Where the Middle Ages Begin
For medieval mystical women, the ability to maintain two opposite concepts simultaneously seems to be requisite for spiritual development. Not only were women asked to comprehend humanity’s otherness from God, as women, they were assumed subservient to men and, paradoxically, as able to receive redemption as their male counterparts; women understood their nature as both inferior and worthy, lesser than and equal to.
Central to the aims of this thesis is the question “how did Porete „fit‟ the religious landscape of her period?” A seeming obstacle to this pursuit are claims from within the scholarship that Porete did not „fit‟ at all, but was, rather, as an aberration amidst other female mystics of the period.
It is my intention not only to explore the discourse of love and desire in the fourteenth century, but also to examine how the ideas have been altered from those present in the Anglo-Norman and Latin material that was written or widely read in twelfth-century England and what pressures and influences may have brought about these changes.
Critics have long recognized that the religious orders played an important part in the production of vernacular devotional literature in late medieval England. The orders were well suited to this task. Reading and writing were an important part of the life of those who lived under a rule.
In Producing the Middle English Corpus: Confession and Medieval Bodies, I argue that confessional discourse played an important role in the creation of the Middle English canon.
Casting aside even the simple clothes she now wore, Ida wrapped herself in a dirty rag and draped a mat over her shoulders for warmth. Aggressively seeking out the most crowded plazas and market places, she preened and ‘strutted about if mad or a fool, offering a monstrous spectacle of herself to the people.’
Blood and body : women’s religious practices in late medieval Europe Tudesko, Jenny L. Thesis: M.A., History, California State University, Sacramento (2009) Abstract Religious women in thirteenth and fourteenth-century Western Europe developed forms of pious practice that were unique in their extreme devotions to the blood and body of Christ and unique in their use […]
Breaking Through the Stained Glass Barrier: The Voices of Etheldreda, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret of Antioch Delsigne, Jill Scripps College (2004) Abstract Saint Etheldreda, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and Saint Margaret of Antioch seem frozen and silenced in their stained glass images; however, the stories of strong women, whether fantastical or real, spoke to […]
Masolino’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria: Mystic Saint or Female Role Model? Macdonald, Una (Published Online, 2007) Abstract In 1860 Jacob Burckhardt in his seminal book The civilization of the Renaissance in Italy argued that Renaissance women ‘stood on a footing of perfect equality with men’ and put forward the idea that the Renaissance represented a period […]
Kingdoms and Beasts: The Early Prophecies of Hildegard of Bingen Czarski, Charles M. JOURNAL OF MILLENNIAL STUDIES, VOLUME I, ISSUE 2, Winter (1998) Abstract The twelfth-century Benedictine author Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) has long been famous for her first major work known as the Scivias, a description of her visions and her commentaries on them which she […]
Sisters Between Gender and the Medieval Beguines Stoner, Abby Ex Post Facto: Journal of the History Students at San Francisco State University, Vol.5:2 (1995) Abstract The Beguines of northern Europe have been called the first women’s movement in Christian history. This group of religiously dedicated laywomen, who took no permanent vows, followed no prescribed rule, supported themselves […]
Birgitta of Sweden and the Divine Mysteries of Motherhood Stjerna, Kirsi Feminist Forum, 24, no. 1 (1997) Abstract St. Birgitta of Sweden is most widely known as the founder of her order Regula Sanctissimi Saluatoris and as the “author” of the Revelaciones S. Birgittae, the collection of her 700 revelations. Born in 1303 to one […]
In late medieval Paris, prostitutes were everywhere, it seems. Looking at the map published in Bronislaw Geremek’s study of the margins of medieval society we get the impression that prostitutes were in fact not marginal at all, at least as far as their locations are concerned.
Gender, religion and society : a study of women and convent life in coptic orthodox Egypt Jeppson, Karolina M.A. Cultural Anthropology Thesis,Uppsala University, May (2003) Abstract This study deals with the interrelations between gender, religion and society in the context of contemporary Coptic Orthodox Egypt, with a focus on Coptic nuns and convent life. In the […]
Legend, Veneration, and Nationalism: The History of Devotion and Pilgrimage to the Miraculous Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa Młynarz, Mike (University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta) Axis Mundi (2005/6) Abstract According to legend, St. Luke the Evangelist painted an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which eventually found its way to a monastery in Częstochowa, […]
What is the significance of the deployment of madness in the early Christian ascetic experience of holiness?
Few people in history have had more written about them than Jeanne d’Arc. This young woman has been claimed by French Nationalists, the Catholic church, and radical feminists alike; she has been portrayed variously as saint, heretic, schizophrenic, war heroine, virgin, and tart.
Women’s own Christian history through the ages exists mostly in remnants and fragments, not enough to permit a comprehensive picture to emerge.
Joachimite apocalypticism, Cistercian mysticism and the sense of disintegration inPerlesvaus and The queste del saint Graal O’Hagan, Michael PhD Thesis, University of British Columbia (1983) Abstract The two early thirteenth-century romances Perlesvaus and the Queste del saint Graal are strongly influenced by particular theological doctrines. The primary influence on Perlesvaus is apocalyptic: not only does […]
Encounters with Monsters at the End of Time: Some Early Medieval Visualizations ofApocalyptic Eschatology Lewis, Suzanne Different Visions: A Journal of New Perspectives on Medieval Art, Issue 2, June (2010) Abstract In our long history of interpreting apocalyptic images in medieval manuscripts, we have tended to resist the idea of eschatological expectation as a major creative force. […]
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