Mary in Medieval Hispanic Literatures

The chapter presents a discussion of three key questions on this subject. It addresses the presence of Spain’s three cultures in Marian literature. It looks at the question of how Passion literature develops in the Christmas cycle of poems and plays as well as the converse position of the Christmas sorrows in the sorrows tradition. It also examines the role of the court in Marian poetry and drama, both in the earliest poems and miracles and in the later fifteenth century. Fifteenth-century songbooks are an important repository of plays, versified lives of Christ, joys poems, and popular hymns. Songbooks include Mary’s praises, a related tradition to the joys.