The Marian miracle tale, which proliferated widely during the thirteenth century, needs to be considered within the specific framework provided by social and Church history. Isolated from that intertext, it can seem to be a hopelessly sentimental and doctrinally exaggerated literary form designed to palliate or fascinate a gullible and unsophisticated audience. Claims made in the tales for the extreme even indulgent intercessional grace of the Virgin Mary cannot be supported scripturally and the apostrophic style of many tales can appear idolatrous. Sometimes especially in the work of the thirteenth-century French monk Gautier de Coinci the tales are characterized by an only slightly concealed eroticism and show clear parallels with the amour courtois tradition of the troubadours.1 At other times, for example in Gonzalo de Berceo's El Clerigo Simple, Mary appears as an enraged divinity, even threatening death to a bishop who has harshly cast out a simple missacantano who was unable to learn any mass except the "missa de la Sancta Maria."2 In Gautier's De l'enfant que mist l'anel ou doit l'image, Mary is characterized as a jilted bride, livid with anger.3 Mary Mother of God as fury or harpy is, however, theologically offensive and poetically dissonant, and these extraordinary characterizations clearly call for a more careful and considered analysis.

It is only against the background of social practice and Church history in the thirteenth century that we can begin to form an idea that is at all sympathetic to the intentions of the authors of some of these tales. Many of the canonical reforms of Fourth Lateran (1215) suggest that by the thirteenth century pastoral care had become inadequate, and even such essential sacraments as the eucharist and confession were insufficiently administered.4 The liturgy as an active communal celebration was being withdrawn from the congregation in favor of mystery pageants and sacred images.5 In the absence of adequate pastoral care, Mary fulfilled a much-needed role as intercessor, Mother Confessor and Absolver of Sin. Additionally, the reformist policies of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century

The social context within which the Marian miracle tale flourished can fairly be characterized as one of reactionary reform. Both the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries were periods of exceptional turbulence. This accounts for some of the popularity of the "miracle" as a concept, since, as Michael Goodich has pointed out, "the supernatural tends to intercede when human mechanisms, such as the state, prove unreliable or flawed, and the brutalization of human relations demands outside intervention to achieve equity."7 The failure of statecraft, however, is perhaps more acutely a problem of the fourteenth than the thirteenth century. In the thirteenth century, we must look first at Church history.

The Church's exponential growth, from the tenth century onward, had created problems that canon law and papal legislation had not yet been able to contain.8 Pope Gregory VII, in the mid-eleventh century, had initiated the much needed reform program against gross abuses such as simony, lay investiture and priestly incontinence while at the same time increasing the centralization of the Roman Church, but it remained for Urban II (1088-99) and Innocent III (1198-1216) to consolidate the power of the papacy and use it to enact rigorous anti-heretical and clerical reform measures.9 More rigorous standards of personal moral conduct were imposed on religous, the power of bishops was curtailed especially in the granting of indulgences and the papacy took a direct hand in filling vacant sees.10

Paradoxically, the reformist politics of Gregory, Urban and Innocent were at least partly responsible for a great deal of the religious turmoil of the period, since their reform programs which were based on a recognition of mistakes made seemed to confirm many heretics in their own criticism of the Church. Also, new forms of apostolic life, claiming to model themselves upon the early

An additional problem was created for the Church during this period by the increase in feminine piety, as there were inadequate facilities or rules of governance for women. The Beguines, who originated in southern Belgium in the twelfth century and who probably took their name from Lambert le Begue of LiŠge, were originally members of an order of women's houses established for those who either wished to follow the apostolic life or who had been left widows or without marriage prospects as a result of the Crusades. Although later condemned as heretics (and subsequently re-established), the sisters seem originally to have had traditional and simple aims. In 1216, Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre, sought and received permission from the pope for pious women in the Lowlands, Germany and France to live in religious society. Women responded enthusiastically and there was an increase in the number of religious houses. At first accepted (even admired), they were protected by Gregory IX (1227-41) in his bull Gloriam virginalem. 12 Eventually, however, they had to defend their orthodoxy, and were widely suspected of hypocrisy and lack of discipline. What plagued the Beguines from the beginning and contributed most to the suppression of the order was the refusal of some to live in houses. As wandering preachers, they outraged public opinion by adhering to the teaching of the Free Spirit heretics. It was this confusion in the popular mind between Beguines and Free Spirit disciples the latter being a society of spiritual elitists condemned by the Church for radical mysticism and antinomianism that proved to be so dangerous for the Beguines, whose order was condemned at the Council of Vienne in 1311.

