Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
Preface
Introduction
1. Gospels Real and Imagined: First to Seventh Centuries
The “Real” Gospels
Biblical Backstories: The Extracanonical Gospels
Mary in the Protogospel of James 13 • The Earliest Devotion to Mary? 15 • Mary as Minister in the Temple of Jerusalem: The Earliest Image? 16 • Mary in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 16 • Mary in the Qur’an 18
Mary’s Early Reputation as a Miracle Worker
The Narrative Theology of Gospels Real and Imagined
2. Mary’s “Life Stories”: Fourth to Twelfth Centuries
Mary’s Voice Heard Loud and Clear: Romanos the Melodist
Epiphanios the Monk and the First Life of Mary
Later Marian Biographers and the Development of Mary’s Story
John Geometres: Mary’s Life as Sermon 27 • Euthymios the Athonite: Mary’s Life as Biography with Embellishments 28 • The “Holy Theft” of Mary’s Clothing 32 • Mary’s Life Foreshortened: Symeon Metaphrastes 33
Mary as Protector of the Faithful
Mary’s Death and Entry into Heaven
Mary in the Afterlife: Queen of Heaven and Hell
What Does the Narrative Theology of the Lives of Mary Say to Us?
3. Mary in the Early Middle Ages: Devotions, Churches, Shrines, and Books of Praise (Sixth to Twelfth Centuries)
Sixth-Century Marian Miracle Stories: Gregory of Tours
Mary, Master Builder 41 • Mary, Provider 41
The Most Famous Marian Hymn
Paul the Deacon’s Classic Marian Tale
Two Early Shrine Collections
Saragossa, Spain 43 • Chartres 43
Mary in the “Dark Ages”
Later Shrine Collections
Early English Selections from the Mariales
Little Left Unsaid: Early Books of Praise for Mary
What Is the Narrative Theology of These Writings?
4. The Long Twelfth Century I: Miracles in the Age of Faith and Feudalism
The Age of Faith
Genesis 3 Fulfilled: Mary and the Devil
The Feudal World
Mary’s Competition: The Noble Lady of “Courtly Love”
The Noblest Lady of Them All: Medieval Marian Lyrics
The Mary of the Medieval Miracle Stories
Vincent of Beauvais, an Author in the Latin Tradition
Seafarers Menaced by a Storm Saved by Mary, Star of the Sea
Adgar and the First Vernacular French Marian Miracle Collection
A Cleric Cured by Mary in a Field of Flowers 61 • Enlarging a Country Church 62
Wace and an Early Vernacular “Life of Mary”
Best-Selling Author Gautier de Coinci (1177–1236)
Mary as Chess Queen 65 • The Miracle of the Abbess Whom Our Lady Delivered from Great Distress 66 • The Miracle of the Young Nun 70 • The Miracle of the Hanged Thief 75 • The Knight of 150 Hail Marys 77 • The Miracle of the Misplaced Engagement Ring 80 • The Miracle of Théophile, or the Devil’s Charter 81 • The Miracle of the Rich Man and the Widow 86 • The Miracle of the Priest Who Knew Only One Mass 88 • The Miracle of the Peasant Who Could Learn Only Half of the Hail Mary 89 • The Miracle of the Candle That Came Down to the Jongleur 90
A Narrative Theology of Subversion: Mercy, Not Judgment, Prevails
Another Thirteenth-Century Miracle? The Holy House of Loreto
5. The Long Twelfth Century II: Marian Tales from the Continent and England
About Gondrée and How Our Lady Came to Be Called Notre Dame de Chartres
The Miracle of the Knight Saved from Death by the Undergarments He Wore That Had Touched the Chemise of Chartres
Mary’s Royal Troubadour, King Alfonso X of Spain
Gonazalo de Berceo, a People’s Poet
The Pregnant Woman Saved by the Virgin 101
The Miracle of the Artisan Monk and the Ugly Devil
The Miracle of Our Lady’s Tumbler
The Miracle of Our Lady at the Tournament
The German Novice Master’s Masterwork
Sir Walter of Birbeck, the Tardy Knight and Saintly Monk 111
Jacobus of Voragine: Mary’s Life, Mary’s Stories in the Calendar of the Church
The Feast of Mary’s Nativity and Marian Genealogies 114 • A Son Restored to His Mother 114 • The Monk Who Could Learn Only Two Words of the “Ave Maria” 115 • Mary’s Hand on the Scale 116 • The Knight Who Sold His Wife to the Devil 117
Mary at the Apex of Paradise in Dante’s Divine Comedy
Mary Tales and Poems in Middle English
The Widow’s Candle for the Feast 120
Geoffrey Chaucer: Mixed Messages About Mary
The Monk and Our Lady’s Sleeves
Anonymous Marian Lyrics in Middle English
What is the Narrative/Poetic Theology of These Works?
François Villon’s Ballade of Prayer to Notre Dame
6. From Story to Drama to Anecdote: The Miracle Tales Evolve
The Holy Kinship as Romance
The Romance of Saint Fanuel and Saint Anne 128
The Shrine-Madonnas
Affective Piety Dramatized: The Miracles of Our Lady Performed
A Baby Restored to Life 134 • The Miracle of the Child Promised to the Devil 135 • The Devil in Disguise: The Miracle of Saint John the Hermit 139
A Prescient Trend
Our Lady’s Day in Court, or Why She Is Called Our Advocate 141 • A Dramatic “Life of Mary” in the Middle English N-Town Plays 143
A Marian Lament/Lament for Mary
Mary in the Passion Plays of France
Our Lady of the Sermon: Marian Devotion as a Guarantee of Heaven
What Is the Narrative Theology of the Waning Middle Ages?
7. What Happened to the Stories? That’s Another Story
Between Devotion and Reform: Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469–1517)
Renaissance and Reform
Apparitions I: Our Lady of Guadalupe
The Counter-Reformation: Mary and the Church Militant
A Cover-Up and a Revelation: Mary as Bishop—or Pope
The Cover-Up 159 • The Revelation 159
Defenders of Mary I
Defenders of Mary II: The “French School”
A Response to the Enlightenment: The Glories of Mary
Apparitions II: Mary and the Miraculous Medal
The Pope and the Dogma: Pius IX and the Immaculate Conception
Apparitions III: Mary and Lourdes
Other Nineteenth-Century Visions of Mary: Priest and Goddess
Feminists, Philologists, and Mary
Mary Stories and the Medievalism Phenomenon
What Are the Narrative Theologies of the Post–Reform Era?
8. A Tale of Four Stories from Then to Now
A Life of Mary from the Byzantine Tradition, Medieval Version
A Life of Mary from the Byzantine Tradition, Modern Version
Theophilus: From the Seventh Century to the Twenty-First
Sister Beatrice, Perennial Penitent
The Grain Miracle Legend
From Story to Ballad 181 • From Ballad to Folk Tale 182 • A Nineteenth-Century Grain Miracle in the Upper Midwest 184
From Tumbler to Juggler, Converso to Child: Our Lady’s Minstrel
Pseudo-Matthew at Christmastide: The Cherry Tree Carol
Narratives and Theologies Across the Centuries
9. End of Stories, End of Story? Where Is Mary in Modernity?
Mary as Messenger I
Midcentury Mary: A New Dogma
Mary the Subject of Debate in Vatican II
Mary at Mid–Century: Another Denial
Mary as Countersign: Her Presence in the Twenty-First Century
Mary as Messenger II
Gladys and the Glowing Rosary
Finding Mary Past and Present, There and Here
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
