God's Words, Women's Voices
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GOD'S WORDS, WOMEN'S VOICES: DISCRETIO SPIRITUUM IN THE WRITING OF LATE-MEDIEVAL WOMEN VISIONARIES ROSALYNN VOADEN D. PHIL. THE UNIVERSITY OF YORK DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND RELATED LITERATURE JULY 1994 ABSTRACT This thesis, "God's Words, Women's Voices: discretio spirituum in the Writing of Late-Medieval Women Visionaries" examines the influence of the ecclesiastical doctrine of discretio spirituum, the discerning of spirits, on the textual construction of late-medieval women visionaries. I argue that the doctrine produced a discourse which shaped the articulation of women's revelations, controlled their relationship with their spiritual superiors, and established appropriate behaviour. Visions and prophecy offered medieval women one of the few pathways to authority in the religious and, in some cases, the political life of their time. Those women visionaries who conformed to the restrictions imposed by discretio spirituum could achieve authority and status and effectively fulfil their divine mandate to communicate their revelations. I explore the use of the discourse of discretio spirituum in the Revelaciones of St. Bridget of Sweden, and suggest that Bridget is a very skilled proponent. I then consider The Book of Margery Kempe, and propose that the ambivalent reception of Margery as a visionary, during her lifetime, and, subsequently, of her Book, is due to her imperfect knowledge and inconsistent employment of the discourse. Awareness of the discourse of discretio spirituum was vital for medieval women visionaries; it is equally vital for the modern scholar seeking to understand the written works that they bequeathed to us. My edition of the only extant Middle English translation of the Epistola solitari7 ad reges of Alfonso of Ja6n, amanuensis of Bridget of Sweden, forms an appendix to the thesis. This work is a treatise on discretio spirituum which was attached to St. Bridget's Revelaciones. It is contained in British Library Ms. Cotton Julius Fii., and has not previously been edited. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ii List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgements vii Note on Style viii Abbreviations ix INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 Women and Vision: The Devil's Gateway 11 i Introduction 11 ii Mystics and Visionaries 15 iii Classical and Christian Misogyny 33 iv The Medieval Church and Women's 49 Spirituality v Women, Vision, and discretio spirituum 62 vi Conclusion 73 CHAPTER 2 Seducing Spirits 75 i Introduction 75 ii The Discourse of discretio spirituum 81 iii Discretio spirituum: Definition and 85 Development vi The Role of the Spiritual Director of 105 Visionaries v Popular Knowledge of 113 discretio spirituum iii vi Discretio spirituum and 123 Women Visionaries vii Conclusion 132 CHAPTER 3 The Lady Vanishes: Bridget of Sweden 136 i Introduction 136 ii The Woman Behind the Visionary 140 iii Epistola solitarii ad reges 148 Introduction 148 Authority 153 Knowledge 161 Behaviour 168 Conclusion 177 iv Sancta Birgitta Revelaciones 178 Introduction 178 Authority 182 Knowledge 190 Behaviour 198 v Conclusion 206 CHAPTER 4 Margery Kempe: The Woman Who Would 208 Not Go Away i Introduction 208 ii The Tangled Text 211 iii Who Was That Woman? 219 iv Margery's Mixed Blessing 223 v Discretio spirituum in 232 The Book of Margery Kempe Authority 232 Knowledge 252 -iv Behaviour 266 vi Exit the Woman 280 vii Conclusion 294 CONCLUSION 295 APPENDIX The Epistola solitarii ad reges 300 of Alfonso of Jaen: An Edition of the Middle English Text in BL Ms. Cotton Julius Fii BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 V LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page PLATE 1 St. Bridget Presenting her Book of 135 Revelations to Alfonso of Jaen (a woodcut from Sancta Birgitta Revelationes. Lubeck: Bartholomeus Ghotan, 1492 (BL IB 9861)). Reproduced by Permission of The British Library PLATE 2 Folio 13 r. of The Book of Margery Kempe 207 (BL Ms. Add. 61823). Reproduced by Permission of The British Library vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing an Acknowledgement is like making a speech at the Academy Awards. One either expresses appreciation to everyone, from the cats to the cleaners, or one offers a brief and general thanks. The audience is usually more appreciative of the latter. However, since I am reluctant to relinquish this opportunity to express my gratitude to those people who have helped bring this dissertation to fruition, I intend to strike a middle course, and leave out the cats. When I entered graduate school I was told that the most important thing was to find a good supervisor and "bind him (or her) to you with hoops of steel." I have been fortunate enough to have two supervisors to whom I am bound by the ties of friendship. Alastair Minnis and Felicity Riddy have stimulated my mind, challenged my assumptions and guided my research. They opened their minds to me, and