortuna,” which compares her to the moon, always waxing and waning. In a later period, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Monk in the Canterbury Tales tells a series of stories of famous people who fell from high position, presented as tragedies caused by Fortune. This type of storytelling had earlier roots in Boccaccio’s work on the falls of illustrious men. Dante, in the Divine Comedy, treats Fortune as a servant of God who moves earthly wealth from one person or nation to another according to a purpose that humans cannot understand, rather than as a rival to God.
Artists put the idea into pictures. In many manuscripts and some church decoration, the wheel carries four figures. One rises on the left, another sits crowned at the top, a third falls on the right, and a fourth lies at the bottom. Latin phrases are often attached to them: “I will reign,” “I reign,” “I have reigned,” and “I am without a kingdom.” The exact pattern varied, and some images show Fortune blindfolded or with two faces, and some show her turning the wheel by hand. Images of this kind are part of the broader world of symbols and allegory in medieval art.
The theme also suited advice to rulers. A king or lord could be reminded that his position was not permanent, and that pride was dangerous. Fortune’s wheel was therefore often used as a warning against arrogance and as a call for humility.
Fortune and Christian belief
A Christian audience faced a puzzle: if God governs the world, what place is there for blind chance? Medieval thinkers handled this in several ways. One was to present Fortune as an instrument of God, as Dante did, so that her apparent randomness was really part of divine providence that humans could not grasp. Another was to treat her as a warning about worldly attachment: because she changes, a wise person should place hope in lasting things such as virtue and salvation. A third used the symbol in a more poetic, less strictly doctrinal way, as a way of speaking about the uncertainty of life.
Some preachers and writers criticized Fortune language as too pagan, since it could suggest a power beside God. Even so, the image survived because it was flexible and could carry different meanings. Moral teaching on the cardinal virtues sometimes appears alongside it, since prudence and fortitude were the qualities thought to help a person face changing fortune.
Lessons of rise and fall
The core lesson is clear: do not trust in prosperity, and do not despair in adversity. For those who fell, the wheel offered a way to understand misfortune that did not rest wholly on guilt. For those on top, it was a caution. It is worth noting that the wheel was a literary and artistic image and was not a description of how most people lived. A peasant’s difficulties were more often tied to weather, illness, and the demands of lords than to the sudden reversals depicted in stories of kings. Still, the image conveyed a feeling of precariousness that many medieval people would have recognized.
The Wheel of Fortune lasted well beyond the Middle Ages, appearing in Renaissance art and literature and still being used today in cards and popular culture. Its long life comes from the plain truth behind it, that circumstances change, which is something readers of any century can recognize.