Where the Middle Ages Begin
The Chaste Erotics of Marie d’Oignies and Jacques de Vitry Jennifer Brown (Marymount Manhattan College) Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 19, No. 1, January (2010) Abstract IN JACQUES DE VITRY’S THIRTEENTH-CENTURY vita of Marie d’Oignies, the hagiographer, or author of a sacred biography, implicates himself in his knowledge of a priest’s surprising reaction […]
Christina the Astonishing (1150-1224), Mary of Oignies (1177-1213), and Margaret of Ypres (1216-1237) are examples of such lay women who used the accepted role of Female Mystic to effect and secure alternative lifestyles, and also to gain authority that equalled, and often surpassed, the male voices that made up their communities.
In the lives of the saints, it is clear that medieval hagiography reflects the statement, ‘Antiquity has a twofold life in the Middle Ages: reception and transformation.’
In this article I would like to look at Marie’s ascetic and devotional practices and how Jacques, as both confessor and hagiographer, implicates himself into these practices.
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