Vanessa Corcoran is an adjunct professor of history and an academic counselor at Georgetown University.
At Georgetown University, I advise students in my capacity as an academic counselor and also teach in the history department as an adjunct professor. In 2017, I defended my Ph.D. at The Catholic University of America (2017). My dissertation, "The Voice of Mary: Later Medieval Representations of Marian Communication," examined devotion to the Virgin Mary in the late Middle Ages. More broadly, research focuses on the intersection of medieval religious culture and gendered speech practices. I have presented papers at the American Historical Association and Medieval Academy of America annual conferences, and have also written for America Magazine and The Public Medievalist.
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The Miracle That Popularized Nativity Scenes
A photo of a nativity scene. Image credit: Oscar Llerena/Flickr.
But as my research on the relationship between the New Testament and the development of popular Christian traditions shows, the earliest biblical descriptions do not mention the presence of any animals. Animals first start to appear in religious texts around the seventh century.