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Research Seminars

Jeanne-Marie de Maillé

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The Other Sister Research Group met on May 16th, 2025, to discuss the noblewoman Jeanne-Marie de Maillé who, after a chaste marriage, lived an intriguing religious life in widowhood, never entering a religious order. Her vita and canonization inquest are currently being compiled, translated, and commented on by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Bruce Venarde, and Edmund (Ed) van der Molen for their forthcoming volume, Jeanne-Marie de Maillé (1331-1414): Searching for Sainthood in Late Medieval France.

The circulated readings included the introduction and four chapters, one with an extract from the vita, “Chapter 3: A Pious Young Widow in the City,” and the others with extracts from the inquest: “Chapter 13: The Articles of Interrogation” “Chapter 20: The Testimony of Pierre des Aubuis,” and “Chapter 25: The Testimony of Jeanne la Carrée.” Each extract is followed by a commentary.

Renate started the presentations by explaining how she came across Jeanne-Marie while working on the political visions of other medieval women religious, such as Constance de Rabastens, and thanks to the work of André Vauchez: Jeanne-Marie had had a vision about the papal schism. Renate then suggested to Bruce that they work together on her vita by the Franciscan Martin of Boisgaultier and her inquest. After they started their collaboration, they came across Ed’s name, through A.J. Langley’s podcast “My Favorite Mystic,” as someone also working on Jeanne-Marie; they contacted him and all three decided to work together. The group’s three-part collaboration functions through a tripartite division of the vita and inquest texts. Each translates their sections of the primary sources and writes commentaries for them, but also comments on the others’ translations and commentaries with a colour-coded schema. They are in the later stages of the process, and Renate noted that their work on the texts has already begun to establish multiple additional projects, such as her current work on Jacques II de Bourbon (d. 1438), Comte de La Marche, who possibly sponsored Jeanne-Marie’s canonization inquest. Bruce added that their chosen structure for the book, which incorporates a commentary at the end of each chapter, has been influenced by the example of the recent publication A Female Apostle in Medieval Italy: The Life of Clare of Rimini, by Jacques Dalarun, Sean L. Field, and Valerio Cappozzo (2023).

Ed, the second speaker, explained that he discovered Jeanne-Marie through his doctoral research on the construction of saints’ identities. He is especially interested in exploring the disagreements that could develop over what kind of saints could emerge from canonization processes. His initial fascination with Jeanne-Marie was due to her liminal position between religious and lay. He considers the texts of the vita and the inquest to represent the first stages of saint-making, and, using the methodology of value theory, he emphasizes the differences in values that are apparent among the different proponents of Jeanne-Marie’s canonization. The initial stages of the canonization process invited people to negotiate, transform, and appropriate value of different kinds, encouraged the exercise of social creativity, and defined the values of the community. In general, Ed said, during the development of a saint’s cult, community consensus was important to the construction of saintly identity, yet multiple identities emerge from Jeanne-Marie’s dossier. As he pointed out, the two texts present additional questions: since there is no known surviving manuscript of the vita (only a seventeenth-century printed edition), the sources provide few answers to queries about the intended audience, purpose, and dissemination. Jeanne-Marie’s name does appear in a fifteenth-century breviary now in Besançon, suggesting her cult spread beyond her native region.

Next, Ed explained that Jeanne-Marie’s hagiographer extrapolated a make-shift set of religious vows for her in the vita encompassing poverty, chastity, and obedience through the mechanism of mystical visions of Mary and Christ and demonstrated, for example, by her refusal to remarry after the death of her husband. Within the vita, there is some effort to cloister her and to regularize her identity.

Bruce, the final speaker, discussed his entry into the project through an invitation by Renate. He also praised the group’s work process, which he emphasized is heavily collaborative in all aspects. This project was particularly attractive, he said, due to the manageable length of the inquest and its potential usefulness for both teaching and research. So far, only canonization inquests in partibus (organized from Rome) have been edited and translated. This will be the first translation into English (or any modern language) of the preceding stage, the diocesan inquest.

