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Mary and the Art of Prayer_Ave Maria
191 As her medieval devotees read them, the Psalms, like the Virgin herself, were inexhaustible, every word a hint as to her praise.
And yet, remarkably, for some it would seem that even the Psalms were not enough. Whether out of frustration or simply in an attempt to expand even further the scope of their salutations, other poets, for example, the Benedictine abbot Engelbert of Admont (d. 1331) and the Franciscan poet and former schoolmaster Walter of Wimborne, would dispense with the formal psalm structure altogether, retaining only (if that) the number of the psalms. For Engelbert, Mary was preeminently the rose, every stanza of his psalter beginning with the same salutation: "Ave, rosa. " But how many di erent roses he invokes!
Ave, rosa, os aestive, O Maria, lucis vivae suave habitaculum . . .
Hail, rose, ower of summer, O Mary, sweet habitation of the living light!
Ave, rosa non vulgaris, disciplinae puellaris exemplum et regula . . .
Hail, rose uncommon, example and rule of maidenly discipline!
Ave, rosa verni roris, te divini ros amoris totam sic roraverat . . .
Hail, rose of vernal dew, the dew of divine love wholly you bedewed!
Ave, rosa paradisi, per quam morbi sunt elisi. . . .
Hail, rose of paradise, through whom all disease is crushed!
Ave, rosa sola potis, ferre vim rhinocerotis et invictum capere . . .
Hail, rose alone able to bear the strength of the unicorn and to capture the unconquered one! 192
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For Walter, in contrast, like Richard of Saint-Laurent on whom he seems to have depended for many of his images, it is di cult to say what the Virgin was not:
Hail, virgin, mother of Christ,
you who by your modesty merited
to be called phoenix of virgins;
hail, virgin, whose fruit
gave to us the end of sorrow and
the limit of lamentation.
Hail, beautiful virgin,
for whose praise neither prose
nor meter su ces;
hail, virgin, turning-post (meta) of evil,
vein of life, through whom the death (theta) of foul death is accomplished.
Hail, glorious virgin,
you who are the comment and gloss
of prophetic scripture,
whose gloss lays bare
that which is veiled
by the hard shell of the letter.
Hail, virgin, key of heaven,
hail, new ship weighed down
with novel wares,
through whom on full sails
is brought the full light from heaven
to the blind and wandering.
Hail, maidenly gem,
hail, bright star of the sea,
hail, treasure-chest of the divinity,
hail, torch and lantern
whom the supernal light sets light, rebrand of eternal light.
Hail, virgin, whose womb,
diligently sealed (sigillatus),
swelled with a new growth;
without pain or torment,
the splendor and gure of the Father
wished to be born from you.
Hail, virgin, room (zeta) of the Word, chastely pregnant by chaste breath,
not impure seed;
to you worthily we o er odes,
you who knot God with mud,
and mother with virgin.
Hail, virgin, cell of the Word,
concealing the light-beam of divinity under a cloud of esh;
hail, virgin, medicine-chest of God, through whom the clouded, bleary, blind mind receives its salve.
Hail, virgin, abyss of honey,
you who drive far away the ancient gall of death and sorrow,
you who with the needle of providence joined God with mud
and the lowest with the highest.
Hail, virgin, saw of death,
whose womb is a casket
of celestial incense;
hail, virgin, whom the power
of the bountiful spirit made sacred, fortunate, and fertile. 193
"Hail, gracious virgin. . . . Hail, sweetness of the mind. . . . Hail, incense of heaven . . . Hail, shield of sinners . . . Hail, cloud shot through with the ames of Phoebus and adorned with the rainbow of divinity. . . . Hail! " And so on for 164 Victorine stanzas, through metaphors even Richard had not explored. 194
"And the virgin's name was Mary" (Luke 1:27)
How, in the end, does one describe the indescribable? Perhaps, as Walter himself suggested at the outset of the second of his great e orts to describe the Virgin (Marie Carmina), one cannot: even if the whole of creation were transformed into pens, parchment, and ink and all its creatures into scribes, one could not hope to praise adequately even the least of the virtues of the one who contained
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the uncontainable in her womb. 195 Her very existence was (and, for the faithful, still is) a paradox, exceeding the capacity of human reason to comprehend. For all the metaphors that one might invoke to describe her (and they were, as we have seen, legion), nothing in truth, or so her medieval devotees insisted, was remotely like her, not the heavens or the earth, not the sun or the moon, not the garden enclosed or the litter of Solomon, not the temple or the ark, not the jewel, gate, ship, house, city, elephant, or dove--for, a er all, she alone of all his creatures had given birth to God. No list of attributes, unless itself in nite, could encompass divinity--and yet, mind-bogglingly, Mary had. As Anselm had put it: "Nothing equals Mary, nothing but God is greater than Mary. " What mere words could one use to describe the one in whom the Word had dwelled? All of them? None of them? Or perhaps, paradoxically--as Walter himself even- tually realized--there was only one: "Mary. " In Walter's words: "All other praise is exiguous. "196
Maria: this--according to the Vulgate tradition on which medieval European Christians depended--was the name of the virgin to whom the angel was sent (Luke 1:27), the name given to her by God as recorded by the evangelist. 197 "Ave Maria": what more needed to be said? "Your name," argued Richard of Saint-Laurent, citing the Song of Songs (1:2),
"is as oil poured out; therefore, the young maidens loved you" exceedingly. Rightly is this name "Maria" compared to oil: because above all the names of the saints this name, a er the name of the Son, refreshes the tired, strengthens the weak, gives light to the blind, penetrates the hard [of heart], restores the weary, anoints the struggling, rots the yoke of the Devil, and oats above all names just as oil above all other liquids. For the whole Trinity gave to her this name that is above all other names a er the name of her Son, that in her name every knee should bend . . . in heaven, earth, and hell; and that every tongue should confess the grace, glory, and virtue of this most holy name (cf. Philippians 2:10-11). For there is no more powerful aid in any other name a er the name of the Son, nor is there any name under heaven given to human beings a er the sweet name of Jesus from which so great a salvation is poured out to humankind (cf. Acts 4:12). 198
Never mind the Virgin's various titles, everything that one needed to know in order to praise her could be learned simply from her name--or so the Franciscan Bernardino de Busti (d. 1513) would argue in his vast but o -printed Mariale of sixty-three sermons in twelve parts, six of which sermons he dedicated to elu- cidating the mysteries of "M. A. R. I. A. "199 In Bernardino's reading, although the
