Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500-1100

by Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg

Overview

In this remarkable study of over 2,200 female and male saints, Jane Schulenburg explores women's status and experience in early medieval society and in the Church by examining factors such as family wealth and power, patronage, monasticism, virginity, and motherhood. The result is a unique depiction of the lives of these strong, creative, independent-minded women who achieved a visibility in their society that led to recognition of sanctity.

"A tremendous piece of scholarship. . . . This journey through more than 2,000 saints is anything but dull. Along the way, Schulenburg informs our ideas regarding the role of saints in the medieval psyche, gender-specific identification, and the heroics of virginity." —Library Journal

"[This book] will be a kind of 'roots' experience for some readers. They will hear the voices, haunted and haunting, of their distant ancestors and understand more about themselves." —Christian Science Monitor

"This fascinating book reaches far beyond the history of Christianity to recreate the 'herstory' of a whole gender." —Kate Saunders, The Independent

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226518992
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	06/29/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	595
File size:	20 MB
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About the Author

Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg is a professor of history in the Department of Liberal Studies, Division of Continuing Studies, Women's Studies, and Medieval Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

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CHAPTER 1

Saints' Lives as a Source for the History of Women, ca. 500–1100

Our sources for the years 500–1100 are incomplete, fragmentary, and rather limited. Hagiography, the most common and prolific form of writing during this early period, is frequently the only source to have survived in any substantial quantity. While the chronicles, histories, laws, charters, wills, contracts, correspondence, heroic epics, poems, art and archaeological evidence, and other sources of the time provide glimpses of women in medieval society, saints' Lives hold a remarkable potential for historians of medieval women. The vitae focus a great deal of attention on women. They are directly concerned with female roles in the Church and society: they also provide contemporary perceptions, ideals, and valuations of women. The sheer numbers of extant female and male Lives (quantities unlike those of any other source) afford us the extraordinary opportunity to observe broad patterns of change across the centuries and to discern shifts in access to power and sainthood, ideals of saintly behavior, and the construction and manipulation of sanctity as related to gender. Saints' vitae provide an excellent condensing lens (although filtered and not without its own particular perspective) through which to view medieval perceptions of women as well as various indices of women's opportunities, experiences, and lives.

Yet it is necessary to note that hagiographers were not necessarily historians or biographers. Their works were panegyrics, conscious programs of persuasion or propaganda, meant to prove the particular sanctity of their protagonists. Frequently motivated by the particular interests of the monasteries or churches which claimed the holy dead as their patrons and possessed their relics, hagiographers attempted to demonstrate the efficacy of their saints and their exceptional worth as special friends of God.

Delehaye, in his classic study Les Légendes hagiographiques (1906), warned scholars that "the important thing to be emphasized at the outset is the distinction between hagiography and history. The work of the hagiographer may be historical, but it is not necessarily so. It may take any literary form suited to honoring the saints, from an official record adapted to the needs of the faithful to a highly exuberant poem that is completely removed from factual reality." Kathleen Hughes has argued in her study of sources of early Christian Ireland,

Hagiography is not history. The author is not concerned to establish a correct chronology. He is not interested in assembling and examining evidence and coming to a conclusion which takes all the evidence into account. He is rather writing the panegyric of a saint, stressing in particular his holy way of life and the supernatural phenomena which attended it. Sometimes the aim is didactic, sometimes more crudely financial. What he praises will depend on his audience and on the society for which he is writing. Hagiography will thus give reliable contemporary evidence about the aspirations and culture of a people.

Also David Rollason in his work The Mildrith Legend: A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England has noted in regard to hagiography, history, and the study of medieval society:

Far from being primarily a devotional genre out of touch with life beyond the monastery's or church's walls, hagiography appears as intimately concerned with wider attitudes and aspirations, a living genre which in some cases may have as much claim to have been in touch with the society in which it was written or read as medieval historical writing itself. The cults too appear as intimately connected with that society, although in a subsidiary role.

Saints' Lives thus present incredible richness and an untapped wealth of information for historians studying early medieval society.

