Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary

Down to the Council of Nicaea

Devotion to Our Blessed Lady in its ultimate analysis must be regarded as a

practical application of the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. Seeing that this

doctrine is not contained, at least explicitly in the earlier forms of the Apostles'

Creed, there is perhaps no ground for surprise if we do not meet with any clear

traces of the cultus of the Blessed Virgin in the first Christian centuries. The

earliest unmistakable examples of the "worship" -- we use the word of course in

the relative sense -- of the saints is connected with the veneration paid to the

martyrs who gave their lives for the Faith. From the first century onwards,

martyrdom was regarded as the surest sign of election. The martyrs, it was held,

passed immediately into the presence of God. Over their tombs the Holy

Sacrifice was offered (a practice which may possibly be alluded to in Revelation

6:9) while in the contemporary narrative of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp (c. 151)

we have already mention of the "birthday", i.e. the annual commemoration, which

the Christians might be expected to keep in his honour. This attitude of mind

becomes still more explicit in Tertullian and St. Cyprian, and the stress laid upon

the "satisfactory" character of the sufferings of the martyrs, emphasizing the view

that by their death they could obtain graces and blessings for others, naturally

and immediately led to their direct invocation.

A further reinforcement, of the same idea, was derived from the cult of the angels,

which, while pre-Christian in its origin, was heartily embraced by the faithful of

the sub-Apostolic age. It seems to have been only as a sequel of some such

development that men turned to implore the intercession of the Blessed Virgin.

This at least is the common opinion among scholars, though it would perhaps be

dangerous to speak too positively. Evidence regarding the popular practice of the

early centuries is almost entirely lacking, and while on the one hand the faith of

Christians no doubt took shape from above downwards (i.e. the Apostles and

teachers of the Church delivered a message which the laity accepted from them

with all docility) still indications are not lacking that in matters of sentiment and

devotion the reverse process sometimes obtained. Hence, it is not impossible

that the practice of invoking the aid of the Mother of Christ had become more

familiar to the more simple faithful some time before we discover any plain

expression of it in the writings of the Fathers. Some such hypothesis would help

to explain the fact that the evidence afforded by the catatcombs and by the

apocryphal literature of the early centuries seems chronologically in advance of

that which is preserved in the contemporaneous writings of those who were the

authoritative mouthpieces of Christian tradition.

Be this however as it may, the firm theological basis, upon which was afterwards

reared the edifice of Marian devotion, began to be laid in the first century of our

era. It is not without significance that we are told of the Apostles after the

Ascension of Christ, that "all these were persevering with one mind in prayer with

the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren" (Acts 1:14).

Also attention has rightly been called to the fact that St. Mark, though he tells us

nothing of our Christ's childhood, nevertheless describes Him as "the son of

Mary" (Mark 6:3), a circumstance which, in view of certain known peculiarities of

the Second Evangelist, greatly emphasises his belief in the Virgin Birth.

The same mystery is insisted upon by St. Ignatius of Antioch, who, after

describing Jesus as "Son of Mary and Son of God", goes on to tell the

Ephesians (7, 18, and 19) that "our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived in the

womb of Mary according to a dispensation of the seed of David but also of the

Holy Ghost," and he adds: "Hidden from the prince of this world were the virginity

of Mary and her childbearing and likewise also the death of the Lord -- three

mysteries to be cried aloud". Aristides and St. Justin also use explicit language

concerning the Virgin Birth, but it is St. Irenaeus more especially who has

deserved to be called the first theologian of the Virgin Mother. Thus he has drawn

out the parallel between Eve and Mary, urging that, "as the former was led astray

by an angel's discourse to fly from God after transgressing His word, so the latter

by an angel's discourse had the Gospel preached unto her that she might bear

God, obeying His word. And if the former had disobeyed God, yet the other was

persuaded to obey God: that the Virgin Mary might become an advocate for the

virgin Eve. And as mankind was bound unto death through a virgin, it is saved a

through virgin; by the obedience of a virgin the disobedience of a virgin is

compensated" (Irenaeus, V, 19). No one again disputes that the clause "born of

the Virgin Mary" formed part of the primitive redaction of the Creed, and the

language of Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, etc., is in thorough conformity with

that of Irenaeus; further, though writers like Tertullian, Hevidius, and possibly

Hegesippus disputed the perpetual virginity of Mary, their more orthodox

contemporaries affirmed it.

