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Women religious virtuosae from the middle ages: a case pattern and analytic model of types
Barbara R. WaltersINTRODUCTION
Comparative historical analysis of thirteenth-century women religious virtuosae offers a new vista over the terrain of the sociological categories initialized by Troeltsch (1956) and Weber (1985, 1978) neither of whom showed much interest in pre- Reformation female piety (Bynum 1991). In fact, like new wine in old wineskins, a systematic empirical examination of medieval women exemplars mandates reformulation of central concepts in the sociology of religion rooted in the Weberian-Troeltsch edifice, such as church/ecclesia, denomination, sect, cult, and congregation (Bainbridge and Stark 1979; Becker 1932; Johnson 1971; Neibuhr 1932; Troeltsch 1956; Weber 1985, 1958; Yinger 1970), but especially mysticism, as well as inner-worldly and world renouncing asceticism (cf. Bynum 1991:78). More recent sociological theorists have accomplished this reformulation in part (Collins 1986; Schluchter 1989, 1996; Kaelber 1998). But even Schluchter's erudite typology of stances to the world of religious virtuosi (1989) fails to incorporate the full range of variation within the ecclesia afforded by the inclusion of women.
The following paper executes a comparative historical analysis of five thirteenth-century women exemplars using the case-pattern and analytical model as summarized by Hall (1999). The analytic model identifies distinctive features present or absent in each exemplar or "ideal type." The five cases were drawn from a thirteenth-century cross section representative of the variety of religious expression within and outside the medieval Roman Catholic ecclesia. The conclusions suggest a tentative reformulation of the Weberian "inner-worldly" versus "world renouncing" and "asceticism" versus "mysticism" dichotomies. They enhance lines set Out in the theoretical work of Schluchter (1989, 1996) with his magnificent clarification of Weber.
The analysis and reformulation are cast in a setting of organizational and theological pluralism within and external to the medieval Roman Catholic ecclesia; they are integrated with observations regarding broader societal transformations. The contextual observations open a vast research agenda insofar as they suggest a close cousin to denominationalism within the ecclesia, variation in degree and type of mysticism and asceticism, non-sacramental "election," and unmediated relationships to God - long before Protestantism. These observations nonetheless corroborate themes pre-empted by Collins (1986), Schluchter (1989), and Kaelber (1998).
THE THIRTEENTH-CENTURY ROMAN CATHOLIC ECCLESIA
Troeltsch (1956) developed his understanding of "church" around the "relatively unified ecclesiastical culture" (Schluchter 1996:209) that emerged in Europe following the Gregorian reforms of the eleventh century. The caesaropapist interpenetration of nobility and church characteristic of European civilization since Charlemagne was transformed so as to effect separation of the secular and religious domains. The unity of the two spheres, societas christiana and societas humana, was constituted through a nomocratic theology, the institution of sacramental grace, and dogmatic privileging of the sacerdotal hierarchy. Troeltsch (1956) believed that these ecclesiastic developments enabled universal participation in the divine and simultaneously "provided leeway for autonomous developments outside the church" (Schluchter 1996:209). In other words, separation of the religious from secular, the institution of penance and of sacramental grace, and the cultural hybrid that became canon law transformed religious practic e into "obedience to an institution." The unity thereby achieved paradoxically revitalized tension between a sacred church and the secular world and "made possible under the canopy of a Christian symbolic universe a certain pluralism" (Schluchter 1996:210).
The de jure separation of the religious from the secular gave rise to pluralism, not only in the broader medieval culture but also within the church itself (Schluchter 1996). The same structural unity that enhanced tension between the church and the world produced tension between a bureaucratic ecclesia embedded in an imperfect world and strict religious virtuosi. For Troeltsch the tension had been traditionally resolved through a "sect-like" monasticism. The monastic orders were linked to the bureaucratic structure through papal recognition and interlocking networks. However, they stood apart from the corruption and chaos of the secular world and were ordered by the discipline of religious rules. After the Gregorian reforms these orders proliferated in quantity and kind.
The unity of medieval feudal culture was solidified by vast informal connections between church, monasticism and nobility through familial networks and ties. Most succinctly stated, the Gregorian reforms emerged in tandem with Benedictine monastic developments. These dovetailed with the devolution of a familial model based on the territorial prince and a rule of law privileging the eldest son. They took place in the context of a gift economy linking the sacred to the profane through debt and obligation, not yet monetary and market oriented (Bouchard 1987; Rosenwein 1989; Duby 1991). Second sons, cousins, and even daughters from the nobility entered a monastic life of prayer ndowed by a powerful aristocracy because, inter alia, this life stood in sharp contrast to their own context of the real brute force and strife in the secular world (Rosenwein 1989).
Constable (1996:4) views the reforms of the eleventh and twelfth centuries as taking shape in four overlapping stages (cf. Bloch 1961). The first stage (1040 to 1070) encompassed moral reform among the clergy, especially regarding issues of simony and celibacy. The second under Pope Gregory VII freed the church from lay control and established the supremacy of the Pope. The third (1100 to 1130) witnessed the last phase of the investiture struggle and increasingly emphasized monasticism. The fourth (1130 to 1160) culminated in an intense concern for the moral reform of all Christians.
The fourth stage of reformation gave way to the vast social changes that formed the backdrop of the diverse religious movements in the thirteenth century; it provides the historical context within which the lives and work of the women analyzed herein took shape. Significant socio-economic transformations include the introduction of a monetary exchange system, vast economic expansion, the emergence of a mercantile stratum, urbanization, increased opportunities for lay education, and vernacular translations of the Bible. The contextual transformations resulted in increased participation on the part of new lay groups in existing forms of religious and monastic life as well as increased participation in new heterodox groups.
