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Lachrymose Holiness and the Problem of Doubt in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Hagiographies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 June 2016
Abstract
By the thirteenth century, tears were a ubiquitous feature of accounts of saints’ lives. Despite the widespread acceptance of tears as an expression of holiness, they could, however, present a special challenge for interpretation and female tears were often the subject of doubt. Divinely bestowed tears might be subject to criticism and uncertainty over whether they could be read as an authentic sign of devotion and the presence of God. This essay argues that doubt over the sincerity of tears was a topos in the narrative of saintly struggle – something a saint must endure as a test of faith and sanctity – and was a corollary to achieving certainty in thirteenth-century female saints’ lives. As the century came to a close, however, tears began to be more openly questioned. The essay assesses the evolving doubt surrounding lachrymose expressions of devotion in the fourteenth century and accounts for changing attitudes by drawing on both saints’ lives and theological sources. It is argued that this doubt was a reflection of broader changes in the acceptance of physical and emotional expressions of sanctity and was part of the ‘gradual criminalization’ of the female body in the fourteenth century.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History , Volume 52: DOUBTING CHRISTIANITY: THE CHURCH AND DOUBT , June 2016 , pp. 118 - 134
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2016
Footnotes
I am the recipient of an Australian Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellowship (project number CE110001011). I wish to acknowledge the kindness of the late Philippa Maddern, who generously shared with me her unpublished work on tears; I am grateful to her executors for allowing me to cite this research here. I also wish to thank Frances Andrews for taking the time to provide valuable feedback on this essay. Any infelicities that might remain are, of course, entirely my own.
References
1 For a history of Christian tears until the central Middle Ages, see Nagy, Piroska, Le Don des larmes au Moyen Âge. Un Instrument spirituel en quête d'institution (Ve–XIIIe siècle) (Paris, 2000)Google Scholar.
2 See Kimberley-Joy Knight, ‘Blessed are those who weep: Gratia lacrymarum in Thirteenth-Century Hagiographies’ (PhD thesis, University of St Andrews, 2014).
3 The increased interest in tears has, in part, been sparked by the buoyant interest in the history of the body and the history of emotions. Important studies of tears include Lot-Borodine, Myrrha, ‘La Mystère du don des larmes dans l'Orient chrétien’, Vie Spirituelle 48 (1936), 65–116Google Scholar; Hausherr, Irénée, Penthos. La Doctrine de la componction dans l'Orient Chrétien (Rome, 1944)Google Scholar; Nagy, Don des larmes; Gertsman, Elina, ed., Crying in the Middle Ages: Tears of History (New York, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For recent studies on doubt see, in this volume, Frances Andrews, ‘Doubting John?’, 17–49.
4 Lyn A. Blanchfield, ‘Considerations of Weeping and Sincerity in the Middle Ages’, in eadem, Crying in the Middle Ages, xxi–xxx.
5 Ibid. xxi.
6 Ibid. xxii.
7 Ibid.
8 Christian, W. A. Jr, ‘Provoked Religious Weeping in Early Modern Spain’, in Davis, J., ed., Religious Organisation and Religious Experience (London, 1982), 97–114Google Scholar, at 98.
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10 Ibid. 111.
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15 See Knight, ‘Blessed are those who weep’, 6.
16 Simons, Walter, ‘Reading a Saint's Body: Rapture and Bodily Movement in the Vitae of Thirteenth-Century Beguines’, in Kay, Sarah and Rubin, Miri, ed., Framing Medieval Bodies (Manchester, 1994), 10–23Google Scholar, at 12–13. The ascent of bodily piety in the thirteenth century was also connected to changes in penitential practices. By the high Middle Ages exterior aspects of penitence were globally favoured: see Nagy, Don des larmes, 268. For the Early Church, see Brown, Peter, The Body and Society: Men and Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1998)Google Scholar.
