§ 130. THE WORSHIP OF MA BY. 831
Dcifafis triclinium ; hac in calle lacrymarum Da robur,fer auxilium, 0 excusatrix culparum.
BONAVENTUKA, Latin Bcatce Virginis Maria.1
THE worship of the Virgin Mary entered into the very soul of mediaeval piety and reached its height in the doctrine of her immaculate conception. Solemn theologians in their dogmatic treatises, ardent hymn-writers and minnesingers, zealous preachers and popular prose-writers unite in dilat ing upon her purity and graces on earth and her beauty and intercessory power in heaven. In her devotion, chivalry and religion united. A pious gallantry invested her with all the charms of womanhood and the highest beatitude of the heavenly estate. The austerities of the convent were soft ened by the recollection of her advocacy and tender guard ianship, and monks, who otherwise shrank from the company of women, dwelt upon the marital tie which bound them to her. To them her miraculous help was being continually extended to counteract the ills brought by Satan. The Schoolmen, in their treatment of the immaculate conception, used over and over again delicate terms 2 which in conversa tion the pure to-day do not employ.
Monastic orders were dedicated to Mary, such as the Car thusian, Cistercian, and Carmelite, as were also some of the most imposing churches of Christendom, as the cathedrals at Milan and Notre Dame, in Paris.
The titles given to Mary were far more numerous than the titles given to Christ and every one of them is extra-biblical except the word " virgin." An exuberant fancy allegorized references to her out of all sorts of texts, never dreamed of by their writers. She was found referred to in almost every figurative expression of the Old Testament which could be applied to a pure, human being. To all the Schoolmen, Mary is the mother of God, the queen of heaven, the clement queen,
1 Peltier's ed., XIV. 181. A free translation runs, " Hail, heavenly lily, Hail most graceful rose, Hail mother of the lowly, Reigning on high, Couch of deity ; Give to us in this valley of tears strength, Lend aid O thou palliator of sins."
2 sinus, bosom; pectins, breast; viscera, bowels ; ubera, breasts ; uterus, etc.
832 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
the queen of the world, the empress of the world, the medi atrix, the queen of the ages, the queen of angels, men and demons,1 the model of all virtues, and Damiani even calls her " the mother of the eternal emperor."2
Monks, theologians, and poets strain the Latin language to express their admiration of her beauty and benignity, her chastity and heavenly glory. Her motherhood and virginity are alike subjects of eulogy. The conception of physical grace, as expressed when the older Notker of St. Gall called her " the most beautiful of all virgins," filled the thought of the Schoolmen and the peasant. Albertus Magnus devotes a whole chapter of more than thirty pages of two columns each to the praise of her corporal beauty. In his exposition of Canticles 1 : 15, " Behold thou art fair, my love," he com ments upon the beauty of her hair, her shoulders, her lips, her nose, her feet, and other parts of her body. Bonaventura's hymns in. her praise abound in tropical expressions, such as " she is more ruddy than the rose and whiter than the lity." Wernher of Tegernsee about 1173 sang:3 — •
Her face was so virtuous, her eyes so bright, Her manner so pure, that, among all women, None could with her compare.
In a remarkable passage, Bernard represents her in the celestial places drawing attention to herself by her form and beauty so that she attracted the King himself to desire her.4 Dante, a century and more later, enjoying paradise in the company of Bernard, thus represented the vision of Mary: —
I saw the virgin smile, whose rapture shot
Joy through the eyes of all that blessed throng :
And even did the words that I possess
Equal imagination, I should not
Dare, the attempt her faintest charms to express.
Paradiso, Canto XXXI.
1 Bonaventura, Speculum, III. Peltier's ed., XIV. 240.
2 Migne, 145. 566.
3 Ir antlutze war so tugentliche, Ir ougen also kunchliche, Ir gebaerde also reine, Das sich ze ir glichte deheine, Under alien den frouen, quoted by von Eicken, p. 477.
4 The word used is concupiscentia, the usual word for lust. Migne, 183. 62.