During the Q&A period, moderated by Joseph George Akl, Isabelle Cochelin asked how Jeanne-Marie’s hymen could have been inspected after her death (as mentioned in the inquest) to prove her virginity. Renate and Bruce suggested that there is no information about this in the text and mentioned the unique character of the expression used: claustrum virgineum integrum, incorruptum, atque intactum (“a whole, pure, and intact hymen”, Ch. 25). Such an expression does not appear to have been used elsewhere. Lori Walters provided the example of Joan of Arc, whose virginity was also checked, and she suggested that this was a fairly normalized practice. Isabelle clarified that her astonishment was related to Jeanne-Marie being dead when the examination occurred.

Laura Moncion suggested that Jeanne-Marie perfectly fits the description of an “other sister,” owing particularly to her interactions with lay society (taking care of pregnant women, attending baptisms, etc.). Laura asked whether Jeanne-Marie was performing midwife duties and whether she shared a spiritual or worldly relationship with the children whose baptisms she attended or those of the pregnant women she helped. She also asked who set the articles of interrogation in the inquest: a confessor, a court employee, or the community. In response to the latter question, Bruce answered that the hagiographer, local members of the clergy, and perhaps Jacques de Bourbon, the possible funder of the project, each had roles in the process. Renate added that it was most likely a joint project, although the preliminary inquest would have come from the diocese. Jacques de Bourbon’s procurator seems to have acted in his stead since he himself was not physically there: he was about to be married to Queen Joanna II of Naples. Despite these clues, there is no clear indication of who funded the project. There were only 16 witness across the course of a year, most of them from in or near Tours, so funding may simply have been piecemeal.

In response to Laura’s question about midwifery and godparentage, Ed answered that Jeanne-Marie did not necessarily act as a midwife, but she did act as godmother to at least one child, a son of Duke Louis I d’Anjou. While married, she also acted as a foster mother to three orphaned children, who vanish from the narrative after they are mentioned. She is, however, portrayed as a maternal figure. The narrative includes several miracles related to childbirth. In one example, Jeanne-Marie convinces a knight who is skilled in surgery to intervene in a successful caesarian birth. There are also examples of long-distance miracles related to childbirth, which are formulaic: the pregnancy seems doomed, Jeanne-Marie intervenes, and both mother and child survive. Ed added that she is viewed as both a spiritual and worldly maternal figure and godparent and perhaps even as a godparent to the wider community. This appears to have been a significant and purposeful theme in the texts provided through multiple examples of her nurturing of children’s spiritual development.

Lucy Barnhouse responded to Ed,s comments on maternal characteristics, suggesting connections to Laura Kalas’ theory that Margery Kempe did spiritual work that paralleled the roles of mothering and care that she would otherwise have fulfilled within a more traditional life path. Lucy then proposed that some of Jeanne-Marie’s activities complemented the work of hospital sisters. Some hospital records from France excluded pregnant women and foundlings from the hospital, perhaps due to concerns about noise. Thus, Jeanne-Marie was engaging in work that hospitals were not doing for various reasons; her embedment in her community might parallel some phenomena discussed in Ruth Salter’s “cure seekers.” Lucy then asked whether the three speakers have considered Jeanne-Marie’s potential relation to hospital work. Renate answered that Jeanne-Marie did work at a hospital at one point, but an unfortunate incident with an ill man, related to grapes and diarrhea, ended her employment there. Indeed, she was a “gig worker” and did not work in hospitals or the medical field in any consistent way.

Ed added that Jeanne-Marie’s hagiographer struggled to fit her into a box: almost a mystic, almost a recluse, almost a hospital worker, but none of them completely. She often shifted what she was doing, which led to issues crafting a distinct narrative and identity, further emphasizing the code-switching and liminality inherent in her narrative. Renate added that she wants to compare the vita and the inquest at some point in the future since many aspects of the inquest, such as Jeanne-Marie’s visions, are excluded from the vita. Some other aspects of Jeanne-Marie’s life, however, appear to have been over-emphasized and dramatized by the hagiographer. Her liberation of prisoners, for example, mentioned briefly in a written testimony, became a multiple-paragraph section in the vita. Within this context, determining how the hagiographer selected information to include in the vita is a matter of great interest.

