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Mulieres sanctae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Brenda M. Bolton
Brenda M. Bolton*
Affiliation:
polytechnic of north London
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Extract

The early thirteenth century was an extraordinary period in the history of piety. Throughout Europe, and especially in urban communities, lay men and women were seized by a new religious fervour which could be satisfied neither by the new orders nor by the secular clergy. Lay groups proliferated, proclaiming the absolute and literal value of the gospels and practising a new life-style, the vita apostolica. This religious feeling led to the formation, on the eve of the fourth lateran council, of numerous orders of ‘poor men’ and shortly afterwards, to the foundation of the mendicant orders. From this novel interpretation of evangelical life women by no means wished to be excluded and many female groups sprang simultaneously into being in areas as far distant as Flanders and Italy. Yet how were such groups to be regarded because current attitudes to women were based on inconsistent and contradictory doctrines? It was difficult to provide the conditions under which they could achieve their desire for sanctity as they were not allowed to enter the various orders available to men. How then were men to reply to the demands of these women for participation in religious life? That there should be a reply was evident from the widespread heresy in just those areas in which the ferment of urban life encouraged the association of pious women. And heretics were dangerously successful with them! For the church, the existence of religious and semi-religious communities of women raised, in turn, many problems, not least the practicalities involved in both pastoral care and economic maintenance. Only, after 1215, when it attempted to regulate and discipline them, did it realise the widespread enthusiasm on which their movement was based.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 10: Sanctity and Secularity: The Church and the World , 1973 , pp. 77 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1973

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References

1 An account of the way in which these groups practised the vita apostolica is given by Chenu, [M. D.], Nature, Man and Society [in the Twelfth Century] (Chicago 1968)Google Scholar. See also Violante, C., ‘2Hérésies urbaines et rurales en Italie du 11e au 13e siècle’, in J. Le Goff, Hérésies et sociétés dans l’Europe pré-industrielle 11-18 siècles. Ecole pratique des hautes études. Civilisation et Sociétés, 10 (Paris 1968)Google Scholar who offers an analysis of the movement towards the vita apostolica.

2 These doctrines placed woman either on a pedestal or in a bottomless pit; exalted her as the virgin mother of Christ or denigrated her as ‘the supreme temptress, the most dangerous of all obstacles in the way of salvation’. See Power, [E.], ‘The Position of Women’, in The Legacy of the Middle Ages, edd Crump, C. G. and Jacob, E. F. (Oxford 1962) pp 401-3Google Scholar.

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5 PL 162 (1854) col 1053.

6 PL 170 (1854) col 1273. See also Roisin, [S.], ‘L’efflorescence cistercienne [et le courant féminin de piété au xiiie siècle’], RHE 39 (1943) pp pp349-50Google Scholar.

7 PL 156 (1853) col 997; Southern, Western Society p 313.

8 PL 214 (1855) col 174; Potthast 1 no 168.

9 Southern, Western Society pp 314-18.

10 They held their own chapters, undertook the benediction of their own nuns, preached and had their own dependent houses. PL 216 (1855) col 356; Potthast 1 no 4143.

11 Roisin, ‘L’efflorescence cistercienne’ pp 354-5.

12 de Vitiy, Jacques,Jacobi de Vitriaco libri due quorum prior orientalis sive Hierosolimitanae, alter occidentalis historiae nomine inscribitur, ed Moschus, Franciscus (Duaci 1597) p 306 Google Scholar.

13 Martène, E. and Durand, U., Thesaurus novus anecdotorum (Paris 1717) c 2 p 1312 Google Scholar; c 10 p 1324; c 4 p 1327; c 6 p 1340.

14 Ibid c 7 p 1348.

15 Between 1220 and 1240, almost fifty houses for women were incorporated into the order in places as far apart as Castile and Hungary, Ghent and Marseilles. For a comprehensive list of these foundations see Roisin, ‘L’efflorescence cistercienne’ pp 351-61.

16 The cluniac nunnery of Marcigny, founded specifically for women whose husbands had already become monks, provided a refuge in which ‘mature women, tired of matrimonial licence, might purge themselves of past errors’, Southern, Western Society pp 310-11.

