Christina of Markyate and the St. Albans Psalter: the Book As Container Erin Dee Moore
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2013 Christina of Markyate and the St. Albans Psalter: The Book as Container Erin Dee Moore Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES CHRISTINA OF MARKYATE AND THE ST. ALBANS PSALTER: THE BOOK AS CONTAINER By ERIN DEE MOORE A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2013 Erin Dee Moore defended this dissertation on March 29, 2013. The members of the supervisory committee were: David F. Johnson Professor Directing Dissertation Elaine M. Treharne Professor Co-Directing Dissertation Robert Romanchuk University Representation Paula Gerson Committee Member Charles Brewer Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii I dedicated this to my parents. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE............................................................................................................................18 CHAPTER TWO ...........................................................................................................................49 CHAPTER THREE .......................................................................................................................78 CHAPTER FOUR........................................................................................................................104 CHAPTER FIVE .........................................................................................................................131 CHAPTER SIX............................................................................................................................154 CONCLUSION ...........................................................................................................................175 APPENDIX A. THE TEXTS IN THE ST. ALBANS PSALTER ...................................................................179 B. IMAGES..................................................................................................................................181 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................186 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................197 iv ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the St. Albans Psalter and the woman for whom scholars think it was made, Christina of Markyate. This study tries to reconstruct a potential reading of the Psalter as seen through Christina’s eyes and focuses particularly on the historiated initials for Psalms 36, 51, 67:20, and 118:33 in the St. Albans Psalter. This study also sees the Psalter as possessing a specific agenda that was designed to warn of the dangers of female sexuality and to redirect Christina’s religious life to an appropriate path. The reconstructed reading, then, attempts to show that Christina provided resistance to the spiritual path designed for her. v INTRODUCTION Christina of Markyate was a twelfth-century woman religious who most likely owned the St. Albans Psalter (Hildesheim, Dombibliothek, St Godehard I), a post-Conquest book produced at St. Albans in the twelfth century. Many scholars have devoted time to studying the St. Albans Psalter, and they all reach a general consensus about it. Created in the twelfth century, this Psalter is unique and praised most of all for its lavish illustrative program. A relatively small manuscript, the St. Albans Psalter measures 27.6 x 18.4 cm, and it has 209 folios. Fundamentally, it is a book of psalms, however, as a biblical psalter, this book contains more than just the psalms.1 The St. Albans Psalter has traditional components such as a liturgical calendar, creeds and prayers, the Canticles, the Litany, and Computistical Tables. In addition to these conventional units, the manuscript has 211 historiated initials, forty full-page miniatures about the Life of Christ, a vita of St. Alexis in Anglo-Norman, a letter from Gregory the Great that defends the use of images, three illustrations of Christ at Emmaus, a treatise on Good and Evil, the Beatus Vir that marks the beginning of the psalms, and a diptych that depicts the martyrdoms of St. Alban and David the Musician. The first owner of the Psalter is generally seen as Christina of Markyate, although this surmise is by no means secure. According to The Life of Christina of Markyate (c. 1151-1167),2 Christina was born in the late eleventh century in Huntington to Auti and Beatrice, English 1 Biblical psalters contain more material than the psalms; they often append supplementary prayers to the psalter, prefatory texts, a litany, and a calendar. Haney, An Anglo-Norman Song of Faith, 16. 2 Rodney M. Thomson attributes The Life of Christina of Markyate to Abbot Robert de Gorron’s reign at St. Albans (1151-67). Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey: 1066-1235, vol. 1, Text (Woodridge: D.S. Brewer, 1982), 49. 1 landholders and merchants.3 As a child, she promised herself to Christ and vowed to serve him at St. Albans. Because her parents wanted her to marry, Christina ran away from home to begin her religious life in hiding, first in the cell of a recluse named Alfwyn and then with Roger, a hermit associated with St. Albans. Christina inherited Roger’s cell, Markyate, after his death, and it became a small community for women. Although Markyate was not officially dependent on St. Albans, Christina had a strong friendship with Geoffrey, the abbot of St. Albans. The vita, The Life of Christina of Markyate, was never finished. The author of the vita from St. Albans took great pains to present Christina as a saint in the hagiographic tradition, but he also added experiential details that make Christina seem real. The Life seems to move from a hagiography to a biography in which the reader is privy to Christina’s thoughts and intimate, sometimes grotesque, knowledge of her life. Readers learn, for example that Christina lived in a cell barely large enough to accommodate her, she developed a digestive disorder which dried up her intestines, and she was tormented by demonic toads that hopped on her psalter.4 Due to these vivid descriptions, readers may be led to believe that the Life has more truth than fabrication in it, and that it is a personal account rather than a work following a literary formula. Although the Life may seem real to us, it is still ultimately a text with a specific purpose: to prove Christina’s sanctity. As a result readers should approach the narrative with caution. The hagiographer would have been more concerned with presenting Christina as saintly than with portraying her faithfully. Therefore, he makes Christina seem like she does nothing more than weep, fall on the floor, and faint, like a stereotypical, hysterical woman. The hagiographer wants 3 C. H. Talbot, The Life of Christina of Markyate, ed. Samuel Fanous and Henrietta Leyser (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), vi. The Life exists only in a fourteenth century manuscript: British Library, MS. Cotton Tiberius E. I. (Ibid. xxvi). 4 Ibid., 38-40 2 readers to believe that Christina was saintly, submissive to male clerical superiors, and loved St. Albans. These qualities might have been true. However, a close reading of the Life shows that Christina also could be stubborn, independent, and self-righteous. The Life describes how Christina reprimanded fellow women at Markyate, how she seemed reluctant to profess her vows, and how she felt lust for an unnamed cleric.5 It is hard to reconcile these disparate characteristics and envision a Christina who is both maudlin and submissive yet determined and rebellious. While attempting to puzzle out the real Christina, scholars might consider the reliability of the narrator. By the author’s own omission, Christina was not always cooperative. She would frequently fall silent during conversation or speak in proverbs.6 Moreover, Christina often would have her sister, Margaret, speak for her.7 Scholars cannot discount the possibility that the St. Albans monk assumed or embellished information about her. According to E.A. Jones, Christina’s contemporaries frequently presupposed information about her: “Prelates, fellow- hermits, and members of her own family all approached her with a peculiar set of preconceptions, but came away from the encounter having had those assumptions challenged and in many cases confounded.”8 Wherever his sources came from, it is clear that even the biographer had difficulty discovering the real Christina. Most scholars face a similar problem—they have difficulty discovering Christina’s identity. Instead, they must resort to speculation, and this is wide-ranging. For example, Diane 5 Talbot, The Life. See pages 47-8, 63, and 87 for examples. 6 Ibid. See pages 60, 64, 68, and 77 for examples. 7 Ibid., 62. The biographer also spoke to other members of Christina’s family.