Mother of Conversion

Abstract

Mary, Christians believed, could cause Jews and Muslims to convert to Christianity. By the thirteenth century, venerable miracle stories told of unbelievers baptized through her graces; new tales were added in high medieval Iberia. Exploring these stories as well as Christian exegesis explains why Christians saw Mary as the mother of conversion. By the thirteenth century, as Christian missionary impulses increased, she became figured as an active evangelist, her successes in converting Jews and Muslims counterbalancing the failures of human missionaries. Though she was more aggressive with adult males than with adult women or children (who were figured as natural Christians), all of these stories made her conversion of Jews and Muslims into part of God’s plan for the triumph of Christianity over Islam and Judaism. Some stories even militarized Marian conversion miracles, placing them into the context of Muslim-Christian warfare or Christian captivity in Muslim lands.