A common denominator among the burgeoning religious movements of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries was their root in asceticism fostered by a spirit of reform and the desire to return to the simple lifestyle of Jesus and his disciples (cf. Kaelber 1998). These exemplars in simplicity formed a striking contrast to the Church, a legal entity with the right to taxation as well as the means and will to police and sanction opinions departing from official doctrines (Leff 1967). This was a recurring theme for the Church; Schluchter (1996: 213) well notes that the "most important ideals of the Christian religious movements, poverty and the apostolic life, represented a permanent challenge to the hierocracy."
Late medieval heresies indeed most often grew out of orthodox beliefs and practices from within the church, more especially from heterodoxies that emerged from practicing the apostolic obedience to an extreme (Leff 1967:2). Apostolic imitation of the life of Jesus formed a groundswell of rebellion against the official church opulence of the twelfth century; it was perhaps only the strength and tenacity of the movement that resulted in papal efforts to incorporate unlicensed and proliferating apostolic preachers within the Church. When Innocent III assumed the papacy in 1198 he wielded a double-edged sword. He conceded to the demands for recognition by apostolic preachers and devotees to apostolic imitation so long as they displayed appropriate reverence for the sacerdotal hierarchy and orthodox doctrine. However, at the same time he prosecuted heretics to the fullest, using new means (Grundmann 1955). Henceforth, what became defined as heresy resulted from the failure of groups to gain ecclesiastic recogniti on and from subsequent sectarian developments that transformed the religious impulse into ideologies with explicitly anti-sacerdotal character (Leff 1967; cf. Schluchter 1967:213).
Most important to the analysis of women virtuosae was Papal recognition of new monastic orders with the result of organizational and theological pluralism within the unum Corpus Christi. Here Bynum (1991) takes on Weber (1978) -- especially his assumption that medieval heresies attracted women in disproportionate numbers by enabling greater religious equality. Bynum (1991), Grundmann (1955) and others have noted that as a consequence of wars and primogeniture, unmarried women were overrepresented in the population and therefore overrepresented in both orthodoxy and heterodoxy. Scholars continue to debate actual numbers, but most concur that women made their most significant contributions to orthodoxy, and especially the new flowering mysticism of the late thirteenth century (cf. McGinn 1998).
A focus on women as oppressed or as outsiders obscures the extent to which women -- particularly in the late Middle Ages -- were the actual creators of some of the distinctive features of mainstream Christian piety.... Herbert Grundman in the thirties... pointed out that, if women were overrepresented in heterodox movements, they were overrepresented in orthodox ones as well, and that the women (like the men) often came from the privileged classes ... the most creative and thoughtful scholarship on women in religion is based more on Grundmann's sense that women's piety was at the center of late medieval developments than on Weber's... sense of women as outsiders or disprivileged. (Bynum 1991:57).
PLURALISM WITHIN THE ECCLESIA
In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council took a decisive stand against heresy and the proliferation of associations, orders, and congregations. It became unlawful to create new orders or, more accurately, to invent new forms of association. Persons wishing to embrace the apostolic life as monks had to do so under one of the approved rules and new houses had to be incorporated by charter with one of the existing orders (Grundmann 1955). Moreover, there were only two sets of approved rules, the Rule of Saint Augustine and the Rule of Saint Benedict.
The Rule of Saint Benedict originated with writings of Saint Benedict of Nursia in sixth-century Italy during the disintegration of the Roman Empire (Fry 1982). Saint Benedict established a monastery southeast of Rome at Monte Cassino where he reformed monasticism and wrote a set of rules for common life. The rules require a withdrawal from secular attachments, complete obedience to an elected abbot, and poverty. The principal engagement of the monk consists of opus dei, or the work of God, meaning reading, prayer and contemplation. The Rule mandates a strict regime and a daily round of liturgy in the form of Office Hours. The Office Hours organize daily readings and prayer at specified hours: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Sext, None, Terce, Vespers, and Compline. The Cluniacs or "black monks," whom Weber (1978:1172-73) regarded as "the first professionals," restored the Rule of Saint Benedict in the tenth century. The reforming Cistercians or "white monks" embraced the Rule of Saint Benedict in the eleventh century and added manual labor to the regular daily requirements.
The Rule of Saint Benedict contrasts sharply with the Rule of Saint Augustine, which covers only a few pages and "from the eleventh century on spread like fire among the stubble" (Van Bavel 1996:5). Augustine developed this less obsequious guide to religious life in c. 397; the fundamental ideas are constituted around community, love and the human heart rather than detailed rules for prayer cycles and ascetic renunciation. The Rule emphasizes the way of interiorization such that obedience to regulations is merely a symbol of inward transformation. The early Victorine canons embraced the rule in 1113, as did the later Dominicans in 1216 and the Franciscans in 1226 when their respective orders received papal recognition. The Rule of Saint Augustine enabled these orders to move more freely among congregations and thereby fulfill teaching and preaching vocations.
The variation in Rule touches only the surface of dimensions that distinguished the organizational structure of one recognized group from another. Constable (1996:47) summarizes a remarkable treatise written in the second quarter of the twelfth century on the diversity in forms of religious life. The anonymous author of the Libellus classified monks and canons into three groups based on whether they lived far from men, like the Cistercians, or close to men, like the Victorines, or as hermits. The classification touches upon categories later analyzed by Stark (1967:281) in his commentary on the old medieval adage: "Bernard loved valleys and Benedict mountain-tops, but Francis townships." Indeed, as Stark notes, the Cistercian-Benedictine reforms occurred within feudal society on landed property. The background for the Franciscans, by contrast, was the small town, and for the Dominicans, the emerging city.
