Benedetta Carlini and Same-Sex Desire in an Italian Convent

Benedetta Carlini, Abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God (first investigation begins, 27 May 1619)

Benedetta Carlini was born in 1590 on the night of St. Sebastian (20 January) in Vellano, a small Appenine village not far from Pescia--her father was a prosperous farmer who grew mulberries and harvested silkworm cocoons. 

At the time of her birth, it seems, her father pledged her to a life in a convent--as Carlini was later to tell the story, her mother, Midea, had a difficult labor, and the midwife told her father, Giuliano, that both mother and child would die.

Detail of two nuns embracing,
Paradise, by Giovanni di Paolo,
1445

Falling on his knees--at least as Carlini recounts the event of her birth--Giuliani prayed to God, asking him to spare the lives of his wife and unborn child. Shortly after he offered this prayer, the midwife returned, announcing the child's safe delivery.

Giuliano seems to have regarded this outcome as God's answer to his prayers. In return, he named the baby Benedetta--"blessed"--and promised that he would dedicate her to a life of God. In other words, he promised that his newborn daughter would become a nun.

Such a decision--dedicating a child to a religious life--was not uncommon for a devout family. Nor was it uncommon for such a decision to be made for financial reasons. The dowry, required for entrance into a convent, was much less than a dowry required for marriage--sometimes only a quarter, in fact. For many families, placing a daughter in a convent was as much a financial as a religious decision. (I've written about another such young woman, Arcangela Tarabotti, who was committed to a life in a convent without her assent.)

It seems that Benedetta Carlini's childhood was a happy one--and she remembers Giuliano and Midea Carlini as good parents, her home a comfortable one, with Giuliano himself educating his daughter. According to Benedetta, she knew her prayers and the litany of the saints by the time she was five, and by age six she learned to read and could begin to study the basics of Christian doctrine.  

In 1600, when she was nine, Benedetta Carlini was placed in a newly established Theatine convent in Pescia, il convento della Madre di Dio, the Convent of the Mother of God. The order of Theatines nuns, or the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, had been founded in 1583 by the Venerable Ursula Benincasa, a nun of the Order of St. Claire who had seen a vision of the Virgin Mary and of Saint Catherine of Sienna. 

(The Theatine order, the Congregation of Clerics Regular of the Divine Providence, had been founded in the early sixteenth century, specifically with the goal of combating the "errors" of Martin Luther but also to encourage the practice of virtue.)   

Although the convent in Pescia was not as prestigious (or expensive) as other convents near by, the Theatines were an order devoted to the the reforming of lax morals. It was also, at the time of Carlini's entry in 1599, not yet fully established—this effort, underway at the time of Carlini's entrance, might also have made her admission possible. 

Benedetta Carlini began her religious life in the convent-in-the-making quietly enough, though not entirely without incident. She claims that, on the night of her arrival, she prayed to the convent's statue of the Madonna--and that the Madonna nodded to her. 

Then, not long after, Carlini says that when she was at prayer, the Madonna "leaned over the small altar." The girl thought that the statue of the Madonna was intending to kiss her--but she was so frightened that she knocked over the statue and screamed. This resulted in nothing further--except that the "Mother Superior . . . ran over and set her straight"--that is, she returned the statue to its original place.

But, in 1613, when Carlini was twenty-three, she began to experience religious visions that she reported to the Mother Superior and to her confessor. She saw gardens, then she saw herself surrounded by animals, then she was given a vision of the "Mount of Perfection." 

In raising the topic of her experiences with the abbess of her convent, Carlini did not at first assume they were divine--both women also considered diabolical sources. Advised to fight against her visions, Carlini resisted them for two years.

In 1615, she began to suffer terrible illnesses, in particular at night, including paralysis. Physicians were unable to diagnose the source of her maladies. She continued to suffer--quietly--for another two years.  

In 1617 her visions, which she had tried so hard to suppress, returned--now, rather than visions of Jesus and the Madonna, she experienced visions of young men who pursued her, beating her with all sorts of weapons--chains, swords, and sticks. The beautiful leader of these young men also tried to seduce her, offering her a ring to seal their bond. 