It was natural then that in this atmosphere we should find a continually

developing veneration for the sanctity and exalted privileges of Mary. In the

paintings of the catacombs more particularly, we appreciate the exceptional

position that she began, from an early period, to occupy in the thoughts of the

faithful. Some of these frescoes, representing the prophecy of Isaias, are believed

to date from the first half of the second century. Three others which represent the

adoration of the Magi are a century later. There is also a remarkable but very

much mutilated bas-relief, found at Carthage, which may be probably assigned to

the time of Constantine.

More startling is the evidence of certain apocryphal writings, notably that of the

so-called Gospel of St. James, or "Protevangelion." The earlier portion of this,

which evinces a deep veneration for the purity and sanctity of the Blessed Virgin,

and which affirms her virginity in partu et post partum, is generally considered to

be a work of the second century. Similarly, certain interpolated passages found

in the Sibylline Oracles, passages which probably date from the third century,

show an equal preoccupation with the dominant role played by the Blessed

Virgin in the work of redemption (see especially II, 311-12, and VIII, 357-479). The

first of these passages apparently assigns to the intercession "of the Holy Virgin"

the obtaining of the boon of seven days of eternity that men may find time for

repentance (cf. the Fourth Book of Esdras, vii, 28-33). Further, it is quite likely

that the mention of the Blessed Virgin in the intercessions of the diptychs of the

liturgy goes back to the days before the Council of Nicaea, but we have no

definite evidence upon the point, and the same must be said of any form of direct

invocation, even for purposes of private devotion.

The Age of the Fathers

The existence of the obscure sect of the Collyridians, whom St. Epiphanius (d.

403) denounces for their sacrificial offering of cakes to Mary, may fairly be held to

prove that even before the Council of Ephesus there was a popular veneration for

the Virgin Mother which threatened to run extravagant lengths. Hence Epiphanius

laid down the rule: "Let Mary be held in honour. Let the Father, Son, and Holy

Ghost be adored, but let no one adore Mary" (ten Marian medeis prosknueito).

Nonetheless the same Epiphanius abounds in the praises of the Virgin Mother,

and he believed that there was some mysterious dispensation with regard to her

death implied in the words of Revelations 12:14: "And there were given to the

woman two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the desert unto her

place." Certain it is, in any case, that such Fathers as St. Ambrose and St.

Jerome, partly inspired with admiration for the ascetic ideals of a life of virginity

and partly groping their way to a clearer understanding of all that was involved in

the mystery of the Incarnation, began to speak of the Blessed Virgin as the

model of all virtue and the ideal of sinlessness. Several striking passages of this

kind have been collected.

"In heaven", St. Ambrose tells us, "she leads the choirs of virgin souls;

with her the consecrated virgins will one day be numbered."

St. Jerome (Ep. xxxix, Migne, P. L., XXII, 472) already foreshadows that

conception of Mary as mother of the human race which was to animate so

powerfully the devotion of a later age.

St. Augustine in a famous passage (De nat. et gratis, 36) proclaims

Mary's unique privilege of sinlessness

In St.Gregory of Nazianzen's sermon on the martyr St. Cyprian (P.G.,

XXXV, 1181) we have an account of the maiden Justina, who invoked the

Blessed Virgin to preserve her virginity.

But in this, as in some other devotional aspects of early Christian beliefs, the

most glowing language seems to be found in the East, and particularly in the

Syrian writings of St. Ephraem. It is true that we cannot entirely trust the

authenticity of many of the poems attributed to him; the tone, however, of some

of the most unquestioned of Ephraem's compositions is still very remarkable.

