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2015 Queer in the High : Pain, , Earth, and the Female Body in the Illustrations of ’s Becky Bushnell Virginia Commonwealth University

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This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Research Posters by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Queer Mysticism in the High Middle Ages: Pain, Love, Earth, and the Female Body in the Illustrations of Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias Becky Bushnell, Virginia Commonwealth University

BACKGROUND Vulnus as Vulva, Wound as Womb: The Meta- phorical Female Body Hildegard of Bingen was a Benedictine nun (and, later, In the analysis of medieval female mystical work in the magistrate) in the convent of Disibodenberg in Germany. twelfth and thirteenth centuries, some scholars have Hildegard experienced divine visions throughout her life, claimed representations of the wound in Christ’s side serve which she reccorded and illustrated in Scivias (“Scito vias as metaphors for the female body, particularly female repro- Domini” or “Know the Ways of the Lord”). ductive organs. The wound is sometimes argued to be an erotic representation of a vulva, and other times an asexual maternal womb. Each of these metaphors ultimately con- flate pain not only with love, but with the female body. MAIN CLAIM While the bulk of discourse on Hildegard’s work assumes a heterosexual framework, Hildegard’s feminine divine of- ten has queer undertones due to the distortion of gender CONCLUSION norms implied through The illustrations in Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias im- 1. Hildegard’s romantic and/or sexual representations of ply a contestation of tradition not only through ele- maternal Christ and 2. her conflation of pain with love and with the female ments like the femininization of , the equivalency body through maternal and/or erotic metaphor. between pain and love, and the metaphorical female body, but through the queer undertones and implica- tions that such elements create. Although little has been written examining the implications of these and other elements in medieval mystical texts, such ex- DISCUSSION amination may further our understanding of female and Physicality in Maternal and Erotic mystical sexuality in the high Middle Ages. Images of Christ Hildegard, among other medieval theologists, ascribed feminine characteristics to Christ by linking Christ with the feminine Sapienta (or Caritas), the of . Hildegard also feminized the divine by emphasizing Christ’s physicality and Christ’s connection to Creation and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS / LITERA- the Earth. TURE CITED Violent Love: Scivias in Relation to Courtly Faculty Adviser: Mary C. Boyes Benvenuto, Bice and Kennedy, Roger. The Works of Jacques Lacan: An Introduction. London: Free Association Books, 1986. Print. Love and 13th Century Mystical Texts Boswell, John. “The Urban Revival.” Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. Chicago: Uni- versity of Chicago Press, 2006. ACLS Humanities E-Book. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. Much of high medieval female mystics’ writing falls out- Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 2014. EBSCOHost Ebook Collection. Web. 4 April. 2015. Bynum, Caroline Walker. “The Meaning of Food: Food as Physicality.” Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. ProQuest Ebrary Academic Complete. Web. 23 Feb. 2015. side the conventions of courtly love due to the conflation Hildegard of Bingen. Scivias. Trans. Columbia Hart, Jane Bishop. New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1990. Print. Lochrie, Karma. “Mystical Acts, Queer Tendencies.” Constructing Medieval Sexuality. Ed. Karma Lochrie, Peggy McCracken, James A. Schultz. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Pro- Quest Ebrary Academic Complete. Web. 20 Feb. 2015. of love with violence. Many 13th century female mystics Moi, Toril. “Desire in Language: Andreas Capellanus and the Controversy of Courtly Love.” : Criticism, Ideology and History. Ed. David Aers. Brighton: Harvester Press Limited, 1986. Print. Beckwith, Sarah. “A Very Material Mysticism: The Medieval Mysticism of .” Medieval Literature: Criticism, Ideology and History. Ed. David Aers. Brighton: Harvester Press Limited, 1986. Print. have described romantic, sensual or erotic encounters with Newman, Barbara. “Caritas and Amor: The Twelfth Century.” God and the Goddesses: , Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. Google Books. Web. 1 March. 2015. Newman, Barbara. “The Feminine Divine.” Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine. Berkeley: University of Carolina Press, 1997. EBSCOHost Ebook Collection. Web. 12 March. 2015. Christ which frequently involve intense psychological and Schleif, Corine. “The Crucifixion with in Stained Glass: Wounds, Violent Sexualities, and Aesthetics of Engagement in the Wienhausen Cloister.” Journal of Glass Studies. 56. (2014): 317-343. EBSCOHost Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 21 Feb. 2015. physiological pain. Sur, Carolyn Worman. “Introduction.” The Feminine Images of God in the Visions of Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias. Lewiston: The Edward Mellin Press, 1993. Print.