So great was her torment that the convent's superiors assigned another young nun, Bartolomea Crivelli, as a companion--she was to share Carlini's cell, keep watch over her, and assist her. During her visions, Carlini spoke in the voice of angels and of Jesus, and she also seems to have appeared to observers as a beautiful young man. (Interestingly, the founder of the order of Theatine nuns, Ursula Benincasa, also had visions and ecstasies, for which she was called to Rome and examined by the pope.) 

All the while, Carlini also was an excellent manager of the convent's resources, in particular of their silk works. The convent was near completing its new building, and it was hoping that its long-sought status as a regular convent was soon to be granted. And then, on the second Friday of Lent, 1618, in the middle of the night, Carlini claimed that Jesus appeared to her one and spoke to her, an event that resulted in the stigmata appearing on her hands feet and side. Her companion, Crivelli, confirmed this miraculous event. 

Benedetta Carlini's successful management of the convent, along with the gift of stigmata, seems to have led to her election as abbess in 1619, at some point between February and May, when she was thirty years old.

And then things got crazy. Carlini, now abbess, began delivering sermons within the convent--women did not normally preach, even heads of convents--and while she preached, the listening nuns scourged themselves with whips. Her confessor was present, and he seemed to have had no objections to Carlini's sermons.

There were more visions and visitations, including one from Catherine of Siena, another from a beautiful guardian angel named Splenditello, and more visits from Jesus. One night he told Carlini to rip the heart out of her body--which Crivelli confirmed, saying she had felt the empty space in Carlini's chest. Jesus returned three days later and put his own heart into the abbess's body. 

On 20 May 1619 she had a vision that would lead to her downfall. On that night, she claimed that Jesus appeared to her and said he wanted to marry her. He provided her with all the details of the ceremony, the decorations, the attendant celebrations, and the guests to be invited. Again her confessor was aware of the vision and of her plans.

At the wedding, as the other nuns watched and listened, Carlini claimed that Jesus had a golden wedding ring for her and that, as he put it on her finger, the Virgin Mary looked on. Then, speaking through Carlini, Jesus gave a sermon--in it, he expounded on Carlini's extraordinary qualities.

Image of Theatine nun,
1714

''I would like that this, my bride, be empress of all the nuns,'' Jesus said. He also commanded that the Grand Duke of Tuscany should be informed about her greatness. And, he added, anyone who did not obey, believe and cherish Carlini would be punished. 

But observers of this ceremony--especially those from the town--grew concerned, particularly at Jesus's warning, delivered through his bride, Carlini: "And he who does not believe in my bride shall not be saved." 

The provost of Pescia, Stefano Cecchi, the leading ecclesiastical officer of the city, ordered all who had witnessed the ceremony not to speak of it. And Carlini was removed as abbess of the convent. 

The investigation of Benedetta Carlini began on 27 May 1619--or, at least, that's when the record of the testimony begins. 

Carlini was first subjected to a physical examination--in particular the sites of the stigmata were examined, and testimony was taken from Carlini about the "how those wounds came to be on her body." The stigmata were examined again on 7 June, and then they seemed to be healed. A week later, on 14 June, the wounds on her hand, feet, side, and head seemed fresh and were again bleeding.  

But, by July, the investigation was drawn to an uneasy end, and Benedetta Carlini was restored as abbess. For another two years, she managed the convent and continued with her mystical visions. But then she went too far--on Annunciation Day ( 25 March) 1621, Carlini died. 

The frightened nuns called the confessor, who immediately arrived. He commanded Carlini to rise--which she did. And Carlini, "restored to life," began recounting all that she had seen while she was dead, including her vision of Paradise. Once again Stefano Cecchi was summoned.

This time, he did not conduct the examination himself. Instead, two papal investigators were summoned, and they began their examination with a quick summary of the premises with which they opened their report from 1623: "all novelty is dangerous and all unusual events are suspect." They believed Carlini was "deluded by the Devil."

They began to reinvestigate Carlini's claims to have received the stigmata and also her claims, not investigated earlier, about her extraordinary fasting. 

