Page:Of the Tumbler of Our Lady - tr. Kemp-Welch - 1904.djvu/18

xii were, in the thirteenth century, translated into French from collections in Latin, the matter of which had been brought together from various sources during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the East supplying many of the themes. In the Middle Ages, the Church felt no scruple in making use, whether for the decoration of her own sacred walls, or for the enrichment and popularisation of her teaching, of the Pagan forms which she had inherited from antiquity, but whilst adopting established forms and motives, she sanctified them by interpreting them in a Christian sense. Eastern tales were adapted to the glorification of the Holy Mother in the same spirit as Eastern Beast-lore was adapted to Christian temples and Christian moralisations. Some were brought by Crusaders, some by traders and travellers, and were fashioned to the service of religion by pious hands and simple hearts within the shelter of the cloister.

Apart from other considerations, the Miracle-stories contain much internal evidence of an Eastern origin, especially in their diffuseness and their moralisations,