Thus in the hymns on the Nativity (6) we read: "Blessed be Mary, who

without vows and without prayer in her virginity conceived and brought forth

the Lord of all the sons of her companions, who have been or shall be

chaste or righteous, priests and kings. Who else lulled a son in her

bosom as Mary did? Who ever dared to call her son, Son of the Maker,

Son of the Creator, Son of the Most High?"

Similarly in Hymns 11 and 12 of the same series, Ephraem represents

Mary as soliloquizing thus: "The babe that I carry carries me, and He hath

lowered His wings and taken and placed me between His pinions and

mounted into the air, and a promise has been given me that height and

depth shall be my Son's" etc.

This last passage seems to suggest a belief, like that of St. Epiphanius already

referred to, that the holy remains of the Virgin Mother were in some miraculous

way translated from earth. The fully-developed apocryphal narrative of the "Falling

asleep of Mary" probably belongs to a slightly later period, but it seems in this

way to be anticipated in the writings of Eastern Fathers of recognized authority.

How far the belief in the "Assumption" which became generally prevalent in the

course of a few centuries, was independent of or influenced by the apocryphal

"Transitus Mariae", which is included by Pope Gelasius in his list of condemned

apocrypha, is a difficult question. It seems likely that some germ of popular

tradition preceded the invention of the extravagant details of the narrative itself.

In any case, the evidence of the Syriac manuscripts proved beyond all question

that in the East before the end of the sixth century, and probably very much

earlier, devotion to the Blessed Virgin had assumed all those developments

which are usually associated with the later Middle Ages. In some manuscripts of

the "Transitus Mariae" -- dating from the late fifth century -- we find mention of

three annual feasts of the Blessed Virgin:

one two days after the feast of the Nativity,

another on the 15th day of Iyar, corresponding more or less to May, and

a third on the 13th (or 15th) day of Ab (roughly August), which probably is

the origin of our present feast of the Assumption.

Moreover, the same apocryphal relation contains an account of the Blessed

Virgin's miracles, purporting to have been forwarded from the Christians of Rome,

and closely resembling the "Marienlegenden" of the Middle Ages. For example

we read:

Often here in Rome she appears to the people who confess her in

prayer, for she has appeared here on the sea when it was troubled

and raised itself and was going to destroy the ship in which they

were sailing. And the sailors called on tke name of the Lady Mary

and said: 'O Lady Mary, Mother of God, have mercy on us,' and

straightway she rose upon them like the sun and delivered the

ships, ninety-two of them, and rescued them from destruction, and

none of them perished.

And again we are told:

She appeared by day on the mountain where robbers had fallen

upon people and sought to slay them. And these people cried out

saying: 'O Lady Mary Mother of God, have mercy on us.' And she

appeared before them like a flash of lightning, and blinded the eyes

of the robbers and they were not seen by them" (ib., 49).

Of course the wild extravagance of this apocryphal literature cannot be

questioned. It is all pure invention and a comparison of the various texts of the

"Transitus" shows that this treatise in particular was continually being modified

and added to in its various translations, so that we cannot be at all sure that the

"Liber qui appellatur transitus, id est Assumptio, Sanctae Mariae apochryphus,"

condemned by Pope Gelasius in 494, was identical with the Syriac version just

cited. But it is highly probable that this same Syriac version was then in

existence, and apocryphal as the text may be, it undoubtedly testifies to the

state of mind of at least the less instructed Christians of that period. Neither is it

likely that feasts would be spoken of and ascribed to the institutions of the

Apostles themselves if no such commemoration existed in the locality in which

this fictitious narrative was so widely popular. In point of fact, scholars give good

reason for believing that a feast described as mneme tes hagias Oeotokou kai

aeikarthenou Marias was ceIebrated at Antioch as early as the year 370, while

from the circumstance that it was connected with the Epiphany we may probably

identify it with the first of the feasts referred to in the Syriac Transitus.

