Revealing the revelations: Mary the intercessor

In the Cantigas de Santa Maria, the Holy Virgin is presented as an intercessor, an intermediary between men and God. It is fascinating to see how she is presented as adapting herself to the secular and human world (through her corporality, her beauty, her voice, her clothes) in order to reveal to men the spiritual power of God.  In Song 1, it is clearly stated that: « She is our Advocate ». This figure of the advocate is strongly underlined again in Song 3: « Through her intercession, God pardoned Adam ». In Song 2 and Song 3, the image of Her as an in-between is developped through her trips from one world to another, either from Paradise to Earth or from Hell to Earth: Song 2 : « which she brought from Paradise » / « My Son sends this to you » ; Song 3 : « She (…) made the pitch-black devil bring Her the letter from the infernal fires and She returned it to Theophilus before her Altar ». In Song 4 she appears as the appealing intermediary between the Christian religion and the Jewish boy: « for it seemed to him that Holy Mary (…) was giving them the sacrament ». In this song it is her beauty that drives the little boy to ask for communion. The same process is at stake in Song 16 and 28. In Song 9, her apparition performs a shift, a transition: the knight displaces his love from the woman he loved to the Virgin Mary, because of her striking beauty: « look straight at me, for I wear no veil » (which reminds us of the conversion mentioned in the Prologue: « Hence from now on I choose to sing for no other lady »). In Song 28, the sultan is struck by the greatness of the Virgin who spreads Her veil and Her mantle over the city and he converts himself to Christianity saying this: « Since this was revealed to me ». In this same song, saints, who are intermediary figures as well, accompany the Virgin: « When She descended, a great hosts of saints appeared with Her ». And it seems that the collection of Songs that forms the Cantigas of Santa Maria plays the exact same role of intercessor between Alfonso X and his subjects. By revealing the revelations operated by the Holy Virgin, the book, as an advocate, passes on the moral values of the king’s reign. This mise-en-abyme is striking in Song 9 with the mention of the image of Mary and this specific line: « he gave her the image as proof ». The material image is a proof just like the songs written and the images that illustrate them are proofs both of the Holy Virgin’s greatness and of the greatness of Alfonso’s reign. In the same song, it is said that the image became flesh and that oil issued from it: « it flowed and still flows abundantly ». This last sentence establishes a temporal continuity, just as the book, giving flesh and corporality through words and images to Mary, establishes the durability of Alfonso’s reign. This comparison between the power of artistic creation and God’s creation is even more striking in Song 50: « reveals why Our Lord became incarnate in Her »; « He assumed flesh within the Virgin »; « through Her He performed all these miracles which I have related to you ». The Cantigas de Santa Maria embodies the greatness of Alfonso’s reign by giving flesh to the miracles of the Virgin. By revealing the revelations of this intermediary figure, it becomes itself an intercessor between the King and its people: “I wish from this day forth to be Her troubadour, and I pray that She will have me for Her troubadour and accept my songs, for through them I seek to reveal the miracles She performed.” (Prologue).