The Apostles’ Creed, a fourth-century text that many Christians still recite today, states that following Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and burial, “he descended into hell.” Often called The Harrowing of Hell, this is the moment when Christ “opened Heaven’s gates for the just who went before him.”1 Yet Christians in the later Middle Ages sought the protection of a different intercessor, one who would descend into hell to shame, debate, and even physically assault the devil to save people from damnation: the Virgin Mary.2
The Harrowing of Hell, probably 12th century. Illustration from the St Swithun Psalter/Winchester Psalter. Public domain.
Yes, the Mother of God, more familiar to modern audiences as the serene woman gazing at the Infant Jesus, was portrayed as the powerful Queen of Heaven and Empress of Hell in many later medieval devotional sources from Northern Europe.3 Miracle stories and manuscript illuminations show how quickly Christians believed the prospect of eternal damnation could be transformed into the hope of redemption through Mary’s swift and direct intercession with Satan and sinners alike.4 These concepts of Mary’s identity did not replace traditional depictions of her as steadfastly obedient to God’s will, which also proliferated in the period. Instead, they were all part of a larger religious culture that viewed Mary’s agency—her capacity to act of her own accord—as significant and complex.5
Mary’s power and impact on Christian spirituality reached its apex in the later Middle Ages, roughly 1100-1500, with an outpouring of Marian devotion in the form of religious texts, images, and music, as well as shrines erected in her honor. But Christians had been asking Mary to serve as protector and intercessor long before this period, as seen with the third century prayer Sub Tuum Praedisium: “We fly to Thy protection, O Holy Mother of God; Do not despise our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin. Amen.”6
Rosary with Virgo Lactans, 15th century. The J. Paul Getty Museum. Public domain.
Mary’s intercession always included two components: the initial petition for her aid followed by her intercession with God or her son Jesus on behalf of the petitioner. Yet even as Christ was typically depicted as willing to hear and acquiesce to Mary’s petitions, the miracle stories that emerged in the later Middle Ages increasingly depicted Christians who were more comfortable praying to Mary instead of Christ. Authors in this period composed devotional sources about Mary’s intercession that played with the conventional hierarchy of Christ’s sovereignty over Mary, leaving the son to take a somewhat-secondary role.
One of the earliest and largest Marian miracle collections, Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was written in 1135 by an English Benedictine monk named William of Malmesbury. In it, the author observes that in some cases, supplicants ignored Christ entirely and directly sought intercession from Mary: “By her power, she can, thanks to her power over her son, wrest from Him whatever she pleases by a sweet violence. By her clemency, she pities the pitiable; she is so distinguished for it that she positively glories in being known as the Mother of Mercy.”7 Mary’s mediating role was so powerful, it seems, that some viewed her intercessory abilities as separate from Christ’s power.
This passage suggests that Mary was uniquely positioned to override Christ and wield power over him; her authority enabled her to determine how to intercede on behalf of her supplicants. William does not view this apparent role-reversal as a slight to Christ, but rather a testament to Mary’s distinctive ability to offer mercy to Christians.
Despite these depictions of her mercy, Mary did not always respond with loving compassion, even in stories within the same collection. William of Malmesbury also notes that Mary, “being happy to check offenders with a word and to mitigate the gravest offences by mere speech, was heard to say: ‘Enough, stop crying! When you return to yourself, you will show if you love me. Speed of conversion will be proof of love; punishment will attend the insolence of scorn.’”8
Supplicants not only feared the punishments that awaited them, but even recoiled from Mary’s chastising voice. In rebuking one errant Christian, the same source notes, “her voice was harsh, and she was to all appearances far removed from her normal merciful self.” In reprimanding his behavior, Mary admonishes him: “You must be made to understand quite clearly how great an insult you are guilty of.”9 Mary’s condemnations underscored the severity of the sinner’s actions and inspired a change in behavior. These contrasting depictions, especially within the same miracle collections, helped create a complicated portrait of a powerful intercessor who was simultaneously merciful and demanding.
In this same period, Christians increasingly turned to Mary in their consideration of the afterlife. Throughout Northwestern Europe, including areas in France and Germany where religious orders were devoted to Mary, visionary literature, poems, miracle stories and other narrative accounts all sought to describe heaven and hell.10 These sources depict Christians seeking Mary’s intercession to help them evade damnation in hell and ascend to heaven, and a Blessed Virgin who wielded considerable power to save sinners from damnation—before their deaths and after.
Medieval devotional sources saw a direct connection between Mary’s roles as Queen of Heaven and Empress of Hell, ascribing to her the power to influence both the highest heights and lowest depths of the afterlife.11 John Mirk’s fourteenth-century Festial, a collection of Middle English sermons, includes a passage where Mary herself described her double roles as she sought to save a Christian possessed by the devil: “I am God’s mother, and I pray that my son gets this soul a place in heaven. I am also empress of hell, and have power over all you enemies; and therefore I command you that he [the devil] keep this soul no longer. But go your way and let him [the soul] rest.”12
Mary beating the devil in the shape of a beast, Martyrology of Notre-Dame des Près, Valenciennes, BM, 838, f.097v, 1275-1300, Arras, France. Institute for Research and History Texts. Public domain.
