The Middle Ages saw the rise of Mary mediatrix. As Jaroslav Pelikan has summarized it, ‘the systematic clarification of the title Mediatrix was the principal objective expression of Mariology and the chief theological contribution to Christian teaching about Mary during this period’, but this was sometimes in tension with the dominant ‘literary form and devotional motif of the Mater Dolorosa’. Nevertheless, both the human suffering of mother Mary and her superhuman (often aggressive) intercession and advocacy were internationally recognized. Eastern theologians often addressed her as ‘Mediatrix of law and of grace’, and this title, as it was reflected in medieval Marian devotion, was in some ways very logical: ‘If Christ is both judge and mediator, then modest and anxious human sinners may well look for an advocate who will mediate with Him.’ Indeed, the whole legal apparatus of saintly intercession cannot be called unpredictable within a wide view of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which always saw the relationship with God as a matter of covenant. What Richard Firth Green has called ‘bargains with God’ or the ‘need to believe in a deus pactor’ is not only common in popular medieval hagiography – an expression of a potent ‘covenantal theology’ – but also transcends temporal and cultural divides. Still, such bargains were ‘particularly common in England’, and where other saints might broker agreements based on symbolic gestures of ‘trothplight’, such as ‘bowed groats’ or token rings or monetary payment, the Virgin Mary was very often entrenched in documentary modes. She showed special attention to agreements that were expressed in charters or that included written conveyances.