There is also confirmatory evidence for such a feast to be found in the hymns of

Balai, a Syriac writer of the beginning of the fifth century; for not only does this

writer use the most glowing language about Our Lady, but he speaks in such

terms as these: "Praise to Thee Lord upon the memorial feast of Thy Mother"

(Poem 4, p. 14, and Poem 6, p. 15). Another clear testimony is that of St.

Proclus, who died Patriarch of Constantinople, and who in 429 preached a

sermon in that city, at which Nestorius was present, beginning with the words

"The Virgin's festival (parthenike panegyris) incites our tongue today to herald her

praise." In this, we may further note, he describes Mary as

handmaid and Mother, Virgin and heaven, the only bridge of God to

men, the awful loom of the Incarnation, in which by some

unspeakable way the garment of that union was woven, whereof the

weaver is the Holy Ghost; and the spinner the overshadowing from

on high; the wool the ancient fleece of Adam; the woof the

undefiled flesh from the virgin, the weaver's shuttle the immense

grace of Him who brought it about; the artificer the Word gliding

through the hearing" (P.G., LXV, 681).

This discourse illustrates in a remarkable degree how the controversies which

bore fruit in the canons of Ephesus and the title theotokos had led to a deeper

understanding of the part of the Blessed Virgin in the work of Redemption.

Turning to another Eastern land, we find a very remarkable monument of Marian

devotion among the Coptic Ostraca (p. 3), dated to about A. D. 600. This

fragment bears in Greek the words: "Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee;

blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, because

thou didst conceive Christ, the Son of God, the Redeemer of our souls". This

oriental variant of the Ave Maria was apparently intended for liturgical use, much

as the earliest form of the Hail Mary in the West took the shape of an antiphon

employed in the Mass and Office of the Blessed Virgin. Relatively late as this

fragment may seem, it is the more valuable because the direct mention of the

Blessed Virgin in our earliest liturgical form is of rare occurrence. None such, for

example, is found in the prayer-book of Serapion, or in the liturgy of the Apostolic

Constitutions, or in the fragments of the Canon of the Mass preserved to us in

the Ambrosian treatise "De Sacramentis". Certain Syriac hymns by Cyrillon as

(c. 400) and especially by Rabnlas of Edessa (d. 435) speak of Mary in terms of

warm devotion; but as in the case of St. Ephraem there is a certain element of

uncertainty regarding the authorship of these compositions. On the other hand

the dedication of many early churches undoubtedly afford an indication of the

authoritative recognition at this period extended to the cultus of the Blessed

Virgin. Already at the beginning of the fifth century St. Cyril wrote: "Hail to thee

Mary, Mother of God, to whom in towns and villages and in island were founded

churches of true believers" (P.G., LXXVII, 1034). The Church of Ephesus, in

which in 431 the Ecumenical Council assembled, was itself dedicated to the

Blessed Virgin. Three churches were founded in her honour in or near

Constaninople by the Empress Pulcheria in the course of the fifth century, while

at Rome the Church of Santa Maria Antiqua and Santa Maria in Trastevere are

certainly older than the year 500. Not less remarkable is the ever increasing

prominence given to the Blessed Virgin during the fourth and fifth centuries in

Christian art. In the paintings of the catacombs, in the sculptures of sarchophagi,

in the mosaics, and in such minor objects as the oil flasks of Monsa, the figure

of Mary recurs more and more frequently, while the veneration with which she is

regarded is indicated in various indirect ways, for example by the large nimbus,

such as may be seen in the pictures of the Crucifixion in the Rabulas manuscript

of A.D. 586 (reproduced in THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, VIII, 773). As early

as 540 we find a mosaic in which she sits enthroned as Queen of Heaven in the

centre of the apex of the cathedral of Parenzo in Austria, which was constructed

at that date by Bishop Euphrasius.