immensity of Mary's glory exceeds the capacity of all human words to express,200 so lled with meaning is her name that even the very shapes of the individual letters are signs pointing Christians to her virtues: "M" with its three "I's" joined into one is for her faith in the Trinity. "A" with its top open and curved to the le is for her hope in adversity. "R" with its two turnings is for her love of God and her neighbor. "I" in its simplicity is for her humility. And "A," again with its open curve to the le , is for her largess. 201
Nor, as Bernardino would have it, was it only Mary's virtues that the letters of her name could reveal, in so many ways and through so many gures did they speak of her glories. Simply to give the outlines of this literal multiplic- ity took Bernardino nearly y double-columned pages in the 1511 black-letter edition of his work, over sixty in the 1588 edition printed in Roman type. Like Richard of Saint-Laurent, Bernardino read Mary's name as a veritable treasury of signi cations, she herself having been lled with him in whom were hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). 202 And why not? A er all, as "Jerome, Ambrose, Bernard, Anselm, and Bartholomeus of Pisa" all attest (or so Bernardino argued), this was the name her Son gave to her, the name by which the angel greeted her at the Incarnation of the Word, about which the psalmist rightly cries: "How admirable is your name in the whole earth! " (Psalm 8:2), and Mary herself may be heard to say in the words of the prophet Malachi (1:11): "From the rising of the sun even to its going down, my name is great among the peoples and in every place. "203 us buttressed by scripture on the one hand and learned authorities on the other, who would not be embold- ened (or, at the very least, curious) to open her name and discover the many treasures contained therein?
Appropriatively (quae dicitur appropriationis), or so Bernardino explained, "M" is for pearl (margarita) because pearls staunch the ow of blood and strengthen the heart; likewise, Mary through the grace which she pours out on her lovers has the virtue of staunching the ow of sin. "A" is for diamond (adamas) because it is the gemstone of reconciliation and love, and Mary reconciles the human race with God and establishes them in love. "R" is for ruby (rubinus) because it has the virtue of making its wearers glad; the gracious Virgin makes those devoted to her happy. "I" is for jasper (iaspis) because it pro- tects against harm; likewise, the Virgin protects those who pray to her against all evils and dangers. "A" is for allectorius, a gem found in the maw of a cock, because it brings honors and fortune; Mary brings her devotees great good for- tune, for as "Bernard" (actually the Carolingian monk Paschasius Radbertus) put it, "there is nothing of virtue, nothing of splendor, nothing of glory with which she does not shine. "204
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In similar fashion, according to Bernardino, but on a di erent level, guratively (quae dicitur gurationis), the letters of Mary's name point to the various women mentioned in the scriptures whose lives pre gured hers. "M" is for Michal, the wife of David, king and prophet, between whom and Abner there could be no friendship unless Abner sent her to the king (2 Kings [Samuel] 3); likewise, there could be no friendship between her Son and humankind until the Virgin was born into the world. "A" signi es Abigail, also the wife of David, who pleaded on behalf of her husband Nabal that David not wreak his vengeance upon him (1 Kings [Samuel] 25); in the same way, Mary goes out to meet God adorned with all her virtues so as to turn his wrath away from humankind. "R" denotes Rachel, the wife of Jacob, who bore Joseph, whose name mean "savior" (Genesis 30); Mary bore Christ, the Savior of the world. "I" indicates Judith, who killed Holofernes (Judith 13); likewise, Mary through the merit of her humble virginity killed Lucifer, prince of demons, by crushing his power. "A" is for Abishag, the Sunamite chosen over all the daughters of Israel to attend King David in his old age (3 Kings 1:1-4); in the same way, Mary was chosen over all other women to minister to the heavenly king (Ecclesiasticus 24:14). 205
Again, as Bernardino would have it, on yet another level, signi cantly (quae dicitur signi cationis), the letters of Mary's name point to her various roles in relation to humanity and God. Mary is a mediator (mediatrix) because she mediates between God and humankind, Christ and the Church, the three Persons of the Trinity and the three states of humanity (virgins, continent, and married), reconciling sinners to God, interceding for them daily and commu- nicating between those who are still in the world and the saints who are already on the way to heaven. Likewise, she is her devotees' helper (auxiliatrix); their renewer, restorer, and reconciler (restauratrix, reparatrix, reconciliatrix); their illuminator (illuminatrix), and their advocate (advocata). 206 Yet again, she is the Mother of all things (mater universorum), the of the treasury of God (arca thesaurorum Dei), the Queen of heaven and earth (regina celorum et totius orbis), the Empress of heaven and earth (imperatrix celi et terra), and the Augusta of the whole world (augusta totius orbis). 207 In her prerogatives, she is the hand of God (manus Dei), ve- ngered, rounded, golden, and hyacinth; the bee of God (apis Dei) feeding on the dew of heaven and giving birth to the sweetness of paradise; the rule of life for everyone living (regula omnium viven- tium); the urn of God (ydria Dei); the almond and celestial tree (amygdala, arbor celestis). 208 And she is the mother of mercy (mater misericordiae), the aqueduct (aqueductus) owing out of paradise (Ecclesiasticus 24:41), the earth besprinkled with celestial dew (rore perfusa) giving forth plants (Deuteronomy
32:2), the door (ianua) and gate of paradise, and the forecourt (atrium) and habitation of God. 209
Above all, however, Bernardino concluded, Mary is the star: of the heavens, of the pole, of the morning, of the king, and of the sea. 210 As Jerome had explained in his commentary on the Hebrew names, "Maria" means "stella maris" or "star of the sea"; therefore, Bernardino noted, "the Church sings, 'Ave maris stella. ' "211 Some two hundred years earlier Conrad of Saxony had likewise elaborated on this traditional etymology: "Mary is spiritually a 'bitter sea' to the demons, o - cially 'star of the sea' to men, eternally 'illuminatrix' to the angelic spirits, and universally 'lady' to all creatures. "212 As star of the sea, she guides all those "who sail through the sea of the world in the ship of innocence or penance to the shore of the heavenly country," because she is pure by living purely, radiant by bringing forth eternal light, and useful by directing humanity to the shores of its home country. 213 Jacobus de Voragine would concur: Mary's name is pleasing and sweet, like honey in the mouth, a song in the ear, and joy in the heart. She is illuminated like the woman clothed with the sun and the moon at her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars (Revelation 12:1); she illuminates the dark places of the earth and warms the cold; and she is bitter on account of the blindness of her people, the su erings of her Son, and the separations from her Son that she had to endure. She is the lady to whom angels, human beings, and demons all kneel. And she is the star of the sea on whom the whole court of heaven attends. 214