welcomed me into their lives and their homes - and never asked for their books back. My parents and family have been supportive in all ways, (including looking after the cats), and never wavered in their faith in me. Maura and Allan Lamb's generous friendship and practical help eased my burdens immensely. I would like to recognize the financial Assistance provided by the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Without their awards, I would not be in the happy position of writing this Acknowledgement. At this point, gratitude is generally expressed to one's partner, as last but, naturally, not least. So, to Martin, my first and foremost, all my thanks. My words, my voice - but words, as medieval women visionaries knew, are never enough. vii NOTE ON STYLE I have followed the MLA Style Sheet as given in Walter S. Achtert and Joseph Gibaldi, The MLA Style Manual (New York: MLA, 1985). My practice with Latin source material is as follows: where I have used a published translation, I have quoted it in the text, giving references to the Latin source in the notes; where I supply my own translation, I have provided the Latin quotation in the notes. All Latin, including titles are italicized. Titles in other languages are either underlined or enclosed in inverted commas, according to the Style Sheet. In referring to St. Bridget's Revelaciones, I have used this spelling. However, when the title is cited by another author as Revelationes, I have reproduced that spelling. In Chapter Three, quotations from the Epistola solitarii ad reges are from the Middle English translation which forms an Appendix to this thesis. In order to be consistent, quotations from the Revelaciones of Bridget of Sweden are also from the Middle English translation, in Roger Ellis, ed. The Liber Ce7estis of St. Bridget of Sweden (Oxford: EETS, 1987). In both cases, references to Latin sources have been given in the notes. Biblical quotations are from the Douai Bible. viii ABBREVIATIONS A&P Isak Collijn, ed. Acta et Processus Canon izacionis Beate Birgitte. SFSS, ser. 2, Lat. skrifter 1. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1924-31. BMK Sanford Brown Meech and Hope Emily Allen, eds. The Book of Margery Kempe. Oxford: EETS, 1940. CC Corpus Chr7stianorum, series Latina. EETS Early English Text Society. Gh. Arne JOnsson, ed. Epistola so7itarii ad reges. Alfonso of Jaen: His Life and Works with Critical Editions of the Epistola solitarii, the Informac7ones and the Epistola serui Christi. Lund: Lund UP, 1989. 115-71. LC Roger Ellis, ed. The Liber Ce7estis of Bridget of Sweden: the Middle English Version in British Library MS Claudius Bi. Oxford: EETS, 1987. PL Patrologia Latina. Ed. J-P. Migne. Paris, 1844:-64. RE Bridget of Sweden. Reuelaciones Extrauagantes. Ed. Lennart Hollman. SFSS, ser. 2, Lat. skrifter 5. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1956. Revs. Bridget of Sweden. Revelaciones. SSFS Samlingar Utgivna av Svenska Fornskrift- SM1skapet. ix INTRODUCTION A fair feld ful of folk fond y per bytwene Of alle manere men, De mene and pe pore, Worchynp and wandryng as pis world ascuth.' Just as Will the Dreamer, in Piers Plowman, stood on the top of a hill and looked down on all the varieties of people in the world as they toiled at their appointed tasks, marvelling at their diversity, so a similarly situated, dreaming medievalist could look down on her fellow toilers in the groves of academe and marvel at the multiplicity of approaches to the study of medieval visionary literature. There have been moments when such waking dreams have threatened to become nightmares, and I have prayed for a vision of clarity and consistency. Yet I have been, at the same time, stimulated by the variety, and inspired to stake my claim to a small patch of this critical territory. Representations of transcendental experiences have a universal, timeless lure. The human desire to know what - if anything - lies beyond the sensible world guarantees an audience for those who claim to have knowledge or experience of this realm. And apart from 1 William Langland, Piers Plowman: An Edition of the C-Text, ed. Derek Pearsall (Berkeley: U of California P, 1978) 28: 18-20. 1 the content of these reports, their structure is equally fascinating. How do you speak, or write, about the ineffable? How much does culture, gender, economic or social status, religious orientation, psychological or physical constitution or education influence the articulation of a transcendental experience? Indeed, to what extent do these factors affect the experience itself? The urge to examine such questions has attracted to medieval religious literature a wide range of scholars, from the devout to the dissident, and an equally wide range of critical approaches, from the exegetical to the post-structuralist. My study has benefitted particularly from the explosion of interest in the spirituality of medieval women which has occurred over the last fifteen years or so, as well as from the development of feminist and gender criticism.