Each of the preceding orders maintained relationships with daughter houses during the thirteenth century. The empirical variation between thirteenth century orders in terms of organizational structure and in contextual setting therefore legitimizes a critique of the Weberian categories and their reformulation for the analysis of religious virtuosae. Organizational structure and context were linked to organizational mission, e.g., teaching, preaching, and prayer as well as the new hospital and caring roles taken on by women. The variants therefore suggest skeletal contours for "ideal types" in the vast array of religious beliefs and practices of thirteenth-century individuals, groups, and congregations -- Cistercians, Dominicans, and Franciscans as well as the laity, tertiaries, beguines/ begards, and other recognized orders.
THE WEBERIAN CATEGORIES: ASCETICISM, MYSTICISM, INNER-WORDLY, WORLD-REJECTING
Weber (1978) introduced two polar dichotomies well known to sociologists of religion: "asceticism" versus "mysticism" and "inner-worldly" versus "world-rejecting." The former dichotomy distinguishes activity, or systematic self-control from passivity and emotional inwardness, the latter, withdrawal from the world versus participation in the world, albeit in opposition. In the instance of asceticism "ethical behavior [is] performed in the awareness that god directs this behavior, i.e., that the actor is an instrument of god" (Weber 1978:541). Mysticism, by contrast, refers to a "subjective condition of a distinctivekind, the most notable of which is mystic illumination" (Weber 1978:544).
The types can be combined to construct a typology, one that reveals Weber's design as especially suited for the distinction between non-ascetic Lutheranism and ascetic Calvinism (cf. Schluchter 1989:128). For the former, peace with God could be found in a mystical union combined with a passivity and emotional interiority that enabled acceptance of the world. For the latter, such peace "is linked to activity, systematic self-control, and the vision of the orders of the world as a task: to transform them ..." (Schluchter 1989:128). Weber's inner-worldly ascetic is a rationalist who systematizes his own conduct and rejects everything irrational, aesthetic, or dependent upon his emotional involvement -- he is the recognized "man of a vocation" (Weber 1978:544-548).
Weber's texts also employ the typology to distinguish the asceticism of medieval monastics from that of Calvinism. He viewed both groups as "rational" in the sense of exercising systematic self-control but classified the orientation of the former as "other- worldly," the latter "this worldly." Weber's interest in the Cluniacs in particular was based on selected features that suggested them as a close cousin to the Calvinists: "The monk lived in a methodical fashion, he scheduled his time, practiced continuous self-control, rejected all spontaneous enjoyments and personal obligations that did not serve the purposes of his vocation" (Weber 1978:1172-73).
Weber's understanding of mysticism fails to consider the transformation of consciousness in Western Europe initiated by the revival of intellectual mystical theology in the twelfth century and its development in the thirteenth. Troeltsch (1956:730-746) takes up the topic but offers little to facilitate connections between its soteriological rituals of denial and asceticism and fault lines in the ecclesiastic edifice that signal nascent Protestantism (cf. Kaelber 1998:40; Molendijk 1996:66-76). Moreover, both Troeltsch and Weber are silent on the role of women, especially women from rising strata, as carriers of the mystical theology and rituals of the Cistercian Saint Bernard. Likewise, no mention is made of their later association with the Dominican Meister Eckhart, pronounced heretical in 1327 (Colledge, Marler, and Grant 1999). The latter was present in Paris during the time of the trial and condemnation of Margaret Porette. And they do not provide for the direct, bodily and excessive mysticism characteri stic of some late medieval women (cf. McGinn 1998).
Schluchter (1989:127-146), while conceding that Weber's "mysticism" is a residual category, provides a magnificent instrument for adapting the Weberian edifice: he gracefully sculpts from Weber all of the available conceptual tools. He clarifies, for example, the distinction between states of salvation, e.g., mysticism or election, versus their means, e.g., contemplation, asceticism and ecstasy. The clarification opens possibilities for analysis of observable variation in mystical states that result "rationally" from specific routinized soteriological rituals, or more haphazardly as ephemeral moments of "infusion." The Weberian-Schluchter conceptual framework therefore adds structure to this preliminary identification and analysis of the distinctive features of "ideal types" for virtuosae within and outside recognized religious orders in the thirteenth century. However, it requires refinement and reformulation grounded in empirical analysis of exemplars or ideal types.
VIRTUOSAE IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY: A COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL APPROACH
Comparative historical analysis of virtuosae exemplars using sociological methods (Skocpol 1984; Hall 1999) offers a promising direction. Bynum (1982) proposed a method approximate to the comparative historical method in her comparison of historically accurate and detailed case studies. However, as a historian, Bynum selected closely related cases, exemplars from the nuns of Helfta. Likewise McGinn (1998) focused exclusively on mystics from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Here five cases have been selected to represent the range of variation within and outside the fold of the ecclesia. The narratives presented for each case focus on distinctive features and patterns believed to be significant in the constitution of a prototype. The exemplars include: Juliana of Mont Cornillon (c.1193-1258), the unknown author and congregation for the "Mosan Poems" (mid-thirteenth century), Hadewijch of Brabant (first half of the thirteenth century), Gertrude of Helfta (1256-1303), and Margaret Porette (last quarter o f the thirteenth century). They will first be described in narratives that capture a pattern, and then analyzed to show the overlapping and distinctive elements of each type.
