The early life of Mary and her miraculous conception by Anna were frequent subjects for
illuminations in late-medieval books of hours, such as the magnificent Hours of the
Virgin in the Grandes Heures of John, duke of Berry.
By the 5th century, Mary was hailed in Christian liturgy and doctrine as theotokos
(Mother, or bearer, of God), a title confirmed by the Council of Ephesus in 431.
Liturgical hymns praised her virginity. In letters and treatises, the monk and Bible
translator Jerome argued for Mary’s virginity not only before but during and after Jesus’s
birth (“perpetual virginity”), a view that became dominant in patristic and medieval
thought, although opposed in Jerome’s time by Helvidius and others. Only gradually did
Mary receive recognition in the dynamics of salvation beyond her role as the virgin
mother of Jesus and exemplar of the Christian woman dedicated to lifelong virginity.
First in the Greek-speaking East, then in the Latin-speaking West, there began to develop
the idea of her ability to intervene miraculously to benefit those who gave her special
devotion. The legend of Theophilus—5th-century Greek, translated into Latin at the
Carolingian court in the 8th century, and versified in French by Rutebeuf as the Miracle
de Théophile in the latter part of the 13th century—told of a man who, Faust-like, sold his
soul to the Devil, only to repent and ask Mary to deliver him from eternal damnation.
This she does and is celebrated as the redeemer of captives and helper of the oppressed.
This and many similar legends did much to spread the idea of Mary as intercessor and
miraculous deliverer.
The special devotion to Mary first flowers in the late 11th and early 12th centuries and
can be traced in France in a number of ways: in the collections of Marian miracles; in the
prominence of relics, clothing especially, associated with Mary; in the number of
churches, particularly cathedrals, dedicated to her; in liturgical texts and innovations as
well as popular poetry; in iconographic developments in sculpture and illuminated
manuscripts; and in theological treatises and debates.
Relics of the Virgin were primarily clothing, milk, or “separable” body parts, such as
teeth or hair. The cathedral of Notre-Dame at Chartres possessed perhaps the most
famous Marian relic in France: her tunic, or dress, donated by Charles the Bald in 876.
Found unharmed in the crypt after fire destroyed the nave and choir in 1194, it was the
focus of pilgrimage and devotion throughout the Middle Ages and remains so today.
Laon had a fragment of Mary’s clothing and perhaps some of her hair; a convent at
Soissons possessed a slipper that was the focus of a healing cult briefly in the mid-12th
century. Other sites claimed Mary’s milk, a tooth, her belt, and the like.
Chartres, Soissons, and Laon were also foci of another 12th-century Marian
phenomenon: the collection of accounts of miracles associated with the relics of a shrine.
When Laon cathedral burned in 1112, a group of canons was twice sent on tour to raise
money for rebuilding. Taking a collection of relics that included a fragment of Mary’s
clothing and perhaps strands of her hair, the canons stopped in cities and villages to invite
prayers for Mary’s intercession and offerings for rebuilding her church at Laon. The
miracles and cures on these tours were recorded by Herman, a canon of the cathedral, in
De miraculis sanctae Mariae Laudunensis. A collection formed at Soissons recorded
miracles associated with a slipper. Similar collections were produced at Coutances and
Rocamadour, the latter a Marian shrine without a relic but with a miracle-working statue
from the 12th century onward. After the fire of 1194 at Chartres, the cathedral clergy, like
those at Laon, took relics around the countryside. The miracles were recorded in a book;
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1126