17 St Bernard, who was horrified at the dangers implicit in the association of men and women, was only expressing a common contemporary belief in feminine wantonness when he warned that ‘to be always with a woman and not to have intercourse with her is more difficult than to raise the dead’, PL 183 (1854) col 1091.

18 And women could be disruptive as we are reminded in the parody of the chapter of nuns at Remiremont by Lewis, C. S., The Allegory of Love (8 ed Oxford 1965) pp 18–19 Google Scholar.

19 Cap XIII, Lateran IV in Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta ed Alberigo, J. and others (2 ed Freiburg 1962) p 218 Google Scholar. For a discussion of this decree see Maccarrone, [M.], ‘Riforma e sviluppo [della vita religiosa con Innocenzo III’], Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia, 16 (Rome 1962) pp 60-9Google Scholar.

20 Jacques de Vitry, born c 1160-70, probably in Rheims, was a regular canon of St Nicholas of Oignies in the diocese of Liège from 1211-16, bishop of Acre from 1216-27, auxilliary bishop of Liège from 1227-9 and cardinal from 1229-40. See McDonnell, The Béguines, pp 17-21 (n 28 below). The text of his letters is from Lettres [de Jacques de Vitry], ed Huygens, R. B. C. (Leiden 1960) pp 71-8.Google Scholar But see also ‘Les passages des lettres de Jacques de Vitry rélatifs à Saint François d’Assise et à ses premiers disciples’, ed Huygens, R. B. C. in Homages à Léon Herrman, Collection Latonius, 44 (Brussels 1960) pp 446-53Google Scholar.

21 On the Humiliait see Zanoni, L., Gli Umiliati nei loro rapporto con l’eresia, l’industria della lana ed i communi nei secolo xii e xiii, Biblioteca historica italia, Serie II, 2 (Milan 1911)Google Scholar; Maccarrone, ‘Riforma e sviluppo’, pp 46-51; Grundmann, [H.], Religiose Bewegungen [im Mittelalter] (2 ed Darmstadt 1970) pp 70–97, 487-538Google Scholar, and my article ‘Innocent Ill’s treatment of the Humiliati’ in SCH, 8 (1971) pp 73–82 Google ScholarPubMed.

22 Moorman, [J], [A History of] the Franciscan Order [from its origins to the year 1517 (Oxford 1968) pp 32-9, 205-25Google Scholar.

23 Jacques de Vitry, Historia Occidentale pp 304-7, pp 334—37; The Exempta of Jacques de Vitry, ed Crane, T. F., Folk Lore Society Publications, 26 (1890)Google Scholar; Die Exempla aus den Sermones feriales et communes, ed Greven, J. (Heidelburg 1914)Google Scholar; Die Exempla des Jacob von Vitry, ed Frenken, G., Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters, 5 (Munich 1914) pp 1–153 Google Scholar.

24 Vita Maria Oigniacensis, ASB, 5 (1867) pp 542-72Google Scholar.

25 Ibid p 556.

26 Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen p 173.

27 It was the possession of this to which he attributed his safe arrival in Milan in 1216, despite the hazards of crossing rivers in flood in Lombardy. Lettres p 72 lines 34-46.

28 For a guide to the huge bibliography on the beguines see McDonnell, [E. W.], The Beguines [and Beghards in Medieval Culture] (Rutgers University 1954)Google Scholar. Also a review by Van Micrlo, J. in RHE 28 (1932) pp 377-83Google Scholar of Grundmann, H., Zur Geschichte der Beginen im XIII Jahrhundert, Archiv fur Kulturgeschichte, 16 (1931) pp 292–320 Google Scholar. Of special value have been Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen pp 170-98, 319-54 and Mens, [A.], ‘Les béguines et béghards [dans le cadre de la culture mediévale’], Le Moyen Age 64 (1958) pp 305-15.Google Scholar

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30 Southern, Western Society p 320.

31 Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen pp 322-3.

32 Translated by Southern, Western Society p 319.

33 Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen p 197.