Why was the virgin's name "Maria"? Again in Richard of Saint-Laurent's words: because she is illuminated by the light of the Father, the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the Son of God who is the true sun of justice. She is the illuminatrix of the world because she bore the True Light. She is a bitter sea by reason of her compassion at her Son's su ering. She is the Lady o ering her Son to the world, as in her images. And she is the star of the sea exalted over all the orders of the angels: because she is xed in the rmament of heaven, that is, the scriptures; because she illuminates the world by light of her virtues; because she is on re with love, especially by him whom she conceived; because she appears little in her humility before God; because she attracts others to her, drawing them through the curtains of the tabernacle, that is, the Church of God; because she shines brilliantly in times of cold, as when at her Son's Passion the love of all others chilled; because she stands in her obedience; because she is scintillating in the excellence of her conversation; because she is continually moving from virtue to virtue and from activity to contemplation; because she illuminates those whom she guards and ghts against the devil for her servants; because she was and is always at the right hand of God; because she serves him through all eternity;
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because she joyfully gives her light; because she is beautiful in the honesty of her life; because in her and through her the Father laughs with his creatures; because she adorns the Church and illumines the night; because she foretells future events and shows the astrologers, that is, the prophets, to have been telling the truth; because she excites the lazy to work and guides those sailing through the sea of the world to the port of salvation. 215
Why was the Virgin's name "Maria"? Mary's "faithful Bernard" ( fedel Bernardo)-- for Dante, he needed no other introduction--put it perhaps most famously in the second of his four homilies super "Missus est," cited by all of the authors whom we have considered above, in full by Richard in his commentary on the Ave:
Surely [the Virgin Mother] is very ttingly likened to a star. e star sends forth its ray without harm to itself. In the same way the Virgin brought forth her son with no injury to herself. e ray no more diminishes the star's brightness than does the Son his mother's integrity. She is indeed that noble star risen out of Jacob (Numbers 24:17) whose beam enlightens this earthly globe. She it is whose brightness both twinkles in the highest heaven and pierces the pit of hell, and is shed upon earth, warming our hearts far more than our bodies, fostering virtue and cauterizing vice. She, I tell you, is that splendid and wondrous star suspended as by necessity over this great wide sea, radiant with merit and brilliant in example.
Accordingly, Bernard "a ame with love" (ond'i? o ardo tutto d'amor, as Dante put it) encouraged his fellow lovers of Mary:
O you, whoever you are, who feel that in the tidal wave of this world you are nearer to being tossed about among the squalls and gales than treading on dry land, if you do not want to founder in the tempest, do not avert your eyes from the brightness of this star. When the wind of temptation blows up within you, when you strike upon the rock of tribulation, gaze up at this star, call out to Mary. Whether you are being tossed about by the waves of pride or ambition or slander or jealousy, gaze up at this star, call out to Mary. When rage or greed or eshly desires are battering the ski of your soul, gaze up at Mary. When the immensity of your sins weighs you down and you are bewildered by the loath- someness of your conscience, when the terrifying thought of judgment appalls you and you begin to founder in the gulf of sadness and despair, think of Mary. In dangers, in hardships, in every doubt, think of Mary, call out to Mary. Keep her in your mouth, keep her in your heart. Follow the example of her life and you will obtain the favor of her prayer. Following her, you will never go astray.
Asking her help, you will never despair. Keeping her in your thoughts, you will never wander away. With your hand in hers, you will never stumble. With her protecting you, you will not be afraid. With her leading you, you will never tire. Her kindness will see you through to the end. en you will know by your own experience how true it is that "the Virgin's name was Mary. "216
All this and more, medieval European Christians hoped and claimed to experience by saluting Mary in the words with which the angel sent from God had greeted her. And yet, much like the angel in many medieval images of the Annunciation, having noted as much, we are arguably only at the threshold of understanding what Mary's devotees said they saw in her. 217 We have, a er all, said only the invitatory antiphon and psalm for her O ce and are in the process of singing its rst hymn. So what if medieval Christians believed their o -repeated saluta- tions of the Virgin brought her great joy and them a sweet taste to the mouth? So what if they insisted that all their attempts at naming her as the "mother of all re-created things" taxed the very limits of human language and understand- ing? Where--other than in their desire to exercise their onomastic skills--did they get the idea to read the scriptures in the way that they did, as lled with names for her, almost none of which (other than her actual name) were invoked by the evangelists Matthew, Mark, or Luke? (John, as we shall see, was another matter, particularly as the author of the book of Revelation. ) More particularly, why did they invoke these metaphors--ark, tabernacle, temple, house, throne, city, mountain, river, tree, mirror, virgin, bride, queen--as a way of describing her relationship with God? And where did they get the idea that it was appropriate to talk about her in the language of the Psalms, as following the invitatory Ave they did hour a er hour, day a er day in the recitation of her O ce?
e thirteenth-century Franciscan preacher Servasanctus of Faenza thought he knew.