Juliana of Mont Cornillon
The principal source of information about Juliana is her vita (Delville 1999; Newman 1988), which was initially written in vernacular French, most likely by her friend Eve, and then translated into Latin between 1261 and 1264. Juliana was born in 1193 at Retinne, a small village near Liege, the second daughter of wealthy but not aristocratic parents. At the age of five she and her sister Agnes were orphaned and placed by relatives in a newly founded Augustinian monastery. The monastery functioned as a leprosarium and Juliana served there as a canoness until ousted during a conflict with townspeople.
Juliana was reputed by all who knew her to be of prodigious intellect and capacious memory. She mastered French and Latin at an early age and by late adolescence had read Saint Augustine as well as memorizing at least the Psalms, the Song of Songs, and twenty sermons by Saint Bernard. Juliana was intensely devoted to the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus during the Eucharist, a consistent theme in the vitae of thirteenth-century Liege women (Roisin 1947). The official Church recognizes Juliana for her leadership role in the movement to establish the Feast of Corpus Christi, first celebrated in Liege in 1246; she was canonized in the nineteenth century. The vita reports this as the outcome of recurring visions and the outcome of her long-term ascetic fasting, contemplation and direct dialogue with Jesus. Juliana believed herself to be God's instrument.
Juliana was extremely well connected with the local church hierarchy and especially with the Dominicans, who initiated celebration of the new feast in Liege and worked to spread its celebration and indulgence throughout Germany and the surrounding environs. In Liege she overlapped with a number of important theologians including Hugh of Saint Cher and Jacques Panteleon, who later became Pope Urban IV. She was also closely connected to the Cistercians who buried her in a section of their cemetery at Villers reserved for saints. During most of her adult life she suffered persecution, not from religious authorities but from the townspeople, who sought control of the monastery whose wealth had been enhanced by her dowry.
While church historians have traditionally attributed authorship of the liturgy for the "original office" of the Feast of Corpus Christi to a young and naive Canon John, I attribute authorship to Juliana. This attribution is based on the wording of the vita, which indicates that she "prayed" while John wrote. Since John was a naive young man, the phrasing suggests that he may have functioned as her scribe as was often the case for women composers of music. Under any circumstances, the liturgical text was pieced together from existing materials in the library at Mont Cornillon and the music is formulaic.
Juliana was entirely orthodox. The antiphons paraphrase tracts from Hugh of Saint Victor and Alger of Liege (Lambot and Fransen 1946). The most interesting item in the liturgy from a sociological point of view is the Victorine sequence, a long poem written in paired verses each sharing the same music. The structure is rendered more complex by the placement and repetition of venerable musical phrases from ancient settings of the Alleluia to highlight key structural transitions and phrases. The style was especially characteristic of the Dominicans (cf. Fassler 1993).
Verses 5a and 5b in the sequence attributed to Juliana mark the structural transition from the Old to the New Testaments. They are set to music that quoted directly from the most famous hymn of the late Middle Ages, Laudes crucis. Everyone knew and recognized this sequence and its music -- it would today be like a new song that opened with a musical quote from "Hey Jude." Laudes crucis was composed in the twelfth century for the office celebrating the finding of the true cross. Its music was developed from a Carolingian Alleluia and prosula from a Fortunatus poem brought together during the tenth century (see Liber Usualis: 1456). The text is translated from the Corrigan (forthcoming) transcriptions. (1)
4a The lamb without blemish,
also signified this,
The one that was once sacrificed and had to be eaten
According to Mosaic law.
4b The lamb of the Old law has now ceased,
for grace has come instead,
when the blood of Christ flowed,
expiating the sins of the world.
5a May his flesh so serene
be pleasant food for us
in the mystery of faith.
5b The manna from heaven
given as a noble exemplar to Israel
was a form of this food.
The Mosan Poems.
The orthodox piety and Eucharistic fervor among the Liege women gave rise to the circulation of vernacular religious poetry. Paul Meyer (1873) first identified this genre through the Grosbois Psalter, now in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York (Pierpont Morgan 440). Meyer identified the Psalter as Mosan, or from the diocese of Liege, through the eight vernacular poems in Liege dialect that precede the Psalms. Meyer noted that the poems overlapped with the vernacular poetry in another Psalter. More recent scholars such as Sinclair (1965) and Oliver (1988) have identified twenty such vernacular poems connecting fourteen of forty-one Psalters now catalogued as Mosan. Authorship of the poems is unknown -- in fact, there may be multiple authors. Some make a speculative attribution of the prototype to Marie d'Oignies, who prophesied the new feast of Corpus Christi. Others attribute authorship to the mendicants who provided spiritual counsel to women in the Liege diocese. The Psalters in general are "folk art;" they circulated among and may well be the work of beguines (Oliver 1988).
Each of the miniatures in the Grosbois Psalter accompanies a poem and highlights a scene from Biblical narrative on the birth, childhood and death of Jesus; they parallel and perhaps even anticipate scenes from the Rosary mysteries. The Psalter was intended for cathedral use and was created for -- possibly by -- women, most likely for Beguines. The socio-economic status of the audience is unclear, but they were most likely intended for affluent daughters of the mercantile strata. The influence of the newly recognized Franciscans and Dominicans is evident; that of the Cistercians is manifest through a long set of Ave prayers at the end of the Psalter (Oliver 1988).
