Queen of Heaven

The Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin in Early Modern English Writing

Lilla Grindlay

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780268104122
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Crítica literaria inglesa

The belief that the Virgin Mary was bodily assumed to be crowned as heaven's Queen has been celebrated in the liturgy and literature of England since the fifth century. The upheaval of the Reformation brought radical changes in the beliefs surrounding the assumption and coronation, both of which were eliminated from state-approved liturgy.

Queen of Heaven examines canonical as well as obscure images of the Blessed Mother that present fresh evidence of the incompleteness of the English Reformation. Through an analysis of works by writers such as Edmund Spenser, Henry Constable, Sir John Harington, and the writers of the early modern rosary books, which were contraband during the Reformation, Grindlay finds that these images did not simply disappear during this time as lost "Catholic" symbols, but instead became sources of resistance and controversy, reflecting the anxieties triggered by the religious changes of the era.

Grindlay's study of the Queen of Heaven affords an insight into England's religious pluralism, revealing a porousness between medieval and early modern perspectives toward the Virgin and dispelling the notion that Catholic and Protestant attitudes on the subject were completely different. Grindlay reveals the extent to which the potent and treasured image of the Queen of Heaven was impossible to extinguish and remained of widespread cultural significance. Queen of Heaven will appeal to an academic audience, but its fresh, uncomplicated style will also engage intelligent, well-informed readers who have an interest in the Virgin Mary and in English Reformation history.

CHAPTER 1

The Virgin’s Assumption and Coronation through the Ages

That she can be represented in so many ways, thought about and imagined in so many forms, is an indication of how deeply she speaks to us about the hope for the world’s transfiguration through Jesus; how she stands for the making strange of what is familiar and the homeliness of what is strange.

—Rowan Williams, Ponder These Things

A history of the assumption and coronation of the Virgin from patristic times to the early years of the Reformation would constitute a book—or several books—in itself.¹ Mine does not pretend to be an exhaustive account, but the narratives and examples I explore here articulate both the richness of this aspect of Mariology and its embedded presence in liturgy and popular culture. My main focus is on the Middle Ages, where I aim to show how representations of the Virgin’s assumption and coronation function as more than mere prologues to the swelling act of the Reformation. The Bible itself gives scanty details of Mary’s life, and there are no direct references to her assumption and coronation. From the second century onward, the gaps in the text of Mary’s biblical story were filled by apocryphal writings, the most significant of which was the Protoevangelium of James.² This was an account of the childhood and life of the Virgin dating from around AD 150. Originally written in Greek, it was translated into several languages, including Latin, and was to have a profound influence on literary and artistic representations of the Virgin.³ However, there is little concrete evidence of the existence of a uniform “cult” of Mary until the fifth century.⁴ At the Council of Ephesus in AD 431, Mary was officially given the title Theotokos or “God bearer.” The Council of Ephesus is often seen as the starting point of devotion to Mary, and from this time onwards comes the development of hymns, homilies, and feasts in her name. Twenty years later, the Council of Chalcedon affirmed Mary’s virginity both in partu and post partum. By the end of the fifth century the main features of later Marian theology had thus been established.⁵

The accretion of doctrines surrounding the Virgin’s assumption and coronation follows a slightly different course. In the fourth century, the empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, gave orders for excavations in Palestine to look for relics. The excavators unearthed what was believed to be the true cross but discovered nothing that could be associated with Mary’s death. There were no bodily relics and no grave: these factors, together with the lack of narrative within the Gospels as to the death of Mary, meant that the story of her assumption grew from an entirely apocryphal corpus of traditions that emerged between the years 450 and 600.⁶ These apocryphal texts often took the name of Transitus narratives. Within these early texts, distinctions can be made between narratives describing Mary’s assumption, body and soul, into paradise and narratives—often referred to as Dormition narratives—where the Virgin’s soul is taken to heaven, but her body is transferred to a hidden place to await reunion with the soul at the end of time. The most prominent early assumption text was the Latin Transitus of Pseudo-Melito, which dates from the end of the fifth century and which clearly stresses Mary’s bodily assumption.⁷ Apocryphal legends about the Virgin’s assumption were also in currency in England in Anglo-Saxon times, when stories of Mary’s bodily assumption were popularized by the circulation of a number of Transitus narratives.⁸ My study will focus on Mary’s bodily assumption, as this is the tradition that took the strongest imaginative hold in Western Christian traditions. The assumption of the Virgin came to be celebrated in a feast day, the Feast of the Assumption, on August 15. The official sanction of this feast date in the sixth century by Emperor Maurice established it as a celebration throughout the Christian world.⁹ It was to become, in the words of Stephen Shoemaker, “perhaps the single most important Marian feast.”¹⁰

