“Strasbourg Miracles of the Blessed Mary” and the Influence of the City Cathedral Church on Pilgrimages in Alsace in the 13th Century

The relevance of the research topic is determined by the historical continuity of the cultural traditions and models of religious worship of objects of spiritual heritage in the urban habitat as well as their [traditions and models] variability depending on the particular circumstances. The purpose of the study is to identify the forms of influence of a unique place of concentration of the spiritual life namely the Strasbourg Cathedral of the Virgin Mary on the individual strategies of medieval pilgrims in the particular region. During the process of research the particular interest presents the writing “Strasbourg Miracles of the Blessed Mary” containing episodes of the miraculous events and healings which took place in the Strasbourg Cathedral church in 1280. In the process of analyzing this and other historical writings we got an overview of the pilgrims’ cultural perception of the Cathedral construction process, their religious leisure and interaction with urban dwellers and habitat. It was found that in the process of engagement between pilgrims and urban dwellers with a specific place of concentration of spiritual life (taking into account the scale of its [place] of cultural and religious significance for the region) there are seen special, exalted forms of religious activity namely public statements about the miraculous healings etc. The act of “miracle”, in its turn, becomes into a ceremony where a participant has a high social value and presents the primary interest for spectators and witnesses. Thus, the study expands the existing scientific ideas about the forms and peculiarities of the medieval Catholic piety completing their general picture by an episode of the faithful’s interaction with a unique religious object.