Next, Adam Davis asked, related to Ed’s comments on the competing versions of identity, how intensely Jeanne-Marie’s identities differed. He also asked how the ambition of female saints was discussed and represented, extending this question to the ambition of the hagiographer. How did writers stretch the boundaries of what was acceptable for women? Adam offered a comparison between Jeanne-Marie and Clare of Rimini, who both wished to drink from the chalice at Communion. While Clare did drink the wine, Jeanne-Marie’s mouth filled with blood in its place. In response to the first question, Ed answered that there are at least three or four versions of Jeanne-Marie that emerge from the narratives of different witnesses: worldly mystic, efficient healer, and St Martin-like character. The vita is meant to synthesize these different versions and produce a cohesive portrait. He added that her relationship with the Franciscans is emphasized in the vita through mutual support.  She also interacts with a lot of aristocratic networks connected to the Franciscans, which is emphasized in the vita but not by the witnesses, demonstrating significant value differences between different communities. Thus, the identities that emerge include Jeanne-Marie as a traditional healing saint, an idealized Franciscan saint, an otherworldly mystic, and a corporate civic saint. At the point in the process that is revealed by the two source documents, no significant synthesis between these perspectives has yet been achieved.

Bruce added that many aspects of sainthood were comprised in the two texts and that this seems to have been purposeful on the part of the hagiographer. Ed said that they seemed to be “ticking boxes” for different aspects of sainthood. Renate emphasized that no writings directly from Jeanne-Marie survive, unlike for some of her contemporaries such as St Colette of Corbie; we only have second-hand accounts of Jeanne-Marie’s religious philosophy.

Delfi Nieto-Isabel then asked how much we know about Jeanne-Marie.s “devotees” – the people who were behind the inquest and vita – especially about their social connections to Jeanne-Marie and to each other. She also asked what Jeanne-Marie’s exact relationship was to the Franciscans. How was she both reclusive and staying with them? Finally, she inquired about the language used to refer to Jeanne-Marie in the sources. Since Jeanne-Marie fulfilled so many different roles and appeared to have been buried in a Franciscan habit, how did people refer to her? To this last question, Renate answered that the description “hermitesse” was insulting to Jeanne-Marie. She compared Jeanne-Marie to Colette of Corbie, citing her forthcoming article (“La recluse et l’‘Hermitesse’: La place et la fonction de la réclusion et de l’érémitisme dans les vies de Sainte Colette de Corbie (1381-1447) et de la bienheureuse Jeanne-Marie de Maillé (1331-1414)” in Une autre Cité des dames: Hommage à Yasmina Foehr-Janssens, edited by Hélène Bellon-Méguelle, Camille Carnaille, Philippe Frieden, and Marion Uhlig, forthcoming): Colette was enclosed in a church for multiple years, but Jeanne-Marie had a retreat outside of Tours, at Notre-Dame de Planche-de-Vaux, where she stayed from time to time. She lived in a variety of places in and around Tours. Bruce added that she is not referred to as either a recluse or a beguine and that she seems to have been called a “hermitesse” because she used to dress in very simple clothing. Ed clarified that the texts describe her as a “holy woman,” “holy lady,” or “saint.”

Ed also answered Delfi’s question about networks around Jeanne-Marie. The bourgeois of Tours, for example, are demonstrated to have known each other, and their narratives suggest interaction among them. There is also an aristocratic support network, with a prominent Angevin element. There is not much connection in between these two networks, however. Bruce mentioned that there is also a local clerical network, not associated with Franciscans, but with St Martin’s Basilica.  Ed added that there are no Franciscan witnesses included in the inquest. Why? This seems odd, considering the vita’s emphasis on Jeanne-Marie’s Franciscan connection, apparent in both her relationships with individual Franciscans and with the order in a broader sense.

Renate suggested that Jeanne-Marie had at last one direct international connection, as demonstrated by a letter from the King of Cyprus included in the inquest. The king was part of this aristocratic international network, demonstrating its far reach and the circulation of Jeanne-Marie’s reputation.

