Legendary Material in Christian Hagiography - High Middle Ages

High Middle Ages

During the millenarian 10th century, the era of the Cluniacs and mysticism make the biographies of the saints subjective. The 12th century brings with the new religious orders the contemplative legends of Mary. The thirteenth sees the development of the cities and the citizens, hand in hand with which goes the popularization of the legend by means of collections compiled for the purposes of sermons, vit sanctorum, exempla, or merely to give entertainment (Vincent of Beauvais, Cæsarius of Heisterbach, James of Vitry, Thomas of Chantimpré, "Legenda Aurea"); in this century also arise the legends of Mary and, in connexion with the new feast of Corpus Christi (1264), a strong interest in tales of miracles relating to the Host.

There are only variations of the old concepts of transformation and apparitions, as in the innumerable stories which now circulated of visible incarnation of the Divine Child or of the Crucified One, or of the monstrance being suspended in the air. But the continuity of the concepts is quite evident in the case of the legend of Mary. If Mary considers herself as betrothed to the priest who serves her, the meaning of this is not far to seek; but nevertheless Callimachus (3rd century BC) had also treated this idea in a legend of Artemis, and Antoninus Liberalis and the Talmud have variations of it. And if, in this legend of Mary, the Blessed Virgin put a ring on the hand of her betrothed under quite characteristic circumstances, that is nothing else than the Roman local legend of the betrothal of Venus, as it has been preserved by William of Malmesbury and the "Deutsche Kaiserchronik" of the 12th century.