Boyarin's study of medieval English Marian miracle tales largely focuses on medieval texts, including descriptions, catalogue numbers, and so forth. These sorts of detail can become tedious for non-medievalists, but they do establish this work as a serious scholarly study. The author is trying to accomplish two goals: she makes some specific arguments and claims relative to current scholarship on medieval Marian legends (including whether or not we should assume a “lost corpus” of texts destroyed during the Protestant Reformation in England (her answer is that we should not); and she argues that these English texts show Mary in a certain light and develop her character in ways that are different from continental texts. The first element of her argument will be particularly interesting to scholars of medieval religious texts—saints' lives and Marian legends and miracles—and her evidence seems to show solidly that while Southern may be correct that medieval Miracles of the Virgin originated in England, the lack of much development in the genre or widespread existence of collections of miracles (along continental lines) does not necessarily indicate that much material was destroyed or otherwise lost in the sixteenth century, when Marian devotion and miracles fell out of fashion. So, while local shrines and the texts (and evidence of miracles) associated with them may well have been destroyed—and there has been much scholarly research on that issue—the Miracles of the Virgin are more universal and exemplary, and were thus less the focus of purging. While Boyarin does not give a clear argument as to why the genre developed so differently in England than on the continent, and why there was such a gap (about 250 years) between the invention of the genre and its proliferation in England, she does provide some fascinating in-depth reads of the various texts that do exist (and provides the original texts themselves in the appendices).

Boyarin argues that the Theophilus legend and the characteristics that legend advances for Mary dominate the English scene. In particular, she argues that Mary is closely associated with Jewish, textual, and legal issues. In fact, she argues that “the Theophilus nexus of ideas about sin, law, Jewish apostasy, and Marian intercession was slowly but surely creating a Marian paradigm in England” (82). Theophilus was the Christian clerk who entered into a legal contract with the devil (including a signed charter), through the intermediacy of a Jewish sorcerer; when he repented of his decision, his previous devotion to Mary convinced her to take his side, to procure his pardon, and even to retrieve the charter from hell, so that Theophilus could burn it. Boyarin shows that the surviving corpus of English Marian miracles (including Chaucer's Prioress's Tale) does, in fact, emphasize a special connection to Jews (whether for punishment or conversion) and legal matters, although the connection between these elements and the expulsion of English Jews in 1290 and the codification of English law in the thirteenth century is less clear. More importantly, she shows that the elements of Mary's character outlined in these texts—Mary as powerful, tricky, capricious, inhabiting an intermediate space between Jews and Christians—are not simply “popular” elements of her image, eschewed by better educated theologians and believers. Rather, they are an essential part of her character as mediatrix. In fact, these legends of Marian miracles show that Mary is precisely the one you want to have on your side, especially in any sort of disagreement with the Devil, for not only is she swayed even by frankly minimalistic devotion (think here of the little boy who sang Alma redemptoris mater, but didn't understand the words, as in the Prioress's Tale), but she has what one might call a supratextual power—even a signed contract is no problem for Mary. She is an effective advocate or lawyer against the devil, but in a pinch, she will use physical force on behalf of her “client.” The book's cover image clearly conveys that idea, for it shows Mary bopping the devil in the eye, as they struggle over Theophilus's signed charter. Mary's power lies not in the text itself, or her clever lawyerly reasoning, but it is really over the text—this element may have helped to relieve anxiety in an increasingly legalistic and textually focused world. Boyarin is most successful in her evaluation of these texts, and the significance of the image of Mary that they evoke.