The contents of the Psalters are entirely in keeping with orthodoxy even while they quote from the Apocrypha. The first poem serves as an excellent exemplar. The accompanying miniature depicts Mary as mother of Jesus seated on a throne with a book in her hand. Jesse, the father of David, lies asleep below. A female figure on Mary's right holds a scroll that reads in Latin: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse," from the book of Isaiah. A male figure to Mary's left holds a scroll that reads in Latin: "And the Lord shall create a new thing on earth." The poetic text expresses the same orthodox piety and similarly emphasizes Mary's lineage through the Tree of Jesse. The latter was a medieval favorite symbolizing the succession of kings and prophets leading up to Jesus; it complements the genealogical versus from Matthew 1:2-17, which appears at the end of the Psalter (Pierpont Morgan 440). Ironically the producers of the Psalters were persecuted after the middle of the thirteenth century, not for heresy, but rather for encroaching on the territory of the guilds through book production (Oliver 1988). The following quotations from the first poem are taken from the edition by Ricketts (forthcoming).
O, virgin of righteousness, who descended from Jesse, who gave birth to the flower in whom the Holy Spirit finds true rest, as Isaiah said, and bloomed in you through the gift of the seven parts; root of Jesse, fire of love, flower and lily of chastity, lady worthy of honour, grant to your servant to savour the taste of the holiest fruit of whom you bore the flower. The heart of your servant is fired by the heat which comes down from the seven graces and by its adour so that the flower of chastity may not wither in me nor the flame of benevolent love die down. May my being and my thoughts, my existence and my words be guided and directed by the spirit of knowledge, and my heart be filled by the spirit of piety so that I may remember your virtues both night and day. May the spiritus consilii never fail me so that I may regulate my life according to the counsel of the Scriptures. Give me the strength to be present at the exegesis so that I may hear priests and wise people speaking and reading. In the palace of my heart, through the spirit of knowledge, Make me feel how gentle is the knowledge of knowing you, and everywhere keep in me the spirit of understanding so that my soul and my body may not fall into sin. Place in me, too, that legitimate fear, which drives out pride and the law of sin. Flower of all virtues, mansion of the Holy Spirit, deign to share with me of the tree of your graces so that, in this world of today, my life may so flourish that your son may know me as daughter and friend.
Hadewijch of Antwerp
"Hadewijch, a Flemish beguine of the thirteenth century, is undoubtedly the most important exponent of the love mysticism and one of the loftiest figures in the Western mystical tradition" (Mommaers 1980:xiii). The Minne movement, or expressions of desire for mystical union with and service to the human Christ, spread across Low Countries in the thirteenth century. Both nuns and secular women, especially the beguines, were swept into its wake. The spiritual foundations of the Minne movement rested in devotion to the pure Gospel and ecstatic contemplation, which brought its practitioners into a direct relationship with Christ as the Divine Bridegroom (Hart 1980).
Unlike the case of other women mystics in the Minne tradition, no vita or life story was written for Hadewijch. Therefore the task of extrapolating the facts of her biography has posed formidable challenges for historians. Most agree that she was not a nun but rather lived in a community of beguines. The beguines, a group more diverse than often admitted, was a body of women who began to gather in the Low Countries at the end of the twelfth century. They gained official recognition in 1216, when Jacques de Vitry successfully petitioned Pope Honorarius III on their behalf for permission to live communally. General opinion among Hadewijch experts is that she was eventually exiled from her beguine group under accusations of quietism. Therefore, like Juliana, Hadewijch spent the later years of her life homeless; she offered care-giving services at a hospital or leprosarium where she could sleep. As a layperson, rather than a nun, she was far more vulnerable to potential charges of heresy than cloistered women, t o whom the charges might also have been applied.
Experts agree that Hadewijch was highly educated and most likely came from the nobility or a patrician family (Hart 1980; McGinn 1998). Her vernacular Dutch writings reflect familiarity with Latin, rhetoric, numerology, Ptolemaic astronomy and music theory. She quoted extensively from the Scriptures, using both Testaments, and demonstrated at least a passing acquaintance with some of the great writers, such as Origen, Hilary of Poitiers, Augustine, Gregory the Great and Isidore of Seville (Hart 1980:6). Like Juliana, she loved Saint Augustine and reveals a deep debt in her writings to the Victorines -- Hugh, Adam and Richard of Saint Victor -- as well as to the Cistercian Saint Bernard and William of Saint Thierry. Her familiarity with courtly love poetry is evident in her facility with poetic form, and has often been cited as evidence for her high social position and earlier contacts with the nobility.
McGinn (1998:221) indicates that Hadewijch lived in a time of emerging suspicion of the beguines, mysticism, and especially feminine mysticism. Most of the manuscripts of her work are followed by a supplement containing a "list of the perfect," in reference to Vision 13, "The Sixth-Winged Countenance" (Hart 1980). The twenty- ninth person on the list refers to a beguine love mystic killed by Master Robert, most likely a reference to the Inquisitor, Robert le Bougre, who investigated heresy in northern France and Flanders between 1235 and 1245. If this was typical of her boldness, Hadewijch was not critical of the clergy and the institutional church, and did not come under any charges of heresy herself (McGinn 1998). A brief excerpt from Vision 13 (Hart 1980:298-99) is presented below as an example of her daring ecstatic visions.
"66. The Seraph who belonged to me and who had brought me there lifted me up, and instantly I saw in the eyes of the Countenance a seat. Upon it sat Love, richly arrayed, in the form of a queen. The crown that rested on her head was adorned with the high works of the humble, who pay homage to veritable Love and suppose it true that they are not serving and loving Love; this their veracity continually swears, for they know themselves to be nothing, and they know Love alone to be all...
97. The Seraph who had lifted me up placed me upon it [the seat] and said to me: 'Behold, this is Love, whom you see in the midst of the Countenance of God's Nature; she has never yet been shown here to a created being."'
