The medieval church recognized five Marian feast days: Conception (December 8),
Nativity (September 8), Annunciation (March 25), Purification (February 2), and
Assumption (August 15). In addition, Saturday was especially dedicated to her. The feast
day of the Assumption is predicated on an early legend that recounts an angelic vision
foretelling Mary’s death and then describes the gathering of the Apostles, her death,
funeral, burial, and, three days later, the raising of her body by angels to Heaven, where it
is reunited with her soul. So Mary was seen to have a special status: not only the virgin
mother of Christ, but also, like him, present bodily in Heaven.
The doctrine of the Assumption passed readily into medieval theology and devotion.
The doctrine of her Immaculate Conception, which asserts that Mary, unique among
humans, was conceived by Anna and Joachim without Original Sin, was controversial,
being vehemently rejected by Bernard of Clairvaux, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas,
and Bonaventure. In the 13th century, the Franciscan theologian Duns Scotus argued in
favor of the doctrine; generally, Franciscans favored it while Domini-cans opposed it.
Popular devotion tended to support it.
Poetry dedicated to Mary found a ready place both in and outside the liturgy. The
popular Marian hymn Ave maris stella probably dates from the 8th century. Mary, called
“Star of the Sea,” is described as the virgin mother and Gate of Heaven and is the helper
of humans, delivering them from disaster, illness, and oppression through her motherly
influence over Jesus. The prayer Ave Maria, based on Luke 1:28 and 1:42, appeared first
in the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin and then found more general use in the 12th
century. The popular Salve regina was used in the liturgy at Cluny ca. 1135 and soon
found use among the Cistercians and later the Dominicans. The gifted sequence writer
Adam of Saint-Victor extolled Mary in theological and poetic paradoxes. In prose,
hundreds of sermons praised Mary and explicated her theological significance, devotional
importance, and maternal-queenly role.
The prayers to Mary composed by Anselm of Bec had a lasting and determinitive
impact on Marian devotion and theology. He spoke of her maternal aspect as both vehicle
of the Incarnation and the embodiment of motherly forgiveness and graciousness; he also
used the language of courtly romance and queenship to stress her benovolence and status
as “redemptrix,” as he titled her.
From the 12th century onward, patterns of Marian devotion appeared that utilized
repeated formulaic prayers, much on the model of the monastic repetition of the 150
Psalms each week, the repetitive recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in devotion or penance,
and antiphonal praises to Mary. These prayers were finally reduced to a brief formula
consisting of the Ave Maria, with inserted Glorias and the Lord’s Prayer. Finally, a
pattern of 150 Ave Marias, in fifteen groups of ten each (“decades”), with a focus of
meditation for each decade came to be an accepted pattern, with the prayers counted by
means of a string of beads that came to be known as a rosary. The association of the
origin of the recitation of the rosary with the Dominicans and Dominic is not supported
by recent research.
Grover A.Zinn
[See also: ADAM OF SAINT-VICTOR; CHARTRES; COUTANCES; GOTHIC
ART; LAON; MARIAN ANTIPHONS; MARY, LITURGICAL VENERATION OF;
POPULAR DEVOTION; PREACHING; RELICS AND RELIQUARIES;
ROCAMADOUR; RUTEBEUF; SOISSONS]
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