UNDERSTANDING THE VISUALITY OF A MEDIEVAL VISIONARY: FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DOMINICAN HENRY SUSO’S INTERWOVEN CONCEPTS OF DIVINE IMAGE, GENDERED IDENTITY, AND EPISTEMOLOGY J. Christian Straubhaar-Jones A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the UNC Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages and Literatures in the College of Arts and Sciences and in the Duke German Department in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2015 Approved by: Ann Marie Rasmussen Ruth von Bernuth Jessica Boon Eric Downing Gabriel Trop © 2015 J. Christian Straubhaar-Jones ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT J. Christian Straubhaar-Jones: Understanding the Visuality of a Medieval Visionary: Fourteenth- Century Dominican Henry Suso’s Interwoven Concepts of Divine Image, Gendered Identity, and Epistemology (Under the direction of Ann Marie Rasmussen) This dissertation is a study of visuality in fourteenth-century Swabian Dominican Henry Suso’s works. It explores the novel intersection of literary hagiographical discourses, scientific visuality discourses, and negative theological discourses, from late antique Greece to medieval Middle East, Spain, and Central Europe, culminating in Suso’s Middle High German works. Suso was rare among monks in that he wrote quasi-autobiographically in addition to more standard theological tracts. Previous scholars discussing Suso productively analyzed his use of devotional images, but they have failed to note the impact of the scientific understanding of vision in his works. The scientific component came to the Central Europe through Paris, where Franciscan scholars like Roger Bacon were reading, synthesizing, and adapting then cutting-edge Middle Eastern physiology as part of their natural philosophy. The most revolutionary tract on vision was Ibn al-Haytham's Optics , who pioneered central tenets of the modern scientific method and unified three disparate schools of thought on vision into one revolutionary theory of vision, which is reflected in Suso’s texts. Images emanate out of their originals and physically touch the eye. Suso believed that both the external eye and the internal mind's eye were malleable, taking the shape of the image they perceived. This influenced his concept of human identity, because he felt that the entire human body was spiritually malleable, and could be iii literally reshaped by religious discipline. For Suso, when one views depictions of Christ and imitates Christ's Passion, the internal mental image of Christ can reshape their body and soul to be a mirror image of the suffering Jesus. This builds on the negative theological tradition— Christ, as imago Dei , is the medium by which one can “see” the infinite apophatic divine, which itself cannot be captured by any image or name. As the medium, Christ is in unmediated contact with the original divine from which he springs forth. Suso intends for his readers to become image of Christ, literally, and so he presents his works as an exemplar, a “true image” of how to do so, interweaving narrative, theological, and visual media to push the readers to grasp something unrepresentable. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1 ECKHART 'S SERMON 69 AS A MICROCOSM OF SUSO 'S VISUAL ALLEGORICAL FRAMEWORK ....... 7 METHODOLOGICAL CONCERNS .................................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER SUMMARIES ............................................................................................................... 21 CHAPTER 1—SCHEIN UND SEIN : A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF VISUALITY AND ONTOLOGY FROM PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS TO MEISTER ECKHART ......................... 27 PSEUDO -DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE 'S MYSTICAL THEOLOGY AND HIS EARLY MEDIEVAL INTERPRETERS ........................................................................................................................... 29 NON -CHRISTIAN INFLUENCES —AVICENNA , ALHAZEN , AVERROES , AND MAIMONIDES ........... 41 MEISTER ECKHART 'S VISUALITY AND DIALECTICAL METHODOLOGY ....................................... 52 SUSO AND THE APOPHATICS ...................................................................................................... 65 CHAPTER 2—NEGATIVE IMAGES: SUSO'S GLICHNÚS BETWEEN NEOPLATONIC THEOLOGY AND VISUAL THEORY ................................................................................... 69 THEORIES OF LIGHT AND VISION ............................................................................................... 70 TRANSITION —ECKHART 'S INTERNAL IMAGE ............................................................................. 80 THE SPECIES OF MEDIEVAL VISUAL THEORY AND THEOLOGY COMPARED WITH SUSO 'S "GLICHNÚS " ............................................................................................................................... 82 IMAGES IN THE NEGATIVE .......................................................................................................... 96 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 105 CHAPTER 3—MIRRORING IMAGES: CHRIST’S PASSIO AND MARY’S COMPASSIO AS VISUAL MODELS FOR SPIRITUAL SELF-IMAGE CONSTRUCTION IN THE EXEMPLAR ............................................................................................................................... 108 v A NOTE ON METHODOLOGY AND ISSUES OF IMAGE AGENCY .................................................. 113 VISUAL THEORY AND THE SUFFERING EYE .............................................................................. 117 THE SERVANT AS SEXUALIZED LIVING IMAGE ......................................................................... 120 BIERNOFF 'S MODEL OF THE INTERPENETRATIVE GAZE OF BRIDAL MYSTICISM ....................... 124 PASSION MEDITATION AND THE EMERGENT MARIAN THEOLOGY ........................................... 133 MEDIA DISJUNCTURE AND IMAGE PEDAGOGY ......................................................................... 142 CONCLUSIONS —INDIVIDUAL APOPHATIC AESTHETICS ........................................................... 146 CHAPTER 4—SEXING SAPIENTIA : AUGUSTINIAN SEX AND GENDERED EPISTEMOLOGY IN SUSO’S LIFE OF THE SERVANT .................................................. 151 WHAT IS CLERICAL GENDER ? ................................................................................................... 153 MALE /F EMALE RELATIONSHIPS IN THE LIFE ............................................................................ 161 THE AUGUSTINIAN THEOLOGY OF GENDER AND INTELLECT ................................................... 166 GENDERED INTELLECTUAL HIERARCHY IN THE LIFE OF THE SERVANT ..................................... 174 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 189 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 192 WHAT IS THE UNIQUE CONTRIBUTION OF THIS STUDY ? .......................................................... 192 REVIEW OF ARGUMENTS .......................................................................................................... 193 WHY NOW ? .............................................................................................................................. 197 CALLS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ............................................................................................. 199 WORKS CITED........................................................................................................................ 207 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1—Suso and Anna, BNU MS 2.929 Folio 28R...............................................................90 Figure 2.2—Mystic Path, BNU MS 2.929 Folio 82L ....................................................................92 Figure 3.1—Mystic Path, again, BNU MS 2.929 Folio 82L .......................................................110 Figure 3.2—St. Francis’ Stigmata, by San Francesco Bardi, ca. 1240 ........................................130 Figure 3.3—St. Francis’ Stigmata, by Gentile da Fabriano, ca. 1410 .........................................130 Figure 3.4—Detail of St. Francis’ Stigmata, by Master of Lindau Lamentation, ca. 1420 .........130 Figure 3.5—Suso and the Stigmatic Seraph, BNU MS 2.929 Folio 65R ....................................131 Figure 3.6—Deposition of Christ , by Roger Van der Weyden, ca.1435 ....................................136 Figure 3.7—Mary and the Swords of Sorrow woodcut, ca. 1480 ...............................................137 Figure 3.1.1—Detail of 3.1, Mater Dolorosa ...............................................................................139 Figure 3.1.2—Detail of 3.1, Scorpion and Snake ........................................................................139 Figure 3.8—The Sufferer, BNU MS 2.929 Folio 57L .................................................................139 Figure 3.8.1—Detail of 3.8, Scorpion and Snake ........................................................................139 Figure 3.1.3—Detail of 3.1—Soul’s Path through Holy Images .................................................147 Figure 4.1—The Bleeding Christogram, BNU MS 2.929 Folio 7lL