Although there are many variants, the following tale of the Virgin’s bodily assumption can be shaped from the Latin, Greek, and Syriac traditions.¹¹ It starts with a mirror image of the Annunciation, as Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel, who foretells her death. In many versions of the story, Gabriel presents the Virgin with a palm branch from paradise to be carried in front of her funeral bier. As Mary’s death approaches, the apostles are summoned from their ministry throughout the world to be at her bedside. The Virgin’s soul leaves her body in a moment of great beauty, accompanied by the singing of angels. The disciples carry Mary’s body on the bier to the tomb, and there is often here an attack by angry Jews who wish to burn her body. In some versions, the high priest tries to overturn the bier. As he does so, his hands become fastened to it and he suffers great torment. He converts to Christianity and his hands are freed. The apostle Peter gives the high priest the angelic palm from the funeral bier, and he goes out into the city with it, miraculously giving sight to crowds of people who have been blinded. The narrative culminates with a second assumption as Mary’s body joins with her soul to be transported into heaven by angels.

Iconography of the coronation of the Virgin is inextricably interlinked with the story of the Virgin’s assumption: the Virgin rises to heaven to reign triumphantly by Christ’s side as his queen. The first recorded image of the Queen of Heaven is from early in the sixth century, on the wall of the Church of Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome.¹² The coronation of the Virgin confirmed her hierarchical significance as higher than the angels and the saints, and this had significant implications on how the image of Mary was deployed.¹³ To use Julia Kristeva’s words, it made the Virgin “a repository of power.”¹⁴ But it also represented a paradox: here was a biblical woman who meekly obeyed the words of an angel, yet by her assumption into heaven she was elevated to a place above the angels. A further paradox was that in spite of this elevation many worshippers felt that they had a personal relationship with the Queen of Heaven because of her role as intercessor for man. Her bodily presence in heaven and the intimacy of her relationship with God meant that she could offer protection to every man and woman and became the personal focus of many of their prayers.

During the Middle Ages, the relationship between the Virgin and the Western poetic imagination truly crystallized, and the Queen of Heaven became a ubiquitous figure in Western devotional practice. Visual images played an important part in establishing the tradition of the Queen of Heaven, with paintings of the Virgin’s assumption and coronation appearing in cathedrals and churches throughout Europe. In the seventh and eighth centuries, the Virgin and Child were increasingly presented as enthroned, and from the tenth century the popularity grew of statues known as “Virgin in Majesty” or “Seat of Wisdom.”¹⁵ This began with depictions of the Virgin and Child at the Magi’s visitation but soon extended to a more generalized iconography of the Virgin in a posture of enthronement. Artists in the late Middle Ages often showed the Virgin being crowned not just by Christ but by the whole Trinity, as a visual indication of Mary’s closeness to God.¹⁶ There was also a political dimension to Mary’s queenship. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Mary was increasingly viewed as a type of the church, or Maria Ecclesia. As Eva de Visscher has observed: “She represents the power of the Church in general and of the papacy in particular.”¹⁷

