Gertrude the Great and the Virgin Mary

Abstract

Scholars agree that European Christians in the thirteenth century were enthusiastically devoted to the Virgin Mary. Even when they debated Mary's immaculate conception or her assumption body and soul into heaven, medieval Christians are not thought to have wavered in their desire to rely on her intercessory powers. While today some argue that Mary's virginal maternity set an impossible ideal for women and that her place below the Trinity sanctioned women's subordinate role within Christianity, medieval women supposedly did not assess Mary negatively. Given these widely held assumptions about thirteenth-century attitudes toward Mary, any uncertainty about honoring Mary warrants investigation. Any thirteenth-century Christian who rarely sought Mary's direct intercession but instead asked Christ to intercede with Mary deserves study. Attention especially ought to be given when questions about devotion to Mary are found in an unexpected place: the writings of a female saint renowned for her orthodoxy.