Margaret Porette
"Margaret Porette's solitary, steadfast, and courageous stand against the mighty engines of cultural authority is bound to evoke the sympathy and enkindle the imagination of every modern reader. There is nothing in the medieval record quite like her story ..." (Emery 1999:viii.). Yet, historians actually know little about Porette; she lived in Hainaut at the beginning of the fourteenth century and was burned at the stake on June 1, 1310, in the Place de la Greve in Paris. Her book, Mirror of Simple Souls, had been condemned as heretical by a commission of twenty-one distinguished teachers of theology in Paris in April of 1310, who advised that the book be destroyed. Seven weeks later a second commission reviewed additional evidence indicating that Bishop Guy had earlier condemned and publicly burned the book in Valenciennes. Bishop Guy had expressly forbid further copies or possession of the book, and Margaret had persisted (Colledge et. al. 1999). The Mirror was written and circulated in vernacular French.
Like Hadewijch, Margaret's writings demonstrate familiarity with the fin' amour tradition and its courtly love poetry. The structure of her book is a dialogue derived in style from Boethius -- De Consolatione Philosophiae -- with interactions between Love, Soul and Reason. The Mirror compares divine illuminations of an elect through perfect love with the dull discursive reason of the clerics. There is no special devotion to the humanity or Passion of Christ, no Eucharistic fervor and she expresses contempt for school learning. Ultimately, she wrote directly against the teachings of the Church in explicit statements, indicating that the Soul in its highest states of union with God -- ecstasy -- could take leave of the Virtues and the Sacraments of the Church. It was for these theological reasons the book was condemned (Emery 1999). She lived among the beguines but there is no evidence that she was part of any beguine group; rather she was one of the vagae, or wanderers. The following passage quotes from the C olledge et. al. (1999:171) translation.
"How the Soul has attained to perfection of being when Holy Church cannot take example from her life. Chapter 134.
Love. Such a Soul, says Love, has attained to the greatest perfection of life, and has come nearer to the Far-Near, when Holy Church can take no example whatever from her life. Then she is beneath the work of Humility, and beyond the work of Poverty, and above the work of Charity. She is so far from the work of the Virtues that she could not make out what they say. But the works of the Virtues are all enclosed within such a Soul, and they obey her with no Gainsaying, and because they are shut away like this, Holy Church is not able to recognize her. Now this same Holy Church praises especially the Dread of God, for this blessed Dread of God is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And nonetheless the Dread of God would destroy the state of freedom, if it could force its way into such a state of being, but perfect freedom has no hesitation."
Gertrude of Helfta
Gertrude of Helfta was born in 1256, most likely to parents of the nobility. At the age of four she was placed in a Benedictine convent, Heifta, a monastic setting in Saxony renowned during the second half of the thirteenth century as an intellectual and mystical center. The Heifta nuns followed Cistercian practices, but no evidence suggests a formal incorporation into the order. Bynum (1982:184-185) describes the distinctive environment of the Helfta community as shaped by eucharistic piety, a direct and unmediated contact with God, support for the clergy, a view of Christ as comforter as well as judge, and the positive sense of self typical of those placed as children in monastic settings. The empowering sense of self contrasts sharply with the anxiety manifest in the writings of vagae, beguines, converts, and women who entered the cloistered life in their teens. Gertrude's life at Helfta cut across a chaotic time in Germany following the deposition of the excommunicated Frederick II in 1245. However, the H elfta monastery was large and prosperous, even though subject to pillage by the local nobility in 1285 and interdiction by local ecclesiastic authority in 1295 (Barratt 1991:8; Bynum 1982:175).
Gertrude received a solid education at Helfta, studying grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, and probably music, geometry, arithmetic and astronomy. She excelled in Latin and her writings demonstrate an acquaintance with Augustine, Gregory, Bernard, and the Victorines. She quotes frequently from the Vulgate and the liturgy. Unlike other women who were writing in the vernacular, Gertrude wrote in Latin -- not the awkward Latin of a translator, like Juliana's, but high Latin. She wrote in the tradition of her monastery and its religious vision. She was trained in it and developed her own vision through intimate interactions in small groups of friends with whom she shared the mystical tradition. Nonetheless, during a historical time of significant intellectual developments that suggest cracks in the culture of the ecclesia, "Gertrude seems at least superficially to be a throw-back to the previous century with Bernard, Aelred of Rievaulx, and William of St. Thierry" (Barrart 1991:13). William James (1985) dismissed Gertrude as "puerile."
The following is taken from the Barratt translation (1991:150) of The Herald of God's Loving Kindness. She does not usurp the clergy or criticize their role as much as she projects herself onto it (cf. Bynum 1982).
"May my heart and my soul, together with the whole substance of my flesh and all the powers and faculties of my body and spirit along with the whole created world, give praise and thanksgiving unto you, sweetest God, most faithful lover of human salvation, for your most generous mercy! Your loving-kindness was not content merely to ignore the fact that I had the temerity to approach so many times the most excellent feast of your holy body and blood improperly prepared. Your inexhaustible superabundance toward me, the most worthless and useless of your instruments, condescended to tinge your gift with added beauty: from your grace I received an assurance that if anyone who longs to approach the blessed sacrament but has a fearful conscience is prompted by humility to seek support and strength from me... for your loving kindness... will count them worthy of so great a sacrament..."
