Most studies of Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora have dealt primarily with diction and style or have taken an essentially devotional approach, leaving more objective historical-theological considerations of the work in short supply. As a result, there is much in the Milagros that has been ignored or inadequately discussed. The poem’s omission of certain well-known aspects of the cult of the Virgin goes unexplained—or even unnoticed—while certain other aspects, though undoubtedly present, are played down. The critical edition of the Milagros by Brian Dutton constitutes an exception, yet even Dutton’s remarks on the poem tend to be brief and discontinuous.

In this, his first book-length study of the Milagros, Richard Burkard examines the overall sense of the poem and includes in his analysis a variety of topics that have customarily received only limited attention, including the poem’s forthright sanctioning of the secular interests of the clergy and its unabashed promotion of anti-Semitism. Above all, Burkard makes it clear that for Berceo the principal incentive to practice the cult of the Virgin is the idea that she, the Virgin, can be more merciful than the Godhead or Christ in the matter of forgiveness for sin and deliverance from damnation.

Burkard also includes a translation from Latin of 24 tales Berceo drew upon to formulate his Milagros.