During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Western Europe, the three-dimensional anthropomorphic image became a virtually ubiquitous presence. From rural shrines to the porticos and altars of the towering cathedrals rising in urban centers to diminutive statuettes produced in ever greater numbers that were kept in homes or carried by the faithful, these artificial bodies populated the visual environment as never before and came to inhabit a central place in medieval devotional practice. This new status quo becomes especially striking when set against Christianity’s aniconic roots and the centuries of iconophobic rhetoric transmitted through the writings of the Church Fathers, Christian apologists, and the lives of late antique saints. Though the reemergence of monumental sculpture was underway by the late tenth century, it is the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that saw a marked increase in the defense and justification of sculpted images in religious life. While other artforms and media had long enjoyed theological approval through biblical authorization, anthropomorphic sculpture in the round remained distinct. Such images had, by and large, been tainted by the shadow of the pagan idol. In this period, however, the iconophobic rhetoric long utilized to inveigh against sculpted images as, at best, empty and lifeless, or at worst, the habitation of demons, is found adapted, and in many cases directly inverted, to promote Christian devotional sculpture as both licit and efficacious. This process is evidenced most prominently in the stories of miraculously animated images that proliferated in this era. This investigation sits at the intersection of story and sculpture. Tales in Latin and the vernacular describing miraculous encounters with animated anthropomorphic statues drawn from a variety of genres including, but not limited to, miracle collections, chronicles, and saints’ lives, are aligned with classes of extant sculpture of the period, above all carved and cast crucifixes and Marian statues. Texts ranging from Anglo-Saxon riddle poetry to the Old French Vie des pères, from the collection of saints’ lives in the Abbreviatio in gestis et miraculis sanctorum by Jean de Mailly to the miracle collections of Gautier de Coinci, Vincent of Beauvais, and the Cantigas of Alfonso the Wise, all provide a valuable window into the medieval sculptural imaginary. Manuscript illuminations illustrating stories yield further insight into perceptions of sculptural types and changing form, especially images of the same story rendered over time. I contend that embedded within these tales is a rich and powerful history of sculpture that has been long overlooked. By systematically reviewing sources aimed at both clerical and lay audiences, I seek to bring into greater focus period notions and “popular” perspectives on anthropomorphic sculpture and its place in para- and extra-liturgical devotion. This investigation ultimately reveals the emerging iconophilia of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries while shedding light on period notions of the perceived equivalence, presence, and efficacy of the sculpted devotional image.