The Early Middle Ages

With the Merovingian and Carlovingian developments of Christianity in the west

came the more authoritative acceptance of Marian devotion as an integral part of

the Church's life. It is difficult to give precise dates for the introduction of the

various festivals, but it has already been pointed out in the article CALENDAR

that the celebration of the Assumption, Annunciation, Nativity and Purification of

Our Lady may certainly be traced to this period. Three of these feasts appear in

the Calendar of St. Willibrord of the end of the seventh century, the Assumption

being assigned both to 18 January, after the practice of the Gallican Church, and

to August (which approximates to the present Roman date), while the absence of

the Annunciation is probably due only to accident. Again we may quite

confidently affirm that the position of the Blessed Virgin in the liturgical formula of

the Church was by this time securely established. Even if we ignore the Canon of

the Roman Mass which had taken very much the form it now retains before the

close of the sixth century, the "praefatio" for the January festival of the

Assumption in the Gallican Rite, as well as other prayers which may safely be

assigned to no later date than the seventh century, give proof of a fervent cultus

of the Blessed Virgin. In poetic language Mary is declared not only marvellous by

the pledge which she conceived through faith but glorious in the translation by

which she departed" (P. L., LXII, 244-46), the belief in her Assumption being

clearly and repeatedly taken for granted, as it had been a century earlier by

Gregory of Tours. She is also described in the liturgy as "the beautiful chamber

from which the worthy spouse comes forth, the light of the gentiles, the hope of

the faithful, the spoiler of the demons, the confusion of the Jews, the vessel of

life, the tabernacle of glory, the heavenly temple, whose merits, tender maiden as

she was, are the more clearly displayed when they are set in contrast with the

example of ancient Eve" (ib., 245). At the same period numberless churches

were erected under Mary's dedication, and many of these were among the most

important in Christendom. The cathedrals of Reims, Chartres, Rouen, Amiens,

Nîmes, Evreux, Paris, Bayeux, Séez, Toulon etc., though built at different dates,

were all consecrated in her honour. It is true that the origin of many of these

French shrines of Our Lady is impenetrably shrouded in the mists of legends. For

example, no one now seriously believes that St. Trophimus at Arles dedicated a

chapel to the Blessed Virgin while she was still living, but there is conclusive

evidence that some of these places of pilgrimage were venerated at a very early

date. We learn from Gregory of Tours (Hist. Fr., IX, 42) that St. Rhadegund had

built a church in her honour at Poitiers, and he speaks of others at Lyons,

Toulouse, and Tours. We also possess the dedication tablet of a church erected

by Bishop Frodomund in 677 "in honore almae Mariae, Genetricis Domini", and

as the day named is the middle of the month of August (mense Augusto medio),

there can be little doubt that the consecration took place upon the festival of the

Assumption, which was at that time beginning to supplant the January feast. In

Germany the shrines of Altötting and Lorch profess to be able to trace their origin

as places of pilgrimage to remote antiquity and though it would be rash to

pronounce too confidently, we may probably feel safei in assigning them at least

to the Carlovingian period.

In England and Ireland the evidence that from the earliest period Christianity was

strongly leavened with devotion to Mary is very great. Bede tells us of the church

consecrated to the honour of Our Lady at Canterbury by St. Mellitus, the

immediate successor of Augustine; we also learn from the same source of many

other Mary churches, e.g. Weremouth and Hexham (this last dedication being

due to the miraculous cure of St. Wilfrid after invoking the Mother of God), and

Lastingham near Whitby, while St. Aldhelm, before the end of the same seventh

century, informs us how the Princess Bugga, daughter of King Edwin, had a

church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin on the feast of her Nativity:

Istam nempe diem, qua templi festa coruscant,

Nativitate sua sacravit Virgo Maria.

And Our Lady's altar stood in the apse:

Absidem consecrat Virginis ara.

Probably the earliest vernacular poetry in the West to celebrate the praise of

Mary was the Anglo-Saxon; for Cynewulf, slightly before the time of Alcuin and of

Charlemagne, composed most glowing verses on this theme; for example to

quote Gollancz's translation of "the Christ" (ii, 214-80):

Hail, thou glory of this middle-world!