Two nuns were examined who reported seeing Carlini poke herself with a needle in order to produce her bleeding stigmata. There were also questions about the gold wedding ring Jesus had given her during their marriage ceremony. It was at first invisible to everyone except Carlini, but it miraculously appeared on her finger during the examinations. This "proof" was undercut, however, when strange yellow marks were also noted--suggesting that the "gold" ring was some kind of fake.  

This was followed up by another remarkable revelation that would be funny if it weren't so tragic. One of the great manifestations of Carlini's holiness was her fasting, and in particular her refusal to eat meat--but she was reported to have been seen eating--in secret--salami!

The final devastating revelations were made by Carlini's companion, Bartolomea Crivelli, who revealed to examiners that at night Carlini claimed to be transformed into the beautiful angel Splenditello. As Splenditello, Carlini made passionate and frequent love to Crivelli. 

During the day, while teaching Crivelli to read and write, Carlini, as Splenditello, kissed Crivelli, touched her breasts and called her his beloved. In her testimony, Crivelli said that she was the unwilling object of these erotic attentions.  

On 5 November 1623, the papal examiners issued their "final report." They noted that all traces of Carlini's stigmata had disappeared--along with them "her angels, visions, apparitions, revelations, and ecstasies." When asked about them, Carlini said that they had all gone. She also said everything she had believed and done had been because she was under the influence of the devil. The visions and her actions were not the result of her consent or of her own will--"they were done while she was out of her senses by the work of the devil." 

Things did not turn out as badly as they might have, however. Bartolomea Crivelli seems to have been unpunished for her role in events, and in particular for her sexual relationship with Carlini, perhaps because she claims to have been an unwilling participant.

But Benedetto Carlini survived what might have been a disastrous end. She disavowed all her visions.  According to the investigators, she then began living the life of an "obedient nun" under a new abbess, presumably still at the convent in Pescia. 

But, something does seem to have changed--decades later, on 7 August 1661, an unnamed nun wrote "Benedetta Carlini died at age 71 of a fever and cold pains after eighteen days of illness. She died in penitence, having spent thirty-five years in prison." While it is not clear, this entry suggests that, some time after the documentation of her life ends, Benedetta Carlini came to be more strictly held, and thus a "prisoner." 

In writing extensively about Benedetta Carlini--in fact, her archival work brought Carlini's life out of its hidden past--Judith C. Brown speculates that Carlini must have gotten herself into some kind of trouble again some three years after her investigators reported her living as an obedient nun under a new abbess--something that resulted in her imprisonment. But no further details survive.

Brown's Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy, details her discovery of the documents relating the life of Benedetta Carlini.

Her subtitle--her identification of Carlini as lesbian--resulted in some controversy, not so much for her claims of same-sex relationships between two women as her identification of the modern concept of lesbian identity with a seventeenth-century woman's experiences. But the book remains a terrific read, and I recommend it highly.  

Hadewijch of Antwerp: "Love Is Everything"

Hadewijch of Antwerp (posted on the date of Suzanne Lilar's death, 12 December 1992) 

I suppose that you could regard today's post on the thirteenth-century mystic Hadewijch of Antwerp as something of a double post.

There are simply too few details about Hadewijch's life to find a relevant date for writing about her, at least one related to her own history. We know virtually nothing about her, except for what can be teased out of her writing--frequently biographical details for medieval women writers are embedded in their work, but in the surviving texts, Hadewijch reveals little about her life. Or, at least, her physical life.

From a fourteenth-century manuscript

collection of Hadewijch's work

(Ghent University Library, MS 941),

the poem begins,

"Ay, al es nu die winter cout, /

cort die daghe ende die nachte langhe"

("Ah, though now the winter is cold,

the days short and the night long...")

I am writing about Hadewijch of Antwerp today, and choosing to do so on the date of the Belgian francophone writer Suzanne Lilar. Born Suzanne Verbist in 1901, she enrolled at the University of Ghent in 1919, where she studied philosophy and, in 1925, where she received a law degree. While at the university, she discovered the work of Hadewijch and found in the thirteenth-century mystic an inspiration for her own essays, plays, and poetry. 

