The Cantigas de Santa Maria, attributed to King Alfonso X, were put to parchment between 1257 and 1283. The manuscript includes the miracles narrated in verse, their musical scores, period illuminations, and for the first sixty or so, prose versions of the miracles. The two miracles that follow relate to pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela.
Cantiga 261This cantiga relates the same miracle as Gonzalo de Berceo in his Miracles of Our Lady (Milagros de Nuestra Señora), no. 8, also available on this website, as is the cantiga in the original Galician-Portuguese (see Alfonso X).
This is how Holy Mary decreed that the soul of the pilgrim, who killed himself on the way to Santiago because the devil tricked him, should return to the body, and he should do penance.
It is not surprising that the Mother of Him Who will judge the whole 14/orld should demonstrate good judgment.2This is the refrain, sung at the beginning and repeated after each stanza in the original version, here represented as paragraphs.
It is only fitting that the One who bore God in Her body and nursed Him at Her breast and never had displeasure from Him should be able to judge fairly, for I trust that He endowed Her richly with discretion.
Concerning this, if you will hear me, I shall tell how Holy Mary brought judgment on a man, who, as I heard tell, made a pilgrimage every year to Santiago, because he killed himself.
This pilgrim used to go to Santiago in all good faith, but once he committed a sin. Before he left, he spent the night with a dishonest woman to whom he was not married.
Afterward, he set out on his way without going to confession. The devil soon appeared to him, whiter than ermine, to deceive him.
He took on the form of Saint James and said: “Although I am displeased with you, I offer you, have no doubt, salvation from your waywardness so that you will not fall into the infernal lake.
“But first you will do as I say, if you are to be my friend. Cut off that member of yours which caused you to fall into the devil’s power, then cut your throat.”
The pilgrim, who credulously believed that Saint James commanded him to do that, cut off what he had been told and then slit his own throat, thinking he acted rightly.
His companions, when they found him dead, fled so that they would be accused of killing him. Then demons came to get his soul and took it away at once.
As they passed by a beautiful chapel of Saint Peter, Saint James of Compostela rushed out of it saying: “Oh, vile ilk, you cannot take away
“the soul of my pilgrim which you have seized, for you deceived him by impersonatmg me. You plotted great treason thereby, and as God is my aid,since you falsely took it, you shall not keep it.”
The demons insolently replied: “The one to whom this soul belonged committed misdeeds, because of which we are certain that he must not enter God’s kingdom. He killed himself with his own hands.”
Saint James said: “Let s do the following: since we and you are in dispute let us go before the Judgment of Her who has no peer and abide by Her decision.”
They came at once before Holy Mary and argued their case as best they could.
They heard this Judgment from Her: That the soul was to be returned to where it came in order to be saved thenceforth.
This judgment was obeyed, and the dead pilgrim was revived in fulfillment of God’s will. However, he never recovered the missing part with which he had sinned.
Cantiga 175
How Holy Mary freed from death a young man whom they hanged unjustly, and they burned a heretic who was responsible for it.
The Virgin, Lady of Constancy, considers it only just that the punishment revert to the one who bears false witness.3This is the refrain, sung at the beginning of the composition and after every stanza in the original version, here represented as paragraphs.
Concerning this, I shall tell a great and remarkable miracle which Holy Mary performed for a pilgrim from Germany who was going to the shrine of Saint James, who is patron saint of Spain. He passed through Rocamadour and came to the city of Toulouse.
He loved Holy Mary above all things, hence he prayed to Her often and asked Her to protect him and his son, whom he brought with him, from mishap, for She was Mother of Christ, who is God in Trinity.
After he entered Toulouse, he straightway took lodging in the house of a great heretic, although he did not know that. When the people saw him, they were surprised and told his son: “Get out of this inn.”
The heretic, who was full of malice and deceit and committed many treacherous acts each year, in order that the good man not get away from him unscathed, took a silver cup in secrecy
and put it into the son’s sack. When they left, he immediately went after them, shouting that they were carrying off his new and gleaming silver cup. When he caught up with them, he said: “Stop, stop!”
The pilgrims, when they saw this, were amazed, for they saw the bailiff coming with his armed men, who arrested them. They searched them thoroughly until they found the cup in the sack, this was true.
As soon as they found it, the heretic to whom it belonged swore that the boy who was carrying it had stolen it from him. The magistrate was so angry that he said at once: “Hang this boy!”
His cruel men quickly did so and had no pity whatever for the grief of his father. After they put his son on the gallows before his very eyes, he commended the boy’s soul to the Lady of Mercy.
He went on to Santiago, where he had promised to go, and afterward, on his return, he did not forget to go where he had left his son dead after he had been betrayed. He gazed sadly at him, weeping piteously.
While he wept thus, the son said: “Good man, father, do not kill yourself, for I am surely alive. The Holy Virgin who sits on the throne with God keeps me. She held me in Her hands in Her infinite love.”
When that poor man saw that his son was speaking, he went running to Toulouse and called the bailiff and many other people also, whom he led back to the place with him to see that his son, who had been so cruelly
placed on the gallows and killed, was still alive. The Holy Virgin, who punishes the evil and rewards the good, would not allow it. She held him up in Her hands, and he did not hang by his throat. The father said: “My friends, take him down quickly.”
They went back to do so at once, and with them went the poor father, eager to have his son. When he showed them that the boy was alive, they took him down from the gallows. Everyone made such a loud clamor of weeping with him that the boy had to say: “Be still!”
When they had become quiet, he told them how it all happened, how he had been on the gallows for three full months, where the Virgin had protected him. He told them the truth of the matter, begging: “Bring me the heretic
“who hid the cup in my sack so that I might suffer cruel and unjust death. However, the Holy Virgin Mary would not let me die but saved my life. Therefore, give praise to Her for this miracle.”
At once, all the people sent to Toulouse for the heretic. When he came with his guilty face, they found out the truth from him and put him to a frightful death in a fire, saying to him: “Take what you deserve.”
The Mother of God the Just performed this fitting act of justice for that good man, so loyal and true, for She gave him back his son alive and caused the usurious heretic to be killed, as he deserved, for his malice.
For this reason, oh my friends, let us give Her great praise, for She always helps the afflicted and pardons the sinners. She grants us all, great and small, generous blessings. Therefore, all of you praise Her most noble miracles.
Selections from Songs of Holy Mary of Alfonso X, The Wise, translated by Kathleen Kulp-Hill, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2000, pp. 36-37, 210-211.
Additional references:
Mercedes Brea, “Santiago y María: el milagro del romero engañado por el diablo,” Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2021 website
John Esten Keller, “King Alfonso’s Virgin of Villa-Sirga, Rival of St. James of Compostela, Middle Ages–Reformation–Volkskunde: Festschrift for John G. Kuntsmann, 1959, pp. 75-82 website