Editing Mary Magdalene (section)

===High Middle Ages===

====Fictional biographies====
Starting in early [[High Middle Ages]], writers in western Europe began developing elaborate fictional biographies of Mary Magdalene's life, in which they heavily embellished upon the vague details given in the gospels.{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=46}}{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|pages=183–184}} Stories about [[nobility|noble]] saints were popular during this time period;{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=46}} accordingly, tales of Mary Magdalene's wealth and social status became heavily exaggerated.{{sfn|Maisch|1998|pages=46–47}}{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|pages=183–184}} In the tenth century, [[Odo of Cluny]] ({{circa}} 880 – 942) wrote a sermon in which he described Mary as an extraordinarily wealthy noblewoman of royal descent.{{sfn|Maisch|1998|pages=46–49}} Some manuscripts of the sermon record that Mary's parents were named Syrus and Eucharia{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=47}} and one manuscript goes into great detail describing her family's purported land holdings in Bethany, Jerusalem, and Magdala.{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=47}}

The theologian [[Honorius Augustodunensis]] ({{circa}} 1080 – {{circa}} 1151) embellished this tale even further, reporting that Mary was a wealthy noblewoman who was married in "Magdalum",{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=47}} but that she committed adultery, so she fled to Jerusalem and became a "public sinner" (''vulgaris meretrix'').{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=47}} Honorius mentions that, out of love for Jesus, Mary repented and withdrew into a life of quiet isolation.{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=47}} Under the influence of stories about other female saints, such as [[Mary of Egypt]] and [[Pelagia]],{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=47}} painters in Italy during the ninth and tenth centuries gradually began to develop the image of Mary Magdalene living alone in the desert as a penitent [[Asceticism|ascetic]].{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=47}}{{sfn|Mormando|1999|p=257–274}} This portrayal became so popular that it quickly spread to Germany and England.{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=47}} From the twelfth century, Abbot Hugh of Semur (died 1109), Peter Abelard (died 1142), and Geoffrey of Vendôme (died 1132) all referred to Mary Magdalene as the sinner who merited the title ''apostolorum apostola'' (Apostle to the Apostles), with the title becoming commonplace during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.{{sfn|Schaberg|2004|p=88}}

====Alleged burial in France====
In western Europe, elaborate and conflicting legends began to develop, which said that Mary Magdalene had travelled to southern France and died there.{{sfn|Witcombe|2002|page=279}} Starting in around 1050, the monks of the [[Vézelay Abbey]] of la Madaleine in Burgundy said they discovered Mary Magdalene's actual skeleton.<ref>See Johnston, 111–115 on the rise and fall of Vézelay as a cult centre</ref>{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=48}} At first, the existence of the skeleton was merely asserted,{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=48}} but, in 1265, the monks made a spectacular, public show of "discovering" it{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=48}} and, in 1267, the bones were brought before the king of France, who venerated them.{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=48}} On December 9, 1279, an excavation ordered by [[Charles II of Naples|Charles II, King of Naples]] at [[Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume]], Provence, led to the discovery of another purported burial of Mary Magdalene.{{sfn|McCarthy|2010|p=50}}{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=48}} The shrine was purportedly found intact, with an explanatory inscription stating why the relics had been hidden.{{sfn|Haskins|2005|pages=129–132}} Charles II commissioned the building of a new [[Gothic architecture|gothic]] [[basilica]] on the site and, in return for providing accommodation for [[pilgrim]]s, the town's residents were exempt from taxes.{{sfn|Davidson|Gitlitz|2002|p=562}} Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume gradually displaced [[Vézelay]] in popularity and acceptance.{{sfn|Haskins|2005|pages=129–132}}

[[File:Copiebasiliquereliquaire.jpg|thumb|upright|In 1279, the monks of [[Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume]] said they discovered Mary Magdalene's skeleton.{{sfn|McCarthy|2010|p=50}}{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=48}} The [[reliquary]] at St. Maximin, created in the nineteenth century, contains her purported skull.]]

