BEATRIJS

lyric narrative containing a noted medieval European Mary legend. The oldest extant Beatrijs manuscript dates from 1374, although it is thought to be taken from an earlier collection, Dialogue miraculorum (c. 1200) by Caesarius of Heisterbach. An anonymous text written in an East Flemish dialect, it is the simple courtly tale of a nun who flees from her convent to marry a man she has loved from childhood. After fathering two children, he deserts her; she is forced into a life of sin, but remorse eventually drives her back to the convent where she discovers that she was not missed because the Virgin Mary had taken her place. The legend has inspired many later works of art.