The Virgin in the Middle Ages was not exclusively perceived as Queen of Heaven, however. The growth in popularity of the cult of the Mater Dolorosa, of Mary sorrowing at the foot of Christ’s cross, can be read as a softening of the image from a queen to a mother. The Mater Dolorosa was particularly popular during the Black Death epidemic (1347–50), an indication of how the image of the Virgin became a figure with whom the laity could personally identify, as she had experienced similar trials in her earthly life.¹⁸ Sarah Jane Boss sees this perception of Mary as a reflection of a change in the views of motherhood itself, which, thanks to the rise of the bourgeoisie, became linked with domesticity.¹⁹ An increased emphasis on the cult of the Holy Family also added impetus to a late medieval emphasis on the humanity of both the Virgin and her son.²⁰ Paradoxes were once more revealed within the image of the Virgin Mary—both humble mother and heavenly Queen appeared to coexist within the same imaginative space. As the anthropologist Victor Turner comments, the image of Mary can be seen as “a signifier meant to represent not only the historical woman who once lived in Galilee, but the sacred person who resides in heaven, appears at times to living persons, and intercedes with God for the salvation of mankind.”²¹

THE VIRGIN’S BODILY ASSUMPTION IN THE VISIONS OF ELISABETH OF SCHÖNAU

Although Mary’s role as Queen of Heaven became firmly established in Western Christian traditions, her bodily assumption was not initially accepted by all. In the 840s, for example, an influential letter entitled Cogitis me, which was attributed to Jerome, stressed Mary’s spiritual, rather than bodily, assumption.²² However, from the twelfth century, the concept that Mary’s body as well as her soul was assumed into heaven became truly dominant. Integral to the development of this were the visions of the Benedictine nun Elisabeth of Schönau. Elisabeth was a well-born young woman from the Rhineland, Germany, who had been raised in the nuns’ cloister of the Benedictine monastery in Schönau from the age of twelve. In 1152, at age twenty-three, she began to see terrifying visions of the devil. These apparitions of evil were overcome by the Virgin Mary, who came to dominate Elisabeth’s visionary existence. Elisabeth’s brother Ekbert joined the monastic community at Schönau in 1155 and took on the role of her amanuensis and editor, recording his sister’s accounts of her visions. As Anne Clark has observed, Ekbert often coaxed the answers he wanted out of Elisabeth, seeking “to use her extraordinary gifts to resolve issues of current controversy.”²³ This had a profound effect not only on the manner in which Elisabeth’s visions were recorded but also on the nature of the visions themselves, which often seem more like theological debates than the reports of a seer-narrator.

One of the theologically tricky questions answered by Elisabeth’s visions was whether the Virgin was bodily assumed into heaven. Elisabeth had several visions connected to the Virgin’s assumption between 1156 and 1158, all of which were recorded by her brother in the text The Resurrection of the Blessed Virgin. During the first apparition, in 1156, Elisabeth asks the Virgin whether she has been bodily assumed into heaven, “just as I had been advised by one of our elders”: it is clear that she has been prompted by others here (209). The Virgin is in this first vision evasive, but a year later in 1157 she appears to Elisabeth again and presents a more conclusive answer. While lying in bed, Elisabeth describes how she fell into a trance after a violent struggle:

And I saw in a far-away place a tomb surrounded by great light, and what looked like the form of a woman in it, with a great multitude of angels standing around. After a little while, she was raised up from the tomb and, together with that multitude standing by, she was lifted up on high. While I was watching this, behold, a man—glorious beyond all reckoning—came from the height of the heavens to meet her. In His right hand, He carried a cross on which there was a banner. I understood that this was the Lord Saviour, and there were countless thousands of angels with Him. Eagerly receiving her, they carried her with great acclamation to the heights of heaven. While I was watching this, after a short time, my Lady advanced to the door of light in which I usually saw her, and standing there she showed me her glory. (209–10)

The angel of the Lord who acts as Elisabeth’s theological guide and interpreter explains the meaning of the vision: “This vision has shown you how our Lady was taken up into heaven in flesh as well as in spirit” (210). This clear affirmation of the Virgin’s bodily assumption was influential: the visions of Elisabeth of Schönau were studied in France and England and were translated into French, Anglo-Norman, and Icelandic. They had all the immediacy of a firsthand account, so while they did not exactly eradicate doctrinal controversy surrounding Mary’s bodily assumption they became a voice that could override the silence within scripture on the matter. The circulation of Elisabeth’s visions gave impetus to an already wides...