Courting Sanctity: Holy Women and the Capetians

by Sean L. Field

Overview

The rise of the Capetian dynasty across the long thirteenth century, which rested in part on the family's perceived sanctity, is a story most often told through the actions of male figures, from Louis IX's metamorphosis into "Saint Louis" to Philip IV's attacks on Pope Boniface VIII. In Courting Sanctity, Sean L. Field argues that, in fact, holy women were central to the Capetian's self-presentation as being uniquely favored by God. Tracing the shifting relationship between holy women and the French royal court, he shows that the roles and influence of these women were questioned and reshaped under Philip III and increasingly assumed to pose physical, spiritual, and political threats by the time of Philip IV's death.

Field's narrative highlights six holy women. The saintly reputations of Isabelle of France and Douceline of Digne helped to crystalize the Capetians' claims of divine favor by 1260. In the 1270s, the French court faced a crisis that centered on the testimony of Elizabeth of Spalbeek, a visionary holy woman from the Low Countries. After 1300, the arrests and interrogations of Paupertas of Metz, Margueronne of Bellevillette, and Marguerite Porete served to bolster Philip IV's crusades against the dangers supposedly threatening the kingdom of France. Courting Sanctity thus reassesses key turning points in the ascent of the "most Christian" Capetian court through examinations of the lives and images of the holy women that the court sanctified or defamed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501736216
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sean L. Field is Professor of History at the University of Vermont. He is the author, editor, or translator of nine previous books, including, most recently, Late Medieval Heresy, Visions of Sainthood in Medieval Rome, and The Sanctity of Louis IX.

Table of Contents

List of Maps
Preface
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Part One: Creation
Prologue: The Rise of Capetian Sanctity and the Reign of Louis IX
1. Isabelle of France: A Holy Woman at the Heart of the Capetian Court
2. Douceline of Digne: Co-mother to the Capetians
Part Two: Interrogation
Prologue: A Crisis in the Reign of Philip III
3. Elizabeth of Spalbeek: A Prince's Death, a Queen's Crime, and a King's Sin
4. Writing Holy Women, 1282–85
Part Three: Destruction
Prologue: The Culminating Reign of Philip IV
5. Paupertas of Metz: Peacemaker, Prophet, or Poisoner?
6. Marguerite Porete and Margueronne of Bellevillette: The Beguine and the Sorceress
Epilogue: Echoes and Afterlives
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Anne E. Lester

Courting Sanctity is, as is characteristic of Sean L. Field's research, impressive, meticulous, detailed, and carefully stitched together. The book explores how power and holiness intersect through the fates of six women.

William Chester Jordan

Sean L. Field is one of the foremost historians working on Capetian France and female sanctity, the two themes that come together in this ambitious, clear, and compelling book.

Miri Rubin

Throughout the thirteenth century French royals habitually sought out, consulted, and took comfort from charismatic religious women. Yet by the next century such relationships had become discredited, resulting in political scandal, and in mortal danger for the inspiring women involved. In telling this story Sean Field weaves together religion and politics as no historian has done before. Courting Sanctity is an impressive contribution to our understanding of how–and at what cost–these spheres coincided in late medieval Europe.

Editorial Reviews

Courting Sanctity is a handsome volume with a beautifully edited text, as well as that rarest of pleasures for the reader—actual notes at the bottom of the page. It also boasts a splendid bibliography and a useful index. Once again, we benefit from Field's ability to conceptualize complicated historical events and to lay them for us out in lucid prose.

Royal Studies Journal

In an elegantly written book, Field (Univ. of Vermont) takes readers through the complexities of politics and personal ambitions to better understand Philip IV's relationships with Boniface VIII, the Templars, and the Jews.

Choice

Courting Sanctity is compulsively readable, a tour de force in its integration of religious and political histories.

SPECULUM

Courting Sanctity will cement Sean Field's reputation as one of our leading contemporary authorities on the later Capetians. This is not only a thoroughly convincing study but a notable pleasure to read, being exceptionally well written. It combines meticulous source analysis with a lightness of prose that reminded me of Sir Steven Runciman at his best. Courting Sanctity is, in short, that rarest of beasts: a good academic book.

The Medieval Review

With this engaging and thought-provoking study of the political and spiritual intersections between the thirteenth-century Capetian royal family and contemporary Flemish and French female mystics, seers, and ascetics, Sean L. Field solidifies his standing as one of the leading scholars of women and sanctity in medieval France. This work, like his earlier work, is an extraordinarily comprehensive and erudite work of scholarship.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

"Throughout the thirteenth century French royals habitually sought out, consulted, and took comfort from charismatic religious women. Yet by the next century such relationships had become discredited, resulting in political scandal, and in mortal danger for the inspiring women involved. In telling this story Sean Field weaves together religion and politics as no historian has done before. Courting Sanctity is an impressive contribution to our understanding of how–and at what cost–these spheres coincided in late medieval Europe."

Miri Rubin

"Sean L. Field is one of the foremost historians working on Capetian France and female sanctity, the two themes that come together in this ambitious, clear, and compelling book."

William Chester Jordan

"Courting Sanctity is, as is characteristic of Sean L. Field's research, impressive, meticulous, detailed, and carefully stitched together. The book explores how power and holiness intersect through the fates of six women."

Anne E. Lester