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20 ‘Huius rei testes fuerunt ille, plene dulcedinis et deuotionis, ex oculis eius distillantes in habundantia lacrime, quarum impetum ante sponsi faciem, quotiens ad mentem illi redijt: et-si voluisset, nulla tamen valuisset cohibere instantia’: Vita Beatricis 1.17 (The Life of Beatrice of Nazareth (1200–1268), ed. and transl. Roger de Ganck, Cistercian Fathers 50 [Kalamazoo, MI, 1991], 100–1). All translations are my own unless otherwise stated.
21 Mahoney, Dhira B., ‘Margery Kempe's Tears and the Power over Language’, in McEntire, Sandra J., ed., Margery Kempe: A Book of Essays (London, 1992), 37–50Google Scholar, at 39.
22 Petroff, Elizabeth Alvida, Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism (Oxford, 1994), 166Google Scholar.
23 Simons, ‘Reading a Saint's Body’, 19.
24 Angela of Foligno, Memoriale, Library of Latin Texts Series A (Turnhout, 2010), 153; ET Angela of Foligno's Memorial, ed. Cristina Mazzoni, transl. John Cirignano (Woodbridge, 1999), 32.
25 Leben und Offenbarungen der Wiener Begine Agnes Blannbekin, ed. and transl. Peter Dinzelbacher and Renate Vogeler, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 419 (Göppingen, 1994), 349–50; ET Agnes Blannbekin, Viennese Beguine: Life and Revelations, transl. Ulrike Wiethaus (Bury St Edmunds, 2002), 112 (ch. 167).
26 Sanctae Clarae virginis assisiensis. Legenda latina, ed. Giovanni Boccali, Italian transl. Marino Bigaroni (Perugia, 2001), 134.
27 Bevegnati, Giunta, Legenda de vita et miraculis beatae Margaritae de Cortona 5 (ed. Fortunato Iozzelli [Rome, 1997], 249)Google Scholar; ET Life and Revelations of Saint Margaret of Cortona, transl. F. M’Donogh Mahony (London, 1883), 84–5.
28 See ‘Vita beatae Idae Lovaniensis’ 1.15.37, ActaSS April. 2, 157–89, at 168.
29 In this episode Christ rebukes Margaret for trying to stay quiet: Bevegnati, Legenda de vita et miraculis beatae Margaritae 5 (ed. Iozzelli, 254: ‘qui tui fletum doloris temere pro uana gloria fieri extimant, silentium tibi penitus indidisti’).
30 ‘Processus canonizationis’ 1.6, ActaSS Oct. 9, 771–814, at 772; see also Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, ‘Legenda maior S. Francisci’, Analecta Franciscana, 10: Legendae S. Francisci Assisiensis saec. XIII et XIV conscriptae (Quaracchi, 1941), 555–652, at 603.
31 Iacobus de Vitriaco, Vita Marie de Oegnies & Thomas Cantipratensis, Supplementum, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, CChr.CM 252, 43–164. Huygens's 2012 edition of the Vita is used here rather than the Bollandists’ Acta sanctorum. The Acta version has been shown by Huygens to be exceptionally unreliable as it omits entire sections or presents readings which do not exist in a single manuscript. Using sixteen manuscripts from the thirteenth century, and many others from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as part of the extensive critical apparatus, Huygens redresses this misrepresentation and presents a much more realistic picture of the life that circulated during the thirteenth century. For a translation of the Acta version, see Mary of Oignies: Mother of Salvation, ed. Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker (Turnhout, 2006), 33–127. On this Vita, see also, in this volume, Jan Vandeburie, ‘“Sancte fidei omnino deiciar”: Ugolino dei Conti di Segni's Doubts and Jacques de Vitry's Intervention’, 89–104.
32 ‘Quadam autem die ante parasceven, cum iam imminente Christi passione maiori lacrimarum imbre cum suspiriis et singultibus se domino mactare inchoasset, quidam de sacerdotibus ecclesie ut oraret cum silentio et lacrimas cohiberet quasi blande increpando hortabatur. Illa vero, sicut verecunda semper erat et omnibus columbina simplicitate obedire satagebat, impossibilitatis sue conscia egressa clam ab ecclesia in loco secreto et ab omnibus remoto se abscondit, impetravitque a domino cum lacrimis ut predicto sacerdoti ostenderet quod non est in homine lacrimarum impetum retinere, quando flante spiritu vehementi fluunt aque’: Jacques de Vitry, Vita Marie de Oegnies 1.5 (CChr.CM 252, 61–2).