"Dearest brothers," Servasanctus invited his readers in the preface to his Mariale, paraphrasing the Venerable Bede's opening to his homily on Luke 1:26-38, "let us listen with intent ear to the exordium of our salvation that we might merit to attain the promised gi of salvation. "218 A er all, the friar reasoned, if there is not a jot or tittle of the law empty of mystery (cf. Matthew 5:18), how much the more must that brief and blessed word of the evange- list (Luke 1:28) be full of signi cance. Accordingly, he proposed, "let us see (videamus) what and how many are the elements (quae et quot sunt elementa) of this exordium! "
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ere are, the learned friar calculated, eighty-three elements or letters, most perfectly summed up (because eight is the number of completion) in the three theological virtues that the Apostle Paul enumerated (1 Corinthians 13:13); thirty-seven syllables, signifying Mary, her faith in the Trinity and the divine law, and the plenitude of sevenfold grace with which she was lled; and een words, signifying the een steps of virtue that she ascended, plus ve dis- tinctions or phrases. e angelic salutation itself contains nine words ("Ave, gratia plena, Dominus tecum: benedicta tu in mulieribus"), signifying that Mary was full of the graces of all the saints and angels. 219 And what do we get once we have counted all the elements? Servasanctus does the arithmetic for us: "Collect, if you will, all these into one, and add that which is customarily added at the end of this salutation, and you will have one hundred and y, the same as the number of the psalms of David. "
"But surely," we may imagine Servasanctus's late thirteenth-century readers to have protested, for this is the era of the scholastic disputation, in which friars like Servasanctus's brothers at the studium generale in Florence were trained, "you are not saying that this means the Psalms of David contain the praises of the Virgin Mary? " (Or perhaps if they protested it was only gently; to judge from the widespread distribution of his work, Servasanctus clearly found a sympathetic audience. )
Not exactly: we have not yet nished our calculations. "Seek," Servasanctus would have his readers, "in heaven, on earth, in the sea, in every abyss, in the Scriptures, in its gures and in its creatures, until you nd the same number as it were of harpists playing their harps in praise of Mary (quendam chorum cythar- oedorum cytharizantium cytharis suis laudes Mariae), so as to make up a pleasing psalter with harp (ut sit Psalterium jucundum cum cythara), so that just as the praises of Christ are sung with the psalter of David, so on this harp the praises of the Virgin might be sung. " And how many such harpists do we nd when we search the heavens, the earth, the seas, the abyss, the scriptures, its gures and creatures? Exactly as many as we found elements in the exordium of salvation, subdivided according to their natures. In natural things (in rebus naturalibus), we nd eighty-three; in made things (in rebus arti cialibus), we nd thirty-seven; in moral dispositions (in moralibus), we nd een; in orders of the saints, ve; in orders of the angels, nine; and one that sums up all the others (Magni cata). If, as we have seen, for Bernardino it was possible to discover Mary's virtues in the very shapes of the letters that went together to make her name, so it would seem, according to Servasanctus, all the creatures of creation--or, at the very least, 150 of them--sang out in her praise from the letters, syllables, words, and phrases of the angelic salutation.
And yet, we are still not nished, so intricate a mystery does the exordium contain. To unlock it, or so Servasanctus would have it, we must do more than calculate the number of these creaturely "harpists. " Rather, Servasanctus insisted, in all of these, if we look carefully, we nd (and this is very signi cant for Servasanctus's purposes), the elements (elementa) of Mary's praise, for they show her in their forms (quasi quaedam facies ipsam Virginem utcumque), represent her in gure (quasi in aenigmate repraesentantes), name her (quasi quaedam vocabula nomen Virginis interpretantia), and wrap the plenitude of her graces in parables (quasi quaedam parabola gratiarum eius plenitudinem involutam) through the particulars they contain (pro particulis continentes). For, argued Servasanctus, just as in the words of the Philosopher (that is, Aristotle) "those things which are dispersed in animals by nature are gathered together in man by reason"220--simplicity in the dove, kindness in the lamb, liberality in the lion--so all the graces and blessings that are bestowed upon others in part are gathered together in Mary in full, as indeed, we read about her in Proverbs 31:29: "Many daughters have gathered together riches: you have surpassed them all. "
And yet--Servasanctus continued--for all her riches as a creature, in Mary her- self there is an even greater mystery. "In me," Wisdom says in Ecclesiasticus 24:25, "is all grace of the way (gratia omnis viae), that is [according to Servasanctus], of every creature, which is a way to the Creator (id est omnis creaturae, quae est via ad Creatorem), for Mary, the book of life and the mirror and the exemplar either is or contains all these things (haec enim omnia est aut continet liber vitae et specu- lum et exemplar MARIA). " As Servasanctus would have it, Mary, the "mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope" (Ecclesiasticus 24:24), is the way to the Creator because she is the book of life containing all the crea- tures of creation, who herself promises, speaking as Wisdom: " ey that explain me shall have life everlasting" (Ecclesiasticus 24:31). "And I wept," says John in Revelation 5:4, cited by Servasanctus, "because no man was found worthy to open the book, nor to see it. "
e elements of the evangelical exordium precisely calculated to the number of the Psalms, the same number of harpists discovered in the natural and arti cial creatures of creation singing the praises of the Virgin, just as King David sang the praises of Christ, the creature Mary as the book of life, mirror, and exemplar of the Creator containing all the creatures of creation, Wisdom promising in Ecclesiasticus that they who explain her shall have eternal life: these are mysteries indeed. We have heard the angel greet her. Clearly, to understand and experience the Virgin's psalter as Servasanctus hoped his fellow Christians might, somehow we need to learn to read this book.
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P l at e 8 Mary of Burgundy is shown praying with her Book of Hours, while through the window she can be seen kneeling before the Virgin and Child for whom she has sung the psalms. Her prayer has made them visible to her and brought her into their presence. Book of Hours, Flanders, ca. 1477. Use of Rome. Made for Mary of Burgundy (1457-1482), the daughter of Charles the Bold. Vienna, O? sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1857, fol. 14v.