34 For the origin of the word ‘beguine’, see Callaey, R. P., ‘Lambert li Beges et les Béguines’, RHE 23 (1927) pp 254-9Google Scholar, and Mens, ‘Les béguines et beghards’ p 309.

35 Fulk of Toulouse, poet, jongleur, monk and then cistercian abbot of Florège, was created bishop of Toulouse in 1206. In 1212, he was driven from his diocese by heretics and went to preach the crusade in Flanders. His interest in religious women’s communities as a bulwark against heresy led him to support Dominic’s foundation at Prouille and it was at his request that Jacques de Vitry wrote the life of Mary of Oignies. Thouzellier, [C.], Catharisme et Valdéisme [en Languedoc à lafln du xiie siècle] (2 ed Louvain 1969) p 192 Google Scholar.

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37 Ibid p 74 lines 76-81.

38 ASB 4 (1867) p 197.

39 Potthast 1 no 5896.

40 Jacques de Vitry, Historia Occidentalis pp 305-6; Greven, J., ‘Der Ursprung desBeginen wesens’, HJch 35 (1914) pp 26–58, 291-318Google Scholar.

41 For discussion of this question see Nelson, [J. L.], ‘Society, theodicy and the origins of heresy: [towards a reassessment of the medieval evidence’], SCH 9 (1972) pp 65–77 Google Scholar; Chenu, Nature, Man and Society pp 202-69.

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43 Jacques de Vitry, Historia Occidentalis pp 305-6.

44 Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen p 235.

45 ASB 5 (1867) pp 236-7. Two of many other such examples are Ida of Nivelles, aged nine, who fled from home to avoid marriage, becoming a cistercian nun six years later, and Yolande of Vianden, whose noble family, which included the archbishop of Cologne, tried for years to persuade her to accept an advantageous marriage. They were unsuccessful and she eventually entered a dominican convent. See Grand mami, Religiöse Bewegungen pp 192-3.

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51 For a detailed account of Innocent’s treatment of Francis see Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen pp 127-35.

52 Ibid pp 253-4.

53 It seems that Clare may not have wanted strict claustration at all. See Moorman, The Franciscan Order p 36.

54 Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen pp 149-51.

55 For a discussion of dates ibid p 150 n 147.

56 ASB 2 (1867) p 757. Et ut insolitae petitioni favor insolitus arriderei, pontifex ipse cum hilaritate magna petiti privilegii primam notulam sua manu conscripsit.

57 Lettres pp 77-8,

58 Moorman, The Franciscan Order p 206.

59 Lettres p 76 lines 124-32.

60 The friars could not help the Poor Clares by collecting alms for them and the community of St Damian experienced great hardship, eking out a living from spinning and making altar linen. See Moorman, The Franciscan Order p 36.

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62 Ibid p 260. Grundmann thinks that Francis agreed to the adoption of Hugolino’s rule by the community of St Damian before he left for Egypt in 1218 or 1219.

63 Moorman, The Franciscan Order p 35.

64 Grundmann, Religiose Bewegungen p 62.

65 Thouzellier, Catliarisme et Valdéisme p 253.

66 Ibid p 200.

67 These women confessed to Dominic that they had admired those who originally converted them to heresy for their ascetic form of life. See Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen p 209.

68 Ibid p 211.

69 de Saxonia, Jordanis, De initiis ordinis; [opera ad res ordinis Praedkatorum spectantia], ed Berthier, J. J. (Freiburg 1891) p 19 Google Scholar.

70 Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen p 213.

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72 Jordanis de Saxonia, De initiis ordinis p 28.

73 Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen p 215.

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82 Sbaralea, , Bullarum Franciscanum 1 p 413 Google Scholar; Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen pp 270-1.

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84 Sbaralea, , Bullarum Franciscanum 1 p 476 Google Scholar.

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86 Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen pp 274-5.

87 Southern, Western Society pp 323-4.

88 Roisin, ‘L’efflorescence cistercienne’ p 346.

89 Ibid pp 358-60, 362-4.

90 Ibid p 355.

91 Ibid p 372.

92 ASB 5 (1867) p 567.

93 Roisin, ‘L’efflorescence cistercienne’ p 373.