Huanan Lu, “Marguerite Porete et l’enquête de 1323 sur le béguinage Sainte-Élisabeth de Valenciennes,” Revue du Nord 3, no. 440 (2021): 451–85.
Summarised in English by Joseph George Akl.
There have long been hypotheses on Marguerite Porete’s origins. Called a beguina de Hannonia in the inquisitional records, Marguerite is often held by historians, without prior evidence, to have had contacts with the beguinage of Sainte-Élisabeth in Valenciennes. It is in Valenciennes where Marguerite first appears when her book is burned in the autumn of 1305 or 1306 by Gui de Collemezzo, bishop of Cambrai. This article uses a fourteenth-century inquisition held at Sainte-Élisabeth to substantiate the claim that Marguerite Porete was indeed once member of this community.
The Inquisitions of Beguinal Life
The Clementine Decrees (Cum de quibusdam mulieribus and Ad nostrum), published formally by John XXII in 1317, condemned the beguinal life (status beguinarum) and call for the suppression of this lifestyle, but not where these women lived “honestly in their convents” (honeste in suis conversantes hospitiis). It appears that the investigations that resulted from these bulls were less intense in northern Europe, particularly in the southern Low Countries, than in the north-east of the Empire. Moreover, contrary to the individual nature of the German inquisitions, northern European investigations focused on entire beguinal communities. To clarify the bulls, in 1320, John XXII began sending the bull Cum de mulieribus to various bishops, in which he requested that they undertake investigations of the beguines in their jurisdictions without troubling the good beguines. In this letter he also specified that honest beguines were to be protected from harassment.
The inquisitorial records of Cambrai are more complete than those of the surrounding bishoprics. Pierre de Lévis-Mirepoix, bishop of Cambrai, received the bull Cum de mulieribus on December 30th, 1320, however he did not undertake any investigation until 1323. On the 28th of July of that year, he appointed the Premonstratensian Godefroy II de Bavay, abbot of Vicoigne as the sole investigator. Godefroy then began his investigatio on the 4th of August 1323 and then, the beguines are officially pronounced to be orthodox.
The Beguinage of Sainte-Élisabeth of Valenciennes
The beguinage was founded in 1239 and had grown steadily throughout the thirteenth century to become its own parish in 1254 with a hospital, church, convent, houses, mill, and a school. Unlike what has been claimed by Walter Simons, it does not seem that the beguines of Sainte-Élisabeth were in decline following the Clementine Decrees; They continued to call themselves “beguines” and had an increasing amount of communication with other religious and lay institutions in the city during this period. Furthermore, the count of Hainaut’s family continued to protect the community and the countess, Jeanne de Valois, reconfirmed the donation of a house to the community made by a previous countess in 1269.
The Inquisitional Records
All our information concerning the investigatio of 1323 is provided to us through one document, numbered as 40 H 552/1336, and held in the Archives départementales du Nord in Lille. The document lists all the actors and witnesses in the investigation and demonstrates the protection from which the beguinage benefitted. Moreover, all of these are local. Amongst the many named are the countess Jeanne de Valois and her two daughters, six Dominicans, four Franciscans, and the priests of the beguinage. The choice of Godefroy, the abbot of Vicoigne, as the sole prosecutor or inquisitor, is also of note as he was already the protector of the beguines of Valenciennes. This willingness to protect the beguines of Sainte-Élisabeth comes through in the rapidity of the process — he begins the investigation only a week after being told to do so by the bishop –, and through the manner in which he investigates. No individual examinations are held; instead the process seems to be more of a public meeting, in the presence of important figures, to reaffirm the orthodoxy of the beguinage. After speaking with the Dominicans and Franciscans who asserted the community’s obedience, humility, and chastity, Godefroy spoke with tres honestas mulieres (perhaps the sovereign and two mistresses of the community), duodecim alias mulieres of good reputation and then another alias viginti chosen by the former twelve. It is noteworthy that all the beguines were present at the investigatio even if not called upon.
The Mention of Marghoneta
These beguines were asked if they had ever discoursed on the Holy Trinity or on the divine essence, or if they had promulgated any beliefs contrary to the Catholic faith. They replied that there was once a certain Marghoneta, who had been executed for her beliefs, however, when she was with them, she never had the slightest follower in her beliefs.
Responderunt unanimi et supplici devotione quod non nisi solummodo de quadam que dum vivebat fuit nominata Marghoneta que ob sue culpe demerita deleta dicebatur, justicia exigente, adtamen inter ipsas illa Marghoneta nullam unquam prorsus habuit suarum sectatricem errorum.
This Marghoneta must in fact be Marguerite, which further advances the idea that the inquisition was simply a piece of theatre used to distance the beguinage from Marguerite Porete.
The name Marghoneta is not attested in contemporary sources from the Hainaut. Marguerite, however, is the name of some of the countesses of Hainaut and is very common in the region, with its variants (Margareta in Latin, or Margherite in Middle French which can be written Margrite). Marghoneta, might therefore be a diminutive of Marguerite, reserved for a woman of modest standing, while Marguerite was reserved for the beguines of higher social rank. This hypocorism adds an important element to the discussion of Marguerite’s social background.
While Marguerite’s social background may remain a mystery, what does not is Marguerite’s unwelcomeness in Valenciennes. No trace of her exists in the city archives, meaning she might have had a subaltern presence in the community and was never called upon to witness legal deeds. Furthermore, the beguines during the investigation call her “a certain woman named Marghoneta.” The absence of a family name and the phrasing place distance between the community and Marguerite. The beguines also speak about this unanimously, implying that is a commonly known fact. While we do not know how many beguines present at the investigation in 1323 would have been in the beguinage during Marguerite’s stay at the start of the fourteenth century, it is highly likely that some would have known her, such as Jeanne de Bavay, who lived in the community prior to 1299 and until 1350. Lastly, during Marguerite’s trials, her community is never by her side.
Godefroy’s Double Roles
Godefroy was not only the protector of the beguines in Valenciennes, he was also highly respected by both lay and religious institutions. He was advisor to Willliam I and William II, successive counts of Hainaut, a theologian, student of John of Tongres, represented the count in papal matters, and was called to the council of Vienne. He appears to have been sympathetic to the beguines’ cause.
Very shortly after the publication of the Clementine Decrees, prior to the investigation, the beguines of Sainte-Élisabeth elected new leaders, probably all new save Godefroy and Marie de Saint-Élier, respectively procurator and Grand Mistress. This choice demonstrates firstly that the beguines were shrewdly aware of the problems that could arise due to the decrees and hoped to stay ahead of any issues by choosing new leaders. Secondly, the choice of Godefroy, was foresighted due to his presence at the Council of Vienne.
The bishop of Cambrai also had his reasons to select Godefroy to execute the mission requested by the papacy. Cum de mulieribus speaks to rooting out bad beguines but also to protecting good beguines from any harassment. This proved to be challenging as it was not entirely clear precisely what the pope meant in the bull. The bishop was aware of the delicate situation on his hands as Marguerite’s previous presence could be an issue. He chose Sainte-Élisabeth as the first beguinage to investigate in his bishopric, three months before Brussels or Antwerp. This haste demonstrates his eagerness to settle the issue quickly. Furthermore, his choice of Godefroy as the sole investigator is also telling as in Brussels and Antwerp he relied on multiple officials from various religious institutions. Be it to please the count or the bishop, or out of sympathy for the beguines, Godefroy had no reason not to defend the beguines.
This investigation of Sainte-Élisabeth in 1323 in which over fifty people intervened, including all the beguines, their priests, members of the mendicant orders nearby, the countess and her daughters, provides us with not only a detailed model of a beguinal investigation. It also gives us the first trace of Marguerite Porete at Sainte-Élisabeth of Valenciennes, who was still being called Marghoneta.
One day will come, I can feel it, when these documents [on the Chapter of Remiremont] will be looked for and collected with care, and when people will even be astonished that they had been neglected for so long.[1]
One would expect that the best literary sources to teach us about secular canonesses would be their memoirs. It is telling of the way late eighteenth-century Chapters functioned, however, that not all such memoirs are informative. For a variety of reasons, some secular canonesses spent very little, if any, time in their communities.
Such was the case for Madame de Chasteney, a canoness (in name) at Épinal from age 14 in 1785 until the Chapter’s dissolution during the French Revolution. It is also true of the Baroness of Oberkirch, who expected a position in one of the three German Protestant Chapters by age 4 (in 1758) and was admitted by 1766; she mentions her admission en passant in her memoirs, merely to explain why someone called her a comtesse in 1769 – the title (and a stipend) had come with her (symbolic) admission.[2] At times, therefore, the title was purely honorary and financially rewarding, with no requirement to live in the Chapter.
This is not true of the memoirs of the Comtesse Marie Antoinette E. de Messey de Bielle (1778-1854): even though she never became a canoness in Remiremont, where she spent her childhood, she discusses life within the Lorraine Chapter at length in her roughly twenty-five-page-long work. Another motivation for writing was that the history of Remiremont in the second half of the eighteenth century was intertwined with the glory of the Duchy of Lorraine and three generations of her family’s women. When the French Revolution forced her and the canonesses of Remiremont to leave the Chapter, she became at some point a secular canoness in Munich, but does not even mention the fact. Her link to the Munich Chapter was probably only honorary and financially advantageous.
I know of two editions of her memoirs. The one used by most (if not all) scholars was compiled by a specialist of local religious history, the canon Charles Chapelier (d. 1924), under the erroneous title of Memoirs of … ex-canoness of Remiremont (abbreviated from now on as « Chapelier »).[3] There is also an anonymous and undated printed booklet, titled Deux chapitres-nobles et deux chanoinesses (Fig. 1), that focuses on her family, the Messeys, and includes the family genealogy at the end. It must have been published some fifteen years later, as the most recent date the editor mentions is 1902 (p. 65).
