The Cantigas de Santa María, a thirteenth-century collection of poems gathered to praise the Virgin Mary and composed in the scriptorium of Alfonso X of Castile-León (r. 1252–84), contains a miracle concerning the infanta Berenguela (d. 1279). Wishing to honor the Virgin Mary, her parents, Fernando III (r. 1217–52) and Beatriz of Swabia (d. 1235), promised their daughter to the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas. However, before the ceremony of velatio could take place, the young girl succumbed to illness. Stricken with grief, Beatriz placed her daughter at the feet of an image of the Virgin, begged for the mercy of the Virgin, and kept vigil outside the chapel. Her prayers were soon answered with the cries of her child, whom she raced to embrace, praising the Virgin and immediately honoring her promise of giving her daughter to the Cistercian order at Las Huelgas.1...

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