One of the earliest textual examples of Mary’s engagement with the forces of hell comes from a twelfth-century miracle collection from Rocamadour, home of one of the largest Marian shrines in France. The anonymous collection, written between 1172-1173, described a series of miracles that occurred at or were attributed to prayers for intercession at this particular shrine, including numerous vengeance miracles, which cast Mary as an authority figure equipped to frighten sinners into changing their behavior.13
Through these stories, Mary uses her position as Empress of Hell to stress the horrors that await errant Christians. In one example, Philip, an Italian knight, reportedly mocks pilgrims en route to the shrine at Rocamadour. As he lays awake at night, a swarm of demons appear before him, and he experiences a divine vision: “The Virgin of Virgins appeared, more fierce-looking than usual. She had a wooden switch in her hand.” Hooking it around the knight’s neck and tugging at him, she intimidates him thus:
Follow me to my house at Rocamadour. Otherwise you will not escape from the demons’ assault. Look at the demons’ raging. They will vent their malice on you if they are allowed to. They are ready to spill innocent blood; they seize souls and subject them to agonizing tortures; they are not happy unless they are committing evil; and they rejoice in the wickedest of deeds. The downfall of the good causes them joy. They are unjust and worthless adversaries who rush to devour those whom they find unarmed and unprotected.14
Offering a preview of hell was a common motif in medieval Christian literature, an approach most familiar to modern readers in Dante’s Inferno. Positioning Mary as the tour guide of the underworld, though, was innovative. In the story from the Rocamadour collection, Mary offers gruesome details that illuminate the world of hell and its demonic forces, suggesting she had not only a comprehensive understanding of the place, but the power and influence to pull repentant sinners from its clutches. Texts from this period even show her protecting the living from the devil himself, commanding him: “Go down to hell, and never again dare to injure anyone who invokes me with devotion!”15
But Mary was more than just a “door to salvation” in these sources; she actively labors to save Christians from damnation. Her influence is so great that even those in hell are not beyond her protection, and she descends into the underworld to tangle with the devil.16 In these fights, Mary does not simply condemn the devil with her words, but issues physical punishments that reinforce her authority. In one of the most vivid descriptions, William of Malmesbury writes that in order to protect a drunken monk, Mary beat the devil with a stick multiple times, “redoubling her blows and making them sharper with words, ‘Take that, and go away. I warn you and order you not to harass my monk any more. If you dare to do so, you will suffer worse.’”17
The Virgin Mary Overcoming a Devil, Spiegel Menslicher Behaltnis, 15th century. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain.
While the imagery of Mary clubbing the devil is certainly compelling, equally fascinating are the times when she engages him in skillful debate. The late thirteenth/early fourteenth-century Gesta Romanorum describes one such compelling conversation. “Of an Argument Between the Virgin and the Devil” frames Mary as the principal enemy of the devil, focusing on a dispute between the two over the soul of a woman. During their heated debate, Mary forces the devil to acknowledge that although the woman’s sins are numerous, they can be remitted through confession. She concludes the debate by claiming victory over him: “Therefore, the way to hell is shut to her and the way to heaven is open to her.” Mary commands the devil to release the woman:
You devil, are a most wicked thief; the soul that is the spouse of my son, the most mighty husband, who bought her with his own blood, you have corrupted and violently taken away. Therefore, my son is husband of the soul, and is lord of the soul, and is lord above you; therefore, it is appropriate that you flee before him.18
In this case, Mary does not use trickery or brute force, but is able to free the woman’s soul from the devil’s clutches by out-arguing him. The devil, notably, does not dismiss her as inept or out of her sphere, but instead views her as a powerful adversary.
These stories, which had gained a wide popular audience in the later Middle Ages, framed Mary as a mighty intercessor, an aspect of her characterization that came under scrutiny from Protestant reformers. Staunchly in favor of Christocentric devotion, many reformers could not support Mary in so powerful an intercessory position, not least because such intercession undermined the concepts of predestination and the eternal decree, God’s plan and purpose that exists outside of time and space.19 The Catholic Church affirmed Mary’s importance at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and continued to support Mary’s role as an intercessor.
Although the term “Empress of Hell” fell out of use at the end of the Middle Ages, Catholics continued to view Mary as an effective intercessor. Beginning in the late sixteenth century, the Jesuits incorporated Mary in their missionary efforts in Asia and the Americas: framing her as an accessible intercessor to new converts to Christianity. More recently, the Marian shrines in Lourdes, France and Fátima, Portugal, have drawn millions of pilgrims annually, many of whom pray to Mary for her unique intervention. Many Catholics today still incorporate praying to Mary as part of their personal devotion, but the idea of Mary descending into hell to champion for her supplicants has largely disappeared.