In her 1963 Le Couple (translated as Aspects of Love in Western Society), in particular, she refers to Hadewijch's use of minne, or all-embracing love, and her mystical nuptial imagery, in her descriptions of an all-embracing, ideal of love, one that sees human love as a revelation of divine love.

As for Hadewijch. Bernard McGinn, the historian of western mysticism, named her as one of the "Four Female Evangelists" of thirteenth-century mysticism, along with Angela of Foligno, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete:

I use the term "evangelist" in a perhaps provocative way, not only to underline the stature of these four women (Angela, Hadewijch, Mechthild, and Marguerite Porete) as the most important female mystics of the thirteenth century, but also to emphasize the bold, quasi scriptural claims they made for their writings.

About Hadewijch, McGinn writes, she "remains a mystery, as much for the paradoxes and perplexity of her writings as for her life." 

Given her references in her work--she refers to the Latin and French works of St. Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, and other Christian authorities, for example--we can conclude that she was "obviously learned." She must also have come from a noble family, not only because of the education she must have received, but also because of her familiarity with courtly love poetry. Like many of the women mystics of the thirteenth century, she used the language of courtly love in her visionary work, such mystic language variously identified as "courtly mysticism," Minnemystik, or la mystique courtoise, depending on your linguistic preference. Using elements that have their origins in troubadour poetry, female mystics expressed their yearning for the divine beloved in ecstatic and erotic terms. 

Like Mechthild and Marguerite Porete, Hadewijch was a beguine.* From details in her surviving letters, she seems to have been the head of a beguine house for some time, but she also seems to have been forced out of this life and into a wandering existence at some point. (This last detail comes from one of her letters, number 29, but McGinn also considers the possibility that this reference to a "wandering life" may be a kind of literary formula.)

Although Hadewijch's work survives only in a handful of fourteenth-century manuscripts, her "literary mastery surpasses that of any other medieval woman mystic, not least because of the variety of genres in which she expressed her message" (I am quoting McGinn here). 

Hadewijch's surviving work includes Strophische Gedichten (Poems in Stanzas), forty-five lyrics modeled on troubadour poetry, but adapting the language of secular love poetry "into the field of mystical discourse." The Mengeldichten (Poems in Couplets) are sixteen poems in rhyming couplets expressing elements of her faith.

Hadewijch's Visioenenboek (Book of Visions) is the "earliest vernacular collection" of this kind of visionary revelations, probably dating to the 1240s. Finally, there are thirty prose letters. What little biographical evidence that survives can be gleaned from these letters, but they also expand on and develop "all-embracing theme," love: "Minne is everything" (from letter 25, "Minne es al"). 

Despite Suzanne Lilar's interest in Hadewijch, her work has really only become well-known in the late twentieth-century. The first English translation appeared in 1980, when Mother Columba Hart published Hadewijch: The Complete Works for the Classics of Western Spirituality series. The first influential study of her Hadewijch and her work to appear was Paul Mommaers 1989 Hadewijch: Writer – Beguine – Love Mystic, which won the Flemish Prijs De Standaard (Mommaers's work was translated into English in 2004).

For the most complete discussion of Hadewijch, especially her complicated views of minne, I recommend Bernard McGinn's The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism--1200-1350, volume 3 of his history of western Christian mysticism.

*As we have seen, the beguines were a lay religious movement--beguines like Marie of Oignies and Mechthild of Magdeburg were not associated with any religious order, nor did they live in any officially sanctioned community. They lived an ascetic, spiritual life, devoting themselves to poverty and chastity, working among the poor and ill and modeling their lives on the life of Jesus.