The purest woman throughout all the earth.

Of those that were from immemorial time

How rightly art thou named by all endowed

With gifts of speech! All mortals throughout earth

Declare full blithe of heart that thou art bride

Of Him that ruleth the empyral sphere.

To speak in detail of all that we find in the writings of Aldhelm, Bede, and Alcuin

would be impossible; but it is well to note the testimony of an Anglican writer

with regard to the whole period before the Norman Conquest. "The Saint," he

says, "most persistent!y and frequently invoked, and to whom the most

passionate epithets were applied, trenching upon the Divine prerogatives, was the

Blessed Virgin. Mariolatry is no very modern development of Romanism"; and he

instances from a tenth-century English manuscript now at Salisbury, such

invocations as "Sancta Redemptrix Mundi, Sancta Salvatrix Mundi, ora pro

nobis"; The same writer after referring to prayers and practices of devotion known

in Anglo-Saxon times, for example the special Mass already assigned tothe

Blessed Virgin on Saturdays in the Leofric Missal, comments upon the strange

delusion, as he regards it, of many Anglicans, who can look upon a Church

which tolerated such abuses as primitive and orthodox.

Not less remarkable are the developments of devotion to the Mother of God in

Ireland. The calendar of Aengus at the beginning of the ninth century is very

remarkable for the ardour of the language used whenever the Blessed Virgin's

name is introduced, while Christ is continually referred to as "Jesus Mac Mary"

(i.e. Son of Mary). There is also besides certain Latin hymns, a very striking Irish

litany in honour of the Blessed Virgin, which as regards the picturesqueness of

the epithets applied to her, yields in nothing to the present Litany of Loreto. Mary

is there called "Mistress of the Heavens, Mother of the Heavenly and earthly

Church, Recreation of Life, Mistress of the Tribes, Mother of the Orphans, Breast

of the Infants, Queen of Life, Ladder of Heaven." This composition may be as old

as the middle of the eighth century.

The Later Middle Ages

It was characteristic of this period, which for our present purpose may be

regarded as beginning with the year 1000, that the deep feeling of love and

confidence in the Blessed Virgin, which hitherto had expressed itself vaguely and

in accordance with the promptings of the piety of individuals, began to take

organized shape in a vast multitude of devotional practices. Long before this date

a Lady altar was probably to be found in all the more important churches -- St.

Aldhelm's poem on the altars takes us back to before the year 70 and many

records testify that at such altars paintings, mosaics, and ultimately sculptures

reproduced the figure of the Blessed Virgin to delight the eyes of her clients. The

famous seated figure of the Madonna with the Divine Infant at Ely dated from

before 1016. The statue of the Blessed Virgin at Coventry, round the neck of

which Lady Godiva's rosary was hung, belongs to the same period. Even in

Aldhelm's day Our Lady was besought to hearken to the prayers of those who

bent the knee before her shrine.

Audi clementer populorum vota precantum

Qui . . . genibus tundunt curvato poplite terram.

It was especially for such salutations that the Ave Maria, which probably first

became familiar as an antiphon used in the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin,

won popular favour with all classes. Accompanying it each time with a

genuflection, such as tradition averred that the Angel Gabriel himself had made,

Mary's clients repeated this formula before her images again and again. As it

was destitute at first of its concluding petition, the Ave was felt to be a true form

of salutation, and in the course of the twelfth century came into universal use. To

the same epoch belongs the wide popularity of the Salve Regina, which also

seems to have come into existence in the eleventh century. Though it originally

began with the words "Salve Regina Misericordia" without the "Mater", we cannot

doubt that something of the vogue of the anthem was due to the immense

diffusion of the collections of Mary-stories (Marien-legenden) which multiplied

exceedingly at this time (twelfth to fourteenth century), and in which the Mater

Misericordia motif was continually recurrent. These collections of stories must

have produced a notable effect in popularising a number of other practices of

devotion besides repetitions of the Ave and the use of the Salve Regina, for

example the repetition of five salutations beginning "Gaude Maria Virgo," the

recitation of five psalms, the initials of which make up the word Maria, the

dedication of the Saturday by special practices to the Blessed Virgin, the use of