At the same council, the decree Ad nostrum "listed eight errors of the beghards and beguines, which have been generally considered to be the fundamental tenets of the heresy of the Free Spirit." 13 This decree used "beguine" as a technical term for adherents of the Free Spirit heresy, as if Beguines were by definition heretical, but religious historian Robert E. Lerner concludes that the data do not support Ad nostrum. He contends that the Free Spirits were not a sect, in the formal sense of the word, but a loosely organized group of individuals, mostly well-to-do, who had a certain amount of education and tended to be from urban centers. 14 Free Spirit philosophy is supported mainly by the idea of a priesthood of chosen, or highly developed souls a spiritual elite set apart from the many who will be technically "saved" by grace but who persist at least in this world and presumably in the next in an inferior spiritual state, a "low" or "sad" level of existence. Essentially, it is the ever-recurring idea of "chosen," or "elect" status, won through rigorous acts, coupled with a not so thinly veiled feeling of superiority to the non-elect. 15 Springing up as it does in an era of rigid class structures, and apparently the near-exclusive property of a proto-middle class, it may have a class component as well. At its core it reflects a profound distrust of the idea of a readily accessible and meaningful grace for the ordinary, sinful person often living in wretched circumstances. The distrust of a freely given grace

The miracle tale can take many forms, hence the difficulty of defining the genre. It may be recited aloud as poetry, told as a story, sung, performed on stage, or read in silence. The miracle plot, on the other hand, has standard and predictable characteristics: real human beings, usually weak and sinful, find themselves in desperate situations. These situations may be the result of the person's own wrongdoing, or they may be the result of the malevolent actions of others. Often, the person dies. It is at the moment of greatest desperation, either in this world or the next, that the Virgin Mary appears dea ex machina and performs a miraculous rescue, often contravening orthodox theological expectations. The plot is invariable, and to that extent it might be more appropriate to speak of the genre as being one of miracle plot rather than miracle tale. However, convention permits us to continue to refer to the miracle tale because, as Todorov has said, "genres [are] only the classes of texts that have been historically perceived as such" and the term "tale" is itself broad enough to cover the various external forms containing the more precise generic characteristics we seek to define. 16

While its use of invented characters in dramatic situations is typical of fiction, the miracle tale has a marked didactic function, and by formalist (or structuralist) definition "emphasis on any particular function (referential, expressive, pragmatic) takes us far away from literature, where the value of the text lies in itself." 17 A problem remains, however, because, as Todorov notes, "if one opts for a structural viewpoint, each type of discourse usually labeled literary has non-literary relatives' that are closer to it than are any other types of literary' discourse. For example, certain instances of lyric poetry and prayer have more in common than that same

Historically, the miracle tale derives from fables, exempla and parables, all of which are well known vehicles for preaching and teaching. The miracle tale differs from its predecessors in having a different external referent. Fables and exempla, especially those that use animals as protagonists, refer to essential problems of human conduct specific either to the natural world and hence to our animal nature or to the more complex problems of life in society. They are examples of wisdom literature, designed to teach rules of self-protection against duplicitous human behavior. Parables are most often religious in nature, and thus more like the miracle tale, but they are general, and do not have so specific a theological or orthodox frame. The biblical parable of the prodigal son, for example, refers to a father's love for a wayward child, immediately understood by the audience or "discourse community" to be a reference to God's love for mankind. While it is a Christian tale, it could easily be applied in a general way, even by other religions. The Marian miracle tale, on the other hand, has a most specific theological frame, being Catholic theology relating to Mary, Mother of God (Jesus), specifically in her role as Mediatrix, proffering an easily accessible grace in an atmosphere of stringent reformist Church policies in twelfth and thirteenth-century Europe. Although different in this respect from the wisdom literature that preceded it, the miracle tale is a related genre, and is most succinctly defined as an illustrated sermon. 19

The evolution of these tales into more artistically elaborated forms, especially musical forms designed for public performance, constitutes an embellishment, but not a change of genre. The composers of the musical versions (the Cantigas of King Alfonso X of Castile provide an example) will often direct themselves to their audience in an admonishing or instructive way, indicating that sermonizing was never far from their minds. In addition to the plot, these tales are characterized by a high degree of lyricism. It is for this reason that they lend themselves so well to musical presentation.20 They become sermons illustrated with music, or at least intensified by lyricism, and to that extent become liturgical in nature and thus return to their roots, since the liturgy clearly preceded the tales.21 The pervasively transcendent, or "spiritual" sense of a tale often seems to call for a special poetic form, as both Derek Pearsall and Barbara Nolan have noticed in the case of Chaucer's use of rhyme royal a seven-line iambic pentameter stanza for the telling of four markedly "religious" tales: those of the Man of Law, the Clerk, the Prioress and the Second Nun. "[T]he four tales," concludes Nolan, ". . . deal directly and intensely with . . . the Christian spirit's certain transcendence of mortal constraints through faith, prayer, and devotion. For these tales, instead of the heroic couplet, Chaucer chose rhyme royal a verse form suited, as George Gascoigne insisted, for graue discourse.'"22

