Proving the Dead Doubt and Skepticism in the Late Medieval Lives of Saints Æthelthryth and Edith by Jessica Brown A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Approved July 2018 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: Robert Bjork, Chair Richard Newhauser Heather Maring ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY August 2018 ABSTRACT Anglo-Saxon women wielded a remarkable amount of power in the early English church. They founded some of the country’s most influential institutions, and modern Christians continue to venerate many of them as saints. Their path to canonization, however, was informal—especially compared to men and women who were canonized after Pope Gregory IX’s decree in 1234 that reserved those powers for the pope. Many of Anglo-Saxon England’s most popular saints exhibited behaviors that, had they been born later, would have disqualified them from canonization. This project examines how the problematic lives of St. Æthelthryth of Ely and St. Edith of Wilton were simultaneously doubted and adopted by post-Norman Christians. Specifically, it considers the flawed ways that the saints, petitioners, and their communities were simultaneously doubted and legitimized by late-medieval hagiographers. i DEDICATION For Mom, Dad, and Molly. I couldn’t have done this without you. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my committee and the professors at Arizona State University for their mentorship and their help with this project. I specifically owe a great deal to Professors Robert Bjork, Richard Newhauser, Heather Maring, Robert Sturges, and Rosalynn Voaden. I also appreciate Miranda Wilcox at Brigham Young University who introduced me to Æthelthryth in the first place. I would also like to thank the ACMRS Community Council, the Arizona State University Graduate College, and the Portnoff Fellowship for funding my research. I am grateful for the support of my colleagues in ASU’s PhD program, and in the ACMRS Old English and Old Norse reading groups. Special thanks are also due to Meghan Nestel, Garth and Susan Wood, Monica Palmer, Bethany Anderson, and Brittany Murphy for six years of dinners, movie nights, carrots, caffeine, and friendship. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 Doubt in two Anglo-Saxon Cults: Scholarship and Context ................................ 7 Doubt and Skepticism: Definitions and Scholarship .......................................... 12 Chapter Summaries .............................................................................................. 15 2 PROUD VIRGINTIY ................................................................................................. 18 Virgin Monstrosities and the Patristic Tradition ................................................. 20 Aldhelm and English Virginity ............................................................................ 25 Writing the Anglo-Saxon Saints .......................................................................... 27 Pride in Post-Norman Lives of Æthelthryth and Edith ....................................... 34 Imposing Humility ............................................................................................... 40 3 ABSENT BODIES AND ANGRY SAINTS ............................................................ 43 Not Seeing the Inviolable Body ........................................................................... 46 Edith and Self-Interpretation: Goscelin of St. Bertin .......................................... 54 Doubtful Miracles: The Wilton Manuscript ........................................................ 56 4 THE POLITICS OF DOUBT .................................................................................... 60 Wilton: Politics and Conflict................................................................................ 62 Devotion and Wealth ............................................................................................ 68 Clothing and Skeptical Politics ............................................................................ 72 Reading through John of Salisbury ...................................................................... 81 5 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 86 iv Page CHAPTER REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 91 APPENDIX A DESCRIPTIONS AND TRANSCRIPTIONS OF RELEVENT UNEDITED MANUSCRIPTS ............................................................................................................. 98 Abbotsford Golden Legend .................................................................................. 99 CUL Add. 2604 .................................................................................................. 132 v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In March of 2017 Ely Cathedral was illuminated with images from the lives of Syrian refugees. The event, titled “Journey to Hope,” used the cathedral to raise awareness and funding for families who were fleeing violence in the Middle East. The proceeds were used to help with refugee resettlement in the Ely area, and in the case of at least one family, it was successful. Though Ely is located in a rural, traditionally conservative area, this light show represented local resistance against the isolationist rhetoric that has recently dominated the world stage. Just a few months later, the cathedral put up a display in the Lady Chapel called “From Dinosaurs to DNA” which was advertised as “a journey through science meeting pre-historic creatures and exploring the latest DNA technology”. 1 First editions of Darwin’s Origin of the Species and Newton’s Principia Mathematica were placed at the center of the display. In both cases, the modern community of Ely used a quintessentially Christian, English symbol—the medieval cathedral—to make space for a new definition of both “Christianity” and “Englishness.” In an interview with the press Alan Williams, a volunteer cathedral guide and local science teacher, said “Too often churches simply look inward at their own, and we just want to embrace other people and engage other people and just say ‘just think about the wonder that we have in life.’” 2 1 “From Dinosaurs to DNA Exhibition,” Ely Cathedral, accessed February 24, 2018. https://www.elycathedral.org/events-archive-january-june-2017/from-dinosaurs-to-dna-exhibition 2 Laura Brainwood, “Everything from Dinosaurs to DNA Displayed at Ely Cathedral’s Science Festival,” That’s Cambridge, May 25, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57z1n4B_4uY 1 In many ways these events are an answer to contemporary doubts about Christianity’s place in a modern, pluralistic society. The Christian population in Europe is projected by the Pew Research Center to decline from 553 million to 454 million over the coming decades,3 and Ely also costs more than £1.4 million per year (or about £ 3,800 a day) to operate. While the historical significance and stunning architecture of places like Ely lead to a constant stream of visitors and funding, (more than 250,000 people visit per year), 4 the changing face of England’ s cultural and spiritual identity can lead to questions about the spiritual relevance of working cathedrals. By placing dinosaurs next to images of the Virgin Mary and projecting the experiences of Muslim refugees on a Christian cathedral, the Ely community is acknowledging its role as a contested space. Rather than becoming more orthodox or exclusive, the cathedral is suggesting that there is space for many contradictory voices to claim this ancient building as part of their identity. Though this phenomenon is not surprising in a contemporary, postmodern community, I would argue that it is not exclusive to modernity. Religious communities have always been contested spaces that struggled to reconcile a problematic past with a turbulent present. The older the community, the more complicated its history, and a religious house like Ely was nearly four-hundred years old at the time of the Norman invasion. Oral accounts and the records of historians and hagiographers such as Bede 3 Conrad Hackett, et. al. “The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections 2010-2050,” Pew Research Center, April 2015, 17. http://www.pewforum.org/files/2015/03/ PF_15.04.02_ProjectionsFullReport.pdf 4 “Support Us.” Ely Cathedral. Accessed July 12, 2018. https://www.elycathedral.org/support-us 2 and Ælfric ensured the survival of the community’s foundation myths; however, historical, social, and political shifts left plenty of room for doubt and anxiety about the role that Anglo-Saxon founders would play in the late-medieval world. The purpose of this dissertation is to consider how surviving records of Anglo- Saxon founding saints reflect these shifting anxieties. As figures who inhabited a distant past, their default identity was “forgotten,” “doubted,” and “dead” more than “remembered,” “venerated,” or “present”. Many saints persisted in spite of qualities that would have left them forgotten. This project will focus on the traditions of two problematic Anglo-Saxon women: Æthelthryth, the founder of the double monastery in Ely, and Edith, the patron saint of Wilton. 5 Æthelthryth was a daughter of King Anna of East Anglia. She was married twice and by all accounts remained a virgin (in spite of her second husband’s vigorous protests).