Photo courtesy of O? sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.
And yet, remarkably, for some it would seem that even the Psalms were not enough. Whether out of frustration or simply in an attempt to expand even further the scope of their salutations, other poets, for example, the Benedictine abbot Engelbert of Admont (d. 1331) and the Franciscan poet and former schoolmaster Walter of Wimborne, would dispense with the formal psalm structure altogether, retaining only (if that) the number of the psalms. For Engelbert, Mary was preeminently the rose, every stanza of his psalter beginning with the same salutation: "Ave, rosa. " But how many di erent roses he invokes!
Ave, rosa, os aestive, O Maria, lucis vivae suave habitaculum . . .
Hail, rose, ower of summer, O Mary, sweet habitation of the living light!
Ave, rosa non vulgaris, disciplinae puellaris exemplum et regula . . .
Hail, rose uncommon, example and rule of maidenly discipline!
Ave, rosa verni roris, te divini ros amoris totam sic roraverat . . .
Hail, rose of vernal dew, the dew of divine love wholly you bedewed!
Ave, rosa paradisi, per quam morbi sunt elisi. . . .
Hail, rose of paradise, through whom all disease is crushed!
Ave, rosa sola potis, ferre vim rhinocerotis et invictum capere . . .
Hail, rose alone able to bear the strength of the unicorn and to capture the unconquered one! 192
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For Walter, in contrast, like Richard of Saint-Laurent on whom he seems to have depended for many of his images, it is di cult to say what the Virgin was not:
Hail, virgin, mother of Christ,
you who by your modesty merited
to be called phoenix of virgins;
hail, virgin, whose fruit
gave to us the end of sorrow and
the limit of lamentation.
Hail, beautiful virgin,
for whose praise neither prose
nor meter su ces;
hail, virgin, turning-post (meta) of evil,
vein of life, through whom the death (theta) of foul death is accomplished.
Hail, glorious virgin,
you who are the comment and gloss
of prophetic scripture,
whose gloss lays bare
that which is veiled
by the hard shell of the letter.
Hail, virgin, key of heaven,
hail, new ship weighed down
with novel wares,
through whom on full sails
is brought the full light from heaven
to the blind and wandering.
Hail, maidenly gem,
hail, bright star of the sea,
hail, treasure-chest of the divinity,
hail, torch and lantern
whom the supernal light sets light, rebrand of eternal light.
Hail, virgin, whose womb,
diligently sealed (sigillatus),
swelled with a new growth;
without pain or torment,
the splendor and gure of the Father
wished to be born from you.
Hail, virgin, room (zeta) of the Word, chastely pregnant by chaste breath,
not impure seed;
to you worthily we o er odes,
you who knot God with mud,
and mother with virgin.
Hail, virgin, cell of the Word,
concealing the light-beam of divinity under a cloud of esh;
hail, virgin, medicine-chest of God, through whom the clouded, bleary, blind mind receives its salve.
Hail, virgin, abyss of honey,
you who drive far away the ancient gall of death and sorrow,
you who with the needle of providence joined God with mud
and the lowest with the highest.
Hail, virgin, saw of death,
whose womb is a casket
of celestial incense;
hail, virgin, whom the power
of the bountiful spirit made sacred, fortunate, and fertile. 193
"Hail, gracious virgin. . . . Hail, sweetness of the mind. . . . Hail, incense of heaven . . . Hail, shield of sinners . . . Hail, cloud shot through with the ames of Phoebus and adorned with the rainbow of divinity. . . . Hail! " And so on for 164 Victorine stanzas, through metaphors even Richard had not explored. 194
"And the virgin's name was Mary" (Luke 1:27)
How, in the end, does one describe the indescribable? Perhaps, as Walter himself suggested at the outset of the second of his great e orts to describe the Virgin (Marie Carmina), one cannot: even if the whole of creation were transformed into pens, parchment, and ink and all its creatures into scribes, one could not hope to praise adequately even the least of the virtues of the one who contained
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the uncontainable in her womb. 195 Her very existence was (and, for the faithful, still is) a paradox, exceeding the capacity of human reason to comprehend. For all the metaphors that one might invoke to describe her (and they were, as we have seen, legion), nothing in truth, or so her medieval devotees insisted, was remotely like her, not the heavens or the earth, not the sun or the moon, not the garden enclosed or the litter of Solomon, not the temple or the ark, not the jewel, gate, ship, house, city, elephant, or dove--for, a er all, she alone of all his creatures had given birth to God. No list of attributes, unless itself in nite, could encompass divinity--and yet, mind-bogglingly, Mary had. As Anselm had put it: "Nothing equals Mary, nothing but God is greater than Mary. " What mere words could one use to describe the one in whom the Word had dwelled? All of them? None of them? Or perhaps, paradoxically--as Walter himself even- tually realized--there was only one: "Mary. " In Walter's words: "All other praise is exiguous. "196
Maria: this--according to the Vulgate tradition on which medieval European Christians depended--was the name of the virgin to whom the angel was sent (Luke 1:27), the name given to her by God as recorded by the evangelist. 197 "Ave Maria": what more needed to be said? "Your name," argued Richard of Saint-Laurent, citing the Song of Songs (1:2),
"is as oil poured out; therefore, the young maidens loved you" exceedingly. Rightly is this name "Maria" compared to oil: because above all the names of the saints this name, a er the name of the Son, refreshes the tired, strengthens the weak, gives light to the blind, penetrates the hard [of heart], restores the weary, anoints the struggling, rots the yoke of the Devil, and oats above all names just as oil above all other liquids. For the whole Trinity gave to her this name that is above all other names a er the name of her Son, that in her name every knee should bend . . . in heaven, earth, and hell; and that every tongue should confess the grace, glory, and virtue of this most holy name (cf. Philippians 2:10-11). For there is no more powerful aid in any other name a er the name of the Son, nor is there any name under heaven given to human beings a er the sweet name of Jesus from which so great a salvation is poured out to humankind (cf. Acts 4:12). 198
Never mind the Virgin's various titles, everything that one needed to know in order to praise her could be learned simply from her name--or so the Franciscan Bernardino de Busti (d. 1513) would argue in his vast but o -printed Mariale of sixty-three sermons in twelve parts, six of which sermons he dedicated to elu- cidating the mysteries of "M. A. R. I. A. "199 In Bernardino's reading, although the