CASE PATTERN AND ANALYTIC MODEL APPLIED TO THE VIRTUOSAE
Three problems loom large in the direct application of Weber's (1985, 1978) categories in the analysis of religious women exemplars from the thirteenth century and the construction of ideal types. First, there are finer gradations and more dimensions in the conceptual categories, especially in the category of mysticism, than Weber permits. Second, there are more conceptual categories than envisioned by Weber. And third, there is more contingency in the clustering of attributes or distinctive features than suggested by Weber's types, e.g., an individual can be both world-renouncing and world-affirming at different times or in different roles.
The case-pattern and analytic model assists in the resolution of these and other epistemological issues driven by efforts to apply Weberian concepts to the analysis of virtuosae. Hall (1999:107-116) most succinctly summarizes the case patterning and analytic modeling approach in his review of Parson's (1937) and the latter's critique of Weberian ideal types. In The Structure of Social Action of 1937, Parsons rejected ideal-types analysis; he aimed at replacing the qualitative historical case orientation that identifies patterns with a "more abstract and analytic approach" (Hall 1999:108) and theoretical concepts. Hall goes on to note that for Parsons the two approaches were viewed as interrelated. An array of analytic elements can describe a case-like pattern, and patterns are constellations of analytic elements. In summary per Hall (1999), "Weber did not formalize a theory that integrated a systematic matrix of analytic elements and ideal typical case patterns...For his part, Parsons did not deny that forma lization of Weberian-style ideal types could yield general theory." Instead he [Parsons] argued, "... that a fundamental limitation of ideal-type analysis favored using analytic elements to theorize.... Any ideal type, Parsons argued, consists of a constellation of elements fixed in relation to one another, whereas in empirical phenomena the different elements may vary independently of one another" (Hall 1999:110).
The case pattern and analytic model is employed in this opening work on religious virtuosae. Here, key analytic "variables" are identified and assessed in relationship to the five women exemplars. A data matrix is constructed by listing the cases or exemplars in rows and the analytic variables in columns. If the variable applies to the case, it is given a value of one; if it does not apply it is given a value of zero. The following variables were selected as distinctive analytic elements applied to the women exemplars. The resulting data matrix is presented in Table 1.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
At the simplest possible empirical level there is far more variety and ambiguity in the observed religious case patterns than afforded by Weber (1978). The variety in types may exceed even the expectations of historians who have often classified the beguines as a singular and unified group. The works of Oliver (1988) and Ricketts (forthcoming) reveal diversity within just the Mosan Psalter congregational audience and/or their authors. Moreover, the analytic model corroborates Bynum's (1991:70-71) qualitative judgment that women do not fit easily into Weber's categories. They more typically combined selected features at different times and different places. Moreover, they were often "in the world" -- in ways not suggested by Weber -- as "reformers." Juliana combined passive meditation and asceticism with administrative duties and her prominent role as a religious leader within the ecclesia. Others, including Juliana, Hadewijch, and probably the Psalter congregation worked in hospitals, cared for orphans, dist ributed money and food to the poor, provided spiritual counsel, and challenged corrupt practices in lay and ecclesiastic domains (cf. Bynum 1991:70). They were "servants" and "instruments" as well as passive vessels in contemplation.
Most interesting, in light of Weber's larger project linking inner-worldly asceticism to the Protestant ethos (1958), material prosperity for the women generally preceded their ascetic renunciations (cf. Roisin 1947). The beguines and tertiaries, and to some extent the newer Cistercian nuns, were drawn from rising social strata -- new groups that may have been anxious about their wealth and status. Theirs was a spirit of penitence and renunciation of wealth (Bynum 1982:183; Grundmann 1955). Most were drawn from towns and the lower nobility, often rebelling against the material and other excesses of the preceding generation through religious asceticism.
From the five exemplars, the hazardous nature of existence during the thirteenth century is obvious. In the words of Hobbes (1930: 253), life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." The intensity of religious life bears testimony by way of contrast to the brutality of the everyday world. Moreover, the double-edged sword of power via secular versus church authority is made manifest in the contrast of outcomes between the five women. Each walked a fine line between the threat of inquisitional prosecution for heresy and prosecution by secular authorities in land or other disputes. All five exemplars in fact suffered harsh treatment from secular groups - often via the increasing power of the Patrician strata and their status wars with established nobility. Only Margaret Porette and Hadewijch suffered from both secular prosecution and official prosecution by the ecclesia and only Margaret was completely damned by an ecclesiastic committee whose members may have wept at the reading of her final sentence.
Margaret Porette's case corroborates Leff's (1967) thesis regarding heresy. Groups defined as heretical shared three basic characteristics: (1) a Church ban on their beliefs, (2) persistence in opposition to the Church, and (3) use of Biblical or evangelical virtues to challenge the hierocratic authority. A major difference between Porette and Hadewijch was that the latter repented for her audacity - Porette did not (Bynum 1991: 62). And Porette's case suggests other important directions for research on virtuosae. Her religious vision approximated to the nascent Protestant idea of God as totally "other." Her union with God - a God who was entirely transcendent and radically other from this world - spoke to her on His schedule, not subject to the orderly life of prayer that defined the life of regulars. Her religious orientation is not at all surprising given the reality of her existential circumstances. In sociological terms, her case suggests a positive and unilinear relationship between the negative tenor of existence on earth and the degree of transcendent otherness ascribed to God.
Regular religious life offered peace and order, existential items in sharp contrast to the world for those who chose it. However, this choice was not open to everyone. Admission to a cloister required a dowry or implicit gift exchange within a family tradition. With the rising urban strata and increasing number of unmarried women, the demand for entry into the religious life outstripped the number of available places in recognized orders and even the capacity for incorporation of new foundations. The increase in private devotion among women must be viewed as the natural outcome of these demographic and sociological trends. It is virtually tautological that women in private devotional groups and women in non-cloistered orders more frequently suffered suspicion of heresy for religious vocation from both religious and secular authorities than Benedictine or Augustinian nuns.