Fig. 1: anonymous and undated printed booklet with a revised version of of the Comtesse’s memoirs Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 8o Lm3 3228
The so-called Souvenirs occupy pages 11-33; I will refer to them from now on as « the Messey ». I believe these two editions were based on two distinct manuscripts of the memoirs, and the most recent (used for the second edition) presents a slightly updated version by the memorialist herself, the Comtesse.[4] The texts are available through Gallica and I will cite them when a passage is available in both editions, each easily distinguishable by its page numbers, in the 200s for Chapelier.
The Comtesse was writing (at least in the older version) for a niece, whom she addresses as “my dear child” (ma chère enfant: p. 11, 14, and 25; 243, 247 and 259). Chapelier suggests it was the wife of her nephew Gustave, as the latter is mentioned on p. 30 of the newer version, a section absent from Chapelier – and that the work is an “intimate talk” (intime causerie: p. 260, a sentence taken out of the most recent version, p. 25).
The Souvenirs are tinged with nostalgia for a disappeared world, and it is unlikely that pre-Revolutionary life at Remiremont was as idyllic as she portrays it. There were complex politics and social inequalities at play that would have been invisible to a child’s eyes. It is, nevertheless, a rich source of information, giving us a point of view at the threshold, between the inside and the outside, of the life of secular canonesses. The Comtesse’s situation was liminal because her aunt – who was a Remiremont canoness, and was planning to make her her Dame-niece – raised her in her own house within the Chapter (see Fig. 2). The Comtesse was there when she was about four years old – she remembers Princess Charlotte of Brionne who stayed for few months at Remiremont in 1782 when she became abbess – and perhaps even earlier.
Fig. 2: House of a secular canoness in Remiremont. Found on the website “Au Pays de Mes Ancêtres”
The Comtesse was being trained for a succession that never took place. In 1786, when the future Comtesse was eight years old, her aunt had to “adopt” the Prince de Condé’s daughter as her Dame-niece instead, so that the latter would become the new (and the last) abbess of the Chapter (p. 22-26 and p. 255-61). Her aunt’s sense of duty for her community (esprit de corps, p. 24 and p. 258) and the politics of Lorraine took precedence over family ties!
We find in the Souvenirs many of the themes already raised in an earlier blog. The magnificent performance of the secular canonesses’ liturgical celebrations, due to their striking clothing and the angelic looks of their younger members, is praised by the Comtesse, as Françoise Boquillon and Corinne Marchal (among other scholars) have already mentioned. The Comtesse’s point of view is here an external one, completing Guénard’s (whose novel was discussed in the earlier blog): she shows us the canonesses arriving in their choir with valets holding their long ermine-trimmed capes, and then the grille closing behind them without hiding them (p. 18-19 and p. 252-53): so close and magnificent, and yet untouchable…
She explains also how a very young voice sometimes sang unaccompanied, the child canoness moving alone, effortlessly, with her long cape, between the altar, the stalls, and the lectern while singing (p. 19 and p. 253-54). The future Comtesse obviously hoped for years to become one of these young voices behind the grille. It is also telling that she speaks of the liturgical activities of the canonesses frequently, already insisting upon it by the second page of her memoirs, when giving a historical and then structural overview of the Chapter and its activities. Here, the Comtesse’s point of reference is that of an insider. Obviously, her aunt attached importance to her religious activities as a Dame and transmitted this sentiment to her niece. Not all the canonesses necessarily viewed their positions in this religious light, but this text shows that at least some did.
Another key sentiment in the Souvenirs, possibly inherited or at least shared with her dear aunt, is one of “patriotism”: the Comtesse is very much attached to the distinct identity of Lorraine, first annexed to the Kingdom of France in 1738 and more definitely incorporated by 1766. Even though the memoirs were written decades after these events, they still resonate with the sadness of the Lotharingian nobility that had lost its independence from the French king.
The best example concerns the medallions that usually adorned the habits of all secular canonesses (seen in the illustrations of the previous blog). The Comtesse wrote that this adornment – acquired as recently as 1774 by Remiremont, thanks to a non-Lotharingian abbess – was resented by the canonesses, as it reminded them of the “new domination of France over the Chapters of the whole Lorraine” (p. 20). Indeed, the editor of the Messey explains in a note that the name of Louis XV was engraved on it; not something one would want to wear on one’s bosom if one was a patriot of Lorraine!
This fact brings us to an important theme within the Souvenirs and probably in the life of secular canonesses, at least in Remiremont: politics at all levels, not only regional (as we just saw two examples in relation to the Prince of Condé and the medallions), but also, to a lesser extent, European (for instance p. 16 and p. 249). It is worth highlighting this point: some of these women of the highest aristocracy were deeply interested in politics and played a role when necessary and possible.
Fig. 3: Portrait of Anne Charlotte de Lorraine, abbess of Remiremont (1738-1773), copy from the studio of Bernard Verschooten (1728-1783). Carlo Bonte’s auctions website.
The canonesses were also very concerned with the politics of the Chapter itself. The anonymous author who introduced the Messey considers collegiality (with the free election of the abbess) as one of the main characteristics of the noble Chapters:
The essential principle of the constitution of the aristocratic abbeys (insignes abbayes) remained intact throughout the ages: the government of chapters remained elective; the abbesses governed under the control and with the participation of the Chapter; their election was approved by the pope and their power moderated by collegiality.[5]
This is something of an exaggeration, since some Chapters did not control the election of their superior. Nevertheless, many passages of the Souvenirs demonstrate that the canonesses did have a significant say in the internal administration of the Chapter, including the admission of newcomers (p. 16-18 and p. 250-52), with the later edition adding an “in Chapter” (en plein Chapitre), as a key point in the description of the admission process, to avoid any ambiguity on the decision process. The Comtesse also took pains to explain what she meant by “Chapter” (the noble agrégation, which she calls elsewhere the “corporation”, p. 18 and p. 252) and “chapter”, the meeting space, reworking these passages between the two editions (p. 12 and p. 244, and p. 23 and p. 257), all proof that this collegial aspect was fundamental in her eyes. She insists as well on the significant territory it oversaw (Fig. 4) and the power the Chapter exerted, remaining silent on the prerogatives of the abbess (by choice or by ignorance, as her aunt had been a simple canoness):
[The Chapter] owned numerous lordships that depended solely on it and extended over a significant part of Lorraine. The French king did not send a garrison into the city of Remiremont, and his troops could not even cross the territory. The Chapter had high justice, that is, right of life and death. It had its police lieutenant, its civil officers, in one word, full and total jurisdiction… All matters of importance were deliberated by the Dames assembled in Chapter and resolved by them.[6]
Fig. 4: Map of the territories controlled by the Chapter (in blue) within the Duchy of Lorraine (pale yellow), in 1683. Drawn by Brostoler — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 4.0
Politics were always at play in these communities, with the canonesses always on their guard, always fighting for their rights.
I would like to end with what struck me the most in the Souvenirs: the Comtesse’s love for and pride in the way of life of the Chapter of Remiremont, sentiments she must have inherited from her aunt and ones that many canonesses likely felt for their own communities. This community (which she joined so young) was her family and her world; it is clear she would also have very much liked for it to have been her future.
She specifies that she called her aunt Mère (“Mother”, p. 13 and p. 246) and that the latter had “adopted” her (p. 15 and p. 248). Admission during childhood (likely leading to a strong sense of identity with the Chapter) may have been common: the only aunt of the author from whom we have a definitive date of birth, 1736, the eldest of all her aunts, had a stipend at Remiremont by 1744 (see the family tree in Messey, p. 62) and was, therefore, seven or eight at the oldest, when she joined. The Comtesse mentions as well “little Dames” aged between seven and twelve (p. 12 and p. 245); in fact, the last Remiremont canoness alive at the time she was writing was one who had been seven at the outbreak of the Revolution (p. 33 and p. 268).
Once a canoness had a stipend and her own house within the Chapter, she could adopt a Nièce de prébende (p. 17-18 and p. 251): the Comtesse’s aunt was no more than twenty-seven when she became a Mère for the Comtesse (even though the latter never became a Nièce de prébende in the end); these adoptions created one more tie between these women and their communities.[7] The same aunt also had three sisters in Remiremont (p. 14 and p. 247), and the memoirs mention a cousin (p. 13 and p. 246) and one “intimate friend … to whom she confided all her thoughts” (p. 23 and p. 257, p. 24 and p. 258).
We must, therefore, imagine a group of women of all ages, many close to each other by various ties, biological or not. The pride of the Comtesse for this way of life can be seen in her exclamation that of her five aunts who became canonesses, only one left to get married, and this was the one who went to Maubeuge, not Remiremont (p. 14 and p. 247)! She comes back to this issue later in her memoirs, saying: “in general, these Dames of Remiremont did not get married or only rarely; their status was so agreeable (agréable) and beautiful that they were little disposed to change it for another” (p. 20 and p. 254). As was the case with her aunt, her love for the Chapter was greater than the one for her biological family: her mentions of her father and uncles are sparse.
I hope these few lines will have convinced you to read the Comtesse’s Souvenirs, especially in its latest rendering, as it offers an unparalleled foray into the life of secular canonesses in the late eighteenth century. We can see the little Comtesse playing alone in a room on the ground floor of her aunt’s house while the latter, unwell, is saying her canonical hours at home (p. 22 and p. 256), or imagine them taking strolls in the countryside outside the Chapter (p. 11 and p. 243). I know many women today who could project themselves easily in such a world, but alas almost none would have the necessary pedigree!