Alison More asked how useful it was (and is) to fit Jeanne-Marie into a specific box given the diversity of her identities. She suggested that women religious perceived their multiple identities as irregular and extra-regular ways of “life,” and not necessarily as distinct labels. She also asked about the definition of Jeanne-Marie’s tertiary identity and requested additional clarification about the absence of Franciscans among the witnesses. Renate answered that Jeanne-Marie was not officially called a tertiary but that such terminology has been applied in the source texts for other cases, such as that of St Colette, who took tertiary vows, as a recluse before becoming a Poor Clare. It appears that the Franciscans were trying to keep Jeanne-Marie safe throughout her life and that they eventually took her in on their land in Tours, though there was never an official affiliation. Ed suggested that Jeanne-Marie emphasized the Franciscan relationship when it was particularly helpful to her. Her chosen confessor was not a Franciscan, but, later in her life, she decided that Franciscans would provide permanence. Overall, she picked and chose based on differing circumstances. She was buried in the habit of St Clare. Thus, her burial garb was a statement of intent and not a reflection of reality. Bruce said that the relationship between the Franciscans and Jeanne-Marie appears to have been a mutually beneficial arrangement. Although Jeanne-Marie was most likely looking for stability with the Franciscans, the Franciscans would have benefitted from her reputation as a holy woman and significant figure in the region.

Renate added that there are some questions about Jeanne-Marie’s poverty since she donated many relics and riches to churches but still begged on the streets and took a vow of poverty. She also went on pilgrimages, which were expensive. These examples provide a contradiction regarding her financial means. Alison suggested that poverty might have been an identity marker, particularly for Franciscans, but was not necessarily a reality. Delfi added that, within her sources, there are many examples of tertiaries begging while also donating much – voluntary poverty was only possible with funding.

Next, Lori asked where the information about Jeanne-Marie’s connection to and criticisms of Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria came from. Renate answered that this connection is mentioned in the vita and had been established because Jeanne-Marie was from the aristocracy. Lori asked as well about the dates of Jeanne-Marie’s interactions with the king and queen as related to the timing of Charles’ mental illness, and Renate responded that they occurred after 1392 and the onset of illness, providing context for Jeanne-Marie’s more significant interactions with Isabeau. Lori then asked whether the information in the vita might have been glossed during the writing process. Renate answered that this is unlikely, since Martin of Boisgaultier, her hagiographer, was simply trying to piece her identity together and did not include allegorical interpretation in his text. Bruce agreed that the dossier was not theological, and Ed suggested that the hagiographer’s sources were other vitae and that he was piecing his vita together from these examples.

Next, Lucy added to the discussion of the flexibility of Jeanne-Marie’s poverty, suggesting that this fluidity reflects the relationships of “other sisters” to the categorization of “poor” since they embraced the identities of service to the poor by being poor themselves (pauperes). Lucy suggested that such identification is related to a rhetorical construction of the poor and the identity of the poor within the Christian community, which hinges upon the distinction between deserving and undeserving poor.

Renate added that they do not know what happened to the canonization dossier later on. To whom was it delivered given that it was written during the Council of Constance and the tri-papacy? The manuscript of the vita no longer exists. Unlike the continued efforts to canonize St Colette, there were no other inquests related to Jeanne-Marie. Why? Renate said that André Vauchez has demonstrated that there was an early modern cult related to the hermitage of Notre-Dame de Planche-de-Vaux, but all of this appears to have had no continued impact.

Isabelle suggested that the nobility was occupied by other events, such as the end of the Hundred Years’ War and Charles VI’s illness, and that there was no religious order to help develop a sustained, devoted cult. She also followed up on Adam’s question about ambition. Renate answered that we do not have much information about Jeanne-Marie’s ambition, since we do not have access to her thoughts in her own words, only her actions as seen through a secondary lens. She does not appear to have been ambitious in terms of pursuing a singular goal, but she was possibly ambitious in the number of things she tried to do and in her liminality and refusal to adhere to a single identity. She also generally refrained from overstepping the boundaries of social acceptability, though she was attacked in Paris and accused of witchcraft.

Bruce added that, once, someone threw a stone at her, but she was never pursued by the inquisition. Renate mentioned that she only appears to have been accused of witchcraft by one person, but this never happened in Tours, where she was very well known. Bruce and Renate also discussed small incidents where she was mistreated or rejected for her clothing and poor appearance and one incident in which her brother acted as if he did not recognize her. Ed added that the question of ambition might be applied to the intention to achieve sainthood, which was unacceptable since a large part of holiness relates to humility. We do not know if Jeanne-Marie attempted to present herself as a saint. How much of her action was deliberate? The hagiographer was also attempting to create this persona for Jeanne-Marie, ticking many of the boxes of sainthood on her behalf: how much of this construction was the agency of the hagiographer and how much of it was the agency of Jeanne-Marie?

