More common still was the sense of “sanctity” as lived righteousness. In this instance, the use of the word “sanctity” highlights Mary's body itself, as the vessel of creation and a site of blessedness, rather than drawing attention to her place in the roster of saints. In a story from the Middle English translation of the Gesta Romanorum, for instance, in which a young woman's supernatural ability to create a shirt from a tiny piece of cloth is moralized as the Incarnation, Mary's womb is described as having undergone “sanctificacion” ( sanctificatio). Rather, Middle English saunctite, like the Old French saintete and the still earlier Christian Latin sanctitas, tends to have amore general meaning, suggesting a state of blessedness or a righteous manner of living rather than canonized sainthood in a strict sense. Although medievalists sometimes use the word “sanctity” as a synonym for “sainthood,” people in the later Middle Ages rarely did.
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