[1] “…un jour viendra, je le pressens, où ces documents [sur le Chapitre de Remiremont] seront précieusement recherchés et recueillis, où l’on s’étonnera même de les avoir négligés aussi longtemps.” Marie Antoinette E. de Messey de Bielle, Souvenirs, in Deux chapitres-nobles et deux chanoinesses (Besançon: Impr. de l’Est. S.d.), p. 11.
[2] Madame de Chasteney. Mémoires de Madame de Chasteney, ed. A. Roserot. Paris, 1896; see Françoise Boquillon, “La religion des chanoinesses nobles à travers leurs écrits”, L’écriture du croyant 125 (2005) 93. Henriette Louise (von Waldner) baronne d’Oberkirch. Mémoires de la baronne d’Oberkirch sur la cour de Louis XVI et la société française avant 1789, ed. Suzanne Burkard. Paris: Mercure de France, 1970.
[4] A good example of the differences between both texts concerns the descriptions of the two highest in hierarchy after the abbess: the doyenne and the secrète. The passage in the Messey (p. 11) clarifies the tasks of the latter in comparison to the same passage in Chapelier (p. 245-46). One proof that the changes were made by the Comtesse is her comment about her father, which is present only in the most recent version (mon père, p. 15). The overall differences are not major, except in the last pages dedicated to the French Revolution, which are laden with anguish. In the later version, many sections have been moved around, and additional family and military details added. In one case, it was a conscious choice on the part of Chapelier not to cite a specific episode; he inserted instead two sets of three points (p. 29 vs 264). The absence of such signal of omission for the other missing passages indicates, I think, that they were absent from the manuscript used by Chapelier. Except for the first and last two pages, the informative footnotes in the two editions are also different. Probably, the second editor knew of Chapelier’s text, but created a new version, specifically for the extended Messey family, based on a different manuscript.
[5] “Le principe essentiel de la constitution des abbayes insignes demeura intact dans le cours des âges: le gouvernement des chapitres resta électif; les abbesses gouvernèrent sous le contrôle et avec le concours du Chapitre; leur élection était approuvée par le Saint-Siège et leur pouvoir modéré par la collégialité.” (Messey, “L’Abbaye de Remiremont”, p. 5-6).
[6] “Il possédait de nombreuses seigneuries qui ne relevaient que de lui seul et s’étendaient sur une forte partie de la Lorraine. Le roi de France n’envoyait point de garnison dans la ville de Remiremont, et ses troupes ne pouvaient même passer sur le territoire. Le Chapitre avait la haute justice, c’est-à-dire droit de vie et de mort. Il avait son lieutenant de police, ses officiers-civils, en un mot, une pleine et entière juridiction… Dans toutes les affaires importantes, les délibérations étaient tenues par les Dames assemblées en Chapitre et résolues par elles” (p. 16 and p. 249). There is an interesting footnote in Messey (p. 16), absent from Chapelier, explaining how the abbess could exercise pardon over some prisoners, for Easter, Rogations and the vigil of the Saint-Barthelemy; they would then join the barefoot procession to the collegial church.
[7] I calculated that the aunt had turned fifteen at the earliest in 1770 when her own aunt died (p. 15 and p. 248).
Religious women who were not cloistered were called beguines in the north of the German-speaking countries, and sisters or Seelfrauen in the south of this region. These women were found in almost every town and even in the countryside. One of their characteristics was that they did not establish overarching institutions or joint leadership, neither on a local nor on a supra-local level.
Two Beguines. Church St Agnes of the Beguinage, Sint-Truiden (Belgium), detail of a fresco. Picture taken by Letha Böhringer
However, there is an exception to every rule. It has been known for quite a while that the sisters of an independent community in Schweidnitz (in medieval Silesia, today Świdnica in Poland) formed a network with convents at Breslau/Wrocław, Erfurt and Leipzig; the sisters moved between the houses, and they seem to have supported each other by transferring money in case of need. The Schweidnitz sisters were interrogated by a committee of inquisitors in 1332, and the inquisition protocol reveals many aspects of the community’s inner life and the attitude of the sisters. One detail, though, remained obscure: the sisters refer to themselves as the daughters of Udyllindis. They had no explanation of who she was; she does not seem to have been the foundress of the convent, but rather an inspirational charismatic figure.
Preparing a new edition of the inquisition protocol, the editors contacted me in order to check the prosopographic material of my database which contains more than 2100 names of beguines living in Cologne between 1223 and ca. 1400.
Cologne housed a great number of beguines and convents during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and its citizens produced a huge amount of written record. In addition to testaments and charters, the citizens kept so-called Schreinsbücher (official record books kept in cabinets, i.e. Schreine) which resemble modern land registers. Apart from transactions concerning real estate, they also contained donations to and foundations of beguine convents.
Example of a Schreinsbuch. Website of the École des Chartes.
My database documents thousands of such entries and evidence from charters and other sources. After publishing about a dozen articles from this material, I am currently writing a monograph on the beguines of Cologne supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The grant also provides for assistance from the Cologne Center for eHumanities, especially the help of a post-graduate specialist, Jan Bigalke, who modulates the database to make it open access on the internet.
My data provides key material for the identification of the Schweidnitz figure of Udyllindis. In 1291, a woman who called herself Odelindis from Pyritz (in the medieval duchy of Pomerania, today Pyrzyce in Poland), founded her own convent in Cologne which she headed as the Magistra. This convent was the first of about a dozen communities which were quickly singled out by their contemporaries as different from earlier beguinages: these beguines were called swesteren/swestrisse/ swestriones in the German vernacular, and they exercised strict poverty in their convents. Therefore, they were also called willige Arme, the “voluntary poor”. As third time’s the charm, another trace of Udyllindis/Odelindis was found via a research network which I co-founded (Agfem). Preparing her thesis on the beguines of Eastern Swabia, Barbara Baumeister discovered a similar name in charters of around 1350: a community of poor sisters called themselves the sisters of Udelhild.
Not only the obvious similarity of the names, which are not very common ones, but also characteristic features of the convents point to common origins. We know of quite a few women who travelled great distances in order to join one of these convents. The houses in Cologne and Augsburg were acquired from their own money, without patrons or benefactors. All the women organized themselves as associations based on an oath (Schwurverband) called unio in Latin or Einung in German. The novices pledged allegiance to the ideals of strict poverty and obedience. The sisters were well respected by their neighbors and received donations. We do not know why, suddenly, they were persecuted in Schweidnitz and, it seems, their house was dissolved; there was obviously some internal strife which might have instigated the inquisition. The convent in Cologne eventually became a member of the Cellite order, and the Augsburg sisters became Dominican sisters around 1700, whose monastery exists to this day.
The discovery of Odelind’s network of voluntary poor sisters gives insight on how a “movement” was formed and spread over great distances. Her congregation is a phenomenon never described before: independent women travelling the trade routes from city to city, forming convents according to their own rules and ideals, from their own money, distanced from local clergy and authorities, and respected by their contemporaries. They constitute an intriguing group and show what women in the later Middle Ages were capable of self-governance and independence, and could have the determination to live lives according to their own desires and designs.
Forthcoming:
Letha Böhringer, “The Swesteren of Piritz and of Cologne and their European Context,” in The Beguines of Medieval Świdnica: the Interrogation of the ‘Daughters of Odelindis’ in 1332, ed. by Tomasz Gałuszka and Paveł Kras (Heresy and Inquisition in the Middle Ages). York, 2023.
In German: Letha Böhringer, “Die Schwestern und Töchter der Odelind von Pyritz. Ein überregionales Netzwerk von Beginen im Reich wird sichtbar,” in Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (2023).
Barbara Baumeister, “Schwestern der Udelhild. Eine geistliche Gemeinschaft in Augsburg mit europäischen Verbindungen,” Zeitschrift des historischen Vereins für Schwaben 151 (2023).
Gabriella Bruni Zarri, “Consacrazione e conversione tra rito e simbolo,” in Vestizioni: Codici normativi e pratiche religiosae, ed. Sofia Boesch Gajano and Francesca Sbardella (Rome: Viella Libreria editrice, 2021), p. 13-36.
Summarized in English by Mary Maschio
When a young woman entered a convent in Early Modern Italy, her vocation was symbolised by the acceptance of monastic dress, including the veil, but also by the rejection of secular clothes. Zarri’s bipartite study focuses first on dressing, the accoutrements received by girls as they entered the nunnery, and then on undressing, the discarding of the clothes and jewels associated with a certain social status in order to signal an abhorrence of worldly vanity. These two acts were associated respectively with St Catherine of Alexandria (fig. 1) and St Mary Magdalene (fig. 2 of the article).
Mystical marriage of Saint Catherine. Bologna, Fototeca Zeri. Anonymous Ferrarese of the sixteenth century.
The first part of the article discusses the clothing and objects given to a novice as she entered the monastery for the first time and then, more briefly, the corresponding items of dress that were conferred when a nun made her permanent vows and the variations in clothing between convents. Whilst the rite of consecration was inspired by ancient marriage ceremonies, the ceremony of dressing and the entry of the novice into the convent were more closely modelled on baptism. Each item and piece of clothing represented an aspect of the spiritual journey that the postulant was undertaking. In some rituals, we find a crown of thorns. An anonymous Lombard painting from the first half of the sixteenth century, probably commissioned to commemorate a novice’s entry into a convent, follows the model of St Catherine and the Child Jesus, but the ring is replaced with a crown of thorns (fig. 3 of the article). The words to which the Child Jesus points are also found in the Dominican rite of dressing from Genova (fig. 4 of the article).
