VIRGIN
463
VIRGIN
tolerated such abuses as primitive and orthodox
(Church Quarterly Review, XIV, 291-94). Not
less remarkable are the developments of devotion to
the Mother of God in Ireland. The calendar of iEngus
at the beginning of the ninth century is very remark-
able for the ardour of the language used whenever
the Blessed Virgin's name is introduced, while Christ
is continually referred to as ".lesus 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 apphed to her, yields in nothing to the
present Litanj' 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
Inf.ants, 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 100- — and many records testify that at such altars paintings, mosaics, and ultimately sculptures reproduced f he 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 pophte 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 genuflexion, such as tradition averred that the Angel Gabriel himself had made, Mar\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 Mi.sericordia", with- out the "Mater", we cannot doubt that something of the vogue of the anthem was due to the immense diffusion of the collections of Marj'-stories (Marien- legenden) which, as Mus.safia has shown, multiplied exceedingly at this time (twelfth to fourteenth cen- tury), and in which the Mater Misericordiai motij was continually recurrent. These collections of stories must have produced a notable effect in popu- larizing a number of other practices of devotion besides repetitions of the .Vve and the use of the Salve Regina, for example the repetition of five salutations beginning "Gaude Maria V'irgo ", the recitation of five psalms, the initials of which make up the word Maria, the dedication of the Saturd.'iy by special prac- tices to the Bles.><ed Virgin, the use of lu-wigned prayers, such as the sequence "Missus Gabriel", the "{) inte- merala", the hymn "Ave Maris Stella", etc., and the celebration of particular fea.sts, .such as the Conception of the Blessed Virgin and her Nativity. The five
Gaudes just mentioned originally commemorated Our
Ladjs "five joys", and to match those joys spiritual
writers at first commemorated five corresponding sor-
rows. 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 CompUne and other hours. Amongst other orders the Cistercians, par- ticularly in the twelfth century, exercised an immense influence in the development of Marian devotion. They claimed a very special connexion 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 particu- lar 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 Carmehtes, 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 multiphed, 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 (on which see, as a specimen of the his- tory of many similar shrines, the admirable mono- graph of Rupin, "Roc Amadour, Etude historique et archeologique", Paris, 1904), Laon, Mariabrunn near Klosterneuburg, Einsiedeln etc. and in England, Wal- singham, Our Lady I'ndercroft at Canterbury, Evesham, and many more.
These shrines, which as time went on multiphed be- yond calculation in every part of Europe, nearly always owed their celebrity to the temporal and spiritual fa- vours which it was believed the IMcssed 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 miracu- lous 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 mois- ture. In other ca.ses the head had bowed or the hand been raised in benediction. Without denying the po.s- sibility of such occurrences, il can hardly be doubted that in m.any instances the historical evidence for these wonders was unsatisfactory. That pojjidar devotion to the Blessed Virgin was often attended with extrav- agance and abuses, it is iinpo.ssible to deny. Never- theless we may believe that the simple faith and devo- tion of the people was often rewarded in proportion to their honest intention of paying res[)ect to the Mother of God. And there is no rea.son to believe that these forms of piety h.ad on the whole a delusive effect, and fostered nothing l>ut superstition. The purity, pity, and motherhness of Mary were always the dominant