====''The Golden Legend''====
[[File:Torun SS Johns Mary Magdalene.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[International Gothic]] ''Elevation of Mary Magdalene'' with angels raising her in [[Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, Toruń|SS. Johns' Cathedral]] in [[Toruń]]]]

The most famous account of Mary Magdalene's legendary life comes from ''[[Golden Legend|The Golden Legend]]'', a collection of medieval saints' stories compiled circa 1260 by the Italian writer and [[Dominican Order|Dominican friar]] [[Jacobus de Voragine]] ({{circa}} 1230 – 1298).{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}}{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=48}}{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} In this account, Mary Magdalene is, in Ehrman's words, "fabulously rich, insanely beautiful, and outrageously sensual",{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} but she gives up her life of wealth and sin to become a devoted follower of Jesus.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}}{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|pages=7–8}} Fourteen years after Jesus's crucifixion, some pagans throw Mary, Martha, [[Lazarus of Bethany|Lazarus]] (who, in this account, is their brother due to a conflation with Mary of Bethany), and two other Christians named [[Maximinus of Aix|Maximin]] and Cedonius onto a rudderless boat in the Mediterranean to die.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}}{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} Miraculously, however, the boat washes ashore at [[Marseille]] in southern France.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}}{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} Mary persuades the governor of the city not to offer sacrifices to a pagan god{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} and later persuades him to convert to Christianity after she proves the Christian God's power by successfully praying to Him to make the governor's wife pregnant.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}}{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} The governor and his wife sail for Rome to meet the apostle Peter in person,{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} but their ship is struck by a storm, which causes the wife to go into labor.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} The wife dies in childbirth and the governor leaves her on an island with the still-living infant at her breast.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} The governor spends two years with Peter in Rome{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} and, on his way home, he stops at the same island to discover that, due to Mary Magdalene's miraculous long-distance intercession, his child has survived for two years on his dead mother's breast milk.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|pages=184–185}} Then the governor's wife rises from the dead and tells him that Mary Magdalene has brought her back.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=185}} The whole family returns to Marseille, where they meet Mary again in person.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=185}} Mary herself spends the last thirty years of her life alone as a penitent ascetic in a cave in a desert in the French region of [[Provence]].{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}}{{sfn|Head|2001|p=659}}{{sfn|Saxer|1959|p=}}<ref>Ecole française de Rome, (1992).</ref>{{sfn|Jansen|2001|page=172}} At every [[canonical hours|canonical hour]], the angels come and lift her up to hear their songs in Heaven.{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} On the last day of her life, Maximin, now the bishop of [[Aix-en-Provence|Aix]], comes to her and gives her the Eucharist.{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} Mary cries tears of joy{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} and, after taking it, she lies down and dies.{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} De Voragine gives the common account of the transfer of Mary Magdalene's relics from her sepulchre in the [[Oratory (worship)|oratory]] of Saint Maximin at [[Aix-en-Provence]] to the newly founded [[Vézelay]];<ref>"the Abbey of Vesoul" in [[William Caxton]]'s translation.</ref> the transportation of the relics is entered as undertaken in 771 by the founder of the abbey, identified as Gerard, [[Duke of Burgundy]].<ref name="GoldenLegend">''Golden Legend''</ref>

====Spouse of John the Evangelist====
The monk and historian [[Domenico Cavalca]] ({{circa}} 1270 – 1342), citing [[Jerome]], suggested that Mary Magdalene was [[Engagement|betrothed]] to [[John the Evangelist]]: "I like to think that the Magdalene was the spouse of John, not affirming it... I am glad and blythe that St Jerome should say so."{{sfn|Jansen|2001|page= 151, footnote 20 citing Cavalca, ''Vita'', 329; ''Life'', 2–3.}} They were sometimes thought to be the couple at the [[Wedding at Cana]], though the Gospel accounts say nothing of the ceremony being abandoned. In the ''Golden Legend'', De Voragine dismisses talk of John and Mary being betrothed and John leaving his bride at the altar to follow Jesus as nonsense.<ref name="GoldenLegend" />