A document from the second of half of the sixteenth century describing the ritual as it took place in the Augustinian convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Bologna is particularly interesting for the level of detail it includes about the ceremony of dressing. Following the council of Trent, the process for entering a nunnery became far more rigorous: a postulant would spend a year at the monastery, followed by a month-and-a-half at home. During this period, she was expected to dress modestly and refrain from partaking in worldly pleasures. If accepted as a novice, she would be sent a small crown of thorns and a copy of the rule of St Augustine. In contrast to the grand processions of the preceding century, it was stipulated that the entry to the convent should not resemble a marriage procession. The girl should arrive simply, accompanied only by her family. Mass was celebrated in the exterior chapel, followed by the ceremony of dressing. The priest blessed each item in turn: first the girdle, the chain of perfection, then the veil, the sign of humility and submission to the lord. The novice’s hair was then cut. The collar and wimple followed. The dressing proper then commenced: she removed her secular clothes, the priest dressed her in a black habit, to remind her of Christ’s suffering, girded by a sash to guard against the temptations of the flesh, a scapular as a shield against adversity, a white veil, a sign of continence and purity, and finally a crown of thorns, for Christ. She was handed a cross to signify her rejection of the world and a candle. The last step was the bestowal of a new name. Unusually, in this convent it was the celebrant rather than the girl herself who chose this name. After a final blessing, she was led to the grille to greet her family and friends. These celebratory meetings could continue for up to three days, during which time the girl often received precious objects or artworks to commemorate the ceremony.
The common practice of demanding a dowry for novices meant that entry into convents was usually restricted to girls from wealthier families and that institutions became linked to specific important households within a city. Ceremonies of dressing therefore varied between convents. The portrait of Caterina de’ Pazzi made before her entrance into the convent depicts her in secular clothes (fig. 5 of the article), indicating a desire to preserve her worldly and familial identity even as she supposedly renounced them upon entry into religious life.
In all convents, the rite of profession was shorter than that for entry as a novice. The most important of these was the black veil, but there is no mention of the ring that is commonly found in other rites of profession. Afterwards, the sister was once again permitted to meet family and friends at the grille for three days.
In all convents, nuns were given two types of clothing: one set for work and private prayer, and another for prayer in the chapel. Nuns’ habits also reflected the varying economic fortunes of their convents and differed between rural and urban institutions. The convent of San Giovanni Battista di Bologna, a wealthy Dominican foundation, included detailed descriptions of rather luxurious clothes in its rule. This document confirms that nuns’ habits did follow contemporary fashions to some degree, that there were different clothes for novices and fully professed sisters, and that exceptions could be made in the case of illness or other pressing circumstances. Another document from a Bolognese convent, that of San Ludovico e Alessio, testifies to the personal goods a nun had in her cell.
The second part of the article looks at the rejection of secular clothes. This normally marked entry into a convent but was also relevant in a number of other situations. It is no coincidence that this practice went hand in hand with the increasing popularity of the cult of St Mary Magdalene and the rising number of convents for reformed prostitutes at the end of the fifteenth century. Wealthy women would also signal their conversion to a more spiritual life by their rejection of luxurious clothes. The most famous case is that of Vittoria Colonna, who became a contemplative in her widowhood. At the urging of numerous preachers, many women abandoned their finery without necessarily entering convents. This practice was encouraged by written texts and images, as well as by preaching. A translation of a sermon by Pedro Chavez from 1561 on the conversion of St Mary Magdalene describes her casting off her fine clothes. A visual representation of such a scene is found in the altarpiece designed by the Bolognese painter Francesco Cavazzoni for the parish church of St Mary Magdalene in Strada San Donato in 1582 (fig. 6 & 7).
Francesco Cavazzoni, Preaching of Christ to the Magdalene, 1582. Bologna, Parish Church of Santa Maria Maddalena, High Altar.
1580, chiesa priorale e parr. Maddalena Bologna
Detail from Francesco Cavazzoni, Preaching of Christ to the Magdalene, 1582. Bologna, Parish Church of Santa Maria Maddalena, High Altar.
A possible inspiration for this painting is that by the Milanese artist Gaudenzio Ferrari in San Cristoforo di Vercelli, from around 1530. A later example by a Brescian painter, perhaps Francesco Ricchino or perhaps Agostino Galeazzi, was created in the context of the growing popularity of the Compagnia di Sant’ Orsola which included many charitable matrons. The position of Cavazzoni’s painting, above the main altar of an urban parish church, ensured that the message was widely transmitted in Bologna. The Franciscan Antonio Pagani was particularly interested in women’s spiritual life and frequently used St Mary Magdalene as an example. In response to the spiritual needs of the day, he championed the idea of secular women living in community, not bound by vows but subject to a rule. Entrance into this community was made not by a liturgical rite, but by the rejection of fine clothes as a mark of distinction from other women.
Zarri’s consideration of dressing and undressing highlights the importance of clothing in the construction of religious identity in Early Modern Italy. The examples from written and visual sources highlight the symbolism imbued in the clothes and objects given to novices and newly professed nuns, but also reveal the concessions to practicality, and even to fashion. This acceptance of religious dress had its counterpart in the rejection of secular and luxurious clothes, which came in itself to signify the adoption of a more devout life in lay women’s communities (fig. 8).
Mulier dicta DIMESSA. Filippo Bonanni, Ordinum religiosorum in ecclesia militanti catalogus eorumque indumenta in iconibus expressa et oblata, 1738.
Some detours worth exploring to learn more about non-cloistered religious women include nineteenth-century novels, journal articles and memoirs evoking their past lives. I will focus here on their rendering of secular canonesses to whom another blog post and a thematic meeting have already been dedicated. Thanks to the great nobility of their families and their relative freedom of movement, one finds various, intriguing echoes of their past lives in modern literary sources. They often evoke a world of the past as the French Revolution put a definitive end to Catholic female Chapters in France and Belgium, possibly the only religious form of life that did not re-emerge there in the nineteenth century; it survived longer, however, in regions where it did not suffer dissolution, as we will see for Prague. With this blog post and one to follow later, I hope to convince scholars to look for more of such literary sources. Often written by lay authors, their point of view is not informed by knowledge of ecclesiastical norms – too often resulting in a distortion of facts to highlight or downplay differences between practices and norms. These literary sources also give a much welcome secular point of view on the non-cloistered religious women.
The novel L’enfant du prieuré ou la chanoinesse de Metz (« The priory child or the Metz canoness »), written by Élisabeth Guénard, baroness of Méré, and published in two volumes in 1802, might contain some echoes of the author’s own life: one of the female characters, for instance, marries a much older man when she is a very young woman and another marries her cousin. Guénard had married her eighty-eight-year-old cousin around the age of twenty-three. The information in the novel on the life of a secular canoness, however, is so scant that the author most probably did not know much about it. It is telling that no information is given about the inside of the Chapter of Metz; the reader is never invited within this space. Unlike the “priory child” with whom she shares the title, the canoness only appears very episodically in the story. It seems that the status of this character was chosen because a secular canoness had the freedom to travel around – she goes once to Reims, another time to Paris — but also could stay retired from the world for long stretches of time – a pattern that fits well with the life of the canoness of Remiremont we will meet in the next blog. These facts about secular canonesses’ life must have been well known to the laity. Linked to these periods of retreat, the character who is a secular canoness once presents herself as a “poor recluse” (volume II, p. 16). This said, the author knew well that, in the town itself where the community was located– here, Metz –, it was possible for the canonesses to come and go freely during the day: the Metz canoness is known to return to her dwelling at night, usually around 10 pm (I, p.134; II, p.18) and, in some circumstances, to leave it as early as 8 am (II, p.18)! I doubt we should give too much credence to such a schedule, but it represents the canonesses’ freedom of movement within the locality where their Chapter is situated. It must have also been known that the canonesses could leave their community for good. The Metz canoness did so at the end of the novel in order to live with her son and his young wife.
Probably the most striking aspect of the secular canonesses’ way of life that is offered by the novel is the beauty of some of their religious feasts; the information seems to be credible, maybe because the author saw at least one such event. The manager of the hotel where the hero is staying in Metz recommends such a ceremony to him:
… as tomorrow is the St Clotilde, there is a great office for the first vespers; I encourage you to go. It is one of the nicest possible sights to see all these ladies with their large velvet cape, trimmed with ermine. There are some, I must admit, who are as beautiful as angels… [“et comme c’est demain Ste.-Clotilde, il y a grand office pour les premières vêpres; je vous engage à y aller. C’est un des plus beaux coups-d’œil possible, que de voir toutes ces dames avec leur grand manteau de velour garni d’hermine; il y a en a, ma foi, qui sont jolies comme des anges”]
Given that the author rarely enters into the detail of her characters’ clothing, the ones worn by the canonesses for their religious services must have been striking. Figure 1 is the portrait of a Metz canoness. One can also infer from this passage that the canonesses were not all attending the offices in common every day, as the beauty of this ceremony, in the words of the hotel manager, was partly due to its infrequency. During this service, the laity were able to see the canonesses (and, vice-versa, be seen by them), as if they were on display, which would have been unusual for cloistered nuns. Finally, even though the author seemed to have known little about the world of the canonesses, she probably had a soft spot for it; indeed, two other characters take the habit in two different orders, but they are not as well liked – one, who ends his life doing penance in the Servite Order, is even depiscable — while Elisabeth, the Metz canoness, is depicted in the most positive light. The nobility of the author might explain her parti pris but given that her family had not been prestigious enough to have had one of its female members enter such a community, this explanation is insufficient.