immensity of Mary's glory exceeds the capacity of all human words to express,200 so lled with meaning is her name that even the very shapes of the individual letters are signs pointing Christians to her virtues: "M" with its three "I's" joined into one is for her faith in the Trinity. "A" with its top open and curved to the le is for her hope in adversity. "R" with its two turnings is for her love of God and her neighbor. "I" in its simplicity is for her humility. And "A," again with its open curve to the le , is for her largess. 201
Nor, as Bernardino would have it, was it only Mary's virtues that the letters of her name could reveal, in so many ways and through so many gures did they speak of her glories. Simply to give the outlines of this literal multiplic- ity took Bernardino nearly y double-columned pages in the 1511 black-letter edition of his work, over sixty in the 1588 edition printed in Roman type. Like Richard of Saint-Laurent, Bernardino read Mary's name as a veritable treasury of signi cations, she herself having been lled with him in whom were hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). 202 And why not? A er all, as "Jerome, Ambrose, Bernard, Anselm, and Bartholomeus of Pisa" all attest (or so Bernardino argued), this was the name her Son gave to her, the name by which the angel greeted her at the Incarnation of the Word, about which the psalmist rightly cries: "How admirable is your name in the whole earth! " (Psalm 8:2), and Mary herself may be heard to say in the words of the prophet Malachi (1:11): "From the rising of the sun even to its going down, my name is great among the peoples and in every place. "203 us buttressed by scripture on the one hand and learned authorities on the other, who would not be embold- ened (or, at the very least, curious) to open her name and discover the many treasures contained therein?
Appropriatively (quae dicitur appropriationis), or so Bernardino explained, "M" is for pearl (margarita) because pearls staunch the ow of blood and strengthen the heart; likewise, Mary through the grace which she pours out on her lovers has the virtue of staunching the ow of sin. "A" is for diamond (adamas) because it is the gemstone of reconciliation and love, and Mary reconciles the human race with God and establishes them in love. "R" is for ruby (rubinus) because it has the virtue of making its wearers glad; the gracious Virgin makes those devoted to her happy. "I" is for jasper (iaspis) because it pro- tects against harm; likewise, the Virgin protects those who pray to her against all evils and dangers. "A" is for allectorius, a gem found in the maw of a cock, because it brings honors and fortune; Mary brings her devotees great good for- tune, for as "Bernard" (actually the Carolingian monk Paschasius Radbertus) put it, "there is nothing of virtue, nothing of splendor, nothing of glory with which she does not shine. "204
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In similar fashion, according to Bernardino, but on a di erent level, guratively (quae dicitur gurationis), the letters of Mary's name point to the various women mentioned in the scriptures whose lives pre gured hers. "M" is for Michal, the wife of David, king and prophet, between whom and Abner there could be no friendship unless Abner sent her to the king (2 Kings [Samuel] 3); likewise, there could be no friendship between her Son and humankind until the Virgin was born into the world. "A" signi es Abigail, also the wife of David, who pleaded on behalf of her husband Nabal that David not wreak his vengeance upon him (1 Kings [Samuel] 25); in the same way, Mary goes out to meet God adorned with all her virtues so as to turn his wrath away from humankind. "R" denotes Rachel, the wife of Jacob, who bore Joseph, whose name mean "savior" (Genesis 30); Mary bore Christ, the Savior of the world. "I" indicates Judith, who killed Holofernes (Judith 13); likewise, Mary through the merit of her humble virginity killed Lucifer, prince of demons, by crushing his power. "A" is for Abishag, the Sunamite chosen over all the daughters of Israel to attend King David in his old age (3 Kings 1:1-4); in the same way, Mary was chosen over all other women to minister to the heavenly king (Ecclesiasticus 24:14). 205
Again, as Bernardino would have it, on yet another level, signi cantly (quae dicitur signi cationis), the letters of Mary's name point to her various roles in relation to humanity and God. Mary is a mediator (mediatrix) because she mediates between God and humankind, Christ and the Church, the three Persons of the Trinity and the three states of humanity (virgins, continent, and married), reconciling sinners to God, interceding for them daily and commu- nicating between those who are still in the world and the saints who are already on the way to heaven. Likewise, she is her devotees' helper (auxiliatrix); their renewer, restorer, and reconciler (restauratrix, reparatrix, reconciliatrix); their illuminator (illuminatrix), and their advocate (advocata). 206 Yet again, she is the Mother of all things (mater universorum), the of the treasury of God (arca thesaurorum Dei), the Queen of heaven and earth (regina celorum et totius orbis), the Empress of heaven and earth (imperatrix celi et terra), and the Augusta of the whole world (augusta totius orbis). 207 In her prerogatives, she is the hand of God (manus Dei), ve- ngered, rounded, golden, and hyacinth; the bee of God (apis Dei) feeding on the dew of heaven and giving birth to the sweetness of paradise; the rule of life for everyone living (regula omnium viven- tium); the urn of God (ydria Dei); the almond and celestial tree (amygdala, arbor celestis). 208 And she is the mother of mercy (mater misericordiae), the aqueduct (aqueductus) owing out of paradise (Ecclesiasticus 24:41), the earth besprinkled with celestial dew (rore perfusa) giving forth plants (Deuteronomy
32:2), the door (ianua) and gate of paradise, and the forecourt (atrium) and habitation of God. 209
Above all, however, Bernardino concluded, Mary is the star: of the heavens, of the pole, of the morning, of the king, and of the sea. 210 As Jerome had explained in his commentary on the Hebrew names, "Maria" means "stella maris" or "star of the sea"; therefore, Bernardino noted, "the Church sings, 'Ave maris stella. ' "211 Some two hundred years earlier Conrad of Saxony had likewise elaborated on this traditional etymology: "Mary is spiritually a 'bitter sea' to the demons, o - cially 'star of the sea' to men, eternally 'illuminatrix' to the angelic spirits, and universally 'lady' to all creatures. "212 As star of the sea, she guides all those "who sail through the sea of the world in the ship of innocence or penance to the shore of the heavenly country," because she is pure by living purely, radiant by bringing forth eternal light, and useful by directing humanity to the shores of its home country. 213 Jacobus de Voragine would concur: Mary's name is pleasing and sweet, like honey in the mouth, a song in the ear, and joy in the heart. She is illuminated like the woman clothed with the sun and the moon at her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars (Revelation 12:1); she illuminates the dark places of the earth and warms the cold; and she is bitter on account of the blindness of her people, the su erings of her Son, and the separations from her Son that she had to endure. She is the lady to whom angels, human beings, and demons all kneel. And she is the star of the sea on whom the whole court of heaven attends. 214