Bruce concluded that Jeanne-Marie was very old at the time of her death and that much of the vita reflects her early life. Thus, much of the information in the vita must have been provided by Jeanne-Marie herself.

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TOS at the 2025 American Historical Association in New York

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Some of our organizers and collaborators were present and speaking at the 138th Annual Meeting of the AHA in New York, thanks to a session organized by Meghan Lescault (who received for the occasion an award from the American Catholic Historical Association); see the abstract below:

AHA Session 98: The Other Sister: Noncloistered Religious Women in the Middle Ages

American Catholic Historical Association 11

Saturday, January 4, 2025: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM

Chair: Kate Bush, College of the Holy Cross

  • Katherine Ann Clark Walter, State University of New York, College at Brockport:

Remembering Women: Widows’ Religious Identity in Late Medieval Mourning and Remembrance

  • Ashley Tickle Odebiyi, Arizona State University:

The Evolving Role of Noncloistered Religious Women in Papal Politics: A Case Study of Francesca Romana and Eugene IV

  • Emma Gabe, University of Toronto:

Martha and Mary: The Religious Vocation of Laysisters in Late Medieval Germany

  • Meghan Lescault, University of Toronto:

A Feature, Not a Bug: The Legal Ambiguity of the Secular Chapter of Nivelles

Session Abstract: Throughout the history of Christianity, there have been diverse groups of women who led recognizably religious lives outside of traditional monastic structures. The Middle Ages saw a particular abundance of these forms of non-cloistered life. Despite their great numbers, these women were often met with suspicion, marginalization, and opposition by ecclesiastical figures of authority who considered aspects of their lives to be mutually exclusive, defining the religious and lay realms in complete contrast to each other. While we might have expected modern scholars to transcend these strict categories imposed by medieval clerics, it remains the case that non-cloistered religious women receive inadequate treatment in the scholarly literature despite the fascinating insights they offer in the areas of religious, social, cultural, economic, intellectual, legal, and material history. This is at least in part due to a historiographical tradition that imposes a monastic model on female religious life—the “good” religious woman was the cloistered nun. It is now time, however, to give these non-cloistered women their proper place in the historical record.
This session aims to fill this gap by drawing attention to the numerous forms of medieval female religious life and highlighting a few in particular. In featuring different kinds of non-cloistered women in different regions, it will display the great diversity found among these women while recalling their basic similarities. Moreover, the broad thematic range of the session will reflect the great variety of activities, lifestyles, and networks of non-cloistered religious women in the Middle Ages.

Together, these papers will highlight the far-reaching influence and important presence of medieval non-cloistered women in the Middle Ages in many areas—from art to politics to religion to canon law and more—and in different geographical regions. They will also reveal the mixed reception that such women could meet with in medieval society—from welcome and approval to suspicion and distrust.

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2023 International Conference

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The Other Sister: New Research on Non-Cloistered Religious Women (1100-1800)

CHARBONNEL LOUNGE

St Michael’s College. University of Toronto

May 18–20, 2023

You can find a summary of the conference here.

Mary and other young women in the Temple (1325-1350), Johannes de Caulibus, Meditatione de la uita del nostro Signore Ihesu Christo, Paris, BnF, Ital 115, f.7v.

Throughout Christian history, there have been groups of women who lived recognizably religious lives but outside of traditional monastic structures. Despite leaving a substantial documentary and (in some cases) visual record, they are conspicuously absent from the dominant scholarly tradition. By defining and contextualizing the experiences of these women, we can begin to understand the ways they fit into the ecclesiastical and lay landscape of the worlds in which they lived. Our conference focuses on new research on non-cloistered women religious including (but not limited to) beguines, bizzoche, tertiaries, pinzochere, canonesses, and house ascetics. By looking beyond the limitations generally imposed by geography or time period, we can begin to think of the connections that existed between these women and society, cloistered nuns, or clerics. 

This conference is a collaborative and international endeavour with, besides the University of Toronto team of The Other Sister (Isabelle Cochelin, Alison More and graduate students Joseph Akl, Emma Gabe, Meghan Lescault and Laura Moncion), Professors Mary Doyno (California State University Sacramento) and Patricia Stoop (University of Antwerp).

