List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations and short titles used in the text and notes; Introduction: staging the stories; Part I. War in Heaven: Saints and Sinners: 1. The noble army of martyrs; 2. White martyrdom: the hermits; 3. Soldiers of Christ: the Church militant; Part II. Miracles of Salvation: 4. Miraculous conversions of Jews (and a few pagans); 5. Sacrament plays; 6. Your adversary the Devil: the sacred and the damned; 7. Who sups with the Devil: the rash bargain; Part III. Conflicting Relationships: Love, Hate and Marriage: 8. Happily ever after: friends and lovers; 9. Premarital problems; 10. The falsely accused queen and other suffering wives; 11. Domestic dramas; 12. The wager; 13. Hell hath no fury: the woman scorned; 14. Family feuds; 15. The theatre of cruelty; 16. Le coeur mangé and other culinary surprises; Part IV. Power, Politics and Patriotism: 17. The siege of Troy; 18. The siege and destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70; 19. Early Christian Europe: Constantine to the crusades; 20. Christianity goes west; 21. The worthy, the proud and the popular; 22. Pride and the wheel of Fortune; 23. Affairs of state; 24. Patriots and popular heroes; Conclusion: from Queen of Heaven to Fairy Queen; Notes; Bibliography; Index.