assigned prayers, such as the sequence "Missus Gabriel," the "O Intemerata,"

the hymn "Ave Maris Stella," etc., and the celebration of particular feasts, such

as the Conception of the Blessed Virgin and her Nativity. The five Gaudes just

mentioned originally commemorated Our Lady's "five joys" and to match those

joys spiritual writers at first commemorated five corresponding sorrows. It was

not until late in the fourteenth century that seven sorrows or "dolours" began to

be spoken of, and even then only by exception.

In all these matters the first impulse seems to have come very largely from the

monasteries, in which the Mary-stories were for the most part composed and

copied. It was in the monasteries undoubtedly that the Little Office of the

Blessed Virgin (see PRIMER) began to be recited as a devotional accretion to

the Divine Office, and that the Salve Regina and other anthems of Our Lady were

added to Compline and other hours. Amongst other orders the Cistercians,

particularly in the twelfth century, exercised an immense influence in the

development of Marian devotion. They claimed a very special connection with the

Blessed Virgin, whom they were taught to regard as always presiding unseen at

the recitation of Office. To her they dedicated their churches, and they were

particular in saying her hours, giving her special prominence in the Confiteor and

frequently repeating the Salve Regina. This example of a special consecration to

Mary was followed by other later orders, notably by the Dominicans, the

Carmelites, and the Servites. Indeed, almost every such institution from this time

forward adopted some one or other special practice of devotion to mark its

particular allegiance to the Mother of God. Shrines naturally multiplied, and

although some, as already noted, are in their origin of later date than the eleventh

century, it was at this period that such famous places of pilgrimage arose as Roc

Amadour, Laon, Mariabrunn near Klosterneuburg, Einsiedeln etc., and in

England, Walsingham, Our Lady Undercroft at Canterbury, Evesham, and many

more.

These shrines, which as time went on multiplied beyond calculation in every part

of Europe, nearly always owed their celebrity to the temporal and spiritual favours

which it was believed the Blessed Virgin granted to those who invoked her in

these favoured spots. The gratitude of pilgrims often enriched them with the most

costly gifts; crowns of gold and precious gems, embroidered garments, and rich

hangings meet us at every turn in the record of such sanctuaries. We might

mention, to take a single example, that of Halle, in Belgium, which was

exceptionally rich in such treasures. Perhaps the commonest form of votive

offerings took the shape of a gold or silver model of the person or limb that had

been cured. For example Duke Philip of Burgundy sent to Halle two silver

statues, one representing a knight on horseback, the other a foot-soldier in

gratitude for the cure of two of his own bodyguard. Often again the special vogue

of a particular shrine was due to some miraculous manifestation which was

believed to have occurred there. Blood was said to have flowed from certain

statues and pictures of Our Lady which had suffered outrage. Others had wept or

exuded moisture. In other cases, the head had bowed or the hand been raised in

benediction.

Without denying the possibility of such occurrences, it can hardly be doubted

that in many instances the historical evidence for these wonders was

unsatisfactory. That popular devotion to the Blessed Virgin was often attended

with extravagance and abuse, it is impossible to deny. Nevertheless we may

believe that the simple faith and devotion of the people was often rewarded in

proportion to their honest intention of paying respect to the Mother of God. And

there is no reason to believe that these forms of piety had on the whole a

delusive effect, and fostered nothing but superstition. The purity, pity, and

motherliness of Mary were always the dominant motive, even the "Miracle" of

Max Reinhardt, the wordless play which in 1912 took London by storm,

persuaded many how much of true religious feeling must have underlain even the

more extravagant conceptions of the Middle Ages.

The most renowned English shrines of Our Lady, that of Walsingham in Norfolk,

was in a sense an anticipation of the still more famous Loreto. Walsingham

professed to preserve, not indeed the Holy House itself, but a model of its

construction upon measurements brought from Nazareth in the eleventh century.

