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St. Catherine of Siena, “Apostola”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Karen Scott
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Abstract

In the spring of 1376, Catherine, the uneducated daughter of a Sienese dyer, a simple lay Tertiary, traveled to Avignon in southern France. She wanted to speak directly with Pope Gregory XI about organizing a crusade, reforming the Catholic church, ending his war with Florence, and moving his court back to Rome. Her reputation for holiness and her orthodoxy gave her a hearing with the pope, and so her words had a measure of influence on him. Gregory did move to Rome in the fall of 1376, and he paid for her trip back to Italy. In 1377 he allowed her to lead a mission in the Sienese countryside: he wanted her presence there to help save souls and perhaps stimulate interest in a crusade. In 1378 he sent her to Florence as a peacemaker for the war between the Tuscan cities and the papacy. In late 1378 Gregory's successor Urban VI asked her to come to Rome to support his claim to the papacy against the schismatic Pope Clement VII. Finally in 1380, Catherine died in Rome, exhausted by all these endeavors.

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Church History , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 34 - 46
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Copyright © American Society of Church History 1992

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References

1. See Alfonso, Capecelatro, Santa Caterina e il papato del suo tempo (Rome, 1973);Google ScholarIgino, Giordani, Saint Catherine of Siena—Doctor of the Church, tr. Thomas, J. Tobin (Boston, 1975).Google ScholarThis view of the importance of Catherine's political role was questioned by Robert, Fawtier, Sainte Catherine de Sienne. Essai de critique des sources, 2 vols. (Paris, 1921 and 1930),Google Scholarand Robert, Fawtier and Louis, Canet, La double experience de Catherine Benincasa (Paris, 1948).Google ScholarIn my view this critique is too strong. See Karen, Scott, “‘Not Only with Words, But with Deeds’;: the Role of Speech in Catherine of Siena's Understanding of Her Mission” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of California at Berkeley, 1989), pp. 76–98.Google Scholar

2. Gene, Brucker, Florentine Politics and Society, 1343–1378 (Princeton, 1962), pp. 311–312 (n. 52), 332–333, 336.Google Scholar

3. Documentary evidence for Catherine's life is published in Laurent, M. H., ed., Documenti (Florence, 1936).Google ScholarCatherine's main vita is Raymond of Capua's Legenda Major, published as De S. Cathanna Senensi virgine de poenitentia S. Dominici, in Ada Sanctorum Aprilis (Antwerp, 1675), 3: 853–959.Google ScholarThe editions of Catherine's letters which I have used in this paper are: da Siena, S. Caterina, Epistolario, , ed. Eugenio Dupre Theseider, vol. 1 (Rome, 1940) (hereafter Epistolario);Google ScholarLe Lettere di S. Caterina da Siena, ed. Piero, Misciattelli (Florence, 1940), 6 vols. (hereafter Lettere).Google ScholarWhenever possible, I have used the letters in the critical edition, the Epistalario. For letters not included in the critical edition, 1 cite from Misciatelli's Lettere. Of the 382 letters found in Lettere, only 88 are published in the Epistolario. The translations in this paper are my own;Google Scholarbut see also The Letters of St. Catherine of Siena, tr. Susanne, Noffke O.P. (Binghamton, N.Y., 1988) (=Epistolario). Noffke is currently working on a translation of the rest of Catherine's correspondence.Google Scholar

4. Recent studies of the Legenda include John Wayland Coakley, “The Representation of Sanctity in Late Medieval Hagiography: The Evidence from Lives of Saints of the Dominican Order” (Ph D. diss., Harvard Univ., 1980);Google ScholarSofia, Boesch-Gajano and Odile, Redon, “La Legenda Major di Raimondo da Capua, costruzione di una santa,” in Atti del simposio internazionale cateriniano-bernardiniano, Siena, 17–20 aprile 1980, ed. Domenico, Maffei and Nardi, Paolo (Siena, 1982), pp. 15–35.Google ScholarPortrayals of Catherine based on the Legenda include Richard Kieckhefer, Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth-Century Saints and their Religious Milieu (Chicago, 1984);Google ScholarRudolph, M. Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago, 1985);Google Scholarand to a lesser extent Caroline, Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, 1987).Google Scholar

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7. See, for example, Humbert of Romans, “Treatise on the Formation of Preachers” in Early Dominicans, Selected Writings, ed. Simon, Tugwell (New York, 1982), p. 184.Google Scholar

8. Epistolario, L. 72 (“A gli Otto della Guerra”), p. 298. Shortly after this letter, Catherine succinctly informs her Sienese friends about what she has been doing in Avignon, and again she emphasizes the importance of her speech: “By the grace of our sweet Saviour, we arrived here in Avignon twenty-six days ago, and I have talked with the Holy Father and with many Cardinals and other temporal Lords. Our sweet Saviour's grace has done a great deal in the matters for which we have come here” (Epistolario, L. 75, p. 309).Google Scholar