There are other novels discussing canonesses but the ones I found so far were written much later and their authors could not, thus, have had first-hand knowledge of this way of life.[1] One magazine article, not signed (as was often the case in Victorian journals), is dedicated to two Chapters of secular canonesses in Prague. Entitled “About chanoinesses” and published in The Saint Paul’s magazine, it dates from July 1870, the last month Anthony Trollope was the editor of the journal. It seems to have been reproduced at least twice in America. Based on the slightly condescending tone of the author of the article, I am inclined to think they were male but I will use the non-binary “they” just in case.
Their encounter with canonesses had occurred more than forty years earlier, in the 1830s, in the Bohemian capital. In Prague there were two Catholic Chapters, one founded in 1701, called the Freiweltlich adeligen Damenstift zu den heiligen Engeln (a name translated by the author as “The free-noble-institute of Lay Canonesses to the Holy Angels” and in a 2018 article by Michaela Žáková by “The New Town Holy Angels Institute”), and the other in 1755, called the k.k. theresianischen adeligen Damenstiftes am Prager Schlosse (rendered by the author as the “Imperial Royal Theresian Stift for Noble Ladies in the Castle of Prague” but, in the 2018 article, by “The Theresian Foundation for Noblewomen at Prague Castle”). Here, as in some other regions in central and eastern Europe, female Chapters continued to exist into the nineteenth century, sometimes even as Protestant houses. This is proof, if any was needed, that they relied heavily on the higher nobility and royalty from whom their members and their funding came, and only partially on the Church. The author of the article details the two Chapters’ ties with the highest circles of society, with the more recent chapter, the Theresian foundation, being possibly the most prestigious Chapter in Europe. I chose to focus on other topics treated in the article that would have also been representative of Chapters in the eighteenth century, if not earlier.
As already hinted at in the novel discussed above, contemporaries were quite fascinated by the canonesses’ external appearance. The first sentence of the article evokes the insignia of the oldest Chapter: a medal, also called an order by the author, and worn on the “bosom”, and a black and gold band over the body (p. 376 and Fig. 2); the other Chapter had the same insignia, except that the band was white and gold (p. 381) and the medals differed (p. 381). The dresses of the first were a “black silk gown” (p. 378) while the second had “black cloaks richly trimmed with ermine, and caps à la Marie Stuart” (p. 380); they wore these whenever they took “part in any official or church ceremony, or grand festivity” (p. 378). These descriptions fit well with Fig. 1 of a Metz canoness where we can also see a cap (sometimes called a mari!), a white and blue band, a medal (or order) on the breast, a black silk dress and ermine fur. Fig. 2 is a portrait dated c.1896 of the second assistant to the Oberinn (the name of the head of the oldest Chapter in Prague). Even though it is some sixty years after the encouters described in the article “About chanoinesses”, I doubt that there had been significant changes in the canonesses’ appearance (could the half-bare arms be a novelty?). What attracted the author most was the very young canonesses, so this picture is fitting.
There was obviously an important element of performativity in the life of the canonesses, manifested not only through their clothes but also in their well-chosen public appearances, in churches but also in lay society. Since 1791, the abbess of the Theresian Chapter was the one to crown the queen of Bohemia. Fig. 3 represents one such abbess, the Archduchess Maria Annunziata (as can be read below the 1901 photograph); she was the last abbess, who ruled from 1894 until the closing of the establishment in 1918.
Fig. 3: Archduchess Maria Annunziata, Abbess, 1901. Photo by Jindřich Eckert. Wikimedia Commons.
All the abbesses of the Prague Castle Chapter were archduchesses. Notice as well the title “Countess of Huyn (Gräfïn Huy)” of Fig. 2 and the note on Fig. 1 that the woman depicted was “Marie Susanne of Bremond of Ars, daughter of the high and powerful lord Charles of Bremond, marquess of Ars”: secular canonesses often used their family names, thus highlighting their individual status, notwithstanding their membership in a community; such behavior would have given additional visibility and prestige to their family. This said, it is these women themselves whom we see represented through these paintings and pictures, adorned with their insignia and titles. Further west, the status of secular canoness allowed them even at times to be called princesses, countesses or some other noble title, independently from their family titles – in the Chapter of Remiremont, discussed in the next blog post, all canonesses were called countesses, even if they had been princesses.
The building in which the canonesses of the older Chapter lived is also described at length in the article. This time, unlike in the novel, the reader is permitted to enter into a community as the author had obviously visited the site. It is possible that the secular canonesses’ freedom fluctuated through time and that, in the 1830s, it was somewhat greater than in the eighteenth century, with, for instance, easier access to their communities (p. 378). Still, even if the extent of it changed, some freedom of access was typical of the Chapters from the late Middle Ages onwards. The canonesses in Prague did not each have their own house within the enclosure, as was often the case in Chapters further west (see Fig. 4).
Fig. 4: Individual houses of nuns who later took the name of secular canonesses in the eighteenth century. Blesle (Auvergne). Photo by Isabelle Cochelin)
The canonesses of the oldest Chapter in Prague lived in individual apartments of two to three rooms each, on the first and second floors of an ex-monastery. I suppose Fig. 5, a photograph of their lodging in 1901, depicts the same site that had been given to them by Empress Maria-Theresa in the mid eighteenth century and mentioned by our author.
The ground floor was devoted to service, consisting mostly of male servants, another proof of the wealth and nobility of the institution. Each canoness had in addition her own female servants (p. 379). The spatial and domestic arrangement of the other Chapter in Prague is not described in as many details but is said to have been similar, except for the fact that it was situated in the wing of the old palace, given by the same Empress Maria-Theresa (p. 380 and Fig. 5). Nothing very luxurious, considering that they were from the highest nobility, but a space of their own, nevertheless. And the view must have been stupendous…
Fig. 6: Adolph Merklas Fesca, “The Theresian Stift on the Hradschin” (based on a painting by Karl Wenzel Würbs). Wikipedia Commons.
The freedom of the secular canonesses to move outside of their Chapter (except during their novitiate) was obviously another striking characteristic for the author of the article “About chanoinesses” but their tone is one of surprise, not of irritation or condemnation; this is important as the ecclesiastical authors often had a very different position on this issue. The freedom of movement of the canonesses is touched upon already in the first lines of the article and the author often returns to it. The canonesses were able to go to balls, spend time outside of their community, and even leave to get married. It seems to me that the author believed such departures for marriage happened quite often until (as explained in a footnote) an 1855 book informed them that, in the noblest Chapter of Prague, only a proportion of two out of every seven canonesses left to get married in the one hundred years since the foundation.[2] The question is whether or not the same low percentage existed in other communities. The Theresian institution was for women of the highest nobility who were already 24 years old (unless orphaned and then, 18) upon entrance and whose family had financial problems.[3] In the other Prague Chapter, the newcomers had to be at least 16 (and less than 30) years old when admitted, without the requirement of financial problems; in these conditions, maybe more left to get married? Not so obvious: in the memoirs describing the Chapter of Remiremont discussed in the next blog post, the author claims that few left for marriage and, indeed, only one of her five aunts who were canonesses did so; even more interesting, this memorialist presents this low percentage as a matter of choice, not necessity (Marie Antoinette E. de Messey de Bielle, “Souvenirs”, p. 247 and 254). This is probably understandable as the author of the article “About chanoinesses” underlines that these women had the freedom of movement of married women without the inconvenience of husbands. I would add that their prestigious families, by placing them in a Chapter, probably intended to diminish the risks of mésalliance that would have tarnished their names: their daughters had some freedom of movement, and therefore fewer reasons to run away with someone inappropriate to express their own will. Moreover, there were fellow canonesses surrounding them who were keen to avoid scandal to their community.
These women were, indeed, living close to each other when they were not traveling, as shown in Figs. 4, 5 and 6. The last point I would like to make in relation to the “About chanoinesses” article is its author’s claim that the oldest Prague Chapter had something of a “republican character” in its mode of functioning (unlike the wealthier, more recent and nobler one, closely overseen by the empress and, later, the emperors) – a point that might explain the two-time re-printing of this article in late nineteenth-century USA. The secular canonesses of the oldest Chapter would vote on almost all admissions of newcomers and on the nomination of the Oberinn and her assistants (p. 380). I will come back to this fundamental issue more at length in the next post.
[1] Gabrielle Anne Cisterne de Courtiras Saint-Mars, Une chanoinesse. Paris: P. Pemrain, 1852 and André Theuriet, La chanoinesse 1789-1793. Paris Nelson, Éditeurs, 1900. Both authors insist on the freedom of movement of the canonesses. Even more recent : Noëlle Dedeyan, La dame secrète. Woippy : Éditions Serpenoise, 2002.
[3] Michaela Žáková. “The Theresian Foundation for Noblewomen at Prague Castle. The Institution, its Female Members and Aristocratic Philanthropy”, in Changes of the Noble Society. Aristocracy and New Nobility in the Habsburg Monarchy and Central Europe from the 16th to the 20th Century, ed. by Jiri Brnovják and Jan Županic, Prague: Ostrava, 2018, p. 189-200.
Walking into the Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours in Montréal, Québec, one could be forgiven for overlooking the simple marble plaque attached to the north-eastern wall. This marble slab marks the place where in 2005, amid much pomp and ceremony, were placed the mortal remains of Jeanne le Ber, the first known recluse of New France.[1]
Jeanne lived in a period when Ville-Marie was filled with non-cloistered religious women. Many of them were associated with the Hôtel Dieu hospital, or the teaching sisters of the Congrégation de Notre Dame, the foundations of which are attributed to two women, Jeanne Mance and Marguerite Bourgeoys, both non-cloistered religious for much of their lives. These women are considered today as important figures in the history of Montréal.