TWO SAMPLE LIVES

At the outset it might be useful to provide a preliminary sketch or brief synopsis of the lives of two women saints: one who lived at the beginning and the other at the end of the period under consideration in this study. It is hoped that this exercise will help the reader to make sense of how the disparate details related in this and the following chapters fit together to form the life of a mulier sancta.

The first case study is that of the famous sixth-century Frankish saint Radegund (ca. 520/25–87). The life of this queen-saint is one of the best documented of this early period. Two contemporary saints' Lives, as well as Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks and the Glory of the Confessors, describe the events of Radegund's life as royal ascetic and model nun. These works, then, represent the Merovingian cultural tradition of hagiography.

Radegund was the daughter of Bertechar, king of Thuringia. Captured by the Franks during a war with the Thuringians, Radegund and her young brother were taken as prisoners by Clothar and brought up at the royal court at Athies in the Vermandois (Picardy). There she received her early education. Already as a child Radegund showed a predilection toward saintly activities. She discussed with the other children her desire to become a martyr if the opportunity presented itself. At approximately eighteen years of age, learning of her impending marriage to the king, Radegund fled from the court with a few companions. She was captured, however, and married to King Clothar (who was in his forties and had been married several times before). During her marriage, Radegund led a double life: that of a queen and a nun manqué. She practiced a life of extreme austerities and self-mortification: under her royal garments she wore a haircloth; she fasted and spent her nights outside of the royal bed prostrated in prayer on the cold stone floor. Charitable activities occupied a major part of Radegund's life as a queen-saint. She built a hospital at Athies for indigent women and personally cared for the sick and poor. Around the year 550, Clothar had Radegund's brother, of whom she was very fond, killed. Shortly thereafter the queen, probably in her late twenties and no longer able to tolerate the marriage, left her husband. She went to Noyon and begged Bishop Medard to give her the veil and consecrate her as a deaconess. After leaving Noyon she went on pilgrimage to Tours where she visited the tomb of St. Martin; she also established in this city a monastery for men. She then went to Candes where St. Martin had died. At each of these places she divested herself of her royal garments and jewels, which were divided among the churches and the poor. She then went to live on her dower or morgengabe lands at Saix. Here she followed an ascetic life devoted to charity: dispensing alms, caring for the sick and lepers. After learning that the king wanted to take her back as his wife, Radegund fled from Saix to Poitiers. It was in Poitiers that she founded a monastery for women, originally dedicated to Notre Dame. (After the acquisition of her prized relic of the Holy Cross brought from Constantinople, the name of the monastery was changed to Ste-Croix.) Under Radegund's influence as royal founder/patron, spiritual leader, and charismatic figure, Ste-Croix became a very popular monastic foundation. Although retired from the court, and formally adopting the Rule of Caesarius of Arles and the cloistered life of a nun at Ste-Croix, Radegund was not cut off from the world; rather, she maintained an active involvement and interest in the activities and politics of the period. She was especially dedicated to peacemaking efforts in the Frankish kingdom. During her years in the monastery, Radegund regularly retired to a private cell where she multiplied her austerities, which included self-inflicted bodily tortures. She also experienced a number of visions and brought about several miracles; even during her lifetime, she was recognized as a saint. At her death in 587, at the age of approximately sixty-two to sixty-seven years, there were some two hundred nuns in Radegund's community. Her style of piety or program of sanctity as queen and monastic saint was ascetic and antimatrimonial, with an emphasis on such themes as the militia spiritualis, regina ancilla, and "martyre non sanglant." Her Life would provide an important exemplum for royal and aristocratic women of the following centuries and would become a model, with different inflections, for, among others, the Lives of Sts. Balthild, Mathilda, and Margaret of Scotland.