Why was the virgin's name "Maria"? Again in Richard of Saint-Laurent's words: because she is illuminated by the light of the Father, the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the Son of God who is the true sun of justice. She is the illuminatrix of the world because she bore the True Light. She is a bitter sea by reason of her compassion at her Son's su ering. She is the Lady o ering her Son to the world, as in her images. And she is the star of the sea exalted over all the orders of the angels: because she is xed in the rmament of heaven, that is, the scriptures; because she illuminates the world by light of her virtues; because she is on re with love, especially by him whom she conceived; because she appears little in her humility before God; because she attracts others to her, drawing them through the curtains of the tabernacle, that is, the Church of God; because she shines brilliantly in times of cold, as when at her Son's Passion the love of all others chilled; because she stands in her obedience; because she is scintillating in the excellence of her conversation; because she is continually moving from virtue to virtue and from activity to contemplation; because she illuminates those whom she guards and ghts against the devil for her servants; because she was and is always at the right hand of God; because she serves him through all eternity;
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because she joyfully gives her light; because she is beautiful in the honesty of her life; because in her and through her the Father laughs with his creatures; because she adorns the Church and illumines the night; because she foretells future events and shows the astrologers, that is, the prophets, to have been telling the truth; because she excites the lazy to work and guides those sailing through the sea of the world to the port of salvation. 215
Why was the Virgin's name "Maria"? Mary's "faithful Bernard" ( fedel Bernardo)-- for Dante, he needed no other introduction--put it perhaps most famously in the second of his four homilies super "Missus est," cited by all of the authors whom we have considered above, in full by Richard in his commentary on the Ave:
Surely [the Virgin Mother] is very ttingly likened to a star. e star sends forth its ray without harm to itself. In the same way the Virgin brought forth her son with no injury to herself. e ray no more diminishes the star's brightness than does the Son his mother's integrity. She is indeed that noble star risen out of Jacob (Numbers 24:17) whose beam enlightens this earthly globe. She it is whose brightness both twinkles in the highest heaven and pierces the pit of hell, and is shed upon earth, warming our hearts far more than our bodies, fostering virtue and cauterizing vice. She, I tell you, is that splendid and wondrous star suspended as by necessity over this great wide sea, radiant with merit and brilliant in example.
Accordingly, Bernard "a ame with love" (ond'i? o ardo tutto d'amor, as Dante put it) encouraged his fellow lovers of Mary:
O you, whoever you are, who feel that in the tidal wave of this world you are nearer to being tossed about among the squalls and gales than treading on dry land, if you do not want to founder in the tempest, do not avert your eyes from the brightness of this star. When the wind of temptation blows up within you, when you strike upon the rock of tribulation, gaze up at this star, call out to Mary. Whether you are being tossed about by the waves of pride or ambition or slander or jealousy, gaze up at this star, call out to Mary. When rage or greed or eshly desires are battering the ski of your soul, gaze up at Mary. When the immensity of your sins weighs you down and you are bewildered by the loath- someness of your conscience, when the terrifying thought of judgment appalls you and you begin to founder in the gulf of sadness and despair, think of Mary. In dangers, in hardships, in every doubt, think of Mary, call out to Mary. Keep her in your mouth, keep her in your heart. Follow the example of her life and you will obtain the favor of her prayer. Following her, you will never go astray.
Asking her help, you will never despair. Keeping her in your thoughts, you will never wander away. With your hand in hers, you will never stumble. With her protecting you, you will not be afraid. With her leading you, you will never tire. Her kindness will see you through to the end. en you will know by your own experience how true it is that "the Virgin's name was Mary. "216
All this and more, medieval European Christians hoped and claimed to experience by saluting Mary in the words with which the angel sent from God had greeted her. And yet, much like the angel in many medieval images of the Annunciation, having noted as much, we are arguably only at the threshold of understanding what Mary's devotees said they saw in her. 217 We have, a er all, said only the invitatory antiphon and psalm for her O ce and are in the process of singing its rst hymn. So what if medieval Christians believed their o -repeated saluta- tions of the Virgin brought her great joy and them a sweet taste to the mouth? So what if they insisted that all their attempts at naming her as the "mother of all re-created things" taxed the very limits of human language and understand- ing? Where--other than in their desire to exercise their onomastic skills--did they get the idea to read the scriptures in the way that they did, as lled with names for her, almost none of which (other than her actual name) were invoked by the evangelists Matthew, Mark, or Luke? (John, as we shall see, was another matter, particularly as the author of the book of Revelation. ) More particularly, why did they invoke these metaphors--ark, tabernacle, temple, house, throne, city, mountain, river, tree, mirror, virgin, bride, queen--as a way of describing her relationship with God? And where did they get the idea that it was appropriate to talk about her in the language of the Psalms, as following the invitatory Ave they did hour a er hour, day a er day in the recitation of her O ce?
e thirteenth-century Franciscan preacher Servasanctus of Faenza thought he knew.