33 See Smalley, Beryl, ‘Ecclesiastical Attitudes to Novelty c.1100–c.1250’, in Baker, Derek, ed., Church, Society and Politics, SCH 12 (Oxford, 1975), 113–31Google Scholar.
34 Jacques de Vitry, Vita 1.4 (CChr.CM 252, 60).
35 ‘Ipsi vero spiritum quantum in se extingunt et prophetias spernunt, qui spirituales quosque quasi insanos vel ydiotas despiciunt et prophetias sive sanctorum revelationes tamquam fantasmata vel somniorum illusiones reputant’: Jacques de Vitry, Vita, prologue (CChr.CM 252, 54).
36 For other instances of a confessor encouraging a holy woman to moderate her tears, see Jordan of Saxony's letters to the Bolognese holy woman Diana d'Andalo (d. 1236): Die Briefe Jordans von Sachsen, des zweiten Dominikanergenerals (1222–37), ed. Berthold Altaner, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland 20 (Leipzig, 1925), 7, 15, 34, 41 (letters 1, 11, 30, 39).
37 ‘[S]tetitque Iudith ante lectum orans cum lacrimis et labiorum motu in silentio’: Jud. 13: 6.
38 ‘Cum igitur sacerdos ille die eodem missam celebraret, aperuit dominus et non fuit qui clauderet, emisit aquas et subverterunt terram: tanto enim lacrimarum diluvio submersus est spiritus eius, quod fere suffocatus est, quantoque reprimere impetum conabatur, tanto magis lacrimarum imbre non solum ipse, sed et liber et altaris linteamina rigabantur. Quid ageret ille improvidus, ille ancille Christi increpator? Per experientiam cum rubore didicit quod prius per humilitatem et compassionem cognoscere non voluit. Post singultus multos, multa inordinate et cum interruptione pronuntians a naufragio tandem vix evasit, et qui vidit et cognovit testimonium perhibuit. Tunc vero longo tempore post misse completionem ancilla Christi revertens, miro modo acsi presens affuisset quecumque acciderunt sacerdoti improperando retulit: “Nunc”, inquit, “per experientiam didicistis quod non est in homine impetum spiritus Austro flante retinere”’: Jacques de Vitry, Vita 1.5 (CChr.CM 252, 62–3).
39 For a discussion of the lexicography of doubt, see Flanagan, Sabina, ‘Lexicographic and Syntactic Explorations of Doubt in Twelfth-Century Latin Texts’, JMedH 27 (2001), 219–40Google Scholar.
40 ‘Illa vero, sicut verecunda semper erat, et omnibus columbina simplicitate obedire satagebat’: Jacques de Vitry, Vita 1.5 (CChr.CM 252, 62).
41 The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. Barry A. Windeatt (Harlow, 2000), 291–4 (ch. 62).
42 Bevegnati, Legenda 5 (ed. Iozzelli, 249).
43 Ibid. 5 (ed. Iozzelli, 250).
44 Ibid. 2 (ed. Iozzelli, 190–4).
45 For tears in the lives of fourteenth-century holy women, see, for example, Margaret of Faenza (d. 1320): Vita 2 (ActaSS Aug. 5, 847–51, at 849–50); Michelina of Pisaro (d. 1356): Mariano of Florence, Vita, lect. 5, and Alia vita 1–2 (ActaSS Jun. 3, 927–36, at 928, 930, 932–3); Dauphine of Puimichel (d. 1360): Les Vies occitanes de Saint Auzias et de Sainte Dauphine, ed. and French transl. Jacques Cambell (Rome, 1963), 138, 142, 148, 150, 180, 186, 200, 202, 226.
46 Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love, ed. Marion Glasscoe (Exeter, 1976), 87 (ch. 72). It should be noted that Julian mentions tears at other points in the text.