Angela of Foligno, "Female Evangelist"

Angela of Foligno ("equivalent canonization," 9 October 2013)

Of Angela of Foligno, theologian and emeritus professor Bernard McGinn writes, 

I like to describe Angela as one of the four "female evangelists" of thirteenth-century mysticism. I use the term "evangelist" in a perhaps provocative way, not only to underline the stature of these four women (Angela, Hadewijch, Mechthild, and Marguerite Porete) as the most important female mystics of the thirteenth century, but also to emphasize the bold, quasi scriptural claims they made for their writings.*

Some doubts have been raised about whether such a historical person as "Angela of Foligno" ever existed. For his part, McGinn notes that there is a middle ground between taking later accounts of her life at face value and dismissing her biography as a "mystic tale." 

An eighteenth-century print of the
thirteenth-century mystic

We will follow McGinn, then, in saying that Angela of Foligno was probably born about the year 1248, in the Umbrian province of Perugia, to a fairly affluent family. She was married and had a number of children.

At the age of forty, Angela had a dream that would change her life. Francis of Assisi appeared to her in a vision, with the result that she came to regard her previous life as sinful and determined to live a life of purity and the pursuit of perfection. (According to legend, Angela was wealthy, beautiful, and vain--definitely sinful.)

As a married mother, pursuing a life of spiritual purity might not have been easy. Like Margery Kempe, Angela of Foligno found her road to the religious life blocked by her very human family. (There is no evidence that Kempe would have encountered the ideas of Angela of Foligno in England, as she did for Birgitta of Sweden, but on her pilgrimages she did visit sites associated with the Italian visionary and might have learned about her. Certainly there are remarkable parallels in their experiences and behavior.)

But by 1388 Angela's "problem" was solved--her mother died, and then, a few months later, her husband and children died. Angela was able to begin her religious life by giving away her possessions.

With one female servant, a woman named Masazuola, she became, by 1291, a tertiary of St. Francis--that is, she became a member of a "third order" of the Franciscans, someone who, for a variety of reasons, may not take formal vows to join a religious order but who, as a lay person, lives outside the convent according to the ways of life of those who live inside. (For a discussion of tertiary orders, click here.) 

In 1292, under the direction of a spiritual adviser whom McGinn refers to as "Brother A." (other sources identify him as Father Arnoldo of Foligno), Angela began to dictate the story of her conversion and a "narrative of her inner journey," twenty stages on "her itinerary to God." A further set of ten stages, which Brother A. found difficult to understand and condensed into seven "supplementary stages," were incorporated into her memoriale, completed in 1296.

Angela's remains are in the
Church of St. Francis in Foligno

In 1298, according to McGinn, the book was submitted for approval, which it received. Brother A. then revised the Memorial (1299-1300), adding a series of thirty-six instructiones, which "reflect Angela's teaching between 1296 and her death in early 1309." 

The whole is known today, depending on the edition or translation, as Il libro della Beata Angela da Foligno, The Spiritual Journey of the Blessed Angela of Foligno according to the Memorial of Brother A, or Angela of Foligno: Complete Works.

Angela of Foligno was beatified by Pope Clement XI on 11 July 1701. In 2010 Pope Benedict XVI spoke on Angela at a general audience. Angela of Foligno was given an "equipolente canonization" by Pope Francis on 9 October 2013 (here's an explanation of what that means). 

For an extended discussion of Angela of Foligno's Book, see McGinn's The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism--1200-1350, vol. 3 of his History of Western Christian Mysticism.

This dome, which includes a representation of

Angela of Foligno, is in the Basilica Cattedrale di San Feliciano

in Foligno, where Brother A. met her and transcribed her 

book of memories and instruction.

*I've also posted on Hadewijch of Antwerp, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete—click to read those posts.  

Catherine of Bologna: Mystic, Writer, Artist

Catherine Vigri of Bologna (born 8 September 1413)

The daughter of Giovanni Vigri, a Bolognese diplomat, lawyer, and lecturer, and his wife, Benevenuta Mammolini, Caterina Vigri was given every advantage by her aristocratic family connections.

Ms. illustration of Catherine of Bologna,
by Guglielmo Giraldi, c. 1469

She spent her earliest years primarily with her grandparents in Bologna, and we are told that her mother was a very religious woman. 

