Images and texts tell various stories about the Virgin Mary in Byzantium, reflecting an important cult with strong doctrinal foundations.

Introduction Thomas Arentzen and Mary B. Cunningham; Part I. Telling Visual Stories: The Virgin Mary in Art: 1. Embodied word: telling the story of Mary in early Christian art Maria Lidova; 2. Female devotion and Mary's motherhood before iconoclasm Andrea Olsen Lam; 3. The theological substance of St Anne's motherhood in Byzantine homilies and art Eirini Panou; 4. Krater of nectar and altar of the Bread of Life: the Theotokos as provider of the Eucharist in Byzantine culture Maria Evangelatou; 5. The Virgin at Daphni Leslie Brubaker; Part II. Song and Celebration: Festal Hymnography on the Theotokos: 6. The dialogue of Annunciation: Germanos of Constantinople versus Romanos the Melode Thomas Arentzen; 7. Singing Mary: the Annunciation and Nativity in Romanos the Melode Georgia Frank; 8. Mary and Adam on the threshold of Lent: counterpoint and intercession in a Kanon for Cheesefare Sunday Derek Krueger; 9. The spiritual and material temple: Byzantine Kanon poetry for the Feast of the Entrance Damaskinos Olkinuora; Part III. Preaching Her Story: Narrative Discourse in Homiletics: 10. The Coptic homily on the Theotokos attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem: an aberrant and apologetic 'life' of the Virgin from Late Antiquity Stephen J. Shoemaker; 11. Mary as 'scala caelestis' in eighth- and ninth-century Italy Francesca Dell'Acqua; 12. Christological and ecclesiological narratives in early eighth-century Greek homilies on the Theotokos Evgenios Iverites; 13. The homilies of James of Kokkinobaphos in their twelfth-century context Elizabeth Jeffreys; Part IV. New Narratives in the Middle Byzantine Period: Marian Hagiography: 14. The life of the Theotokos by Epiphanios of Kallistratos: a monastic approach to an apocryphal story Mary B. Cunningham; 15. The story of an edition: Antoine Wenger and John Geometres' Life of the Virgin Mary Maximos Constas; Afterword Susan Ashbrook Harvey.