Spinning Virgin Yarns: Narrative, Miracles, and Salvation in Gonzalo de Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora

Abstract

By the tenth century, a proliferation of stomiraculous grace becomes material for a story. ries circulated throughout Europe describing the These intended results of narrating miracle Virgin Mary's vast powers and her willingness stories are emphasized repeatedly on two narrato use them.' These stories were passed about in tive levels in the Milagros de Nuestra Seriora. both oral and written form in order to increase Inside of the stories (on the level) Manian devotion, and the enormous popularity characters experience miracles and narrate them of the cult of the Virgin in following centuries to other characters who become devotees of the attests to their success. In other words, the evanVirgin. When this narrating occurs in written gelistic aim of the Virgin's cult depended greatly form, the Virgin rewards the intradiegetic narraon succ ssful transmission of miracle stones, ton. In addition, the outside (extradiegetic) Gonzalo de Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra narrator named Gonzalo de Berceo relates the Se,)o;reflects the i portance of narrative in twenty-five miracle stories in the collect on to an modeling the process by which the miracle stoimplied audience which is also expected to conries were diffused. The milagros are heavily vert to Mary's cult and reap the benefits. The poplated with narrators and audience members extradiegetic narrator himself expects a reward who create a self-referential text that foregrounds from the Virgin for demonstrating his devotion