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The courtly lady and literature in Les miracles de nostre dame by Gautier The prominent position given to women and love is characteristic of courtly ideology. Les miracles de Nostre Dame in French is an attempt to compete with this literature. Gautier de Coinci denounces the devastation wreaked by fin’amor, which he condemns as immoral. This in no way prevents him from repeating all the motifs of the courtly depictions of love. He advances the immaculate model of the Empress, a married courtly lady, beautiful and faithful even to the point of martyrdom. The noblest union is that with God in the consecrated life. A holy friendship between a man and a woman is also possible, even beneficial. The courtly lady par excellence is the Virgin Mary, who is the true feminine ideal. It is entirely appropriate to refer to this perspective as “an attempt to convert” or “the evangelization of profane culture.” This perspective is also perceptible in lyric poetry which, through a process of “forgery, ” echoes the forms of profane lyric poetry in order to redirect it. The poet also mines the hymnological tradition, establishing a fruitful link between the profane and the sacred, which are interwoven.