m into a
garland; and after he had done so, he went into the choir, or into Our
Lady's Chapel, prostrated himself before his dear lady, and placed the
sweet garland on her head, hoping that she would not scorn her servant's
offering, as she was the most wondrous flower herself, and the
summer-joy of his heart."

Doubtless we here have an analogy to the religious feeling of the
mystics. The metaphysical lover is still under the impression that he is
worshipping the Mary of the Catholic Church; but as in the case of the
mystic the Christ of dogma is transformed into the divine spark in his
own soul, so the love of Mary has become undogmatic and pure
woman-worship, the ideal of the great lovers of that age.

Another prominent Madonna-worshipper was Conrad of Wuerzburg (died 1278).
He began his career as a minnesinger, but later on entered a monastery.
He was the author of a very extensive, and in part, poetical collection
of songs in praise of the Queen of Heaven. "The Golden Smithy" is an
interesting instance of the mingling of genuine metaphysical eroticism
and traditional Church doctrines. Conrad inextricably mingles all the
Biblical allegories more or less applicable to Mary, the stories of the
Gospels, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, etc., with his own
emotions, and thus creates a world of feeling which, though in many
respects exaggerated, still represents in its quaint unity something
entirely novel and unique:

Thy glorious form,
Though by beauty all envested,
Never passion has suggested
Nor has lit unholy fire
In man's heart, that gross desire
From thy purity should spring.

He, too, describes the celestial Paradise as a lovely garden, in which
Mary walks as queen, and he says of her celestial maidens, (perhaps a
reminiscence of the mythological German swan-maidens):

Thy white hand with blossoms
Their chaplets enhances,
Thou show'st them the dances
Of God's Paradise.
'Mid radiant skies
Thou gather'st heavenly roses.

The Italian Franciscan monk Giacomo of Verona also wrote poems to the
"Queen of the Heavenly Meadows". "On the right hand of Christ sits Mary,
more lovely than the flowers in the meadows and the half-opened
rose-buds. Before her face stand the heavenly hosts singing jubilant
songs in her praise, but she adorns her knights with garlands and gives
them roses." Just as Pons of Capduelh describes the transfiguration of
hi