From the ages of eleven through fourteen, Catherine was educated at the d'Este court of Ferrara, where her father had been an ambassador. There, as a companion for Margherita d'Este, one of Niccolò III d'Este's many illegitimate children, Catherine had an excellent education, studying Latin, literature, music, and art, including the art of illumination. 

When Margherita married Galeotto Roberto Maltesta in 1427, she hoped that Catherine would continue as a lady-in-waiting; instead, Catherine preferred to enter the convent of Corpus Domini in Ferrara. The convent had been established as a lay community in 1400, but at the time that Catherine entered the convent, it was in the process of adopting the Rule of St. Clare. By 1431, the pope had approved a request for the Corpus Domini community to become a Franciscan convent. 

But, as Bernard McGinn notes, this period was a tumultuous one that split the women in the convent, with some resisting the transition from a lay community to one where the women took religious vows, and with some, like Catherine, supporting the strict form of life prescribed by the Rule of St. Clare. The transition to a Franciscan rule was not complete until 1435.

A manuscript illumination
painted by Catherine of Bologna

During the years of turmoil, between her entrance into the community and 1435, Catherine experienced a serious of what she came to regard as "diabolical temptations." She would describe this period in a work she wrote in 1438, Le sette armi spirituali (The Seven Spiritual Weapons), which she kept secret. 

When the community founded a daughter house in Bologna, Catherine left the Ferrara convent to be the abbess of the Bologna convent, which was also called the convent of Corpus Domini. There, in addition to her role as head of the house, she revised her mystical Seven Spiritual Weapons, wrote eleven treatises, and composed twelve hymns. She also illuminated manuscripts and painted miniatures and, it is said, played the viola on her deathbed. 

After her death, one of Catherine's devoted followers, the Venetian nun Illuminata Bembo (c. 1420-1493) wrote a life of Catherine of Bologna, the Specchio di illuminazione (The Mirror of Illumination), which includes a great deal of information about the abbess's life and work. 

Catherine Vigri--Catherine of Bologna--died on 9 March 1463. She was canonized by Pope Clement XI on 22 May 1712

The enthroned body of Catherine of Bologna,
Chiesa della Santa,
Bologna

The most complete account of Catherine of Bologna, with a particular focus on her mystic Seven Spiritual Weapons, is in Bernard McGinns's The Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism, 1350-1550, volume 5 of his The Presence of God, a history of Western Christian mysticism. 

Another good account of Catherine of Bologna is available online: Pope Benedict XVI's address to the General Audience of 29 December 2010 was dedicated to Catherine of Bologna; you can access  his remarks by clicking here.

For a discussion of the art of Caterina Vigri, see Germaine Greer's The Obstacle Race. In addition to surviving manuscripts that Catherine of Bologna illustrated, there is also a large painting, St. Ursula and Her Companions, in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice. As Greer notes, "The chief source of biographical data about the saint [Catherine of Bologna] is, of course, the Holy See, but no interest has ever been evinced by the Church in her artistic activities." Greer adds that there is also a small picture in the Chiesa della Santa, Madonna with Apple, that is said to be by Catherine but dates "to an earlier period." There also may be a St. Ursula by Catherine in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna. 

Marguerite Porete: Mystic, Writer, Martyr

Marguerite Porete (executed 1 June 1310)

About Marguerite Porete, theologian and historian Bernard McGinn writes, "No medieval woman mystic challenged her contemporaries--and still challenges us--more than the northern French beguine Marguerite Porete," whose "bold and uncompromising spirituality led to her execution as a heretic on June 1, 1310."

From a late-fifteenth or early-sixteenth manuscript copy
of The Mirror for Simple Souls
(Chantilly, Bibliothèque et archives du château, MS 5588)

We know about the end of Porete's life because records of the heresy trial that condemned her to death survive, but about her origins there is much less that is certain. Even her name depends on the testimony of those who condemned her--as her sentence was read out by one of her Dominican inquisitors before she was released to the secular authorities to carry out her execution, he named her as Marguerite, "called Porete." She was also said to have been born in Hainaut, in northern France, but none of the surviving evidence gave any indication about her date of birth or her family connections.