The second case study concerns another queen-saint, Margaret of Scotland (1046–93), who lived at the end of the period under consideration in this study. Her remarkable biography was written by her contemporary and confidant, Turgot, prior of Durham and bishop of St. Andrews. One of the last survivors of Anglo-Saxon royalty, Margaret was the daughter of Edward the Atheling and the granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside. While England was under the rule of Danish Kings, Edward the Atheling and his family found asylum in Hungary, at the king-saint Stephen's newly converted court, and it was here that Margaret spent her early years. In 1057 Margaret and her family were recalled to Britain and spent some nine years at the court of Edward the Confessor. With the Norman Conquest, this Anglo-Saxon princess, along with her mother, sister, and brother, fled for safety to the court of the king of Scotland. In 1070 Margaret married Malcolm III, king of Scotland, and from this marriage, which was described as successful and happy, there came six sons and two daughters.

In her public role as queen, Margaret assumed a prominent, truly collaborative position as partner and indispensable counselor of the king. She was involved in improving the image and honor of the royal court. She encouraged the business of foreign merchants. She played a significant role as a supporter of Gregorian reform policies in Scotland and occupied a prominent position in the reform councils of the period. The queen was also active as a generous patron of the Church and founded or restored a number of monasteries and churches. Dunfermline, one of her major foundations, was built to serve as a mausoleum for the royal family. In her role as queen, one of her main tasks involved dispensing charity to the poor, and she was also passionately occupied with freeing Anglo-Saxon captives. Another of her projects was providing hostels, as well as ships, for pilgrims traveling to St. Andrews.

While her public role as queen and generous donor afforded Margaret much visibility in the spheres of politics and religion, the saint was also recognized for her strong and positive influence as wife and mother. Unlike Radegund, Margaret did not retire to a monastery and become a nun, but lived out her life in the secular world, at court. King Malcolm was very much under the queen's influence and "what she rejected, he rejected ... what she loved, he for love of her loved too." While Margaret was well educated and an avid collector of books, Malcolm, on the other hand, could not read. In order to please his wife, the king would have her favorite books covered with gold, silver, and jewels. Margaret was also very much preoccupied with her children and concerned with their proper upbringing and education. And it is under her influence that the Scottish court during this period has been described as "something of a nursery of saints." The careers of a number of her children reflect the continuity of Margaret's interest in the conduct of church life as well as her good works and practical piety. While publicly adhering to the requirements of the life of the court, Margaret, in the tradition of St. Radegund, and influenced by the Benedictine Rule, followed a quasi-monastic life of humility and austerity, marked by long fasts and vigils. Shortly before her death in 1093, worn out by excessive fasting, as well as a long illness filled with suffering, Margaret learned that both her husband and son had been killed in a military expedition against William Rufus. The queen was then buried alongside of her husband in her beloved church at Dunfermline. Her vita, in contrast to that of Radegund, emphasizes the conjugal comportment of the queen as one of the main factors of her fama sanctitatis.

After these brief outlines of the lives of two major women saints of this period, it is necessary to take a look at the vitae collectively, their purpose, and their audience.

THE VITA: PURPOSE AND AUDIENCE

In Sociologie et canonisations, Pierre Delooz emphasizes the fact that one is only a saint "for others" as well as "by others." That is, the value of sanctity is first of all situated in the collective memory of the community; it is the saintly reputation recognized by one's peers that is of primary importance. Second, one becomes a recognized saint only as a result of the energetic expression of this opinion, namely through a pressure group which formulates a public cult. Therefore, in the process of the "making of a saint," it was of primary importance to procure a worthy propagandist or biographer to redact a vita of the candidate for sainthood, for it was this dossier of the holy dead that became the main official vehicle by which the saintly reputation was transformed into a public cult. Over time, the vita also served the very important historical function of keeping alive the memory of the saint and inspired among the faithful an expectation of the saint's miraculous power. As noted by Thomas Head in his work Hagiography and the Cult of Saints: The Diocese of Orleans, 800–1200:

Without the memory of the saints contained in stories — both those stories which the authors 'set down on pages' and the oral traditions on which they depended — the relics would have been simply bones and ashes buried in the earth rather than holy persons alive in the community. Their audience used the stories told about the saints to interpret the relics of those saints. Miracles were crucial to this hermeneutic interaction of relics, text, and audience. As evidence of a close relationship with God, they served as an authentication of sanctity.