"Dearest brothers," Servasanctus invited his readers in the preface to his Mariale, paraphrasing the Venerable Bede's opening to his homily on Luke 1:26-38, "let us listen with intent ear to the exordium of our salvation that we might merit to attain the promised gi of salvation. "218 A er all, the friar reasoned, if there is not a jot or tittle of the law empty of mystery (cf. Matthew 5:18), how much the more must that brief and blessed word of the evange- list (Luke 1:28) be full of signi cance. Accordingly, he proposed, "let us see (videamus) what and how many are the elements (quae et quot sunt elementa) of this exordium! "
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ere are, the learned friar calculated, eighty-three elements or letters, most perfectly summed up (because eight is the number of completion) in the three theological virtues that the Apostle Paul enumerated (1 Corinthians 13:13); thirty-seven syllables, signifying Mary, her faith in the Trinity and the divine law, and the plenitude of sevenfold grace with which she was lled; and een words, signifying the een steps of virtue that she ascended, plus ve dis- tinctions or phrases. e angelic salutation itself contains nine words ("Ave, gratia plena, Dominus tecum: benedicta tu in mulieribus"), signifying that Mary was full of the graces of all the saints and angels. 219 And what do we get once we have counted all the elements? Servasanctus does the arithmetic for us: "Collect, if you will, all these into one, and add that which is customarily added at the end of this salutation, and you will have one hundred and y, the same as the number of the psalms of David. "
"But surely," we may imagine Servasanctus's late thirteenth-century readers to have protested, for this is the era of the scholastic disputation, in which friars like Servasanctus's brothers at the studium generale in Florence were trained, "you are not saying that this means the Psalms of David contain the praises of the Virgin Mary? " (Or perhaps if they protested it was only gently; to judge from the widespread distribution of his work, Servasanctus clearly found a sympathetic audience. )
Not exactly: we have not yet nished our calculations. "Seek," Servasanctus would have his readers, "in heaven, on earth, in the sea, in every abyss, in the Scriptures, in its gures and in its creatures, until you nd the same number as it were of harpists playing their harps in praise of Mary (quendam chorum cythar- oedorum cytharizantium cytharis suis laudes Mariae), so as to make up a pleasing psalter with harp (ut sit Psalterium jucundum cum cythara), so that just as the praises of Christ are sung with the psalter of David, so on this harp the praises of the Virgin might be sung. " And how many such harpists do we nd when we search the heavens, the earth, the seas, the abyss, the scriptures, its gures and creatures? Exactly as many as we found elements in the exordium of salvation, subdivided according to their natures. In natural things (in rebus naturalibus), we nd eighty-three; in made things (in rebus arti cialibus), we nd thirty-seven; in moral dispositions (in moralibus), we nd een; in orders of the saints, ve; in orders of the angels, nine; and one that sums up all the others (Magni cata). If, as we have seen, for Bernardino it was possible to discover Mary's virtues in the very shapes of the letters that went together to make her name, so it would seem, according to Servasanctus, all the creatures of creation--or, at the very least, 150 of them--sang out in her praise from the letters, syllables, words, and phrases of the angelic salutation.
And yet, we are still not nished, so intricate a mystery does the exordium contain. To unlock it, or so Servasanctus would have it, we must do more than calculate the number of these creaturely "harpists. " Rather, Servasanctus insisted, in all of these, if we look carefully, we nd (and this is very signi cant for Servasanctus's purposes), the elements (elementa) of Mary's praise, for they show her in their forms (quasi quaedam facies ipsam Virginem utcumque), represent her in gure (quasi in aenigmate repraesentantes), name her (quasi quaedam vocabula nomen Virginis interpretantia), and wrap the plenitude of her graces in parables (quasi quaedam parabola gratiarum eius plenitudinem involutam) through the particulars they contain (pro particulis continentes). For, argued Servasanctus, just as in the words of the Philosopher (that is, Aristotle) "those things which are dispersed in animals by nature are gathered together in man by reason"220--simplicity in the dove, kindness in the lamb, liberality in the lion--so all the graces and blessings that are bestowed upon others in part are gathered together in Mary in full, as indeed, we read about her in Proverbs 31:29: "Many daughters have gathered together riches: you have surpassed them all. "
And yet--Servasanctus continued--for all her riches as a creature, in Mary her- self there is an even greater mystery. "In me," Wisdom says in Ecclesiasticus 24:25, "is all grace of the way (gratia omnis viae), that is [according to Servasanctus], of every creature, which is a way to the Creator (id est omnis creaturae, quae est via ad Creatorem), for Mary, the book of life and the mirror and the exemplar either is or contains all these things (haec enim omnia est aut continet liber vitae et specu- lum et exemplar MARIA). " As Servasanctus would have it, Mary, the "mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope" (Ecclesiasticus 24:24), is the way to the Creator because she is the book of life containing all the crea- tures of creation, who herself promises, speaking as Wisdom: " ey that explain me shall have life everlasting" (Ecclesiasticus 24:31). "And I wept," says John in Revelation 5:4, cited by Servasanctus, "because no man was found worthy to open the book, nor to see it. "
e elements of the evangelical exordium precisely calculated to the number of the Psalms, the same number of harpists discovered in the natural and arti cial creatures of creation singing the praises of the Virgin, just as King David sang the praises of Christ, the creature Mary as the book of life, mirror, and exemplar of the Creator containing all the creatures of creation, Wisdom promising in Ecclesiasticus that they who explain her shall have eternal life: these are mysteries indeed. We have heard the angel greet her. Clearly, to understand and experience the Virgin's psalter as Servasanctus hoped his fellow Christians might, somehow we need to learn to read this book.
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P l at e 8 Mary of Burgundy is shown praying with her Book of Hours, while through the window she can be seen kneeling before the Virgin and Child for whom she has sung the psalms. Her prayer has made them visible to her and brought her into their presence. Book of Hours, Flanders, ca. 1477. Use of Rome. Made for Mary of Burgundy (1457-1482), the daughter of Charles the Bold. Vienna, O? sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1857, fol. 14v.
Photo courtesy of O? sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.