Jeanne le Ber is less well-known, despite her recognition and status in her own time. Among several texts written about her, the earliest surviving is a spiritual biography written by the Sulpician Father François Vachon de Belmont (1645–1732) and sent in 1722 to his superiors in Paris as part of a report on sanctity in New France.[2]
According to Belmont’s biography, Jeanne was born into one of the more wealthy and respectable families of Ville-Marie. Her godparents were Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, the governor of the colony, and Jeanne Mance herself. She was educated at the Ursuline house in Québec City, where, Belmont writes, she developed a particular interest in penitence and devotion to the Eucharist. Around the age of fifteen, her parents brought her back to Ville-Marie in order to enter the marriage market. Rather than accept any of the proposals made to her, or join a monastery or another female religious house, Jeanne ended up living in reclusion in her father’s house for around fifteen years. At age seventeen, she took a vow of chastity, valid for five years, and at age twenty-two a vow of perpetual virginity. Belmont frames these fifteen years as a period of transition, with Jeanne moving more and more decisively away from worldly interests—although he admits that she did not give them up completely. As a key reason for Jeanne’s choice of individual reclusion over life in a monastery, Belmont cites her aversion to a vow of poverty and desire to keep her own fortune in order to continue donating to the charitable causes of her choice.
Her biography describes how she used some of this money to build a chapel next to the sisters of the Congrégation de Notre Dame, with a special cell behind the altar, where she could live in close proximity to the Eucharist. She entered that cell to live permanently in approximately 1695, at the very symbolic age of 33. On this occasion, Belmont includes a comment from Marguerite Bourgeoys, praising Jeanne’s promise of devotion. As a church recluse, Jeanne spent her time in prayer and devotional reading, conversation with the sisters of the Congrégation through her cell window, and manual work embroidering liturgical vestments, some of which still exist today.[3]
In one of several medieval hagiographical tropes carried over into this later biography, Belmont describes Jeanne as willingly suffering from physical illnesses, refusing to add a garden to her cell space for fresh air or to light a fire in her room against the cold. He also writes that she wore hair shirts and performed several food-related ascetic practices, such as fasting, eating on the ground, and refusing wholesome food while happily drinking foul-tasting medicines. In October 1714, Jeanne died of one of these illnesses. Her body lay in state for three days in the chapel of the Congrégation Notre Dame, before being buried in the family plot. Borrowing another hagiographical trope, Belmont’s biography claims that two women were healed of scrofula, and one other of a persistent migraine, after visiting her tomb.
Much of Jeanne’s biography is engaged in the argument that she consistently turned away from the world. Belmont’s narrative, however, includes references to the ways in which religious women could be part of the colonial project of New France. Jeanne’s prayers, one of which was written on a battle standard, apparently vanquished a fleet of invading English ships. One of the women healed by Jeanne’s tomb is described as Indigenous, suggesting the complex history of colonialism and Christianity in Canada. Moreover, Belmont’s purpose for writing this biography is explicitly to show God’s favour bestowed on French settlement in the “New World”. Jeanne’s biography contains many references to European devotional cultures and themes from medieval hagiography, but it cannot be divorced from its historical and geographical context.
The life of Jeanne le Ber demonstrates the longevity and adaptability of reclusion as one of many non-cloistered options for religious women. It also suggests a broad horizon of options for women’s religious lives in New France, and an understanding of how religious women and their forms of life—from hospital and teaching sisters to recluses—are all intertwined.
[1] New France was the French colony established on Turtle Island (North America) in the mid-sixteenth century, which forms the basis of today’s Canadian province of Québec. Ville-Marie was the settlement which became Montréal, located on the traditional and unceded land of several Indigenous nations, principally the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Huron-Wendat, the Abenaki, and the Anishnaabeg (Algonquin) peoples.
[2] François Vachon de Belmont, “Éloge de quelques personnes mortes en odeur de sainteté à Montréal, en Canada, divisé en trois parties” in Rapport de l’archiviste de la Province de Québec (1929–1930) pp. 144–166. Available online here: https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2276299. For more on Jeanne le Ber, see esp. Dominique Deslandres, “In the Shadow of the Cloister: Representations of Holiness in New France” in Colonial Saints: Discovering the Holy in the Americas, 1500–1800, ed. Allan Green and Jodi Bilinkoff (2003); Françoise Deroy-Pineau, Jeanne le Ber: La recluse au cœur des combats (2000); https://margueritebourgeoys.org/jeanne-le-ber/ and https://reclusesmiss.org/wp/jeanne-le-ber/.
Sigrid Hirbodian, “Weibliche Herrschaft – männliche Herrschaft? Stiftsdamen und –herren im Vergleich,” in Frauenstifte – Männerstifte (Schriften zur südwestdeutschen Landeskunde), ed. by Oliver Auge, Sigrid Hirbodian, and Friederike Schnack. Ostfildern: Thorbecke Verlag, forthcoming in 2022.
Summarized in English by Emma Gabe
A thirteenth-century Weistum (legal text) showed that the abbess of Andlau exercised power and authority at various levels in her demesne in Breisgau: she ruled over lands that incorporated several villages, and her rule included the wielding of authority over the demesne’s legal courts. As a feudal mistress, she was sometimes represented by a noble bailiff who was enfeoffed to her, but she often exercised her power and authority in person.
Communities of canons wielded similar power and authority over their lands. Legal sources do not indicate any differences in the exercise of power by houses of canons or houses of canonesses, nor in the perception and acceptance of their power by the villeins over whom they ruled.[1] Therefore, we must approach the study of the authority of male and female houses in a different ways: 1) through a comparison of the different types of male and female houses, following Peter Moraw’s classification; 2) through an analysis of the similarities and differences in the statutes and ways of life for canons and canonesses; 3) through an analysis of the structure of their properties and assets (Besitzstruktur); and 4) through an analysis of the practices of rulership in houses of canons and houses of canonesses. This analysis focuses on houses of canons and canonesses in south-west Germany, mainly in the triangle between Mainz, Alsace, and Buchau am Federsee, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
1) In 1980, Peter Moraw identified three types of male Chapters[2]: those affiliated to a monastery, those connected to a bishopric, and those associated with secular rulers. The first type is not relevant for houses of canonesses as there are no known houses founded by a monastery. That said, many houses of canonesses alternated between leading a monastic form of life and functioning as houses of canonesses over the course of their histories. These were not formal, legal changes of status. Rather, the canonesses had to contend with recurring pressure from the papacy and bishops to conform to a monastic, i.e. an enclosed, form of life, which they resisted by invoking their traditional customs and statutes. Indeed, after the papal decretal Periculoso in 1298, there was no formal recognition of the canoness’ way of life in church law, but it continued in practice.
Moraw’s second classification––collegiate Chapters such as Domstifte bound to a bishop––is not relevant for canonesses, because the canonesses could not fulfill the spiritual offices required to support the bishop and his power. However, Moraw does include Augustinian canons and Premonstratensians in this category, which does touch on women, because many of these Chapters were founded as double communities.
Moraw’s last classification concerns houses founded by secular powers. For canons, he identifies the royal houses founded by kings in the early Middle Ages, as well as Chapters in royal residences and universities (Residenzstifte and Universitätsstifte) in the later medieval period. Here again, the situation is different for houses of canonesses. All the houses of canonesses established by secular authorities had been founded in the early or high Middle Ages (before the thirteenth century). Their function was to look after the memoria of their founders, to provide for their female family members and those of their allies, and to secure their authority over lands and out of the grasp of competing rulers by transferring these lands to spiritual institutions while retaining certain legal rights (Vogteirechte) and the power to chose the abbess. By the late medieval period, secular powers chose Cistercian monasteries, and later Dominican or Clarissan houses and even beguinages when they wanted to support a community of women religious.
2) There are also notable differences in the structure of male and female houses. Unlike in male Chapters, which were headed by a provost and then a dean in the second position of power, houses of canonesses were invariably led by an abbess, and deans were uncommon. This demonstrates again the similarities that houses of canonesses shared with female monasteries. Another difference is that female houses always had a certain number of prebends for canons, who preformed sacramental duties for the canonesses. These canons initially had little influence, being greatly outnumbered by canonesses and lacking a voice in chapter meetings and the election of the abbess. By the late medieval period, however, as the number of canonesses declined in many communities, the canons accumulated more rights and power. At the same time, the power of the chapter increased in the late medieval period. In the fifteenth century, for example, the abbess of Buchau had to swear an oath of obedience to the chapter’s decisions right after her election. The increasing power of the chapter led to increasing conflicts with abbesses and hindered the abbesses’ ability to govern. For example, one noble canoness from St Stefan in Strasbourg wanted to build her own house in the community in the 1320s and mobilized her networks for support when the abbess refused permission. The bishop threatened the abbess with excommunication, even though this violated the abbess’ supervisory rights as laid out in the community’s statutes. The abbess, meanwhile, enjoyed the support of a group of canonesses deriving from the lower nobility. The fight eventually ended in a compromise, with the noble canoness being allowed to have her own apartment in an existing building with the community, and the creation of new statutes.
This example clearly shows that the social background of participants played an important role in conflicts, and that the contents of and changes to statutes was a constant process of negotiation between the abbess, the canonesses, their families and their networks. The abbess’ power, then, was not dissimilar to that of the provost in male Chapters.