In summary, the combination of a case-pattern and analytic model applied to women religious virruosae enables examination of both abstract distinctive features and specific constellations as they occurred in real historical time. The model demonstrates that the central Weberian categories were not mutually exclusive but rather criss-crossed in interesting ways. Removed from the straightjacket of the "ideal type)" the analytic elements recombine to produce a wider variety in typology than envisioned by their author. The resulting flexibility enables a vista of the real choices for real people within the broad framework of the medieval ecclesia. This preliminary analysis therefore opens a new research strategy with real explanatory power through which to approach and understand meaningful human actions embedded in a distant historical time and social space.
TABLE 1
Juliana Psalters Hadewijch
Early 13th Late 13th Early 13th
Prophetess Lay Liturgical Minnemystik
(Audience)
Noble 0 0 1
Rule of Saint Benedict 0 0 0
Rule of Saint Augustine 1 0 0
Beguine 1 1 1
Vagi 0 0 1
Ascetic 1 0 0
Contemplative 1 0 1
Ecstatic 0 0 1
Mediated Contact 1 1 0
Mediated Writing 1 1 0
Latin 1 1 0
Vernacular 0 1 1
Biblical 1 1 1
Doctrinal 1 1 0
Inspirational 0 1 1
Instrument 1 0 0
Vessel 1 0 1
World-fleeing 1 1 1
Inner-worldly 0 1 0
World-Reforming 1 1 1
Emotional Union 0 0 1
Intellectual Union 1 0 0
Ritualized 1 1 0
Infused 0 0 1
Reciprocal 1 0 1
Visions 1 0 1
Christocentric 1 1 1
Persecuted by Church 0 0 0
Persecuted by seculars 1 1 1
Convicted of heresy 0 0 0
Canonized 1 0 0
Marguerite Gertrude
Late 13th 1256-1303
Heretic Mystic/Saint
Noble 0 1
Rule of Saint Benedict 0 1
Rule of Saint Augustine 0 0
Beguine 0 0
Vagi 1 0
Ascetic 0 1
Contemplative 1 1
Ecstatic 1 1
Mediated Contact 0 1
Mediated Writing 0 0
Latin 0 1
Vernacular 1 0
Biblical 0 1
Doctrinal 0 1
Inspirational 1 1
Instrument 0 0
Vessel 1 1
World-fleeing 1 1
Inner-worldly 0 0
World-Reforming 0 0
Emotional Union 1 1
Intellectual Union 1 1
Ritualized 0 1
Infused 1 1
Reciprocal 0 1
Visions 0 1
Christocentric 0 1
Persecuted by Church 1 0
Persecuted by seculars 1 1
Convicted of heresy 1 0
Canonized 0 1
Noble = was of noble birth; Rule of Saint Benedict = in a religious
order under the Rule of Saint Benedict; Rule of Saint Augustine = in a
religious order under the Rule of Saint Benedict; Beguine = lived with a
group of other women known as Beguines; Vagae = wandered from place to
place without a group; Ascetic = embraced a life style of ascetic
denial; Contemplative = dedicated to religious meditation; Ecstatic =
experienced moments of "infusion;" Educated = literate and familiar
with texts; Mediated contact = relationship to God medicated by the
sacerdotal priesthood; Mediated writing = writing was dictated or
filtered through a man; Latin = wrote in Latin; Vernacular = wrote in
the vernacular; Biblical = writings were drawn from Biblical passages;
Doctrinal = writings relied on ecclesiastic doctrines; Inspirational =
writings speak of a persona relationship to God; Instrument = is
commanded by God to execute some act or vocation; Vessel = is the
passive recipient of God's presence; World-fleeing = other-worldly;
Inner-Worldly = seeks to transform the world; World-Reforming = seeks
modest changes in the world through nursing or teaching; Emotional union
(Minnemystik) = expresses deep emotional longing for contact with God;
Intellectual union = experiences intellectual illumination; Ritualized =
contact with God occurs during prescribed rituals; Infused = God enters
the soul of the person; Reciprocal = is engaged in a dialogue with God;
Visions = experiences imaginary visions; Christocentric = centered on
the theology of Jesus; Persecuted by Church = formally warned or
criticized by the Church; Persecuted by seculars = formally warned,
criticized or pursued by se culars; Convicted of heresy = stood trial
and was convicted; Canonized = recognized by the Church as a saint.
(1.) Thanks to Joseph A. Komanchak for comments and suggestions on the translation. Final responsibility rests with the author.
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Barbara R. Walters (*)
(*.) Direct all correspondence to: Barbara R. Walters, Kingsborough Community College, The City University of New York, E-mail: bwalters@kbcc.cuny.edu. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the annual meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society, the Association for die Sociology of Religion, and die American Sociological Association. I would like to thank Lammert Gosse Jansma, but especially John R. Hall, Lutz Kaelber, and Peter T. Ricketts for their substantive suggestions on these earlier versions, and Peter T. Ricketts for his detailed editorial comments. The final draft benefited immensely from substantive and editorial suggestions from the three reviewers and die Sociology of Religion editor. Especially the first reviewer offered significant insights and citations not contemplated in the original draft. An Applied and Scholarly Research Award from Kings borough Community College, CUNY, enabled completion of this paper. I thank my husband, Steven R. Doehrman, for editorial comments on numerous drafts and for his continuous support for this project.
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