Detail from Mechelen’s beguines at work (17th cent.). Museum Hof van Busleyden (Mechelen, Belgium).

The conference will take place at the University of Toronto, in person, May 18–20, 2023. Those who cannot be present in Toronto on these days may attend the conference virtually and ask questions through chat. In order to attend the conference via Zoom or in person, please email us at tos2023conference@gmail.com.

May 18th

10:30 am Welcome

Augustine Thompson, PIMS Praeses

Alison More (St Michael’s College, University of Toronto) and Isabelle Cochelin (University of Toronto)

11am-12:30pm Interactions with the Church I – Session 1 : the Frederick Charles Furlong Memorial Lecture

Melissa Moreton (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), Romite del Ponte: Pinzochere, Anchorites, and Spiritual Women on Florence’s Ponte alle Grazie

Tanya Stabler Miller (Loyola University, Chicago), The Beguinage of Cantimpré: A Sponsored Emergence

Meghan Lescault (University of Toronto), Appealing to a Higher Power: Episcopal Interventions in the Conflicts of Nivelles

Lunch 12:30-2pm

2-3pm Interactions with the Church II – Session 2

Ashley Tickle Odebiyi (Arizona State University), Partners not Servants: The Religious Networks of Fifteenth-Century Roman Bizzoche

Sarah Joan Moran (independent scholar), Reforming the Low Countries: The Beguines, the Clerics, and the Archduchess Isabella

Coffee 3-3:30pm

3:30-5pm Their Voices – Session 3

Michael Hahn (Sarum College, Salisbury), Angela of Foligno within Franciscan (mystical-)theological genealogies

Mary Harvey Doyno (California State University, Sacramento), Shout-Outs to the Friars: Catherine of Siena’s Daughters and the Search for Institutional Identity

Silvia Giovanardi Byer (Park University, Parkville, MO), Mystical Journeys in Post-Tridentine Italy: Caterina Paluzzi’s Laborious Writings

Detail from Mechelen’s beguines at work (17th cent.). Museum Hof van Busleyden (Mechelen, Belgium).

May 19th

9:30-11am Dissidence – Session 4

Courtney Barter-Colcord (Princeton University), Woman as Savior: Guglielma of Milan, Na Prous Boneta, and the Holy Spirit Incarnate

Delfi Nieto-Isabel (Queen Mary University, London), Central Outliers: Women, Intellectual Contributions and Beguinal Dissident Networks in the Fourteenth-Century Mediterranean

Joseph George Akl and Isabelle Cochelin (University of Toronto), Sisters to Sister: New Perspectives on the Painting Mechelen’s Beguines at Work (Museum Hof van Busleyden, Mechelen, 17th Century)

11-11:30am Coffee

11:30am-12:30pm Liturgy – Session 5

Samantha Slaubaugh (University of Notre Dame), Teaching the Liturgy through Ecstasy: Douceline of Digne’s Vida as Liturgical Source

Katherine Clark Walter (SUNY Brockport), Pious Widowhood in Text and Image: Widows’ Consecrations in Illuminated Pontificals of the Later Middle Ages

Lunch 12:30-2pm

2-3pm The Lower-Status Ones – Session 6

Kate Bush (College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA), Ut pedissequa ministrare: Service and Serving Sisters in Early Clarissan Hagiography

Kim Main (University of Toronto), “Among the Number of His Spouses”: Ursuline Converse Nuns in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Quebec

Coffee 3-3:30pm

3:30-5pm Production and Transmission of Knowledge – Session 7

Patricia Stoop (Universiteit Antwerpen), Non-Cloistered Religious Women and their Contributions to Literary Culture in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries

Kathryn Kerby-Fulton (University of Notre Dame), Not So Silent After All: Anchoresses and Other Sisters in the Virtual Intellectual Communities of Medieval Oxford

Sergi Sancho Fibla (Università degli Studi di Padova), Women, religion and education: types of sources and perspectives of study (Southern Europe, 14th-15th Centuries)

Detail from Mechelen’s beguines at work (17th cent.). Museum Hof van Busleyden (Mechelen, Belgium).