One way in which the power of abbesses differed from provosts, however, was that abbesses often had the title of imperial princess (Reichsfürstin), like some of their monastic counterparts. Another difference between canons and canonesses concerns the communal life (vita communis), which played a larger role in communities of canonesses. Canons, on the other hand, often had multiple prebends (and therefore responsibilities in multiple churches) and employed vicars to undertake some of their duties. While canonesses had many similarities with canons including freedom of movement, the possibility for long absences, individual dwellings and secular clothing outside of choir, the vita communis played a more important role in their communities. Even education was internal to the community: canonesses were often raised and educated in the community, unlike canons who studied at universities.
3) Similarly to male houses, the finances of houses of canonesses can be classified in three parts. Firstly, prebends financed the living costs of canonesses and canons (Pfründen). Secondly, attendance at mass and choir was financially rewarded (Präsenzgeld). Canons, who were more likely to have multiple prebends, often employed vicars to fulfil some of their duties, however. Thirdly, communities also had funds and possessions for the maintenance of the community’s church and buildings (Kirchenfabrik). These properties and possessions, with multiple and diverse rights and privileges, formed a complex structure of income for female communities.
4) Abbesses had to defend and secure their power in various ways, often through long and expensive legal challenges. The abbesses of St Stefan in Strasbourg, for example, had to defend against repeated attempts of other lords to usurp the abbess’ rights and possessions in Wangen in Alsace. In order to secure the community’s rights and possessions, it was often necessary for the abbess of St Stefan to represent her institution herself. She had property registries drawn up and legal texts copied, and she regularly travelled to the community’s lands to inspect them. Facing costly legal challenges, she lobbied the bishop and city council for help, and she even imprisoned her enemies when necessary. For the people over whom the abbess ruled and for those who challenged her authority, however, it did not matter that she was a woman: similar challenges to a community’s rights can be observed in houses of canons. Ultimately, the exercise of power was the same for male and female religious, although there are differences in the histories of their communities and forms of life.
[1] English lacks a ready translation for the German term Stift. I have translated Stift as “house of canons/house of canonesses” or “Chapter” (with a capital C).
[2] Peter MORAW, “Über Typologie, Chronologie und Geographie der Stiftskirche im deutschen Mittelalter,” in Untersuchungen zu Kloster und Stift. Göttingen, 1980, p. 9–37.
Often, small footnotes can lead to interesting discoveries. In her chapter on “Anchorites in German-speaking Regions” in Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe (2010), Gabriela Signori mentions a recluse named Haseka in passing, as one of two recluses commemorated by the secular canons of Böddecken, Westphalia, in the fifteenth century.[1] Intrigued by Signori’s description of Haseka’s vita as “remarkably unremarkable”, I followed this footnote and found a vita (or spiritual biography) which, though brief, offers some interesting and suggestive information regarding the situation of recluses and other types of non-cloistered religious women.[2] This vita offers an example of a female recluse, and it also shows other types of non-cloistered religious life for women.
Recluses—also often known as anchorites or solitaries—were people who lived religious lives enclosed in dwellings, known as reclusoria (singular reclusorium), cells, or anchorholds. Any scholarly defintion of this form of life must be slim enough to account for the wide variation in reclusion which existed throughout the Middle Ages, from solitary monks to forest hermits to house ascetics and more. The type of reclusion discussed in this blog post, and on which I focus my research, is one which involves living in some form of enclosure in or near an urban area, often in or beside a church, a form of life which became increasingly common among women in the later Middle Ages.
The vita of Haseka is an example of this type of urban female reclusion. Her story appears as part of a martyrology compiled in the mid-fifteenth century by Hermann Greven, a Carthusian monk, based on the ninth-century martyrology of Usuard. Haseka is one of the new and local saints whom Greven added to his volume. According to the vita, she had lived in a cell attached to the church of Schermbeck, Westphalia, and died in 1261.
Regarding Haseka, the vita tells us that she came from the Rhineland region and lived for thirty-six years as a recluse attached to this church, where she devoted herself assiduously to prayer. One miracle is recorded, as well as Haseka’s death, and a struggle between two monasteries—one Cistercian, and one Benedictine—over the right to bury her body. The local bishop apparently got involved, and Haseka was disinterred and reburied in front of an audience of monks and laypeople. Finally, the vita narrates that after she had died, Haseka appeared to a pious widow in a dream vision, encouraging her in her faith. The author ends the vita by asserting that the cult of Haseka is alive and well in the region.
Remarkably unremarkable? Perhaps. But there is more that can be said. This vita depicts a typical urban recluse in Haseka: she lives attached to a church, she is shown concentrated first and foremost on prayer, and yet there are also suggestions that she interacted with a variety of people, from laypeople to monks.
It is worth noting that this vita shows a tension between two monasteries attempting to seize control of the body and the possible cult of a holy female recluse. Further, as Signori’s original footnote indicates, Haseka was commemorated by secular canons in Böddecken, and Greven himself was a Carthusian in Cologne. Haseka, an obscure figure to twenty-first-century medievalists, was at least somewhat important to these various groups which included and claimed her.
The vita of Haseka also shines a light on other forms of non-cloistered religious life, including in the narration of her single miracle: one day, Haseka and her attendant, Berta, receive a pot of butter as a pious donation, which is unfortunately “stinking and rancid because of its old age” (butyrum prae vetustate sua foetidum ac corruptum). Eventually, Berta can no longer stand the stench, and tries to throw it out. Haseka apprehends her and, rather than dispose of the butter, beseeches God to make it palatable again. Miraculously, the butter is returned to a freshly-churned state.
Berta, the recluse’s attendant, is a key figure in the narration of this butter miracle. I use the term “attendant” here, because, like many non-cloistered religious women sought by this project, her status is somewhat unclear. The precise terms used for her in the text are conserva, ministra, and soror. There are suggestions that Berta’s status is in some way equal to the recluse’s: Haseka herself is also referred to as soror, and they apparently eat together, at the same table. However, Berta is not called a recluse herself, and may be placed outside the reclusorium rather than inside it: when they eat together, it is “one inside, and the other outside” (una intra, altera vero extra). Sister Berta suggests an interesting model of the non-cloistered religious woman, that of a recluse’s attendant who is also recognizable as a spiritual figure in her own right.
In the final section of the vita, the author describes Haseka appearing to a woman in a dream. The author describes this woman as “a certain noble and devoted widow” (cuidam nobili ac devotae viduae), who receives a sort of devotional pep talk from the departed recluse, telling her not to doubt or fear but to remain firm in her belief. Her designation as devota vidua suggests a certain spiritual status, along with her appearance as the privileged recipient of Haseka’s postmortem spiritual advice. This woman calls to mind the life of pious widowhood, another non-cloistered religious option for medieval women. Her connection to Haseka further suggests that these types of non-cloistered life were not isolated from one another, but rather existed as distinct but related elements of the medieval religious landscape.
The vita of Haseka is useful for the study of recluses, a form of non-cloistered religious life often undertaken by women. It is also a source for the history of non-cloistered religious women more broadly in its depiction of Berta and mention of a pious widow. This discussion has, I hope, provided an example of a text which opens a window onto the lives and representations of non-cloistered religious women—and further shown that where one such woman is found, many more are bound to appear.
[1] Gabriela Signori, “Anchorites in German-speaking regions” in Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe, ed. Liz Herbert McAvoy (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2010) note 32 p. 48. This book—a collection of chapters on recluses, divided by geographic region—is an informative and fruitful source for the study of medieval recluses and much recommended to anyone interested in the topic.
[2] I contributed a translation of this vita to the Stanford Global Medieval Sourcebook project, which was published in January 2020. This translation was based on “De beata Haseka virgine reclusa in Westphalia” in AASS 26 January, vol. 3, 373–4. All quotations from the vita here are taken from the same edition.
Pablo Acosta-García, “En viva sangre bañadas: Caterina da Siena y las vidas de María de Ajofrín, Juana de la Cruz, María de Santo Domingo y otras santas vivas castellanas,” Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà, 33 (2020): 143–172.
A Summary in English by Camila Walls Castillo
If citing the following summary, please give this reference:
Pablo Acosta-García, “En viva sangre bañadas: Caterina da Siena y las vidas de María María de Ajofrín, Juana de la Cruz, María de Santo Domingo y otras santas vivas castellanas” Archivio italiano per la storia della pietà, XXXIII (2020) 143-72. English Summary by Camila Walls Castillo. https://othersisters.hypotheses.org/239
In this study, Pablo Acosta-García investigates representations of female holiness on the Iberian Peninsula during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. By engaging in a detailed comparative analysis of hagiographic texts, the author’s principal objective is to analyse the extent to which late-medieval Italian models of sanctity influenced the phenomenology and narration present in early modern Hispanic mysticism. As his principal point of comparison, Acosta-García looks to the work of Raymond of Capua, confessor and biographer of Catherine of Siena, and contextualizes his Legenda major as a fundamental hagiographic text, whose structure, narrative patterns, and mystic phenomenology served as a model for the written histories of later women-religious in Castile. The author takes into account a multitude of specific narrative elements, but places a particular focus on two stages in the holy woman’s lifecycle: childhood and maturity — emphasizing during this latter category the penitential traits of a saint’s life, specifically looking for codified hagiographic themes through their expressions of stigmata, and their discussion of the process of stigmatization. The author then discusses the reliability of hagiographic influence through oral tradition, and further supports the dissemination of earlier traditions by assessing the connections these women had with their contemporary Italian counterparts. Ultimately, through a detailed review of temporal setting, physical phenomenon, and narrative arrangement, he successfully establishes the appropriation of a late medieval tradition in early modern Castilian hagiographic literature, and makes further evident the ways in which this model had evolved, diversified, and been reformed by Hispanic mysticism.