9. Epistolano, L. 72, pp. 298–299. When the Florentine ambassadors finally arrived in Avignon they disavowed Catherine and did not make peace with Gregory XI. She then took advantage of her being in Avignon to press the pope to organize a crusade and return to Rome; she seems to have done this more by letter than by direct speech.Google Scholar

10. Preachers are described this way in Humbert of Romans' “Treatise on the Formation of preachers”: “sowers,” p. 187; “workmen,” “traders,” p. 193.Google Scholar

11. Leltere, L. 121, 2:200–201.Google Scholar

12. For women's exclusion from Italian city, guild, and confraternity leadership (and often membership), see Richard, Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1980), pp. 14–16;Google ScholarDavid, Herlihy, “Women and the Sources of Medieval History: The Towns of Northern Italy,” in Joel, T. Rosenthal, ed., Medieval Women and the Sources of Medieval History (Athens, 1990), pp. 133–154, esp. pp. 135 and 148 n. 9.Google ScholarOn the work of Tuscan country women, see Gabriella, Piccinni, “Le donne nella mezzadria toscana delle origini. Materiali per la definizione del ruolo femminile nelle campagne,” in Ricerche stonche (Gennaio-aprile 1985): 127–182, esp. pp. 137–144.Google Scholar

13. For secular Italian attitudes restricting the movements of women, see comments by Paolo da Certaldo in Branca, Vittore, ed., I mercanti scrittori (Milan, 1986), pp. 25–26, 36–37, 59.Google ScholarFor the medieval church's prohibition of women's religious teaching and preaching (Ivo of Chartres, Innocent III, Thomas Aquinas), see Sharon, Farmer, “Persuasive Voices: Clerical Images of Medieval Wives” in Speculum 61 (1986): 5178–543, esp. pp. 519–520.Google ScholarSee also Herbert, Grundmann, Movimenti religiosi nel Medioevo (Bologna, 1974).,Google Scholar

14. For the medieval understanding that male preaching is effective in converting souls only if it is inspired by divine grace, see Farmer, pp. 539–540.Google ScholarSignificantly, in appropriating this notion for her own speech, Catherine implies that the divine help she needs does not take a more miraculous, prophetic, or extraordinary supernatural form than that required for any other human endeavor to be successful.Google Scholar

15. Letlere, L. 267, 4: 146.Google Scholar

16. For a similar case of Catherine's advising a female disciple to trust that God would change the mind of a superior and allow her to engage in a more active apostolate, see Lettere, L. 316 to Daniella of Orvieto, 5:40–41.Google Scholar

17. It is no accident that Catherine's main “mystical” and “theological” treatise, her Dialogue of Divine Providence, takes the form of a dialogue between God and the soul. She experiences God mainly through speech.Google Scholar

18. Lettere, L. 122, 2: 206.Google Scholar

19. Caroline Bynum has argued that for Catherine “suffering was serving”: Holy Feast, p. 179. See also pp. 246, 294–296 for an illuminating discussion of suffering as spiritual “opportunity.” However, rather than emphasize only fasting and the other ascetic practices which were highly valued in her time, I think Catherine saw the apostolate, with all of its physical exertions and mental fatica, as the best opportunity for “suffering as service.” She considered such suffering to be a form of apostolic prayer, but she also appreciated its practical utilita, its direct impact on peace, church reform, and the salvation of individuals.Google Scholar

20. Lettere, L. 61, 1: 227.Google Scholar

21. Leltere, L. 165, 3: 45–46.Google Scholar

22. Lettere, L. 117, 2: 185.Google Scholar

23. Dialogo, chs. 73–74.Google Scholar

24. See Lettere, L. 316 to Daniella of Orvieto, 5: 40–41.Google Scholar

25. Legenda Major, p. 881, col. 2-p. 882, col. 1; pp. 901–902.Google Scholar

26. For this reason it may be necessary to qualify the view that Catherine's success was due to her prophetic identity. See Claudio, Leonardi, “Caterina da Siena, mistica e profetessa” in Maffei, Simposio Internationale, pp. 155–172;Google ScholarAndre, Vauchez, “Sainte Brigitte de Suede et sante Catherine de Sienne: mystique et prophetisme feminins aux derniers siecles du moyen age,” in La vie spiriluelle (1980): 777–792.Google Scholar

27. Laurent, M. H., ed., Documenti, pp. 36–39, 44–45.Google Scholar

28. Bynum, , Holy Feast, p. 24.Google Scholar

29. Legenda Major, p. 883, col. 2.Google Scholar

30. Scott, , “Not Only with Words,” ch. 7.Google Scholar