May 20th

10-11am In Hagiographical Sources – Session 8

Alicia Smith (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto), Harlots and Hermits: Thais as Intertext for Twelfth-Century Eremitic Experiments

Laura Moncion (University of Toronto), A Recluse in New France: The Life of Jeanne Le Ber (1662-1714)

Coffee 11-11:30am

11:30am-12:30pm Problems of Definition, Questions of identity – Session 9

Fiona Griffiths (Stanford University), Clerics’ Wives as “Other” Sisters

Michelle M. Sauer (University of North Dakota), Noble Women Attached to the Minoresses in England

Lunch 12:30-2pm

2-3:30pm (Non-)Enclosing – Session 10

Alison Beach (University of Saint Andrew’s), Hermits, Inclusae, and Other Freelancers:  Women in Germany’s Apostolic Awakening (11th-12th Centuries)

Letha Böhringer (Universität zu Köln), The Beguines of Cologne, a Social History

Adrian Kammerer (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), An Order and its Consequences: Effects of the Dominican Third Rule on Non-Cloistered Religious Women

Coffee 3:30-4pm

4-5pm Conclusion by John Van Engen (University of Notre Dame)

Detail from Mechelen’s beguines at work (17th cent.). Museum Hof van Busleyden (Mechelen, Belgium).

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Research Seminars

The Other Sister Research Seminar: Habits and Habitual Dress

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by Isabelle Cochelin and Alison More

On November 7, 2022, The Other Sister research group held a seminar on the topic of Habits and Habitual Dress. Four invited speakers presented some of their work on the subject, which had been circulated to all participants prior to the meeting:

  • Alejandra Concha Sahli, “Habit Envy: Extra-Religious Groups, Attire, and the Search for Legitimation Outside the Institutionalised Religious Orders,” in Medieval Clothing and Textiles 15 (2019):137-56.

For additional information, we also sent: Alejandra Concha Sahli, “Habit Envy: Extra-Religious Groups, Attire and the Search for Legitimation Outside the Institutionalised Orders”, 3rd chapter of “The Meaning of the Habit: Religious Orders, Dress and Identity, 1215-1650”, PhD thesis, UCL, 2017.

  • Kirsty Schut, “Death and a Clothing Swap: An Unusual Case of Death and Burial in the Religious Habit in Fourteenth-Century Naples,” Viator (2019): 185-226.

 

  • Thomas M. Izbicki, “Nuns Clothing and Ornaments in English and Northern French Ecclesiastical Regulations,” in Refashioning Medieval and Early Modern Dress, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Maryn Clegg Hyer (Boydell and Brewer, 2019), p. 237-54.

 

As befits the subject, our discussion on habits was comprised of many threads. The issue of what constituted religious dress, what (and whether) it conveyed authority were addressed along with more practical concerns such as sewing and purchasing garments. In all, it seems that both the growing fields of material history and study of The Other Sister are rich areas for further study.

The work of Dr. Alejandra Concha Sahli, who teaches medieval history and works in public policy in Chile, explores identity and issues of legitimation connected with the visual appearance of beguines. By adopting aspects of the appearance of more traditional nuns, newer religious movements could more easily secure a legitimate role in the social and religious landscapes. They were, however, also often accused of borrowing the habits of others, and thus coming under attack. Dr Concha Sahli mentioned Nathan Joseph’s 1986 book Uniforms and Nonuniforms: Communication through Clothing, as useful to understand that, in the Middle Ages, the “habit made the monk”.

Dr. Kirsten Schut, a Mellon Fellow at the Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies, focused her discussion on the new directions for research explored in her article, other articles in progress as well as her book project on entrance ad succurrendum and lay death and burial in religious habits. In particular, she mentioned the taking of the habit on the deathbed as sometimes representing the final stage in the journey of a tertiary. While the majority of cases of lay individuals choosing to be buried in a religious habit in her rather extensive bibliographical catalogue involve habits of traditional orders, mainly Dominican and Franciscan, Dr. Schut identified cases of women wanting to be buried in the habit of a ‘beguine,’ ‘vestita,’ ‘mantellata,’ ‘pinzochera,’ or third order. These cases were largely from Italy and Southern France, but this might be more reflective of the sources than practices. Overall, donning a religious habit on one’s deathbed demonstrates another unofficial way individuals could be linked to a religious order after their death.

