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Contents
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Contents

Note to the Reader

3

Preface

5

Overture

5

The Story of a Story

6

From Our Lady’s Tumbler to The Jongleur of Notre Dame

9

1.

The Medieval Beginnings of Our Lady’s Tumbler

17

The French Poem

17

The Manuscripts

22

Gautier de Coinci and Anonymity

25

Picardy

33

The Identity of the Poet

34

The Bas-de-Page Miniature: Of Marginal Interest

38

The Genre: Long Story Short

54

The Table of Exempla, in Alphabetical Order

57

The Latin Exemplum

59

The Life of the Fathers

63

True Story: Why the Story Succeeded

69

2.

Dancing for God

73

The Tumbler

73

Notre Dame versus Saint Mary

75

The Equivocal Status of Jongleurs

79

Trance Dance

90

Jongleurs of God

96

Holy Fools

99

Fact or Fiction?

102

3.

Cistercian Monks and Lay Brothers

117

The Order of Cîteaux

117

Cistercians and the Virgin

125

Mother’s Milk

131

Mary’s Head-Coverings

133

Cistercian Lay Brothers

140

Conversion Therapy

146

The Language of Silence

149

Gym Clothes

153

Sweat Cloth

158

The Weighing of Souls

162

The Latin-Less Lay Brother and Our Lady

166

4.

Reformation Endings: A Temporary Vanishing Act

171

What Makes a Story Popular?

171

Walsingham, England’s Nazareth

177

Madonnas of the World Wars

186

Literary Iconoclasm

192

Marian Apparitions

196

5.

A Troupe of Sources and Analogues

203

King David’s Dancing

204

The Widow’s Mites

210

The Virgin’s Miraculous Images and Apparitions

216

The Jongleur of Rocamadour

218

The Holy Candle of Arras

225

The Pious Sweat of Monks and Lay Brothers

232

The Love of Statuesque Beauty

235

The Holy Face of Christ and Virgin Saints

237

Notes

247

Notes to Preface

247

Notes to Chapter 1

249

Notes to Chapter 2

267

Notes to Chapter 3

288

Notes to Chapter 4

305

Notes to Chapter 5

315

Bibliography

335

Abbreviations

335

Referenced Works

335

List of Illustrations

377

Index

387