The alleged purpose or expressed end of all saints' Lives was, however, pastoral and didactic: to edify the faithful, to teach Christian virtue, and strengthen Christian resolve. According to Delehaye, "To be strictly hagiographical the document must be of a religious character and aim at edification. The term, then, must be confined to writings inspired by religious devotion to the saints and intended to increase that devotion." The Church hoped that through the use of exempla, or models of saintly behavior, the faithful might modify their behavior or bring about "conversions" in their own spiritually deficient lives. Many of the saints' Lives specifically mention edification as their primary purpose. The prologue of the vita of St. Gertrude of Nivelles noted that "we believe and we hold with steadfast and inviolate faith, that it will help those who seek the road to the heavenly fatherland and utterly to relinquish earthly profit in order to win the eternal prize, if I strive to record in writing or preaching some small part of the lives and conduct of holy men and women, virgins of Christ, for the advancement and edification of my neighbors. Thus the examples of holy virgins, men and women, who came before us may illuminate the darkness in our hearts with the flames of charity and the heat of holy compunction." The prologue to the Life of St. Balthild stressed that, rather than being addressed primarily to scholars, the vita, through its "plain and open style" was to be accessible for the advancement and edification of the many. In his vita of St. Aldegund, Hucbald of St. Amand wrote, "Behold, here you have the deeds of a saint which you have read or heard piously that you may imitate them. ... Therefore, imitate what you have read. Live as she lived. Walk as she walked and there is no doubt that you will go where she has gone with the help of the Creator who works His mercy in His saints and gives virtue and fortitude to His people." Similarly, the prologue to the Life of St. Waldetrude concluded, "so we draw examples from the lives of holy men and women who preceded us on this road, led by grace, and left their own footprints behind. Thus all that may have seemed impossible to them has been made easy to the hopeful who can see how others made the same crossing. Often, the saint's example excites the hearts of the sluggish and torpid to love of God and desire for eternal life better than preaching." The author of the Life of St. Leoba also mentioned the instructive purpose of his work: this vita was dedicated to Hadamout in order that she "may have something to read with pleasure and imitate with profit." At the end of the letter of dedication to the vita of Adelaide, the author, Odilo, abbot of Cluny, noted that the work was to be a speculum reginarum, a mirror or model of conduct for queens and princesses. Through his description of the empress's exalted deeds, they were to follow the saint on roads of honesty; moreover, the work was to serve as an exemplum for queens or sovereigns especially dedicated to the cura domestica. The vita of St. Margaret of Scotland was commissioned by and dedicated to Margaret's daughter, Queen Matilda II (wife of Henry I of England). The author, Turgot, addressed her, saying "[you desired] not only to hear of the life of the queen your mother, who ever aspired to the realm of angels, but also to have it constantly before you in writing: so that, although you knew but little your mother's face, you may have more fully the knowledge of her virtues." As Lois Huneycutt has observed, the Life of St. Margaret was a didactic work, a "teaching text," and it served as an exemplum or model: it provided ideals of queenly deportment, a pattern of behavior for Matilda to follow. Honeycutt notes:

The ideals presented in the Life of St Margaret and reinforced in the other literature written for Matilda were reflected in her behaviour. And, although this behaviour could have arisen independently of the vita, Matilda's clear interest in her ancestry makes it likely that she did indeed commission and read the biography, then patterned herself after the mother presented so compellingly in the Life.

(Continues…)

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1: Saints' Lives as a Source for the History of Women, ca. 500-1100
2: The Making of the Mulier Sancta: Public and Private Roles
3: At What Cost Virginity? Sanctity and the Heroics of Virginity
4: Marriage and Domestic Proselytization
5: "Golden Wombs": Motherhood and Sanctity
6: Sorores Sanctae and Their Saintly Siblings: Terrestrial and Celestial Bonds
7: Gender Relationships and Circles of Friendship among the Mulieres Sanctae
8: Longevity, Death, and Sanctity: A Demographic Survey of the Celestial Gynaeceum
Epilogue: The Celestial Gynaeceum
Abbreviations
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index