Puella senex: Models of Saintly Childhood
Acosta-García begins by contextualizing Italian models of female sanctity through the example of beloved fourteenth-century mystic, Catherine of Siena (pg. 146). He proposes that the narrative framework of her vita, which hinges upon the division between stages of her life, provides a structural basis for later hagiographic work, the influence of which is best understood through Castilian portrayals of santa niñez (sacred childhood) and madurez (maturity) (pg. 148-149).
The narrative elements in Raymond’s telling follow a distinct pattern within each cycle.
In childhood, a holy woman is first introduced by her status, then by emphasizing the moral character of her parents, and finally, by highlighting the abundance of her family’s temporal goods (pg. 150). In this way, the author suggests that the holy child is cast in one of two roles, each representing distinct models of sacred childhood distinguished by the period in which the vitae were written: the noble child who is understood as having inherited her sanctity from birth, which is typical in narratives from the seventeenth century onward; or the secular child or puella senex (the old girl), who becomes sacred through the renunciation of worldly life at a young age, typical from earlier models of sanctity (beginning in the sixteenth century). Of these two categories, María García de Toledo (1340-1426), Beatriz da Silva (1424/1437-1492), and María de Toledo (1437-1507) represent the noble women-religious. Acosta-García remarks that the hagiographer’s insertion of noble holy women within larger late histories of the mendicant orders, suggests a “distinct aristocratic genealogy, which highlights their roots,” and echoes late medieval conceptions about the sanctity of their lineage (pg. 151).
The latter category therefore represents secular holy women, the group to which Catherine of Siena belongs, who is described as being “from a humble generation, but abounded in temporal goods.” (pg. 150). This narrative element is later adopted in the lives of Hispanic secular mystics, such as María de Ajofrín (1455-1489) with respect to her parents, who “feared the Lord greatly, always walking in his commandments, and had an abundance of temporal goods,” (pg. 153) and is subsequently echoed in the description of Juana de la Cruz (1481-1534), who was said to be “… of good and Christian parents, virtuous and clean in customs, and people of an average way” (pg. 153).
Acosta-García uses the analogy of the puella senex to describe these women, who faced with an inability to claim inherited sanctity as a natural justification for their path towards holiness, must instead come to it episodically, through a development of virtues that indicated the maturity of their faith exceeded the capacities of their age. The author argues that the path of the puella senex can be understood through four distinct phases: the confirmation of one’s holy vocation through a vision; the appropriation of penitential traits in imitation of the desert fathers; the vow of virginity; and the development of virtuous habits (temperance in dressing, abstinence in eating and drinking, and sobriety in her sleeping habits) (pg. 154).
In the life of Catherine, this development of virtue is largely related to her struggle to maintain her status as a virgin. Her Legenda states that upon realizing the expectation for her to marry, Catherine cut off her hair in an act of rebellion. This narrative element is reiterated in the life of María de Ajofrín, who faced with familial pressures to marry was said to have “valiantly resisted both the world and her relatives,” (pg. 155) as well as in the life of María de Toledo, who “did not delight in boasts, nor consent to dirty her ears with them… attributing everything she had to God” (pg. 156). Acosta-García pointedly remarks that these worldly marital renunciations underscore two important features of the sacred soul, the physical (beauty) and the moral (virtue), suggesting that “these two themes are linked, since physical attractiveness, on the one hand, platonically reflects the cleanliness of the soul, and on the other, reinforces at the narrative level the denial of worldly life in favour of adopting a life related to penitential ideals” (pg. 154).
Regardless of their status at birth, Acosta-García concludes that the path towards holiness in childhood culminated in divine betrothal. This mystical union signified a solidification of the holy woman’s vows, representing a crucial turning point in the life of a saint. Raymond of Capua establishes this in his Legenda major by detailing a visionary exchange of a diamond ring between Christ and Catherine (pg. 158). We can see this exchange echoed in the life of Juana de la Cruz, where the Virgin Mary serves as espousal intermediary: “Our Lady the Virgin Mary took a ring from her precious finger and gave it to the sacred son so that he could give it, from his hand, to his wife. And so it was done, that the Child Jesus himself gave it to her, and put it in her hand” (p. 158). The visionary’s betrothal as narrative element thus marks the young woman’s transition from holy child, to Bride of Christ — a pattern that is clearly reflected in hagiographies of the Iberian Peninsula during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The Mature Holy Woman: Penitence, Ecstasy, Stigmata
Acosta-García suggests that at a basic level, two distinct features of later medieval piety are clearly reflected in the biographies of Castilian holy women as they narrate their adulthood: the intermediary nature of sacred images, and a clear Christocentric devotion, with a strong eucharistic focus (pg. 158). The Legenda major by Raymond presents these elements several times throughout Catherine’s short life (her vocation for a life of faith as a result of her vision of Christ; her stigmata occurring while before a crucifix; the miracle of the Host flying towards her mouth), and it is subsequently evident in the lives of Juana de la Cruz, María de Santo Domingo, María de Ajofrín (pg. 159).
Yet, in order to truly assess the dissemination of an earlier hagiographic tradition in early modern Spain, the author looks to the more penitential aspects of these women’s lives, particularly their experiences of stigmata. He begins this portion of the analysis by underscoring a distinction made by Jacques Dalarun, between the stigmatization (the “cause” or process by which marks are received) and the stigmata (the “effect,” or wounds, free from casual narrative). Acosta-García reminds us that only in the lives of María de Ajofrín and Juana de la Cruz are we presented with an account of the stigmatization process. In these examples, we see a stark resemblance to the Catherinian model, which can once again be understood through the replication of distinct narrative themes: first, the stigmata occur during a highlighted sacred period of time on the liturgical calendar (Holy Thursday/Good Friday); second, it makes the location of the wounds explicit (side of body, under ribs, hands and feet); third, it speaks of witnesses which can attest to the stigmata’s authenticity, in some cases through notarized documents (pg. 161).
However, Acosta-García notes that the Hispanic tradition departs from the Catherinian model in the raw and graphic physical representation of these women’s blessed wounds. The stigmatization process (at least in the earliest, original account which was most disseminated in Castile at the time of these Castilian “sante vive”), for example, clearly emphasizes the imperceptibility of Catherine’s wounds. Catherine is said to have experienced the pains of the passion while standing before the crucifix, in areas highlighted by rays of light which radiated off the holy symbol (pg. 161). In contrast to this invisible portrayal, in the life of María de Ajofrín we see that “there appeared such a deep gash, that it seemed to have been cut open with a razor… which remained open for twenty full days, her blood flowing more on Friday’s than on any other day.” The integration of carnal suffering with the repeated holy significance of Friday, is also echoed in the life of Juana de la Cruz, where it is said “[s]he possessed the glorious marks and increasing pains from the morning of Good Friday to the Day of Ascension” (pg. 166). The author notes that these narrative patterns, while ostensibly maintaining a Catherinian framework, more closely resemble narrative patterns seen in the lives of their contemporary Italian tertiaries, such as Lucia Brocadelli da Narni (1476-1544), who also bled on Fridays (pg. 166). Moreover, with respect to witness testimony, in the life of Lucia we see a rigorous notarial procedure that is echoed in the life of María de Santo Domingo. María who hosted judges which, in the process of their verification, confirmed precisely the location, shape, and blood flow of the wound, in order to “inspire faith of its factuality” (pg. 164). Much like the parallels which can be drawn between Lucia and María, so too can they be drawn between another Italian contemporary, Domenica Narducci da Paradiso (1473-1553), whose influence is perhaps present in the life of Juana de la Cruz with respect to her experience of ecstasy, prior to stigmatization. It is said of both these women, that their confessors found them strewn on the floor in the form of a cross, representing their visions of the crucifixion amidst their rapture, a narrative element which also serves to “surpass” the Catherinian model by placing a heightened emphasis on the physicality of stigmatization (pg. 170).
Ultimately, Acosta-García establishes that Catherinian models of holiness, integrated into larger models of late medieval Italian feminine piety, may have become known to these Hispanic mystics through an oral tradition that was facilitated by their connections to contemporary Italian holy women and their confessors.
Conclusion
As he concludes his argument, Acosta-García proposes that we bear in mind how these texts deliberately prevent us from knowing “where the narration of biographical facts end, and where the codification of hagiographic tradition begins” (p. 171). Furthermore, he leaves us to ponder: are these coincidences indicative of an explicit imitation by these women of a known model? Or, is it instead the specific interests of the author, often a confessor or historian of mendicant orders, which informs the creation of these histories? His analysis nevertheless confirms, through the narrative structures of santa niñez and madurez, that these histories represent a knowledge of earlier Italian models of holiness —not simply of the fourteenth-century Catherinian model, but also of models created by holy women living contemporaneously with them in the fifteenth century; “that group of women which Bartolomei Romagnoli would call the ‘spirituale milizia femminile’” (pg. 171). This knowledge is particularly evident in the descriptions of Castilian stigmatics, who elevate their status beyond the Catherinian model through the graphic nature of their stigmatizations, such that they do not simply communicate a likeness to Christ, but instead, a total assimilation with Christ in his passion. In addition to pointing out these transgressive appropriations, he asserts the importance of looking to the models laid down by contemporary Italian women for future hagiographic comparison, such as Lucia Broccadelli da Narni and Domenica Narducci da Paradiso, who facilitated in “the negotiation of new forms and significances of the stigmata” among the female-religious of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (p. 172).
