Perfume created a purified space, allowing the divine and the human to commune. In the Jerusalem Temple, perfume signalled God's presence and, in the Old Testament, Wisdom, a semi-deity, evokes incense in her self-eulogy: ‘like the smoke of incense in the tent’ (Ecclus. 24.21). In Byzantium, burning incense ‘indicated the descent of divine grace’. Perfumes recalled paradise, since, according to medieval writers, India lay close to Eden and spices came from India. In this chapter, I look more fully at the sweet air occasioned by perfumes, showing how perfumed spaces act as symbols of the Virgin.

I focus first on Gonzalo de Berceo and Juan Gil de Zamora, showing how understanding perfume's attributes increases modern-day comprehension of the Virgin. After examining their poems, I discuss some of the principal aspects of medieval perfumes, for perfumes like ambergris created an exotic, evocative space. I then examine fray Ambrosio Montesino's poetry.

Perfumes in Early Marian Poetry

Because it is impossible to fully understand how perfumed plants adorn the verses of late medieval poets without acknowledging their use in earlier poems, I first examine Gonzalo de Berceo's Milagros and Loores to show how perfumes evoke the Virgin's essence.

The prologue to the Milagros constructs a ‘logar cobdiciaduero’, redolent with scents, where a person may take his ease. Berceo highlights the fragrance of flowers, since they give off scent, ‘olor’, and are sweet-smelling, ‘olientes’: ‘davan olor sovejo las flores bien olientes’. He returns to scent two stanzas later:

The scent Berceo mentions is a source of comfort to the weary pilgrim, so powerful that it can restore man to new life in Christ (2 Tim. 1.1), and so intense that it can almost be tasted: ‘sabroso’, delicious, sweet-tasting, or flavoursome. Its restorative powers are for the end of time: ‘those who did good will come forth to life’ (John 5.29). Scent is so intrinsic to Berceo's sense of the sacred that I return to this stanza, after examining scented plants in the Milagros litany.