Marguerite Porete had been imprisoned in Paris for a year and a half. She had refused to speak to her inquisitors, she had refused to recant her beliefs, and she had refused to acknowledge a previous order, issued in 1306, that had required her to withdraw her book, The Mirror of Simple Souls. 

Like two women we have already met in our posts for this year, Marie of Oignies and Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite seems to have been a part of the beguine movement--some beguines lived solitary lives, while others joined together into loosely organized religious communities of women who lived lives of poverty, chastity, and service, but who were not members of formally recognized religious orders. Marguerite refers to herself at one point as "formerly a mendicant creature," so she may have lived outside of any beguine community.

Another image from the 
Chantilly copy MS

Exactly why Porete's work brought her to the attention of the authorities isn't at all clear--after the 1306 order that her book be burned, she had sent her book to three noted theologians who had verified the orthodoxy of her views in The Mirror of Simple Souls. 

As she asserts in the prologue to her work, "It has already been read and approved by three men of learning and holiness": a Franciscan friar, a Cistercian monk, and a theologian from the University of Paris. She names them, quotes from their judgments of her work, and adds, "I obtained these approbations for you, readers, for your peace of mind."

But these endorsements were clearly not enough. The way of life practiced by the beguines--their asceticism, their refusal to marry, their independence, their traveling, their insistence on preaching and teaching--had always generated suspicion.

Most significantly, whether they chose an itinerant, solitary life or a life among other like-minded women in communities, they had avoided all of the male hierarchical strictures of medieval society. In 1215 and again in 1274, church councils had banned new religious orders for women, and by 1311, the Council of Varenne specifically condemned the beguines and other heresies, its bull Ad nostrum including articles drawn directly from Porete's work.

In her brief essay on Porete, written for The Guardian, theologian Tina Beattie observes that "It is not easy to establish exactly why Porete was condemned as a heretic":

The Mirror of Simple Souls, written in a vivid literary style in Old French, is a dialogue among the allegorical figures of Love, Reason and the Soul. The main challenge it poses to Catholic orthodoxy is in its claim that there is a state of mystical union in which the will completely loses itself in God so that it becomes undifferentiated and one with the divine. . . .

The fact that The Mirror of Simple Souls was written in the vernacular rather than Latin and had a popular following may have created suspicion among religious authorities. When in the 12th century theological education shifted to the universities from monasteries and abbeys (including some which had been presided over by powerful abbesses), Latin became the language of a male theological elite, but female mystics and vernacular theologians such as Porete claimed direct authority from God for their religious experiences and insights. It is easy to see how such claims threatened those who sought to maintain control of church teaching and doctrine by circumscribing the conditions under which a theologian could speak or write authoritatively.

When Marguerite Porete was burned at the stake, her book was burned with her. But, as McGinn notes, The Mirror of Simple Souls survived the conflagration--"no fewer than six versions in four languages with thirteen manuscripts" preserved Porete's words, "making it among the more widely disseminated of the vernacular mystical texts of the Middle Ages."

La Place de Grève, site of Marguerite Porete's execution,
from a map of 1572

While the text survived, Porete's authorship did not--her identity as author was suppressed, and the work circulated anonymously. In fact, Porete's authorship of The Mirror of Simple Souls was only reestablished in 1946 by Romana Guarnieri, a scholar of medieval spirituality (and, I might point out, a woman). Before Guarnieri's identification of the text's author as Marguerite Porete, scholars had assumed the author to be male--and one translator even identified the author as a theologian from the University of Paris!

In ending her essay on Marguerite Porete, Beattie recalls the words of Mechthild of Magdeburg: "No one can burn the truth." Here's the quotation, from The Flowing Light of the Godhead--it sounds remarkably prescient:

I was warned about this book, and people told me that if it were not protected, it could be thrown on the fire. Then I did as I have done since I was a child: whenever I was distressed, then I had to pray. . . . Then God himself at once to my sorrowful soul and held this book in his right hand and said: My love, do not be too distressed, no one may burn the truth.

