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Includes bibliographical references (pages 335-375) and index.

Note to the Reader -- Preface -- 1. The Medieval Beginnings of Our Lady's Tumbler. The French Poem ; The Manuscripts ; Gautier de Coinci and Anonymity ; Picardy ; The Identity of the Poet ; The Bas-de-Page Miniature: Of Marginal Interest ; The Genre: Long Story Short ; The Table of Exempla, in Alphabetical Order ; The Latin Exemplum ; The Life of the Fathers ; True Story: Why the Story Succeeded -- 2. Dancing for God. The Tumbler ; Notre Dame versus Saint Mary ; The Equivocal Status of Jongleurs ; Trance Dance ; Jongleurs of God ; Holy Fools ; Fact or Fiction? -- 3. Cistercian Monks and Lay Brothers ; The Order of Cîteaux ; Cistercians and the Virgin ; Mother's Milk ; Mary's Head-Coverings ; Cistercian Lay Brothers ; Conversion Therapy ; The Language of Silence ; Gym Clothes ; Sweat Cloth ; The Weighing of Souls ; The Latin-Less Lay Brother and Our Lady -- 4. Reformation Endings: A Temporary Vanishing Act. What Makes a Story Popular? ; Walsingham, England's Nazareth ; Madonnas of the World Wars ; Literary Iconoclasm ; Marian Apparitions -- 5. A Troupe of Sources and Analogues. King David's Dancing ; The Widow's Mites ; The Virgin's Miraculous Images and Apparitions ; The Jongleur of Rocamadour ; The Holy Candle of Arras ; The Pious Sweat of Monks and Lay Brothers ; The Love of Statuesque Beauty ; The Holy Face of Christ and Virgin Saints -- Notes. Notes to Preface ; Notes to Chapter 1 ; Notes to Chapter 2 ; Notes to Chapter 3 ; Notes to Chapter 4 ; Notes to Chapter 5 -- Bibliography -- List of Illustrations -- Index.

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"This ambitious and vivid study in six volumes explores the journey of a single, electrifying story, from its first incarnation in a medieval French poem through its prolific rebirth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Juggler of Notre Dame tells how an entertainer abandons the world to join a monastery, but is suspected of blasphemy after dancing his devotion before a statue of the Madonna in the crypt; he is saved when the statue, delighted by his skill, miraculously comes to life. Jan Ziolkowski tracks the poem from its medieval roots to its rediscovery in late nineteenth-century Paris, before its translation into English in Britain and the United States. The visual influence of the tale on Gothic revivalism and vice versa in America is carefully documented with lavish and inventive illustrations, and Ziolkowski concludes with an examination of the explosion of interest in The Juggler of Notre Dame in the twentieth century and its place in mass culture today. The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity is a rich case study for the reception of the Middle Ages in modernity. Spanning centuries and continents, the medieval period is understood through the lens of its (post)modern reception in Europe and America. Profound connections between the verbal and the visual are illustrated by a rich trove of images, including book illustrations, stained glass, postage stamps, architecture, and Christmas cards. Presented with great clarity and simplicity, Ziolkowski's work is accessible to the general reader, while its many new discoveries will be valuable to academics in such fields and disciplines as medieval studies, medievalism, philology, literary history, art history, folklore, performance studies, and reception studies."--Publisher's website.

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