Our Lady of Fatima procession, Houston, 2010. Photo credit: Our Lady of Fatima International Pilgrim Statue / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)
Contemporary depictions of Mary tend to be gentle in their holiness, but Christians centuries ago envisioned her as a powerful agent who fought for their salvation. Throughout these medieval sources, we read examples of how Mary’s persuasiveness, power, and physical prowess with a stick enabled her to tip the scales of justice, beg for mercy, and even rebuff Satan himself. The late medieval stories of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Empress of Hell shaped a figure who was at once an accessible intercessor and a powerful force in determining the fate of individual souls. Although the landscape of heaven and hell was not always clearly delineated, these sources reflected the belief that Mary’s voice resonated with Christians and echoed a message of spiritual protection both in life and death.
- https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a5p1.htm
- Alastair Minnis, From Eden to Eternity: Creations of Paradise in the Later Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016); Eileen Gardiner, Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante (New York: Italica Press, 1989).
- Of course, Marian devotion was not limited to Northern Europe. The cult of Mary in medieval Spain produced many popular devotional texts, such as the thirteenth-century Las Cantigas de Santa María. This was a series of 420 poems in Gallican-Portuguese written in praise of Mary during the reign of Alfonso el Sabio (Alfonso X), and the poems are often attributed to him. Particularly within Toledo, Mary was viewed as a symbol of the Reconquest, and accordingly, many devotional sources positioned her as an advocate and champion of Christians fighting against Muslims. See Linda B. Hall, Mary, Mother and Warrior: The Virgin in Spain and the America (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004); William A. Christian, Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981). Italy also was known for a series of churches and pilgrimages shrines erected in Mary’s honor. Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome was one of the first churches built in honor of the Virgin Mary. This marked the beginning of a long tradition of Marian devotional practices within Italy. See Diana Norman, Siena and the Virgin: Art and Politics in a Late Medieval City State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999); Nancy Frey Breuner, “The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Southern Italy and Spain,” Ethos 20.1 (1992): 66-95.
- John Case, After Lives: A Guide to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory (New York, Oxford University Press, 2009), 105.
- It is worth noting that these are non-canonical views of Mary’s power, meaning that there is nothing in the Bible to support this tradition. . Matthew Ryan Hauge, The Biblical Tour of Hell (New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013); Margaret Toscano, “Plucking Sinners Out of Hell,” in Hell and its Afterlife: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, eds. Isabel Moreia and Margaret Toscano (New York: Routledge, 2016), 39-52.
- The Sub Tuum prayer became part of the liturgical office for Christmas within the Coptic Rite in the third century. Stephen J. Shoemaker, “Marian Liturgies and Devotion in Early Christianity,” in Mary: The Complete Resource, edited by Sarah Jane Boss (London: Continuum Press, 2007): 130-145; Anthony M. Buono, The Greatest Marian Prayers: Their History, Meaning, and Usage (New York: Alba House, 1999).
- William of Malmesbury, Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, eds. Michael Winterbottom and R.M. Thomson (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2015), 70.
- William of Malmesbury, Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 81.
- William of Malmesbury, Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 74.
- Benedicta Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record, and Event 1000-1250 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982); Michael E. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Miracles, 1150-1350 (Burlington: Ashgate, 2007); Ronald Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995); Simon Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth-Century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006); Rachel Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).
- Kate Koppelman, “Devotional Ambivalence: The Virgin Mary as ‘Empresse of Helle,’” Essays in Medieval Studies 18 (2001): 67-82; Sarah Jane Boss, Empress and Handmaid: On Nature and Gender in the Cult of the Virgin Mary (London: Cassell, 2000).
- John Mirk, Mirk’s Festial: A Collection of Homilies, ed. Theodore Erbe (E.E.T.S. Millwood, NY: Kraus, Reprint, 1987), 114.
- Kathleen A. Stewart, “Domina Misericordiae: Miracle Narratives and the Virgin Mary, 1130-1230,” Ph.D. diss. (University of California-Berkeley, 2006).
- The Miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour: Analysis and Translation, trans. Marcus Bull (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1999), 144.
- Jacobus de Voragine, “The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” The Golden Legend, 472.
- Henry Ansgar Kelly, Satan: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Jeffrey Burton Russell, The Devil in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984); Philip C. Almond, The Devil: A New Biography (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014).
- William of Malmesbury, Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 53. See another example of Mary’s physical strength here.
- “An Argument between the Virgin and the Devil,” in Devils, Women, and Jews: Reflections of the Other in Medieval Sermon Stories, ed. Joan Young Gregg (Albany: SUNY Press, 2014), 154.
- Diarmaid MacCulloch, “Mary and Sixteenth-Century Protestants,” in The Church and Mary (Studies in Church History), ed. R.N. Swanson, (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004): 191-217; Paul Williams, “The English Reformers and the Blessed Virgin Mary,” in Mary: The Complete Resource, ed. Sarah Jane Boss (London: Continuum, 2007), 238-255.