The dimensions of the Walsingham Santa Casa were noted by William of

Worcester, and they do not agree with those of Loreto. Walsingham measured

23 ft. 6 in. by 12 ft. 10 in.; Loreto, 31 ft.3 in. by 13 ft. 4 in.

In any case the homage paid to Our Lady during the later Middle Ages was

universal. Even so unorthodox a writer as John Wyclif, in one of his earlier

sermons, says: "It seems to me impossible that we should obtain the reward of

Heaven without the help of Mary. There is no sex or age, no rank or position, of

anyone in the whole human race, which has no need to call for the help of the

Holy Virgin." So again the intense feeling evoked from the twelfth to the sixteenth

century over the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is only an additional

tribute to the importance which the whole subject of Mariology possessed in the

eyes of the most learned bodies of Christendom. To give even a brief sketch of

the various practices of Marian devotion in the Middle Ages would be impossible

here. Most of them -- for example the Rosary, the Angelus, the Salve Regina etc.

and the more important festivals -- are discussed under separate headings. It will

be sufficient to note the prevalence of the wearing of beads of all possible

fashions and lengths, some of fifteen decades, some of ten, some of six, five,

three, or one, as an article of ornament in every attire; the mere repetition of Hail

Marys to be counted by the aid of such Pater Nosters, or beads, was common in

the twelfth century, before the time of St. Dominic; the motive of meditating on

assigned "mysteries" did not come into use until 300 years later. Further, we

must note the almost universal custom of leaving legacies to have a Mary-Mass,

or Mass of Our Lady, celebrated daily at a particular altar, as well as to maintain

lights to burn continually before a particular statue or shrine. Still more

interesting were the foundations left by will to have the Salve Regina or other

anthems of Our Lady sung after Compline at the Lady altar, while lights were

burned before her statue. The "salut" common to France in the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries formed only after development of this practice, and from

these last we have almost certainly derived our comparatively modern devotion of

Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

Modern Times

Only a few isolated points can be touched upon in the development of Marian

devotion since the Reformation. Foremost among these may be noticed the

general introduction of the Litany of Loreto, which though, as we have seen, it

had precursors in other lands as remote as Ireland in the ninth century, not to

speak of isolated forms in the later Middle Ages, itself only came into common

use towards the close of the sixteenth century. The same may also be said of

any general adoption of the second part ofthe Hail Mary. Another manifestation of

great importance, which also like the last followed close after the Council of

Trent, was the institution of sodalities of the Blessed Virgin, particularly in

houses of education, a movement mainly promoted by the influence and example

of the Society of Jesus, whose members did so much, by the consecration of

studies and other similar devices, to place the work of education under the

patronage of Mary, the Queen of Purity. To this period is also due, with some

occasional exceptions, the multiplication in the calendar of minor feasts of the

Blessed Virgin, such as that of the Holy Name of Mary, the festum B.V.M. ad

Nives, de Mercede, of the Rosary, de Bono Consilio, Auxilium Christianorum,

and so on. Still later in date (seventeenth century at earliest) is the adoption of

the custom of consecrating the month of May to the Blessed Virgin by special

observances, though the practice of reciting the Rosary every day during the

month of October can hardly be said to be older than the Rosary Encyclicals of

Leo XIII. Not much controversy was maintained regarding the Immaculate

Conception after the indirect pronouncement of the Council of Trent, but the

dogma was only defined by Pius IX in 1854. Undoubtedly, however, the greatest

stimulus to Marian devotion in recent times has been afforded by the apparitions

of the Blessed Virgin in 1858 at Lourdes, and in the numberless supernatural

favours granted to pilgrims, both there and at other shrines, that derive from it.

The "miraculous medal" connected with the church of Notre-Dame des Victoires

at Paris also deserves mention, as giving a great stimulus to this form of piety in

the first half of the nineteenth century.

Herbert Thurston

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org