47 ‘Restoti ora a dire, a satisfare del desiderio tuo che m’ài adimandato, d'alcuni che vorrebbono la perfezione delle lagrime e non pare che la possino avere: acci altro modo che lagrima d'occhio? Sí: ècci uno pianto di fuoco, cioè di vero e santo desiderio, il quale si consuma per affetto d'amore. Vorrebbe dissolvere la vita sua in pianto per odio di sè e salute dell'anime, e non pare che possa. Dico che costoro ànno lagrima di fuoco, in cui piagne lo Spirito santo dinanzi a me per loro e per lo prossimo loro’: Catherine of Siena, Il Dialogo della divina provvidenza ovvero libro della divina dottrina, ed. Cavallini, Giuliana (Rome, 1968), 211Google Scholar. See Webb, Heather, ‘“Lacrime cordiali”: Catherine of Siena and the Value of Tears’, in Ferzoco, George, Kienzle, Beverly and Muessig, Carolyn, eds, A Companion to Catherine of Siena (Leiden, 2011), 99–112Google Scholar. By contrast, during the thirteenth century the loss of tears was particularly disturbing: see Kimberley-Joy Knight, ‘Si puose calcina a’ propi occhi: The Importance of the Gift of Tears for Thirteenth-Century Religious Women and their Hagiographers’, in Gertsman, ed., Crying in the Middle Ages, 136–55.
48 See Elliott, ‘Physiology of Rapture’, 152.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid. 142.
51 Ibid. 152.
52 Henry of Langenstein, De discretione spirituum 2, 4 (Heinrichs von ‘Langenstein Unterscheidung der Geister’, ed. and German transl. Thomas Hohmann, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters 63 [Munich, 1977], 56–8, 70–1).
53 It should be noted that Gerson's concerns about the legitimacy of the body, visions and revelations were not always directed exclusively against women. Some scholars have now begun to revise the view that Gerson had a misogynistic distrust of women: see Anderson, Wendy Love, ‘Gerson's Stance on Women’, in McGuire, Brian Patrick, ed., A Companion to Jean Gerson (Leiden, 2006), 293–315Google Scholar.
54 Gerson, Jean, De probatione spirituum 448 (Oeuvres complètes, ed. [Palémon] Glorieux, 10 vols [Paris, 1960–73], 9: 177–85, at 180)Google Scholar; for ET and commentary, see Paschal Boland, The Concept of Discretio spiritum in John Gerson's ‘De probatione spirituum’ and ‘De distinctione verarum visionum a falsis’ (Washington DC, 1959).
55 Gerson, De distinctione verarum revelationum a falsis 90 (Oeuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, 3: 36–56, at 42).
56 ‘Est fateor in lacrimis aliquid dulce et mulcebre . . . Propterea fuge quantum poteris interim tales lacrimas, quoniam latet anguis in herba’: Gerson, De religionis perfectione et moderamine, letter 49 (Oeuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, 2: 232–45, at 243); see also McGuire, Brian Patrick, Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation (University Park, PA, 2005), 312–13Google Scholar.
57 Gerson, De examinatione doctrinarum 456 (Oeuvres complètes, ed. Glorieux, 9: 458–75, at 458); see also idem, De distinctione verarum revelationum a falsis; De probatione spiritum. For a full discussion of the discernment of spirits, see Caciola, Nancy, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 2003)Google Scholar, especially 215–315.
58 ‘[D]eceptionum et artificiosae transformationis. Sunt namque plerique qui seipsos violentant ad lacrimas et fervores, et per quosdam exteriores actus ad sentimenta supernaturalia elaborant’: Bernardino of Siena, De inspirationum discretione (Opera omnia, ed. Fathers of the College of St Bonaventure, 7 vols [Florence, 1950–9], 6: 243–90, at 270).
59 Dionysius the Carthusian, De discretione et examinatione spiritum (Dionysii Carhusiensis Opera selecta, 2 vols, CChr.CM 121, 121a, 2: 268, 270–2); see also Elliott, ‘Physiology of Rapture’, 153 n. 60.
60 Elliott, ‘Physiology of Rapture’, 142.