The lyricism, or exalted language, of the Marian miracle tale not only supports but also enhances its potential for didactic use, because of what I have chosen to call apostrophic subversion; that is, the subverting potential of

This contravening of orthodox theological expectations is the hallmark of the Marian miracle tale. Mary will even go against the wishes of Jesus himself commonly a spokesman for the letter of the law in defense of a sinner who has appealed to her mercy. Many times, especially in the collection used by Spain's Gonzalo de Berceo, the sinner is a churchman who dies in sin.26 Of the twenty-five tales in the Berceo collection, twelve nearly half deal with the problems of religious living in community. Usually, a problem particular to clergy is posited. In Miracle 7, for example, we read of a monk who had led a dissolute life and fathered an illegitimate child. He dies, unconfessed, and his soul is dragged into hell by demons. Because, however, he had been a monk in a monastery dedicated to St Peter, the saint has compassion on him and asks Jesus to aid him. This time Christ denies Peter, and refuses, saying the monk had not lived justly. Peter, determined, turns to the Virgin for help. The Holy Mother goes to Jesus, who, as spokesman for the law as well as for grace, points out what the orthodox position would have been, namely that letting such a man into heaven would be a mockery of scripture. However, the Virgin persists and Jesus yields, saying in effect that he will not deny his Mother anything she asks. The monk is returned to life to do penance. Jesus in this tale is quite clearly a symbol of Church doctrine against clerical incontinence a dogma which had been promulgated only as recently as 1089 by Urban II and, correspondingly, Mary is a symbol of liberality and forgiveness.27

Miracle 9 recounts the tale of a simple cleric who could only sing the mass of the Virgin and in consequence is cast out of the Church by a harsh and angry bishop who calls the simple cleric (quite unnecessarily) a "son of a whore" ("fijo de la mala putanna"). Mary, furious, appears in a vision to the bishop and reprimands him even more severely than he had reprimanded the cleric, shouting at him and telling him that unless he reinstated her missacantano he would be dead

Other stories in the collection make the same point over and over, essentially that the Virgin is a powerful intercessor against arbitrary authority and established power structures, including Jesus himself, who in these tales has become something of a medieval lord who, deriving his power from the king, is obliged to act as his spokesman. This particular, culturally determined Jesus seems independent only to the extent permitted by his great love for his Mother, whom he never refuses. However, in a provocative essay on the Virgin's "gaze," Sarah Stanbury has suggested another possible relationship between Jesus and Mary. She notes instances of the remarkable and steady gazes of women in important literary and iconographic representations of the period particularly the pieta and concludes that they contravene an established medieval and Renaissance tradition demanding of the woman the averted or downcast gaze which signifies passivity. The Virgin's steady gaze on the dead body of Christ as represented in the pieta is, for Stanbury, significantly powerful. Even admitting the levels of iconographic complexity and taking full account of traditional interpretations of religious art, there may indeed be at least reflections, in these instances, of the "challenging" aspect of the Virgin's role, one which supports the sense of challenge in the Marian miracle tale.29

Certainly a part of the reason for this marked challenge to authority is that much preaching of the period was divisio intra preaching directed to churchmen, particularly novice clerics or relatively untutored monks, rather than to a general public, and the celebration of Mary as an all-powerful intercessor who never failed to hear the pleas of a sinner was a particularly useful tool for elevating the vision of religious above the fears aroused by severe orthodoxy (doctrinal stringencies) on the one hand and an often extreme and seemingly arbitrary authoritarianism (life in religious order) on the other.

The subject matter of tales directed to a popular audience, in contrast, is less specific, and includes feast-day songs, songs of praise, eucharastic miracles, conversions, diabolical temptations, resurrection of the dead, miraculous cures, delivery from desperate need, and so forth. In these instances, authority is more implicitly challenged to the extent that Jesus (the authoritarian Church) is passed over and appeal is made to a loving and caring divinity who was at least popularly perceived as incorporating those qualities of mercy transcending the often stern doctrines promulgated in times of social reaction to difficult and threatening circumstances.

Viewed in this light, the doctrinal and stylistic exaggerations of the miracle tale take on new meaning. Far from being a self-indulgent sentimentalism, they become a subtle tool for calling authoritarian structures into question, and their authors emerge not as orthodox conformists, but as sensitive thinkers who were insisting while remaining essentially within the bounds of dogmatic proprieties on precisely those qualities of intercessional grace that would increasingly be incorporated by the Church in subsequent centuries.