For a great introduction to Marguerite Porete and her work, you can access Tina Beattie's essay by clicking here. There are several editions of The Mirror for Simple Souls, but I recommend the excellent edition by Ellen Babinsky, a volume in the Classics of Western Spirituality series.

Excellent analysis of The Mirror of Simple Souls is in The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism--1200-1350, volume 2 of McGinn's monumental history of western mysticism. For an in-depth volume on Porete, her text, her trial, and condemnation, see Sean L. Field's The Beguine, the Angel, and the Inquisitor: The Trials of Marguerite Porete and Guiard of Cressonessart.

Gertrude the Great: A Woman Finding Her Place

Gertrude the Great (born 6 January 1256)

Denied any "official" role in the Christian church, either as priests, as administrators, or as trained theologians, women nevertheless found a number of ways to participate in the religious life--not only in expected ways, through worship and participation in church festivals and celebrations or as cloistered nuns, but also in unexpected ways, as the life and work of Gertrude of Helfta, ultimately awarded the honorific "the Great," clearly demonstrates.

For many women, the monasteries of the Middle Ages seem to have served as  "cities of ladies," offering them strong female models and bonds, as is the case with Gertrude at the monastery of St. Mary of Helfta.*

When Gertrude entered St. Mary's at the age of four, it was under the direction of Gertrude of Hackeborn, who had made the convent into a center for learning. Gertrude of Hackeborn's sister, Mechthilde, ran the institution's school, trained and directed the choir, and experienced a series of mystical revelations, preserved in The Book of Special Grace. Late in her life, the mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg joined the monastery and this remarkable group of women where she also came to influence the younger Gertrude.

An anonymous painting of
Gertrude the Great,
illustratng her devotion to
the Sacred Heart

During her relatively brief life (she died around the year 1302, at age forty-five or forty-six), Gertrude the Great produced a number of works, all in Latin, including The Herald of Divine Love, her Teachings of Spiritual Exercises, and a compilation of meditations and prayers, the Gertrudian Prayers.

In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a Vatican address "On St. Gertrude" which makes special note of the significance of all-female communities like that of Helfta:

St. Gertrude the Great, about whom I would like to speak today, takes us also this week to the monastery of Helfta, where some of the masterpieces of feminine Latin-Germanic religious literature were created. Gertrude belonged to this world; she was one of the most famous mystics, the only woman of Germanic descent to be called "the Great" because of her cultural and evangelical stature. With her life and thought she influenced Christian spirituality in a singular way. She was an exceptional woman, gifted with particular natural talents and extraordinary gifts of grace, of most profound humility and ardent zeal for the salvation of her neighbor, of profound communion with God in contemplation and readiness to help the needy.

In Helfta she is systematically compared, so to speak, with her teacher Matilda of Hackeborn . . . ; she was associated with Matilda of Magdeburg, another Medieval mystic; she grew up under the maternal, gentle and exacting care of Abbess Gertrude. From these three sisters of hers she acquired treasures of experience and wisdom; she developed them in her own synthesis, following her religious itinerary with unlimited trust in the Lord. She expresses the richness of spirituality not only in her monastic world, but also and above all in the biblical, liturgical, patristic and Benedictine world, with a most personal stamp and with great communicative effectiveness.

There are many excellent studies of medieval women mystics. On Gertrude the Great and the monastery of Helfta, I particularly recommend Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff's Medieval Women's Visionary Literature, which also contains selections from the visionary texts. And for an unparalleled discussion of Gertrude and her visions in context, see Bernard McGinn's The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism: 1200-1350, volume 3 of his multi-volume The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism.

Gertrude the Great was canonized in 1667. Her feast day is 16 November.

*There is some confusion about whether the monastery at St. Mary's belonged to the Benedictine or Cistercian order. The matter is clarified by McGinn: while the institution was intended--and founded--as a convent of Cistercian nuns in 1229, a Cistercian General Chapter had decided, in 1228, to forbid "further foundation or incorporation of houses for women into the order." Thus, as McGinn explains,  the institution "remained technically a Benedictine convent, though one that used the gray habit of Cistercian nuns and followed their usages" (3:267).