Two of the earliest vernacular miracle manuscripts in the Iberian Peninsula are Gonzalo de Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora or Miracles of Our Lady, and Alfonso X's Cantigas de Santa María or Songs of Our Lady, both dating from the mid-thirteenth century. Each is directed at a different audience. Berceo's collection springs from clerical circles and promotes the role of the secular clergy. Some have seen in Berceo's work a desire to instruct or entertain pilgrims to the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla. Alfonso's Cantigas, on the other hand, mark the level of devotion to the Virgin Mary within court circles with miracles about members of his own family, such as Cantiga 221 (King Fernando is Healed) or Cantiga 256 (Queen Beatrice is Healed). In one Cantiga (235, The Virgin's Favours to King Alfonso), Alfonso is healed by the good offices of the Virgin. Alfonso worked with a team of juglares to compile his Cantigas in honour of the Virgin Mary. They are miracles performed by the Virgin, interspersed with songs of praise to her. Some believe he dictated his poems to the juglares, while others argue that he was a compiler and director of others’ work.5 More recent scholarship has painstakingly revealed how Alfonso, and his fellow-poets, worked and reworked the songs and miracles.

The widespread preservation of these early Marian miracles shows their popularity and their ubiquity. There are vernacular miracles and songs to the Virgin in the distinctive Llibre vermell de Montserrat, copied at Montserrat, a sacred place of Marian pilgrimage in Catalonia, with its shrine for the Black Madonna. The Peninsula produced yet another contemporary collection, the Liber Mariale, by Juan Gil de Zamora, or Aegidius de Zamora (1240–1316 or 1318), a near-contemporary of Alfonso X. It is, therefore, perhaps not so surprising to find that miracles form a staple element in Hispanic breviaries, and in this chapter I will examine those that occur in Marian offices in dioceses in Spain.

The places that pilgrims visit become sacred because something miraculous happened there, and many collections contain miracles pertaining to one sacred place.