Authorship, content and form

The miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour, in Quercy, are associated with a place that is a well-known feature on today’s tourist map. One of the most visited historical locations in France, the site is built onto and into the steep side of a gorge above the Alzou, a tributary of the Dordogne. The monastic compound and church of Our Lady occupied a ledge approximately halfway up the cliff face; substantially built up since the twelfth century, the place is a fascinating exercise in the ingenious use of very limited space to create a complex of ecclesiastical structures. Nowadays a thriving village lies farther down the cliff near the valley loor, providing goods and services for the tourists; in a similar way, a settlement existed there by the time of the writing of the miracle stories, doubtless largely reliant on the economic benefits brought by pilgrims.

The miracle collection is much the most substantial textual survival from Rocamadour, whose archive was destroyed in a fire in the fifteenth century and suffered again in the Wars of Religion in the sixteenth. The manuscripts that preserve the collection were made elsewhere, copies at least one remove from the original(s) written in situ. The collection was created between 1172 and 1173 (we shall return to the question of dating in more detail later). We do not know the name of the author. On, the basis of stylistic features, such as the recurrent (and sometimes very laboured) use of alliteration, it seems likely that there was a single author. On the other hand, a collaborative effort cannot be ruled out: Book III differs from the preceding parts in that it is characterized by a fuller, more sustained use of biblical quotation and in containing longer authorial insertions in the form of prayers, invocations and meditations embedded within the narratives. In addition, as we shall see later. Book III was most probably written in 1173 whereas the earlier parts date from 1172.