Professor Thomas Izbicki, a historian of Canon Law, now retired from Rutgers, who is also active in DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics and Fashion), began his presentation by pointing out that the subject combined two of his major interests, clothing and the value of religious visitations. Differences in wealth among the nuns were often expressed in difference in clothing, even within one house. He also raised the issue of textiles produced in houses of women for non-liturgical purposes. Women’s houses were generally not given the same kind of financial support as the houses of their male counterparts. Before the seventeenth century, nuns were not allowed to teach. More attention should therefore be given to the ways these houses were able to produce goods (such as sweets or sewing works) to survive financially and stay afloat.

Professor Gabriella Zarri, now retired from the University of Florence, who is responsible for some of the foundational work on non-traditional women religious, focused on the role and purpose of a habit. Pointing out that many major rites of passage are marked by ceremonies of clothing or unclothing (from birth to death), she traced the ways this manifested itself in female religious life with reference to marriage iconography, and the cult of Mary Magdalene. Zarri touched upon the meaning of some elements of profession, such as the reception of a crown of thorns to be transformed into the afterlife into a crown of glory. She also discussed the Dimesse, an order of widows, whose habits were simple, but retained elements of the elegance associated with the social status of women in the world (see fig. 8 in the English summary of her article).

The discussion began with the issue of tertiaries, and the significance of the change of habit as the final stage in the journey of a tertiary. Kirsten Schut pointed to the frequency of burial in religious habits. The habits were often switched from tertiary to monastic habit. Delfi Nieto raised the issue of queens who were buried in religious habits, sometimes even tertiary habits; there is certainly a need for further exploration of this practice. Joseph Akl asked if the religious habits donned at death were always specific to a religious group to which Kirsten Schut answered positively, at least until the 19th century/early 20th century, when secular undertakers used more generic clothing.

The discussion then moved to the Cult of the Magdalene.

The issue of what constituted religious dress was also mentioned. Alejandra Concha Sahli elaborated on when the “clothing” of beguines became official. Kirsten Schut also raised the issue of veils. There does not seem to be much clarity on when “official” decisions were made about clothing, but Gabriella Zarri pointed out that it was stable in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Meghan Lescault asked about if/when habits were officially designated as “sacramentals”. It is a theological category that was not very clearly defined, at least in the Middle Ages. Prof. Izbicki referred to Cordelia Warr’s 2010 book, Dressing for Heaven: Religious Clothing in Italy, 1215-1545. Dr Schut pointed out that a link was often made between baptism and taking a habit. Again, the ceremony of veiling seems to be key. Katherine Walter Clark pointed out that there were comparable practices for the veiling of widows.

Fr. Augustine Thompson mentioned that habit was a key part of Dominican penitential identity. He added that, curiously, by the fifteenth century, women associated with the Dominican penitential movement were increasingly portrayed as cloistered nuns rather than as tertiaries.

As well as a liturgical dimension, there were many practical concerns related to the habit. Eva Cersovsky asked who was making them. Answers to this question were diverse: some female communities might have taken care of making their own habits but it does not seem to have been the norm. Parallels with the recluses were discussed in the chat.

Isabelle Cochelin asked if there was a clear distinction between the habits of nuns and the ones of non-cloistered religious women. She also asked who was the woman in black beside Mary-Magdalene in the 1582 painting by Francesco Cavazzoni of Christ’s Sermon to Mary Magdalene presented by Professor Zarri during her presentation (see fig. 6 in her article and the English summary of her article). Professor Zarri answered that it could be a widow as the clothing of widows was similar to that of nuns. Dr. Concha Sahli pointed out that the difference between beguines’ habits and nuns’ remains an open question.

Work in Progress

Consecration and Conversion between Rite and Symbol: an English Summary of an article by Gabriella Zarri

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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).

  1. 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).

  1. 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

  1. 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).

 

  1. Mulier dicta DIMESSA. Filippo Bonanni, Ordinum religiosorum in ecclesia militanti catalogus eorumque indumenta in iconibus expressa et oblata, 1738.
Work in Progress

Dream Vision and Butter Miracle: Non-Cloistered Religious Women in the Vita of Haseka the Recluse

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by Laura Moncion

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.